Begin with the End in Mind: The Importance of Making Decisions BEFORE You Start - Rich Haddad | Ep 21

Caleb Roth  
Well, welcome back to the Stacking Habits podcast. This will be episode 21. And as I alluded to in Episode 20, this is another local Indiana who's your think your well actually might be Ohio, maybe not who's you're born and bred, but he's been a Hoosier for quite a long time. This is one of my golf buddies. And it's a very interesting dichotomy between our last guests. Our last guest was a director or VP of advancement, which means he goes and asks donors for money. Our guest today has a bit of the opposite role, we kind of view him as the Santa Claus in our community. And he heads up a nonprofit, we'll we'll kind of dig into that here, that story of how it got started. But our guest today is rich had ad, and his job essentially, is to give away money and steward their, their portfolio. So we'll kind of get into that. Rich is a fellow numbers guru, he actually has credentials on like myself, but we can both nerd out over spreadsheets. He's got a background in little bit of corporate finance, and doing some CPA work for thick KPMG. So and he's been running the current nonprofit role for about 17 years. And he's also a very accomplished golfer, I think you one of the benefits of golf is you really get to see someone's personality. And so rich has seen my ups and downs on the golf course, we played a lot of rounds. And it feels like rich wins the Club Championship about every other year. So he's a formidable opponent. And we're really glad to have you on the show. So welcome

Rich Haddad  
to the show. Rich, glad to be here. Look forward to a great conversation together. Yeah, so

Caleb Roth  
you were kind of this is episode two of our community or relationship series. So we want to figure out how to strengthen relationships and sort of dig and prod into some of the habits that are related to it. And with your role, you're incredibly connected to the community. And so for those listening, you know, everybody lives in a community unless you happen to live in the middle of nowhere or a bunker. But I think most people listening would be part of a community and see different various pieces of it. But Rich's job is in the weeds in the community. And he's he's quite a connector, even though he's a numbers person, he's pretty social. And he goes out in the community engages and tries to strengthen it. So Rich, why don't you just tell us a little bit about your backgrounds, and then tell us about K 21? Just so people listening have a little bit of a concept of of your role? Yeah, Kayla,

Rich Haddad  
by the like, you said, I've always taken the numbers. I remember, even in kindergarten, I was given advanced math, like, I got to add, you know, three or four numbers across as opposed to a single numbers, right. And so it just was an early indicator of kind of how my brain functions. And, and I think, you know, we'll, we'll talk, we'll dig deeper. But I really think one of the, you know, the secrets of life is to really figure yourself out. And I think we're all created with unique personalities, unique gifts, unique talents. And I think one of the fulfillment goals in life is really be self aware. And and then see where that path takes you and try to maximize just how you're built right. And so, way back in the day, when I was in college, I thought I wanted to get into computer science. And that was early because I'm pretty old. And it was mostly programming work, can I didn't kind of get off on putting all sorts of interesting things in my programs, I just built the program and moved on or whatever language we were learning. But I took accounting early on, and it was like, this is the easiest thing I've ever done. And in the 80s, it was there was a lot of opportunity to start out a good career kind of down on the accounting track. And so I kind of shifted pretty quickly and, and that's where I kind of got my start realized as I got into that profession, that accounting, I love accountants, but they're reporting or figuring things out that have already happened. And my personality wanted to be involved, I wanted to be at the table, I wanted to actually be part of the decision making process. And so, over a couple of opportunities, I shifted into more financial planning and financial analysis, which gave me the opportunity to use numbers to hopefully make really wise, informed decisions. And, and that really, I think resonated with me, that's where I got into, you mentioned, I got into financial planning and investment planning, and really trying to help small business owners and employees with their 401k, figuring those things out to just give every person the best opportunity to make good decisions based on data based on the numbers. And so I think that's where I kind of settled into, I want to do that whatever that can look like. Ultimately, 17 years ago, I got an opportunity to step into the K 21 Health Foundation, which is a private foundation. The money came from the local nonprofit hospital, they sold to a larger health system, took the proceeds and said Now what and so they created This foundation out of the proceeds of the sale. And they created a mission that, hey, let's continue to help local people because at the hospitals local, and help them in the area of health, whether it was health needs or health opportunities, and we're going to take this money and basically manage the portfolio so we can give money away in perpetuity. So the idea of this is we get to give money away every year. And if we're doing our job, investing wisely in the portfolio, this can happen this, this, this money generation can happen forever. Because the principle of what you started with is what you want to protect. And then you're giving away essentially all the growth or gains that you're generating. So it's it's really took me into what I would say is my I'm here been here 17 years, my long term kind of satisfaction of, of being in the investment, financial numbers world, but making a difference in the world around me with. And so yeah, I'm it's been a real, I guess, opportunity or honor to to play this role for the community. Hey, rich,

David Chung  
I don't want to be that guy. But is k 20. one's fun sighs is that public knowledge?

Rich Haddad  
Yeah, it is, we have to report to the IRS every year and those those returns get posted. So we, we started with $63 million, way back in 99. When it was sold, we've given away actually, just late this past year, David, we actually gave away cumulatively more than $63 million. And we ended the year with over 80 million in assets. So again, the idea of a perpetual or permanent endowment is hopefully for doing our job, the assets grow faster than how then the pace in which we give them away. And so we hope to hope to keep up with that spending or, or buying power of inflation. So the assets slowly continue to grow over time. But we get to generate what what is now about three and a half to $4 million of granting out every year in perpetuity. So super cool, the way it works, as long as you do your job on the investment side,

David Chung  
what's what's harder, making the money or giving it away?

Rich Haddad  
I would say giving it away, to be honest, because one of the things I use the term stewardship is there's a real responsibility to do to give money away well, it's actually kind of an internal joke, the idea of being Santa Claus, you know, it's easy for people to see our foundation and go, I'm gonna hop on the lap and ask for money. But because this money is the community's not mine, it's not the board's money. It's really the community's money they take giving it away well, very seriously. And we want to uphold the mission, that really the original donors that built the hospital way back in the early 70s, they wanted to impact health for their community. And so how do we give that money away in a way that we think is gonna matter and make a difference in the area of health for the people who live here? So yeah, we go through a pretty rigorous process to make those decisions, the making the money, you know, we probably would be pretty boring in the investment world, we have a very diverse portfolio, and we take the long play, it's not like, hey, I need this money in five years, it's I'll never need this money back. It needs to work for me. And so we can get into some longer term investments, some illiquid investments where we don't need that money, we just need it to produce right. So that's, that's a little more systematic. And we work with an investment consultant to kind of help navigate us in those decisions.

David Chung  
So what you're telling me is, you guys don't have any cryptocurrency in your fund, or you're holding yet? Because bitcoin is going wild right now.

Rich Haddad  
It is, man. Imagine what we could give away if we had put it all in Bitcoin, I would say, be

Caleb Roth  
like Silicon Valley Bank and go completely out of business, because half your balance sheet is in Twitter stock. That's right.

Rich Haddad  
That's right. And as an example, you know, we're actually building up our private equity portfolio and it ultimately hold about 10% of the portfolio. Now, again, that's very illiquid, it takes seven eight years to kind of build up that and then have it, you know, pay out over time. But the premium versus the public equity markets is there, and it's consistently been there. And you got to find the right tools to be able to get in that because in reality, we're not Ultra Rich, either. You think about the the high end wealth in the community, and there's a lot of people worth more than 80 million. But yeah, I would say we're not we're not out there, betting the farm in anything. I think it's just more about those typical principles of diversity have spread that money around so any particular sector can kind of take a hit, and we'll be okay. Focused on

Caleb Roth  
asset allocation. I know we want to dig into the community aspects but From an asset allocation standpoint, you mentioned you're not as focused on growth. So you're probably not necessarily Miri more of an index funds. Are you a bit more conservative in that approach? Because you're your main goal is to not lose money. Yeah,

Rich Haddad  
I'm, so the IRS, the IRS rules on a private foundation. Basically, they're saying, Hey, you're a 501 C three year, you're a nonprofit, but you only have one reason why we're giving you the status, it's, it's to give money away, right, you're not a public charity, like a lot of nonprofits. So they require us to expand on average 5% of the assets every year. So kind of the long term, I would say conservative goal is we can grow the assets on average, 8% Or better, right, then we can give that, that requirement away and grow over the long haul, we're gonna grow the assets. So yeah, Caleb, that that that kind of sets the boundaries to where we don't have to, you know, take out, you know, try to shoot for a home run or do anything crazy. So we have a large part of the portfolio, we would call passive investments, we're gonna get our bread and butter, s&p 500 passive with hardly any expense, you know, behind that, like a Vanguard or something where we can just buy the market. And we do that on both the fixed income side and the and the equity side. And that's, that's a good percentage of the portfolio, then we can get more aggressive and more targeted with the rest of the portfolio. So we can get into some small cap stuff, we can get into private equity, real estate, we get into some, some low volatility funds to try to get into equity, but in a defensive place. So we kind of build out the rest of the pie chart in in ways that either protects or enhances the core return, if that makes sense. So we kind of feel like our bread and butter is in place. Now let's play a little bit either to protect ourselves if we're concerned, or to get more aggressive. And a lot of times when you get more aggressive, you have to get more illiquid, you can't get to that money right away, like a real estate holding, or private equity. But because of the premium of those places, you know, we can carve off a piece of the of the pie and get into those other other things.

Caleb Roth  
Yeah, I didn't realize you were getting into the private equity side, we'll have to swap some notes there have been very interested in that from a venture capital and private equity to your to your point, a lot of it is illiquid, it's five to 10 year time horizons. But you typically are targeting 15 to 20% returns, theoretically, of course, there's there's also risk that it goes to zero. But that'd be interesting to chat ideas next time we're on the golf course together.

Rich Haddad  
Yeah, I think they, you know, the bottom line is if you if you want no risk, you get no return, right? You just You just have to know where to push the lever. And the longer you you have to wait, the more patient you can be the more you can kind of take risks, because typically, again, the markets going to fluctuate. But if you don't care about the fluctuations, you're caring about the long term place, it's gonna go. So if you've got the time, it's it's you can take those sorts of premium plays, I guess. Yeah,

Caleb Roth  
I think it's interesting seeing the arc of someone's career, you know, I worked in medical device, but one of my tasks was kind of building an iPad application when the iPad first came out. And so I project manage that. And then of course, the next company was a software company. So I sort of used those skills in the next thing. And now that that's done, you know, I don't know what the next thing is yet. But I imagined some of the skills I learned working for an orthopedic company, and running my own tech company will come in play with whatever the next thing is. And your story is very similar, you, you know, CFO, financial manager for local Sim, sim financial, which is local, and you're kind of taking a lot of those skill sets, and now running your own, I guess, fund for lack of a better word, Rich.

David Chung  
So I think I've got the making money part. Down, it sounds pretty straightforward. Tell me a little bit about you mentioned being a steward of the fund, a good steward of the fund. And you said that you mentioned that the focus of the of K 21 is really benefit trying to advance projects that benefit the community and the health of the community. So does that mean that if local orchestra needed to upgrade their concert hall, that type of project would be ineligible? Or like what type of projects are getting funded? I guess that's my question. Yeah,

Rich Haddad  
that's a great question. And David is as an analytical guy, when I actually first got here, it was seven years into the foundation, and it was kind of the original board. And they all knew each other, and they all kind of made decisions. And I remember the first time we had a grant meeting, and they made their decisions. I had a new a new board member who called me up two days later, he's a business man. He goes, Hey, I got a question for you. I'm not sure or how they made those decisions, like, feels like, some of it was inconsistent, it was very subjective. And I was like, Dude, I'm with you, because it felt like and this is what I would say, about 80% of those decisions were subjective and 20% were objective. Now, we had the mission of health, but they hadn't really, I would say documented or delineated. What does that mean, when we say health. And so really, the next year, I kind of facilitated a board off site with with dinner and said, Let's try to define what that means to us. So that we can and I would say the goal would be let's make 80% of the decision, objective and clear, and leave some art, please leave some nuance 20% subjective. And so that really, that process and then creating what I would say kind of a definition illustration that we look at every quarter when we sit down and consider grants is What does health mean to us. And we have a board that rotates, you can serve a several terms, and then you move on, and we get new board members. And so that kind of, I would say, living document, it's evolved over the years. But that's what sets the tone to, I think, not only unify the board, but help us process those requests as they come. So whether it's the orchestra or a medication assistance program, what how does that connect to our definition of what health is? Again, the challenge is, anybody can justify their need being health related. Eventually, there was an old game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, where you'd go through the movie, you know, you could just start working with through different movies and connections. And eventually, Kevin Bacon was involved in one of those movies, right? Well, I was joke that helps the same way you can get to anything, being justifiably a health issue. So we had to create those sorts of parameters, guidelines and kind of grids to help us make decisions in a way, um, that we felt was more consistent. For me is kind of the the CEO who is interacting with these nonprofits or these needs or opportunities, how do I speak and guide them and advise them in ways that is going to be more consistent? If we say no, how do I help explain why that's a no to their request versus a yes to somebody else's. So that's been super helpful. Again, for me, I have no problem having that difficult conversation. But if I don't know why a decision was made, it puts me in a bad spot. So I was kind of driven, probably motivated to get those sorts of answers, figured out. So that I can do my job in the community. And, and I spent a ton of time in the community and we want, we want requests, like, I usually tell people, our job is to grant not to not grant. So I want to help you create as many yeses for our board as possible. But let me kind of guide you and help you. If there is one, let's make a clear connection for what you need. And what our mission is, again, a private foundation is driven by the mission. And so it's their job to connect to our mission, not our not our job to to flex our mission outside of what we do to try to justify making the grant you know what I'm saying. So it's it's a little bit like you've got to connect us not the other way around. Go ahead.

Caleb Roth  
Sorry. Do you? Do you tend to pull requests in from the community? Or is the community sort of knocking on your door? Is it is it more of a push or more of a poll? Typically?

Rich Haddad  
i Yeah, Caleb, I'd say historically, we've been mostly them knocking on the door. But I think as we've tried to evolve and be more engaged in the conversation and more engaged at the table, one of our missional responsibilities we feel is to help identify the health needs in our community. And so in order to do that job, we need to be at the table, helping flag those things. And then again, I'm I'm a problem solver, analytical guy by nature. So hey, let's sit down and try to figure it out. Let's try to solve it. But at the end of the day, we don't do anything, I'd say that kind of with a smile on my face. All we do is provide the funding, right? So if there's a need that doesn't have a solve in our community, k 21 can't just create a program, right? We have to try to help the nonprofits or the schools or the municipalities, the government to say, hey, if we help support it financially, can you do this? Or can we get this going? And so I'm certainly influential in that way of trying to figure it out, and then work on a solution. But our role at the end of the day is is is to bring the financial solution into that program. So we need we need those programs or those salts to exist or to be built in order for us to do our job.

Caleb Roth  
Yeah. What's a typical cheque size that you write

Rich Haddad  
the largest one Hmm, we've probably done is $2 million to help build a brand new YMCA in the community, we kind of were the lead gift. And so we kind of stepped out and made a huge, it was a two and a half 12 and a half million dollar Wow, project, right. And so we said we're in for two. And then the cool thing is that as they went around to some of the large corporations and looked for some other seven figure gifts, I got to be part of those meetings and talk about why we felt this next phase or next iteration of the why was so important to the health of our community. So I could kind of give background or testimony to why K 21 sees this as critically important. So it was a really great opportunity for me to voice into some of those big donor meetings that the why needed to have. We also early on, I would say took on a project where we, we got together with eight other or I brought in eight other health, nonprofits to the table and said, Look, if we build a single building where all of you can work together under one roof, would you would you come would you be willing to come here, pay the minimum amount of rent, just cover the overhead, and you have a space designed for you. There's a lot of central like meeting space and lobby space. So you're gonna save a bunch of money. And you could start working together a little more collaboratively. And they, they all said yes. So we actually build a $5 million dollar building, designed it for each of them, custom furnished it all for them. And basically created kind of a central place for people to come for a variety of health needs. And then ultimately, we, we granted the cost of that away over time, in order to count it as a grant. But that was something to your point we took the lead on, we needed them to buy in and say we're in if you do it for us. But that was that was by far our biggest project or biggest, I would say, grant, but they go down as small was maybe a couple of $1,000. And that's where like you said another knocking on the door, it's whatever, what do you need. And if $2,000 is is something that helps you move forward or are open to it. So it's a pretty wide range. Like I said, it's we're three and a half plus million every year. And I'll say one more thing we have, we do have ongoing relationships where there's direct health services or critical programs happening that we support every year. And that represents about a third of our grant making would be, I would say relationship grant making where we love what you do. It's important what you do. And so we're supporting kind of their ongoing program or operations to make sure that stays in the community. So a good percentage is I would say repeat customers, so to speak

Caleb Roth  
like that. Good. Go ahead, Caleb. I was gonna say do you have? Do you sort of follow up with the donations? Or do you give it no strings attached? And you trust what they're doing? Or do you try and check back in and see, you know, gauge its effectiveness without kind of micromanaging? Do you have a process and a rhythm for that?

Rich Haddad  
Yeah, that's a good question. We, we do somewhat, most of our grants, I would call our conditional, which means you need to give us something in order to get the money. Most of the time, in order to make sure the project happens, we're going to look for invoices from them. So let's say they want to build a new playground at a childcare center, right? And instead of just saying, here's 60,000, I hope this gets built, what we typically tell them is let the playground people know they can get paid within a week just grab their invoice, send it to us, or write the check, right. And that allows us to see the project happen on because we're in the in in the middle of it. So yes, we're in on this, but there's kind of an exchange of paperwork or documents that kind of helps us feel like the funds we're distributing are going to what was intended to impact so and then we do a final report called grants have to submit a final report that essentially is, Hey, how did this go? The number of people that that hasn't been impacted by this project or by this grant. And it just kind of for us wraps up so we're not super, I would say super analytical on that. Caleb, you know, we're not. And some foundations are some foundations, a couple of things. They're they're very specific and top in topical impact might have a Health Foundation says we're going to help oral health in our region, right. And so it's all about the dental care, education, those sort of things. We are pretty broad as far as different health things, but we also for the most part, want to hear how it went. But I would say that that may be a frontier that may evolve for us is to is to be a little more, I would say data targeted, we want to move a needle, or we want to move this issue. And so let's let's dig in with multiple kind of efforts or projects and, and assess the effectiveness versus just kind of have it reported back to us if that makes sense. Yeah,

Caleb Roth  
it does. And to give people a little idea of the community, Warsaw, and Winona Lake combined, or maybe 20,000, people give or take, I know it's flexes up in the summer, it's a lake town. And three of the five well, two of them are merged now with three of the five largest orthopedic companies in the world are in our backyard, literally, there's a huge farming community, daylight screens, there's a lot of industry. So David was talking pre show about traveling do a lot of smaller towns, and in terms of its size, foresaw has certainly a lot of money, but a lot of people that are invested in the community. So he talked a little bit about how your thesis has changed, and how the the target of Health has sort of evolved to, you know, especially over the last 20 years, to kind of be instrumental in the community kind of solve the ongoing needs. I'm curious how your view of the community has changed over that time. So you're, you're managing to different things, you're managing the number side, and you've grown that even in some down years. That's pretty impressive. And that's definitely your numbers, backgrounds. But in terms of the community, has anything surprised you? Or how is your views of community changed based on the last 17 years of being so connected?

Rich Haddad  
Yeah, I think, which, probably other people would would say this as well, when I was not at K 21. In different professions, but raising a family all that good stuff. Your your your view, or your your purview of the community is what you experienced, right? So it's like, there are services I didn't need, there are places I didn't, you know, go to it was like, Well, what does my family need? What do I like, right? What do I do? Meet Caleb at the at the golf course. Right? So I knew all the golf courses of the county. But there's a lot of the county because I didn't interact with it in my own walk of life. I didn't know about. And so coming to the Foundation, where for now I'm looking at needs and or grant opportunities, pretty, pretty broad and large scale, there were needs that I was now exposed to that I had no idea existed in our community. And there was also great organizations, great people with hearts to want to make a difference that I had no idea were out there doing the good work at the front line. Right. So that's sort of exposure, I think. And I think for anybody that wants to really engage in their community, you almost have to step out of your your lane, to really see it honestly, and more, more completely. Your community is only what you're experiencing, as far as you your everyday walk in life and your interest. So that was a big eye opener for me. You know, we're as typical probably Northern Indiana, somewhat rural, we're not super diverse, but we're getting more diverse. So we have you mentioned agriculture, we have a pretty large growing Latino population here. And so how what are their needs? And how, how can we help them in their health journey, opportunities in needs, and that might look a little different than kind of the multigenerational more Caucasian area, we have a pretty large Indian population, because of the orthopedic companies. They brought in a lot of engineers and IT people and they've enjoyed the community and have stayed. So I think it's again, understanding maybe more than just what you're experiencing on a day to day basis. And frankly, our biggest need population, I would say is the generational poor, white people. People have been here for multiple generations, who have mainly just tried to survive, right? And they have all sorts of health challenges and lack of health insurance or lack of capacity to get their children to the right dental care or health care, those sorts of things. And so I think it's just, you know, each each community and for us, we're focused on kasi Pasco County, it's 80,000 people in a county of like you said, the central part of it is about 25,000. So we're really spread out into smaller communities. But it's really matching up our opportunity to make a difference with with understanding the needs that are out there, and they're different for every community. So yeah, I think that's, that's where that figuring that out going places, maybe you wouldn't have gone just living in your own life. Um, so that's been, again, really, really helpful for me, leading K 21. But then it's, it's figuring out how we can best help frankly, in our rural community transportation is a an enormous barrier of the capacity for people to kind of work hard just to make ends meet, and have very little room timewise to get the things they need to get to, but also the limitation of, of their transportation. And how do I get to the services or the needs that my kid has? Or I have, or my parent has? Right. So, and in rural communities like ours, it's not like, you know, Ubers, you know, everywhere, right? I think we have three in the whole county, so they probably don't work all the time. You're

Caleb Roth  
not yet I'm not that bored. But I may, or may just jump around just just to meet some cool people here. Yeah, just just

David Chung  
to check it out. All right, yeah. Rich, is there a project that stands out as being notable something that you're really proud of, like, you know, maybe in the last five, eight

Rich Haddad  
years, yeah. And, and this kind of gets into a little bit of, of what I've found the most fulfilling in this role, is there are a lot of opportunities as somebody who's, again, analytical, good with financial things, whether it's accounting, or finance, or organizational things, I've managed staff, I've had a lot of different experiences that I would call our organizational nature. And the opportunity to sit down with people have passion, whether they are running an organization, and they're overwhelmed or are not trained in organizational leadership, or what's been most satisfying is when somebody comes with a passion, that, and the salt doesn't exist yet. And I've had a couple of opportunities to help birth, a service a nonprofit, a program, where I would say walk alongside somebody who has that sort of either broken heart, or is so upset about something that needs solve, that they're going to do something about it, but they just have no idea how to go about it, right? How to Get a nonprofit started, how to file what they need to file, how to build a board, how to manage people and finances and those sorts of things. And so David, the probably the best example of that would be Joe's kids in our community. That is it is a children's therapy clinic. So they do physical occupational speech therapies for children who need more help than they are developmentally at right. And so and that is a model that hardly any hospital or her health system will take on. Because the reimbursement rates don't cover the cost that these kids need, right. And so what you ended up having was, these families trying to get to care for their kids would drive over an hour from our community to get the care they need. So now you're adding several hours of transportation to a child who has special or extra needs, on top of the actual care that they're trying to get, right. So there was this therapist in town, Rebecca, who's who absolutely his heart was broken, she worked with the health system and said, We got to get this going. And they said, we've looked at all the numbers of can't do it. And I had the opportunity to sit down with her at that level and go and she goes, I'm going to do something, I just need to figure out how to do it. And so from that conversation, k 21 has basically walked with her as she birthed this organization who actually started as a as a satellite from another organization an hour and a half away, they were willing to kind of go Yeah, well, we'll help you get started. But you need a local people to raise money and all that stuff that lasted a year. And they basically said we got to we got to have our own organization here. We can't just be a, you know, a sidebar to another one. But that's been over 10 years now, they have grown so much that they we just made this year, three quarters of a million dollar grant to help them relocate to a new facility that will triple their size, and gives them 10 acres to get to, to expand even beyond. And now they've become a regional therapy clinic, where you've got families coming from outside of our county a lot, because they're doing such a great job. And, and so yeah, David, it's been that journey, because it wasn't just about the check. We were writing for them. It was the opportunity to really encourage, advise, plan, re encourage, and this is a lady who is a therapist, and she's been she's built an organization that is a multimillion dollar organization to help kids and she's like, there's no way I have the tools to do this. But the right leadership around her the right board, the community's involvement, support, and then in some small way I've been able to be part of her journey and this journey of Joe's kids so that that's probably my I would say my best story, but it's an example of being being involved in in life change be Beyond the check writing responsibility that we have, right. And that's part of that is, it's something I, I want to do my boards encouraged me to engage whenever that's an opportunity. And it's been very fulfilling to just be in those sorts of relationships and trying to help people.

David Chung  
It's really cool, too. I think there's a parallel between your guys's fun that, again, you're always trying to grow and the impact that you guys have, there's sort of this parallel track where Joe's kids, you know, it started off small, but it's the benefits and the size just kept compounding throughout the years. And, you know, maybe you guys put a little bit of money into it, but a lot of that was the momentum, sort of carrying forward. And so I feel like the work that you're doing it really seem sort of like, you know, one plus one equals three, where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole and the benefits. And the funds really reached this point where they start compounding and making a huge impact. That's such a cool

Rich Haddad  
story. Yeah, thanks. And again, like I said, it's the core of what we do is write checks, right? And it's like, all we do is invest money and give it away. But it's really the other things we get to be a part of that I think, creates a more fulfilling or full satisfaction to the role that K 21 is in our community, but also the role personally, I get to play,

David Chung  
I'm sure you get invited, you get invited to a lot of birthday parties, don't you and holiday parties.

Rich Haddad  
I'm probably not the most fun guy at a party. But I would say early

Caleb Roth  
invited. But

Rich Haddad  
yeah, people know me. And they're all friendly. Because, you know, again, I oversee a pretty important asset for the community. So yeah, it's, but it's great. It's good. And I think part of you know, my, the way my brain works is, it's the objectivity in which my brain functions is we should never take advantage of that influence, right? When it should, it should be used for good and positivity. And, you know, not it can't be emotional, can't play favorites. It can't, you know, manipulate people because hey, I've got money that I can offer or not offer, it's it's really important that, that go back to that word steward. We're overseeing we're responsible, and we want to do it in a way that is, is not being again, manipulative. It's really we're here to help, we're here to try to do our part. That's

David Chung  
where a lot of what you said early on the whole self awareness piece that really fits in. But it's very important here to I, I would hope that if I were in your position, I could resist all the invites to dinner and all that I'm sure you go out occasionally. But yeah, I mean, if someone, you know, offered me a new car or something, it'd be hard to turn that down.

Rich Haddad  
What's been funny, like our, you know, we always struggle with what kind of marketing should K 21 do? Because we don't raise money, right? Like our customer is the recipient of the grants. It's not like we're out, right, you know, we don't have to go sell something. So it's really an odd dynamic in those sorts of like, typical organizational decisions or elements. The money's already here, right? We just have to, again, invest it well, so it keeps producing. But that's why, you know, we always joke that this is the best board you're ever going to be on because most nonprofits, you got to figure out how to make ends meet and how to generate revenue for your mission to be accomplished. Our job is sorry, you know, your job is to give it away. And so usually most poor board members when they rotate off, like, you're right, this was this was pretty great. It's

Caleb Roth  
incredible. Rich, I want to follow up on Rebecca's story. So you talked about someone who had their heartbreak, they saw a need in the community, and they felt compelled to go do something and her story. Sounds like she connected with the right people, your heart opened up to her and I'm sure you connected her with a lot of people along the way with filings and business plans and fundraising and all the pieces that go into it. With all the projects and nonprofits that you've seen in our community specifically, are there any other common trends between companies and nonprofits that do really well and are successful and flourish and grow and are able to actually accomplish what they set out to do versus ones that may have great intentions but sort of fall flat?

Rich Haddad  
Yeah, I would say two things. Caleb, one is you got to build you got can't be afraid to build a really strong board. I know a lot of people that maybe are, you know, they've the passion was birthed in them and they want control. They're the founder. Right? And so a lot of it is am I willing to submit and then in a nonprofit setting the authority of a nonprofit? Is the board of your directors, the chief executive of a nonprofit as the executive director, the CEO, whatever you want to call it, that's typically the founder who gets started. But you got to be bold enough and confident enough to build the right leadership around you. And Rebecca is a great example. Right, she was a professional physical therapist. And now she's being asked to lead the way in raising money, and hiring people and managing them. And you know, all the other things, she just wanted to show up to a, you know, an exam room and take care of the patient. But what her passion required of her is to step into an executive director role that requires a lot more, I don't, that might not have gone as well, she didn't have a great initial board who said, We believe in you and what you're doing so much, then, you know, the finance person stepped in and said, let me take care of the books. And the marketing person said, let's start building fundraising events. And, you know, the the management person and what you know, I'm the legal person. So building a strong board of skilled people who believe in the mission, I think is is, is job one you got, you got to build a strong leadership team. And then I think the other one for me is you have to have a significant fundraising presence. What I'm seeing in the most successful nonprofits is they have at least one major community. If you're anybody, you want to be at this really cool event, and there's a lot of money raised there. But here's what to me is the is the magic is you have four or 500, people who heard the testimonies who heard the stories, whose hearts were moved, probably gave something if not a lot that night, but they're walking out of there, knowing the mission and impact and telling their neighbors, their co workers about you. And so that, to me, the the ability to spread your purpose, way beyond what the board or the or the leader can do, is that you're engaging the community, in in your your story. And I think that what I'm seeing is a consistency there that major fundraising events, you got to make them super cool and fun, and almost a social place you want to be. But then they walk out and they're part of your network, and they're part of championing you going forward. And I think I see that consistently. So that those will probably be the two things that I noticed more successful nonprofits having, as a good

Caleb Roth  
insights, as it as it relates to that community involvement. And getting people to sort of be those those missionaries, and proselyte, or whatever the right term is to keep that mission going. Have you seen any particular things that sort of keep people engaged, my mind always goes back to Everything is marketing. And so it's like, man, you got to tell the stories, you have to get it out consistently. Even our podcast, I still have people every week that reached out, go ahead, no idea you had a podcast. And in my mind, I throw it out on social media a few times. So I did my job. And you know, just like you talked about, you don't understand all the needs of a community until you start poking around the edges and get outside of your normal experience. I think the same thing happens. And there's there's great value in building diversity on the board as well, and just getting a range of experiences there. But back to the original question in terms of getting people kind of pumped and ready to spread that mission? Have you have you figured out? Is that just telling the story on social media? How do you get more buy in to sort of keep that mission growing?

Rich Haddad  
Yeah, I think again, these fundraisers are really having a good because what is it a CMS right for don't for nonprofits, it'd be a donor management system. And it's like, how do we keep stories and keep in front of you without it being annoying or too much? So there's probably this, this rhythm of staying in touch, whether it's a monthly e newsletter, and you're telling another story of a of a family, who, whose therapies have changed their life, another donor who's given because something, you know, prompted them to do it. I think it's just being able to create a rhythm of staying in touch, so that these big events are easier to continue to have them full. So that your your requests for funds are an easier ask. I think it's that relationship. I mean, once they've opened the door to relationship, I think, and nonprofit and again, this is where it's difficult for them because they just want to help right there, their client, their customer, is to be able to invest in those sorts of infrastructure capacity building areas. We need to have really good systems and rhythms and maybe professional help, that we can Keep telling stories and keep staying in touch with those that have already raised raised their hand and said, We're interested in what you do, right? Whether they showed up to a fundraiser, or they gave one time, or they volunteered, right? Don't you can't lose them once they've raised their hand. But you don't want to overwhelm them or, you know, turn them off by flooding them with things. But I think there's just that, that rhythm of staying in touch and continuing to remind them of the difference making that your organization is, you know, has for people. Yeah,

Caleb Roth  
I want to circle back around to one of the one of the first things you talked about in terms of getting outside of your comfort zones and your lanes that you typically run in. And you've had that ability for anybody listening that says, hey, I would love to expand my horizon and just have a better holistic view of what's going on. But they don't have the luxury of giving away three and a half to $4 million a year, do you have any recommendations for how people could find, you know, ways that are off the beaten path for them just to be a little more aware of what's going on? And then be able to sort of, again, broaden their horizons and possibly be more impactful in their communities?

Rich Haddad  
Yeah, I mean, I would probably say, listen to your heart, what, you know, what movies did you see? Or what reels Did you watch where you kind of teared up? Or you kind of gravitated to, right, it's what, what's happening in in our world, whether it's our community, or around the world, that tends to kind of generate this emotional reaction. So that's what I'd say start with, because probably, whatever community you're in that space, that's that's kind of stirring up your heart and your emotions, probably it's happening out there in your community. And so that that may be one advice is to just listen to how your heartbeats in a financial

Caleb Roth  
spreadsheet guy. Listen to your heart. That's a it's a, it's a really balanced approach. Um, so yeah, find this something that resonates, that breaks your heart. I like that. So just just expand

Rich Haddad  
again. Because again, I don't I don't think he you know, if it's not something we've needed, right, if my kid didn't need therapy, or whatever the case may be intellectual disabilities, you know, Cardinal services here in town, the primary intellectual disability service, you know, if, if I didn't need that in my journey, and then I'm not going to know it, and I'm not going to see it. But what what things tend to stir up my emotions, because I do think at the end of the day, you're not going to engage or commit anything if your heart's not in it. Again, being the analytical guy that I am. There, I always joke that I have emotions. They're just really, really deep down in there. But But I do think that's, that's because that's part of I just heard a great leader cast the other day, it talks about that, why power? Trump's willpower? And I think we might say we want to be involved, or we want to do something. But if we haven't connected the why, what's inside that really serves us or, or that's clear, it's probably not, we're not going to stick with it. So I don't know if that's applicable. But that that resonated with me, it's like, I want to have a purpose. And I want to know why. So that's, that's where I would say is, if you're, if you, you know, if you're not sure where to start, is, think back to what tends to stir your heart and then find that place and try it out. Whether that's, I mean, I'm telling you, any nonprofit leader would love to tell their story. Yeah, if you just got ahold of them and said, You know, I just like to like to hear what you guys do. I didn't know about you. I'd love to know more about you. And then you can ask those questions. Is there a way way I can be a part of it some way? Do you need volunteer help? Do you need you need financial support? Do you need fundraising help? I can. I'm great at events, you know, whatever. There's a lot of ways to engage once you realize that's that's a cause or an antenna or a purpose. That really, I get I get excited about trying to help happen. Yeah. So that's probably what I'd say. And again, every community that are out there, I think it's just a matter of connecting your interest with with the program or their or their organization. Yeah, I

Caleb Roth  
love that advice. I'm guessing you've read Simon Sinek. Start with Why. Yeah, sounds like a lot of I think one of the one of the goals of our podcast, too, is to sort of be wide ranging and talk to people from all various walks of life. One of my daughters today was asking, What do you ask guests about? Like, well, mostly, we just try and find, you know, a broad cross section of people that live different interesting lives and just be curious about how they approach life and how they impact the world and what they're doing. And, you know, I can learn something from your experience and apply it to mine and vice versa. And so I love that range of ideas and closely related, I phrase it as how you think about something until you change how you think or in your case talk. Think about the heartstrings, how you feel about something, you're not usually going to have that motivation or that y that's going to drive you to change. And so as you know, we continue to focus on habits and sometimes change tangentially. So a lot of that is sort of focused on if we, if we can broaden your horizons, give you an idea or an experience to change how you think or see or feel about something that may be the driving force that can propel you forward.

Rich Haddad  
Yeah, I'm, I always thought growing up and, and that I was a type A, and then I married a type A, and I realized, oh, that's what a type A is, that they're going to be productive and do things without prompting, without, really, and I would say even the why. And I realized that I needed to understand why I needed a I needed a purpose or a cause that inspired me, either challenged me or inspired me to step forward. Otherwise, I opted, I think at the end of the day, I'm kind of lazy. So when I'm inspired, when I see purpose, when I see the why I'm in right, I'm all in and I want to be involved. But I think I think generally people do need that there are there are people built that they they're so disciplined and so self motivated, that they don't really need a clear why they're, they're just gonna go after it. Right. But I think more people need need to whether it's inspired, or they see the purpose, or they understand I think I mentioned early really understanding yourself. How do you take the way your bill experienced, gifted, motivated, and find that, that place for that, whether that's your vocation, or an opportunity to impact people around you or the community, find how you are built in where, where it can best be impactful. So I think that's that sort of self actual self realization, self understanding, is also I think, a really key to stepping into spaces that will make the biggest difference. When it

Caleb Roth  
comes to understanding yourself. I guess there's there's kind of three approaches that come to my mind. One is simply sitting with yourself and trying to understand and ask questions and be curious about it, too, would be finding a mentor or people outside of you that say, Hey, rich, you're really gifted at numbers, obviously, as far back as kindergarten. And the third would be sort of experientially just going out sampling a range of ideas. You mentioned the kindergarten piece, where you kind of recognize that you were good. And teachers were pushing you to do well with numbers. Did you recognize that and latch on to it? Or was it until college? Or was there somebody that stepped in and said something to you? I know a lot of people struggle to find their identity. And that's something that's constantly changing. I'm just, I'm just curious, what kind of turned that light on? For you?

Rich Haddad  
I think, I think I am. I think one of the things I desires is to have mattered to feel like I'm making a difference that I've I have influence and or impact in the life I have whatever however long that is, right. Hopefully, I got a few years left. So I am motivated maybe internally by that I want to know I mattered. And for me, Caleb it's probably I would say all the all the potential ways you've self discover her there. But mostly for me, it's it's probably being reflective learning from what I've seen, or what I've experienced in the past to help inform me going forward. And so you know, I mentioned kind of that transition from accounting, to more decision making, I think the you know, the math early on, and the fact that I wanted to be the smart girl in first grade in the spelling bee helped me realize I was competitive and competitively motivated and challenge what evolved was I'm challenged, motivated, hence the other side of probably being lazy, right? I need a challenge, I need a mountain to climb, I need something that motivates me to get on it. Um, whether that's a competition like you and I golfing, or it's we have a huge problem, and somebody needs to help figure this out. Or we have this amazing place to go and I have no idea to get how to get there. Can you help me get there, those are the places that I realized as I was able to, to experience those probably felt the most fulfilled the most utilized. And, and that's that's probably how my self awareness evolved. And I got more and more understanding of what what kind of fired me up the most what got me the most motivated to get off my butt do something, what cool, look back at those, reflect on those and then use that to maybe narrow where you need to be to be more and more impactful or more and more purposeful going forward. And so it is kind of this evolution, that hopefully you're converging into a more acute impact, because you've kind of shrugged off the other stuff that you can do, but you're not great at it and you don't really like it. You just did it because they had to do it. And I think maybe maturing or self awareness is I want to do more of what fires me up the best that I'm most gifted at, that I feel like is going to make the biggest difference is I'm motivated, and I'm good at it. Why don't I spend as much time there as possible? Right? Yeah,

Caleb Roth  
seems like a no brainer. Well, Rich, I want to be respectful of your time, thanks for giving us a little glimpse into your world. And, again, I love love the parallels and sort of the dichotomy between our last guest and you, I do have one other thing I admire about you. And I'd love to end with this. But you are very self disciplined. And I appreciate that. And even with all the community engagement stuff that you do, you've got something that is kind of unique. I don't know if you stole it from somebody else, or borrowed it, but it's your to drink rule. And I'd love it if you just share that. Just because I think that's a good way to approach it, especially with a job that's as public and as community minded as what you do. Yeah,

Rich Haddad  
I'm, thanks, Caleb. I actually, I was too young to know it. But my dad was a incapacitated alcoholic, when I was a little kid, and had a miracle conversion out of it, and coming complete, one day, never touched a drunk drop of alcohol the rest of his life. And I think that as a young child, hearing those stories from he and my mom, I and again, this is probably how my brain works, too. I never wanted to be out of control, I wanted to make sure I was in control. Even as I was parenting, my daughter, I'm like, Look, you're gonna make whatever decisions you're gonna make, what I want you what I want to make sure is you don't ever get yourself into a position where you're not in control, you're gonna make good decisions, you're gonna make bad decisions, but I want them to be your decisions. And so again, that was just whatever inside I wanted to maintain at least some illusion of control. And so as I thought about, you know, the to drink a maximum, because I don't want ever to be in a place where I've drank more alcohol, that I've lost control, or I've lost the ability to make good decisions. And so I just drew a line, like, I know, I'm good wants to, I don't know if I'm good at beyond that. So I'm not going to do it. So at any any one sitting, that's, that's it, because I'm there for our friendship, right, Caleb, I'm there to hang out and enjoy each other's company, there is there is no motivation for me to get drunk. I don't really again, I don't even understand that motivation. But I'm sure some people really enjoy that. But for me, it's like, I don't want to go there. And so really, really drawing clear lines that then allows me to what, you know, if you say be disciplined, it's, it's, there's a line, I'm not going to cross it. Here's, here's another podcast thing to end with that that probably applies. They said, try to pre decide as much as possible. So we're bombarded with 1000s of decisions every day, right? And if you're trying to figure out every decision when it comes up, it's stressful. And it's in its decision overload. But if you can build, whether it's principles, or philosophies or decisions in life, and say, I'm going to pre decide how much I'm going to drink, and anyone sitting right, I'm going to pre decide what the first hour of my day is going to look like, I'm going to pre decide those things, then that that kind of informs your habits and informs your disciplines and informs your decision making. And so I love that advice is, is try to look at your life and say how many things can I pre decide? So when it comes up? It's already done? I've already I don't have to make that decision, right? Because I've already put those lines in place. And I can focus on the the decisions I haven't figured out yet. Right. So pre deciding, is my new kind of recent realization of trying to do that as much as possible. Yeah,

Caleb Roth  
that's incredible. And I've seen you do it when the drinks can be flowing, and we're enjoying some good old fashions and whatever else. And I've seen you just go no, that's too. And this is sort of a trend that's been popping up lately on the podcast, as well as the idea of having rules. I like what you call it with pre decisions. But when it's rules, people don't really question the rules. I've got a two drink maximum. That's my rule. And it's really hard to question a rule versus like, Oh, come on rich. Just one more. We're having fun. Like, oh, that's my rule. I've already pre decided and it makes that very, very simple. Well, with that we will wind down the podcast rich thanks again for coming on. And for anybody that wants to learn more about rich or the K 21 Health Foundation, you can check that out. If you're in kasi Pasco County and had had not known about it if you've been living under a rock and you've got your heart strings that are that have been pulled on. You want to make an impact, by all means reach out to K 21. And if you're outside of Casa Pasco County, what are you doing out there? Come check out our community. It's not all bad. Winters are not the best but we make the best of our centers. So with that, we will wind things down and we look forward to continuing episode three of the relationship series next week.