#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
Are you feeling stuck in life, wanting to grow, improve your income, or build a stronger community? Join performance coach Jordan Edwards as he interviews world-class achievers—including the Founder of Reebok and the Co-Founder of Priceline—who share their success stories and actionable strategies. Each episode provides practical tips on how to boost your personal and professional growth, helping you implement changes that can make a real difference in your life.
This podcast is designed for anyone looking to make progress—whether you're aiming to improve your mindset, relationships, health, or income. Jordan distills the wisdom of top performers into easy-to-follow steps you can take immediately. Whether you're stuck in your career or personal life, you’ll find new ways to get unstuck and start moving forward with confidence.
How to get unstuck? It’s a question many face, and in each episode, you’ll hear stories of how successful individuals broke through barriers, found purpose, and created systems to overcome obstacles. From building resilience to developing a success mindset, you'll gain insights into how high achievers continue to evolve and grow.
Looking to improve your income? This podcast also dives into financial strategies, offering advice from entrepreneurs and business leaders who have built wealth, created multiple revenue streams, and mastered the art of financial growth. Learn how to increase your income, find opportunities for advancement, and create value in both your personal and professional life.
Jordan also emphasizes the importance of building community. You'll learn how to expand your network, foster meaningful connections, and create supportive environments that contribute to personal and professional success. From philanthropists to community leaders, guests share their experiences in building impactful, values-driven communities.
At the core of the podcast are the 5 Pillars of Edwards Consulting—Mental Health, Physical Health, Community Service/Philanthropy, Relationships, and Spirituality. Each episode integrates these elements, ensuring a holistic approach to self-improvement. Whether it's enhancing your mental and physical well-being, giving back to your community, or strengthening your relationships, you'll receive actionable advice that’s grounded in real-world success.
This podcast is for everyone—whether you're an entrepreneur, a professional looking to advance, or simply someone seeking personal growth. You’ll gain actionable steps from every conversation, whether it’s about increasing your productivity, improving your health, or finding more purpose in your life.
Jordan’s interviews are designed to be perspective-shifting, giving you the tools and inspiration to transform your life. From overcoming obstacles to building stronger habits, these episodes are packed with practical insights you can use today. Whether you're looking to grow in your career, improve your income, or enhance your personal life, you’ll find value in every conversation.
Join Jordan Edwards and a lineup of incredible guests for thought-provoking conversations that will inspire you to take action, improve your performance, and unlock your full potential. No matter where you are on your journey, this podcast will help you get unstuck, grow, and build a life filled with purpose and success.
#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
#217 - Revolutionizing Charity: Merging For-Profit Strategies with Nonprofit Goals
Ben Erwin, CEO of Charity Buzz, joins us to unpack his groundbreaking vision for transforming the nonprofit sector. He takes us on a journey from his early days of community service to his eventual realization that the traditional profit-driven career path left him unfulfilled. Through his personal narrative, Ben illustrates the powerful impact of integrating for-profit strategies into charitable efforts, proving that these two worlds can coexist to tackle some of the most pressing global challenges.
Picture a world where donating to charity feels as exhilarating as attending a star-studded event. Ben's innovative business model at Charity Buzz has redefined fundraising by offering curated experiences that bring together charities, brands, and donors in unique ways. From intimate dinners with A-list celebrities to inspiring encounters with business leaders, these experiences create new avenues for engagement and significantly boost charitable contributions. By aligning the interests of all parties involved, this approach not only provides more funds for charities but also reimagines how we think about fundraising.
Harnessing the power of capitalism for social good is at the heart of this episode. Ben argues that treating charitable donations as investments can create a deeper connection with the causes we care about. Through due diligence, we can ensure our contributions are both impactful and meaningful. Stay in the loop with Charity Buzz by following Ben on LinkedIn and subscribing to their newsletter, where you’ll be the first to know about exciting new opportunities. Join us as we explore how this innovative approach is reshaping the nonprofit landscape, inspiring a new way for charities and businesses to collaborate for greater impact.
To Learn More about Ben Erwin Please go to: https://edwards.consulting/blog
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Hey, what's going on, guys? I've got a special guest here today. We have Ben Irwin. He's the CEO of Charity Buzz, an online platform that auctions exclusive experiences and items across various industries to raise funds for nonprofits. Ben welcome to the Hashtag Clocked In podcast. The first question for you is why do you care about charities? Well, thanks for you is why do you care about?
Speaker 2:charities. Yeah, go ahead, dale. Well, thanks for having me, jordan. I'm excited for the conversation, especially based on the intro meeting that we had. Yeah, I think it's pretty simple. So, if you think about it, charities are tasked with solving the world's most pressing problems. We want charities to cure cancer, preserve the environment, reform education, feed the homeless there's a million other missions that they focus on, yet we don't give them the resources and the tools and the incentives to have a fighting chance to be able to solve all of these really big problems. Solve all of these really big problems. So my grand vision is a world where charities get more money, are structured a little bit more like their for-profit counterparts would equal more of these problems being solved, and that's just better for everyone. So we need to stop treating them like they're sitting at the kids' table. Bring them over to the adults table and say here's what. Here are the resources we're willing to invest in you to be able to do all of these amazing things you're focusing your time and effort on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent, because there's I've had, I've done over 200 plus episodes and there's a lot of people where they'll just be so nonprofit and so about the cause that you forget that you have to raise the funds for it. So it can be a very challenging dynamic and it just gets you starting to think of like did you ever have charity and mission in your childhood? And like growing up? Because it seems like yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2:When I was in high school, my sister's five years older than me and she was in a club called Youth Ending Hunger and I remember growing up they would go to local soup kitchens and they do a lot of fundraisers and they would just engage in a lot of community organizations and I was interested in it and it was also something that my parents told me that I really needed to do and that was probably my first real exposure to charity. But at that point I thought of it like everyone else does, like it's this separate sector, that's just. It's pure altruism, goodwill, and we still need to preserve a lot of that within the charity sector. But again, it needs to grow. Like there's more problems now than there was when I was a kid. So the charity sector should again it needs to grow. Like there's more problems now than there was when I was a kid. So the charity sector should be growing in response to the amount of need, but it feels like it's still being very stagnant because it's still using the same old playbook yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:there's so many people who end up having the same theories and they don't look at things differently. So what's allowed you to just coming at just a quick preview of your back story, where high school, college and then you chose a path, whether it was money or it was mission? And how was that for you? Because there's so many people my age and just even further along, people for their entire lives 're like I gotta make enough to survive, let alone worry about other people.
Speaker 2:so yeah, when I so. I graduated college in 2005 and at that point you had two options. You took the path to the left, which was go make a bunch of money right, work long hours and then hopefully at some point have enough resources to be able to give some back, if that's what's important to you. Or I went to school in DC. You had the NGO nonprofit route, where you could have a real impact. You could do something that matters, but you're going to eat ramen noodles for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:And I was naive when I was graduating college and I chose the first path, I said I'm just going to go make as much money as possible, do sales eat what you kill, and that's what's going to bring me fulfillment, because that's what working is all about. And I learned very quickly how wrong I was. I took a job. It was a sales job. I learned a lot, but I realized that the question I always ask myself was if I wasn't doing this job and this company wasn't providing this service, would there really be any change or impact in the world? Like, does this matter? And I couldn't figure out a way to answer that question yes, and so that made that very much a soul draining job for me. It was there for like 18 months and I just couldn't get behind what I was doing or fathom what that would look like for the next 10, 20, 30, 50 years. So I knew I needed to find something that had a little more alignment with my passion.
Speaker 2:And as I was searching for what was next, I kind of just ran into this whole concept behind the intersection of for-profit and doing good, and to me it was the merging of those two paths. It was kind of the birth of social enterprise. Fortunately now there's a lot more companies, there's a lot more opportunities for people younger than me to get involved. But it was the best of both worlds. I could build something, could make a good living. But again I could ask myself that question again what would happen if I didn't do what I did or this company wasn't in existence? And now, looking back, I can say it's like a half a billion dollars that wouldn't have been raised for charity. That's what we do. So that is what keeps me really inspired, because you think about what the opposite would look like. People would be in a tougher situation, organizations would get less funded, and that's not okay for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a really great question, and I realize that the more people develop and the deeper they get with themselves and are better understanding themselves, the better questions they start asking. So, as you ask yourself that question, I know everyone in the audience is sitting there going wait, is what I'm doing matter? Am I doing the right things? Am I? So if you're finding, if people are finding that they're not getting a yes to that answer, how do they start looking in different directions to kind of find that something that's more alignment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you have to dig deep. Do some soul searching of what of what matters to you. Dig deep, do some soul searching of what matters to you. For me, it was doing something in this purpose-driven sector, but that's not for everyone and I don't pass judgment on anyone. Everyone needs to do what inspires them. That's what I think makes the world go around, and a lot of it's going to be trial and error, right? That first job I had. I didn't like it. I learned a lot and I've been able to leverage those skills. But I also I had I didn't like it. I learned a lot, um, and I've been able to leverage those skills. But I also learned what I didn't want to do, and that's important. So every step in the process is valuable if you focus on um getting some sort of benefit out of it. So a lot of it, I think, is talking to people.
Speaker 2:I remember growing up I had a plan I was going to be a lawyer. Everyone said I was good at arguing. Like you're stubborn, go be a lawyer. I studied political science in college. I went to DC for school.
Speaker 2:I was on a pre-law course until I sought out a bunch of attorneys that I met through George Washington, where I went to school, and after learning more and more about what it was like to be a lawyer, I decided I want to be a lawyer. So seek out people who are doing the things that you think you want to do and meet with them, connect with them on LinkedIn, find a mutual connection, pick their brains and ask questions. People are so much more willing to help, provide guidance and any type of support to folks that are younger to them or even people that are older to them, to be honest, than you would imagine. So I think it just takes somebody to really go out and seek the answers to the questions. They have to be able to fast track coming to the right conclusion to be able to fast track coming to the right conclusion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, because I actually have a client with the consulting I do and he's like, yeah, I think I want to go down this doctorate path and I'm like that's great. And I'm like where does that lead? And he goes I don't know. And I'm like, well, why don't you find 10 doctors like 10 people from the program and ask them what they're doing and be like yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. And that gave them so much more clarity on like you just understand that and you're not impeding on people. By asking them about, you're actually raising them up to be more confident and realize how much they've actually developed. So it gives them a lot of purpose in what they're doing. So I think that's an app.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so more people. It's literally how I started the podcast. It was me wanting to do intro calls with people and then being like, wait, that's probably a waste of time because that doesn't provide as much value. Or I could just have this conversation, record it and then just use it as content and also have the same conversations with the people. But now you have an audience who listens, you have people who want to be there and it's just a win-win-win. It's a little bit of extra work, but it's the same concept that I found, which was super interesting.
Speaker 2:And it's worth it. You're never going to. If you invest the time in doing this, you'll end up probably where you want to be and then, when you look back, you're never going to regret it. You're never going to regret having those 10 intro calls, taking the extra time after work one day to have a drink with someone and learn more from them, every one of them. Even if you don't get the information you were seeking out, that specific conversation, it's still going to inform you somehow down the road. Right, it's just going to like build the context and the knowledge, and I think that's always an important way to justify whether or not to invest additional time in anything is think about what happens after.
Speaker 2:Will you regret doing it? Yeah, if the answer is no, it's almost like going to the gym or like working out right, like you don't want to wake up early before the sun comes up and go to the gym. But do you ever go to the gym early and after? It'd be like man, I wish I stayed in bed longer and didn't go to the gym. No, every time you're like I did something awesome today, that was great, and that's how I remind myself to exercise. Like I won't regret this in two hours. So just get go, because the opposite is, you will regret pressing the snooze button seven times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that Because most people don't think about it. You look at regret in the big picture, especially for me. I'm 28. So it's me seeing this in the lens of hey, I'm 80 and I'm regretting my life, but you view it as regret. In the next three hours, am I going to be upset that I worked? Absolutely not. We love that. That's going to be a good, good thing and that's kind of what ends up happening, probably with charity buzz, where you're like, would I regret, actually like doing these cool opportunities and making this stuff happen. So how did you get involved with charity buzz? How did that start out for you?
Speaker 2:yeah so. So I moved back to connecticut living in DC that's where I grew up and I found this idea, which was Charity Buzz. So it wasn't a business yet, it was just an idea. And the whole idea started from attending a live charity auction and them offering up out of nowhere the chance to have lunch with President Clinton. And people were really excited because this was like pre-experience economy boom. But it was like why are you only allowing like 100 people to bid on this? This is global appeal. You get this in front of more people from around the world. You're going to like 10x the amount of money you can raise.
Speaker 2:So then we went out and we built it and when I learned about this idea, it didn't really have a business plan. Again, my background was in sales, so I just decided that I was going to be the director of business development, made up a title. I remember I printed up a business card, made me feel really cool and I just went out there and started calling and meeting and cold calling everyone, because what I realized I first had to do was I had to legitimize or validate the business model and the concept with all of the potential prospects, and to do that I had to learn, like what does a fundraiser do? What's the day-to-day of a director of development? What are their pain points? What do they need more of the day-to-day of a director of development, what are their pain points, what do they need more of?
Speaker 2:And as I learned more and more about that, the business evolved kind of in a parallel path and it ended up growing really fast initially, and then we sold it in 2016 to a very prominent entrepreneur, todd wagner, who's mark Mark Cuban's business partner. They started Broadcastcom together and it was cool because it's been two separate jobs but within the same company. It was kind of like the pre-acquisition and post-acquisition, and ever since Todd acquired it, it's been one of the best lessons and experiences I've had. Two, three years after he bought it, he put me in charge of the whole thing and really thinking about it with business principles. Yes, the output of what we do is philanthropic and that's what it matters, but we have to use capitalistic principles, tendencies, to be able to drive the desirable outcomes. So you kind of have to take out the charitable element on your day to day, because you're just trying to maximize results, and for us, maximizing results is for charity, and that's then what I can inspire everyone to work harder and be really committed to the mission.
Speaker 1:So if the underlying revenue goes up, which is theoretically these experience sell for more, then the business does better and then obviously more money's going to the charities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a pure rev share model, so it's like we all have the exact same goals, and it's great because for and this is what we learned early on with charities is they're very reluctant to pay anything out of pocket before they take money in. But if you're saying I'm going to produce you this incremental or unrestricted dollars and I'm going to take a portion of it, it resonates because this is money they wouldn't have raised anyway. So it's not 20% or 10% or any percentage point of dollars that they were already going to bring in that now they're paying to their payment processor or their CRM or whoever. This is just all brand new money. And when you position it that way, we realized that's how you were going to resonate with more and more of them, because they're now thinking in a bit of a different frame of mind, and then that's how we got them all to kind of jump on board and partner with us. Okay, very cool so.
Speaker 1:So that was the way of approaching the charities. Yeah, what was the way of approaching the experiences? Because I was looking on the website prior to this going on and I'm like there's hundreds of experiences going on at the time and it's crazy moments and I'm like, crazy time of year for us it's just if you guys, if you guys type in on the website, share just charity buzz, you'll find it. And there's just so many experiences and they all end today and it's last minute. It's. It's incredible yeah.
Speaker 2:So we get experiences three ways. We work directly with charities. So we'll work with St Jude's, a big strategic partner of ours, and we'll work with them to consult with them on the best way they can leverage their existing supporter base to create auction experiences or items that are a good fit for our marketplace, because we have our own audience. So the asset we bring to all of these charities is we have 300 plus thousand registered users. They're very affluent, they're very socially conscious and they're in the market for tons of really unique and cool stuff. So for a lot of cases, the charity's getting access to people who are not existing donors. So again, it's all net new money. It's not cannibalizing anything, but we consult with them. We show them how to leverage these connections, because they've never thought of it in this way, because they're not used to running an auction in a marketplace like ours.
Speaker 2:We also work with vendors or directly with brands and celebrities to curate experiences and more recently we've started to create our own experiences and we're calling them Charity Buzz hosts and the first iteration is called Good Evenings and it's us curating these really intimate, really one of a kind dinner parties with really really A-list luminaries. So we've done them with the Cloonies, with Bradley Cooper, with Charlize Theron, with Cher, like, really like triple A-list. We curate a really small group of people that we sell the access to through our channels. We get that luminary to come for two to three hours and not only does it create an amazing experience for our customers, that's all branded charity buzz. It's not like we're sending them to the Grammys, we're sending them to our event. It creates this really amazing opportunity for the celebrity to be able to meet these people and tell them about what's important to them, because they're coming in raising money for a cause they either started or care about, and they get to tell all of them about where the money's going, why they're so passionate about it.
Speaker 1:So if it's, it's, whatever celebrity it is, it's there and so then that creates this bigger opportunity.
Speaker 2:Because, again, if our mission is to get more money to the sector, step step one is the hook. Let's be able to monetize these experiences and unlock new dollars. But then you have this environment where you've got a celebrity meeting, a huge fan of theirs. They're telling them that the reason why they're there is because they supported this cause. It's going to be compelling and really interesting, and then they leave thinking they're friends and a lot of cases they are like real relationships have blossomed from these dinners. So in a lot of cases that customer ends up being becoming a big supporter of that charity for many, many years to come. And that's kind of like the perfect recipe for us, because now we're making an even bigger difference by being able to match, make new people and expose them to really interesting causes got you.
Speaker 1:And then it gives the a-list celebrity when they sit there and might have to go do a charity gala and they're like wait a second, I can do this with 10 people. How many people is it usually like 10?
Speaker 2:yeah, and it's fun. Everyone that we've done it with has signed up for a second. They like it. They're meeting like really interesting people. It's totally off the record, no cameras, no phones, no anything, so they're being able to like, have a real authentic evening, and it feels like I've been to a number of them.
Speaker 2:It feels like you're just at a dinner party with friends, like you kind of have to like smack yourself and be like oh wait, like there's George Clooney, like this doesn't make any sense that I'm here, because it's so personable again, because it's all kind of revolving around this passion that everybody has now some connection to, and that's the cause.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you guys are doing all the background work and then they basically come in, have the event and then they're meeting their top donors who are like, yes, donate more. We love that. You guys understand the cause, you understand what we're trying to do. So it's a win-win-win. Because when you really sit there and realize it, if they were to go about it the other way, where it's just like you said, george Clooney, you're like if he's going around just being like, hey, please donate to my cause, it's like this is like a challenging thing, like one of the ways I actually raised money one time was I signed up for the New York City Marathon and we had to join the colorectal cancer team. It was me and my brother three years ago.
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't. Colorectal cancer is very prominent in like 40s, 50s, 60s. I'm like I don't even know, I'll have the guy, I'll have the founder come on the podcast, I'll learn about it and then we'll raise the money for it, because we had to raise eight thousand dollars just to participate in the race. But that's an interesting way of doing it, but on a smaller scale. But what you're talking about here is a bigger scale and then, if people have the resources they can get involved with these types of people. And there's also interesting different stories like share, the story about the one with lori from shartank and what ended up happening with her, where the girl donated and was able.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so. So the company was founded on this idea of, uh, experiences with a-list celebrities like musicians, movie stars, um, athletes. But as we're building the business, we realize there's only so many charities that have like real relationships with these really famous people. So years ago we auctioned off the chance to have coffee with tim cook at apple. We thought it was cool, yeah, but we didn't think it was like, you know, like brad pitt, cool, sold for six hundred thousand dollars, oh, at that moment it was like, oh, business experiences, and it makes sense, like there's inherent value in somebody getting in a room with a titan of industry. So we started really, um, focusing in and doubling down on business experiences. So then we got exposed to the sharks and, like marcus limonis from the profit, who were kind of like, you know, straddling both they were celebrities and business leaders, yeah.
Speaker 2:So Lori did a campaign to have lunch and basically picture a business idea almost like a mini shark tank to support I think it was for the Chicago Firefighters Relief Organization. So we auctioned it off. I think it sells for $30,000 or $40,000. And we find out that the winner of the auction was an entrepreneur. She had created a product called the Running Buddy, and it was a little neoprene type fanny pack but it would kind of like stick to your side. So when you run it didn't flap. You put like your keys and your valuables in it and they had $40,000 left in their business account. This was it and they just decided that this was something, told them that this was how they needed to gamble the rest of the money they had to their name for the business. So they win.
Speaker 2:They go and meet with Lori. It's like a great opening because I always say the ultimate icebreaker when you go and meet somebody who just spent a bunch of money to sit down with, is you supported a charity they care about. So the first thing the celebrity or Lori says is like thank you, I really appreciate what you did for this cause. Ice is broken. They start talking to her about the business, the story. They bring a couple of prototypes.
Speaker 2:She loves it. She puts it on QVC. She sells out, generates like millions of dollars. They end up having a very lucrative business. Lori ends up having a really good deal for her and her business. Charity makes a lot of money and everybody wins and it's like really only could happen through a Charity Buzz experience and like that does not happen as often as I would like it to because the content's so gold, but that's like the perfect storm, like everything works and it all starts with creating an experience to support a charity, which is kind of at the core and a fundamental level what we do yeah, which is incredible.
Speaker 1:And you start to hear stories like this and you start to realize that there's so many opportunities out there, like there's ways of differentiating yourself with charity, because a lot of the time people think charities are give me a handout, like give me some money, like can we please have some money? It's that Giving Tuesday, it's the charity time, but you're changing the way people are looking at this. So, from your experience, what are you seeing? That we need to adjust the way we look at charity? What are you seeing with that?
Speaker 2:I think at the beginning and it's really clear, and I have to say this is what we do is not supposed to take the place of what charities are currently doing. It's to go on top of it, right? I think for the longest time, charities have had to make a this or that decision and I want them to make a this and that and that and that and that decision Again, just like the world of for-profits. So that's one. Two, there's a couple of crazy stats. One is the percentage of GDP that goes to charity in this country has hovered around 2% for 70 years since they started measuring it. So every generation is not more charitable than the last when we're talking about relative money going to charity. Yet the number of charities during that time have increased 40x.
Speaker 2:So raising money is really hard and at first you're like that number is scary, doesn't make sense, it's surprising. But if you think about it, charities haven't really innovated the way they fundraise. They do galas, they do direct mail. They maybe still do phone calls. Now they're doing online fundraising, but the premise is the same. Hey, jordan, you live in Florida, I'm the food bank of Florida. Do you care about food safety? And if you say yes, you're part of my donor base. If you say no, you're out and I have no other way to ever engage with you. It's a really, really difficult job. And then the third is fundraising in this country. For the past two years 22 and 23, was down year over year when adjusted for inflation. And again.
Speaker 1:You could say all right, it's.
Speaker 2:Inflation hurt everybody. People hold on to their wallets a little tighter during these moments of increased inflation. But in 23, the stock market was really strong and it's the first time, I believe, ever that fundraising has been down when the markets have been up double digits. So what does this all mean? I think we're starting to see the capacity of just what these traditional fundraising activities can produce. I think it's 2% of GDP. I can't really figure out any other explanation for it. So what can we do to get that to 3%%? It's not a huge number, but it's a 50% increase.
Speaker 2:I think we need to start looking at some other sectors of our economy and how we can grab pieces of those dollars and divert them to charity. So they're starting to measure what they call non-essential activities restaurants, travel, tourism, cultural events, museums, concerts all of the things we spend money on that we don't need to survive. It's going to be 25% of our GDP. What if, 10% of that, we could figure out a way to go to charity? We would more than double the amount of money going to charity. Or think of it as you just mentioned giving Tuesday, which is a good example. So we have Black Friday, cyber Monday Giving Tuesday. Why do we just have one day where it's like give money to charity? If you took, I think last year, 10% of the money that was spent on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and you said that 10% is going to go to charity, it would almost double. Giving Tuesday is going to go to charity. It would almost double Giving Tuesday, black Friday, cyber Monday, trump Giving Tuesday at an incredible amount of scale.
Speaker 2:So the point is, we got to make it easier. We got to figure out ways to infiltrate large amounts of money that are transacting and find ways of getting a small percentage to charity. I think that's the quickest way to get that number to go up. But coupled with that is this idea of all charitable donations have to have pure intentions, and if we lived in an ideal world, I totally agree with that. But we don't. We live in the real world. So if somebody wants to give a bunch of money to charity, to go hang out with a celebrity or get their name plastered on the wing of a hospital because they just want to do it for their own legacy, their ego or whatever the reason is, we need to stop judging or criticizing that, because the money is still going to make its way into the hands of organizations that will now be the custodian of the funds and they will deploy them to support their mission. Criticizing them. The only outcome is you're going to prevent people from doing it, moving forward because they don't want to get dragged through the mud.
Speaker 2:We have to make this more and more just like a part of every day, and I think, when the key says we kind of have to break down this barrier between for profit and charity, just because of two lines in the tax code, we treat these sectors so differently and the public perception of them is so different. Charity, let's say any cause like preserve the environment, and you put Meta, amazon, nvidia, like companies that represent probably the smartest, most innovative people in the world, and you incentivize them properly and you had them work the same way they're working in the for-profit space. I'll bet you we'd get a lot more progress on some of these other issues. So then it's all about prioritization, like what's what's more important to us? Is saving the environment more important than um, semiconductors and microchips and ai? Well, I think. I think you could argue it is.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's interesting. It was literally I was having a similar conversation with some friends on Saturday where it's like, why does the America soccer team terror? Like, why are they not good? And it's because all of the athletes go to the things that incentivize them to do that. So, with what you're doing, ben, if you can actually, and by people listening and by people taking action, if we can all incentivize for it not to be hey, I gave to charity. Now I'm a good person. Instead, it'd be like the cultural thing where it's like, hey, I actually do want to meet that guy and it would be super valuable for me to meet that guy. And if we could do this through a charitable giving, even better, because then it's a write off for the businesses as well. That it just it moves the needle so much more than everyone giving a little bit of money here, a little bit of money there, and it's not that challenging.
Speaker 1:Because I started to sit there and think about it, I was like what if Charity Buzz is doing this in like local cities? You know what I mean? Like you have Tampa, oh, you want to go meet with the mayor. Like here's how you meet with the mayor, hey, you want access to the starting quarterback of the team. Here's how you do that. And, like, you start making these things and you start to realize that charity doesn't have to be as challenging as it is. But there's a lot of different ways to do it. But, like you said, ben, if you had a charity, go in and be like, hey, go find an a-list celebrity and go try to raise money. They'd be like what? Like I don't know how to do that, Like I just wanted to stop cancer man, like what are you talking about? Because it's a completely different approach.
Speaker 2:So it becomes a yeah and that's what we learned early on is, you know, like they need to continue to focus on their mission, the job they were hired to do, and they shouldn't have to go figure out all of these other things. How do we run effective online campaigns? What's our paid advertising strategy going to be? What type of CAC are we looking for? How are we going to optimize the landing page? What about payment processing?
Speaker 2:In a perfect world, charities would have all of that expertise and resources, but they don't. Maybe the big ones do, but the small ones are just trying to keep the lights on to maybe solve what's a very esoteric mission in the grand scheme of things, but to them, is the most important thing of the world. Because think about, why does somebody go work for a charity? I'd say the majority of them is because something happened in their life, there is a connection that drew them to say I'm going to go commit my time and my career to this important cause. They're doing it for, like the the purest of reasons, because we know they're not doing it for financial gain. Yeah, you can't you make you.
Speaker 2:Look at some of these stats. I forget who it was. It was a major charity like billion plus dollar annual revenues and the CEO makes seven figures and you know, again dragged through the mud, like what a greedy guy. He's stealing from the charity. They shouldn't pay him that much. And you look at any for-profit company of a similar size, they're making like 50x. Like it's not even close. So it's like no, he's not greedy or she's not greedy running that charity. She's charitable. She's taking like pennies on the dollar to be able to run this massive organization. They're not gonna do it for free. And then you're gonna criticize them for not being good enough towards accomplishing their mission. What's like you get what you pay for. Like get the best people, have them work together, build a strategy and go solve the problem.
Speaker 2:That's how it all works, but again in the charity space. We don't allow them to operate like that.
Speaker 1:It's wild yeah, yeah, you're bringing up a lot of interesting points, because you start to sit there and go the. It makes you realize how many people are just headline readers like I know for a fact that I've done that where I'm like, oh wait, wait, they only gave 96% of the dollars, or 80 cents of the dollar, like why'd they do that? And then you start to sit there and go wait, if they don't have the best people, then how are they going to be able to build the team? They won't, and that's an issue. And to build any good thing, you need to build the team, and the team is the most important thing.
Speaker 1:So when you guys started to look at charity buzz, were you thinking about that? Oh, maybe it should be a 105 501 c3. What is it? C3, right, yeah, or should it be a for-profit? Like, how did you think about that? And what? What was the rationale there? Because I feel like the way you're going about it, it provides so much more inflows than people most charities would even experience. Like you said, half a billion dollars that's a ton of money. Like it's a ton of money.
Speaker 2:We probably didn't have a sophisticated perspective to decide to go for profit versus C3 at the beginning and we've learned a lot since. But it's still a similar underlying belief that, like capitalism is the strongest force in the history of modern day. Like capitalism makes everything happen 100%. We all know about the negative consequences or effects of capitalism, but why don't we figure out ways to leverage it for good? Like, if you can create it's almost like. Like I think a good comp is cause marketing. Right, they figured out early on that if you align your brand or your product, mostly in like the CPG space started out with a cause, it's a good thing to do because you're supporting an organization that's doing well, but, like, your customers will buy more from you.
Speaker 2:So, that's the perfect, perfect like combination of two different factors. It's like you're doing something good and it's increasing value for your shareholders. Like, yes, that's where capitalism will drive you. And, again, that's where intentionality doesn't matter. Let's say, the chairman of that company decided to do it because he was greedy and wanted to make more money. Yeah, great, we're not going to convince him otherwise, right, like, he's probably past the point of like seeing the world differently. But he knew that if he created this campaign or listened to a couple of his you know lieutenants, that aligning with this cause was going to increase sales by 20% and that's what drove the decision. Great, like, again, I wouldn't criticize them based on, like, their intentionality. I would just say that's awesome, you're doing something that matters. And in that case, what's awesome? You're doing something that matters and in that case, what's driving you is capitalism. We know capitalism will drive you a lot farther and a lot faster than pure altruism. We see it every day, so why not take advantage of it?
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And people will sit there and criticize people for being like oh, they did this with this intent. And I completely agree with what you're saying. Because you start to realize it and you're like wait the opportunity, it doesn't matter, it really doesn't, as long as the good things are happening, as long as things are moving forward. And if people are winning, I want them to win bigger. If you're doing good and winning, I want you to win bigger. Because a lot of us are so like no, they can't win if I'm losing. That's not it at all. Like if people are winning for a good cause, like they should try to win bigger, because then there's going to be more donations, there's going to be more benefits, there's going to be more and more and more, instead of it being this well, we can write off about 10% of the inventory, we have to get a loss. And it's like there's a different approach to it.
Speaker 1:There's a different approach to it and I think you're kind of bringing that light to it, where it doesn't have to be so much black and white good and bad, but it's more of hey, it's all good, it's all additional than we, than anyone was ever going to see. So why not do these things? And plus, if I say hey, would you want to meet your favorite athlete? You'd be like in your head you're literally excited about the idea of like meeting your favorite athlete. And then it's like also a donation under that. How are you not getting excited about these things?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think we can simultaneously push for everyone caring more, wanting to, out of the goodness of their hearts, support more charities, either financially or with like their skills and time, and address the fact that that's not reality, but still operate within what today's climate is, because if you just focus on trying to push everyone towards this again this like idealistic world, you're wasting time right now to deal with the current set of circumstances, what reality looks like, and figuring out how to navigate it in a way that still supports your idealistic outcomes. That's what we need to do more of, and right now it seems like it's one or the other and that's what's. That's not. There's not enough critical mass. We're seeing enough progress moving forward yeah.
Speaker 1:So what is the way that the listeners can participate in raising awareness for charities or just in any way? Because obviously you're doing Charity Buzz and people can participate that way, but what do you think individuals could do to like? Think about this a little bit differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, everybody's going to have a different cause or organization that holds a special place in their heart. I would encourage everybody to do a little more due diligence about the organizations that you give money to. If you think about it, there's no centralized way to measure a charity's efficacy, so people usually end up going to the lowest hanging fruit, right who has the best marketing, who's the biggest? And then you just give them money. You kind of forget about it and you just give them money again. I would do a little more due diligence on, like, what is that organization's unique approach to solving the problem? Because they're all going to be different and one will resonate with you more. What's their track record? Look like right, ask questions of the fundraising team. The good ones will answer them, them and they'll be ready to quantify their responses and then hold them accountable.
Speaker 2:Because I believe a donation's an investment. You're investing in that organization's mission. You're not just giving them money and saying I'll forget about it. It's figuring out a way to follow up in six months. Hey, I gave money towards this initiative. How far along are we? Are we seeing the progress that we want? And then that should be what validates you to give more. Think about it as you do. If you make any investment, whether it's angel equities, crypto the research isn't as available, which is a problem, and I think that is a whole other issue that needs to be fixed. But you can still dig in a little bit more. More because then you'll be more connected to who you're supporting, and that's going to create a whole different dynamic than just saying a natural disaster happened. I'm just going to give to the first organization that appears on my Instagram feed or after my Google search that's passive. Get more engaged.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I didn't even think about that. So obviously there were hurricanes that happened here and there were hurricanes that happened in the past year. But I remember I literally was going to Fort Myers for the hurricane last year and I just texted a group chat of my friends and I'm just like, hey, if anyone wants to give any money, I'm going to go buy stuff at the store and if you want to give money, you can. It's like hey, if anyone wants to give any money, I'm going to go buy stuff at the store and like, if you want to give money, you can. So like, I went to the store and I ended up buying like $200, $250 worth of stuff all these paper towels and whatnot and I literally put it all there and then the Venmo started coming in. So like if someone Venmo'd me, I'd just take a picture and I'm like you did that, like you, you're so right.
Speaker 1:But even on the charity side, it's interesting where I feel like they should give more of that, like updates, like this is what's going on, this is what's happening, this is the exciting things, because that communication is definitely a little missed and it feels like a take, take, take instead of like a back and forth. We've made this progress, we're raising another. This, yeah, if everyone took it a little bit more for-profit in a for-profit framework, then they would think about it a little differently and provide I think that's also the way to um preemptively handle objections about what percentage of this dollar goes to charity.
Speaker 2:Your overhead's too high. It's like a lot of, I think, about natural disaster relief. It's sophisticated, right. You have to have infrastructure. I prefer giving to organizations that I know have been in the community impacted for many years so, like they understand the community, they know exactly where the money should go. Who needs what, versus a larger organization swooping in after the fact and pretending like they know what's going on. But either one of those, it takes a lot of time to be able to develop that expertise. That's the overhead, that's the money you have to give. If it's just 100% of every dollar goes there, you're basically just dropping money on top of a community and saying figure it out, it won't go as far smart money goes farther than just dumb money like.
Speaker 2:That's true everywhere. So let's again apply the same principles to the change sector. They're so much more similar than they are apart, but most people think they're just. You know, it's like church and state they're totally different.
Speaker 1:We should treat them differently again, all because of two lines in our tax code, like that's it something that separates them yeah, and a lot of the society and the marketing that we've all been fed over the past 100 plus years of this is the way you do this. This is the way you do this, and you start to realize that the better and better people you get in these spaces, the more accomplished you're going to be able to be. The more accomplished you're going to be able to be, the more good you're going to be able to do. Exactly 100%. So for you, with Charity Buzz, what do you see coming down the line? Because I know we're going to wrap up in a couple minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a lot more of just focusing in on what I think our strengths are. So it's really important to me as the CEO to not try to be something that we're not. There's a lot of like really bright, shiny objects like revolving around us, but our core assets are, like we are experts and experiences because we've just been doing it for so long. We have this incredible Rolodex of charities, celebrities, brands that we've worked with, so we have that credibility that most others do not, and we have this customer base. So now it's like how do we scale this? And I think it's around thinking about these opportunities to dig into these different areas where large sums of money are transacting. So a lot of those are trends that will go up and down pretty quickly, but can we capitalize on it?
Speaker 2:I remember during COVID, trading cards and collectibles skyrocketed. The market went completely insane. So we very quickly figured out a way to establish some level of expertise and carve out some of the amount of money that was exchanging hands and figure out a way for it to go to charity. So we need to continue to do that. We need to continue to build more and more of our own events so that we can control more of our own destiny and again, that helps us leverage our expertise and experiences. We're creating them. We've got the Rolodex. We're like we have the credibility to build them and I know that's what our customer base wants.
Speaker 2:And then it's more and more of just figuring out new sales channels. So we have auctions, we have a private concierge business where we'll create anything like your wildest dreams. We have a sweepstakes business where if you don't have $10,000, but for $10, you get a chance to win something awesome. Have 10,000 bucks, but for 10 bucks you get a chance to win something awesome. And we've soft launched just a traditional storefront online. But don't want to waste your time bidding on an auction, just click and purchase. So I think there's still so much green grass in front of us that I don't want to take our eye off the ball. So I think it's all about expanding horizontally across our core assets and then figuring out more and more how we can just feed what we think is a really big appetite for these types of opportunities.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And Ben, where can people learn more about you and Charity Buzz?
Speaker 2:The best for me is LinkedIn. So I'm active, so follow me and you can learn more about you and Charity Buzz. The best for me is LinkedIn. So I'm active, so follow me and you can learn more about kind of just the way I see this world from my unique perspective. My email is ben at charitybuzzcom. If you have any questions, need to talk to anyone here, just email me and either I'll get back to you or I'll loop you in with a member of the team and then go to charitybuzzcom and just sign up for our newsletter. We add new things to the site like every hour of every day. It's kind of nuts, so you're not going to be able to stay on top of everything. It'll just take too long. But if you subscribe to our newsletter, we're going to constantly kind of announce and tell you all the cool stuff that's happening. So if something does become available that piques your interest, you always be in the know and be able to. You won't miss out on the opportunity. Absolutely, thank you.
