Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 504. 9 Nonprofit Trends That Matter in 2024: It's No Longer Business As Usual. Period. - Jon McCoy, Becky Endicott, and Brett Hagler, New Story

Transcript

504. 9 Nonprofit Trends That Matter in 2024: It's No Longer Business As Usual. Period. - Jon McCoy, Becky Endicott, and Brett Hagler, New Story · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And this is the we Are For Good podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: So welcome to the Good Community.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabbit fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So let's get started.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: What's happening, my friend?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I will tell you, John, the days of your are gone.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I've been wanting to use your white O-R-E.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness too.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, and I think it's a beautiful thing.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Can we embrace this please?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Because you know, friends, what Becky's alluding to here is that it is no longer business as usual period.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: We want to welcome you back.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: We are unpacking the nine nonprofit trends that we really wanted to highlight this year.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: We think they matter in the nonprofit space.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We think that they are just kind of opportunities in front of us when you're feeling like there's nowhere to go.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: These are trends to pour into them.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: We're unpacking them with experts the first few weeks of the year.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: And so why are we saying it's no longer business as usual?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: It's our first trend because the reality is set in.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Things are never going back to the way it's always been.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: In a lot of ways that's relieving right.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: There was a lot of things and processes and ways.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: So we just believe it's time to embrace creativity and new solutions, new revenue models and business models for how we can show up and do our work, because in this, you know space, we challenge you a lot to think about the bigger, right questions that you're asking yourself.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: How are we moving the needle in the actual impact we're trying to bring to the world?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And that means there's going to be a lot of different tactics that are going to shift in doing that, new partnerships that may evolve and, at the cornerstone of it, we have to just self-improve, and it's all about our own journey of like.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: How do we show up to be more of a growth-minded leader in every day of this?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: So we want to dive into some key points on this and I want to set something very foundationally in this trend and it is the only way to show up is with a growth mindset.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: If you are new to that concept, it is this belief that there is more to learn, there is more to be shaped within you, that you are a work in progress, and that is not tethered to your KPI, that is not tethered to your job description, that is tethered to you as a human being, no matter where you wander in this lifetime, in your career as a volunteer, as a human being, we want you to show up and evolve.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So we really want you to lean into the power of self-improvement and create a rhythm of iterating, making things better shift by shift.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: We are just talking to a brilliant friend in the community, amber Fogarty, this week over at the Stand Together Foundation, and she said you know, for years I held one hour on my calendar every single week for professional development.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: And she said and there were so many times people tried to creep on that hour and I kept it absolutely immobile and the growth that I was able to experience in that one hour, as it compounded year after year, you can see why she's in such an incredible position right now and really moving the sector in powerful ways, and so I think that's one really high key point and take away.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: To take away from this.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Another one is there is not a one size fits all model in this brave new world that we're standing in, whether it's in nonprofit, whether it's in media, whether it's in interconnectivity, and it's like we have to be open to the way that we can get there, but keep that value and vision completely central.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: And the last key takeaway we want you to think about is look for ways to innovate all the time.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Are you looking and evaluating your systems in your office?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Is that operationally?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Is it your engagement strategy?
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Is it your donor relations or your stewardship?
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: What needs to be completely overhauled?
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Given a fresh lens on MPS, you can really innovate well if you can make it human.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Absolutely Well.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I mean this is not a new conversation for the podcast.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: We love talking about living in the vortex of just like innovation and embracing change and kind of modeling that growth mindset in our life and work.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: And so we've put together a playlist and I can't wait for you to go back through the catalog.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I mean we had some epic conversations around this, got a shout out to Dan Pallotta, who's been in the seat a couple of times talking about you know, it's time to unthink everything you know about change, to really look at our sector and the way that we go about work and marketing and kind of all the frameworks through a different lens.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And then we had the goat, one of the greatest humans we've met along the journey, seth Godin, who came in at the beginning of season eight of the podcast and one quote that he shared and this is in our playlist but I think it's so powerful is that?
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: What can we do differently?
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Scarily differently, where we take responsibility?
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: For me, that's what it means to be alive.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: That's, seth.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I mean that is a growth mindset leader, because you look at what an opportunity it is to grow and to get to live in that space where you are not just floating through comfortably, but feeling engaged and feeling passionate to get to try new things for our missions.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: We also are dropping in this playlist Nonprofits that are looking at mergers and acquisitions and how that could be a powerful force for impact.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: That's 482 with Daniel Steer.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Then, just like being a future-ready organization.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: This is a brass tacks episode of like how do you actually do the work when you've got forces of nature?
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Remember, this is the episode of literally a forces of nature like four catastrophic.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Four forces of nature yes, all coming at Aaron Davison, who is down with big brothers and big sisters in Southern Louisiana, and just an incredible organization that is living this out loud.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Really want to get that playlist in your hands so you can feel inspired to keep pouring into this.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: We're always going to stay curious.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: What's happening in your shops.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: We went to the community and we asked you all what are those engagement signals?
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: You're seeing that it's no longer business as usual.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: The responses, honestly, were shocking.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: And not shocking, Wouldn't you say, John.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: I expected some of them and I didn't.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Amanda Clayton saying we're having lower engagement.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Douglas Martin says they're seeing over at Do Real.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Good donors don't open and answer emails as much as they do, but maybe they're starting to respond to phone calls.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Kathleen Rivera we also mentioned that no one wants to go to their galas anymore.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Then we've also seen some things like open rates are staying the same, but click-through rates have gone down.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Social reaches down.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Social advertising is probably going to be more expensive this year.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: A lot of those digital trends, a lot of them are just some of those darlings that we've held on to for so long within our organizations that maybe our executive director or our founder or maybe our board chair just cannot let go of.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: That don't necessarily make sense for us now.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: We need to reimagine those and even decide is it time to sunset a little bit?
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: These are all signals that business as usual is not cutting it anymore.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: We have to reimagine our work.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: We have to reimagine connection, and it really starts with you.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: And y'all.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: We love doing these things in community and that's the power of finding like-minded peers across the sector, across the world or maybe across town from you that want to lock arms in doing this and those that we see doing it right now.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Look at Charity Water.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: They had a really disruptive approach to say what happened if we had a two bank account model.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: What would it look like if the operations were funded from one account and the impact is funded from another account?
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: And we talked a new story.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: And today it is so exciting we have new stories, co-founder and CEO coming into this episode to add some color to this.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: But you're going to hear the story of how they keep iterating the program delivery because they're obsessed with making impact and learning and growing along the way, and so we're going to give you really the playbook for how they do it as Brett unfolds that later.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: But also we love looking at FarmLink project.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: You know this startup that just came about just in the middle of the pandemic.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: They're evolving partnerships and leveraging influencers and investing in media, like telling their story through new media in an engaging way to kind of cut through the noise and be on par with a lot of the other things that are capturing our hearts and minds, and so there's just so many people that are doing it well, and I think, hopefully, this series is going to connect you in with some tools so you can start implementing this too, and we got to get to some pro tips.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we got to get to some pro tips because you know we want you activated in this trend.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: And the first one I've already mentioned it once, but I'm double downing on it because I really want you to prioritize leaning into that power of self improvement.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: I don't want you to feel guilty about it.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: I don't want you to feel like you're giving too much to yourself, because the more you are fed, the more your organization is going to be fed, the more that your soul is going to be fed.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: So create that rhythm of learning, of iterating, of making things better, shift by shift.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: We call this 1% shifts.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Every new learning is going to be something that leads you to growth in the future.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: The next one is all about getting clear on your values and vision, getting really clear on where you're going, and then it's going to take you on a path that you know what you're probably going to have to say no or say quit certain things that have been maybe part of your institution for a really long time.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I want to give you a new verb to insert here, and that is sunset.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: You know, things sometimes have to come to a close and there's probably things happening.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a program, maybe it's an event.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: We've done, we've sunset a couple of events in our career.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: But when the tactics are no longer serving you or serving your mission and your beneficiary, it's time to let them go, and that's totally okay.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: When it's no longer business as usual, I mean there's no better way to talk about business as usual than really to get one of the people that is like leading this effort so well.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And so it's a huge honor to round out today's episode by bringing in the CEO and co-founder of new story, Brett Hagler, which you probably have heard of them because we talk about them a lot, but let me tell you a little bit about Brett's story and we're going to kick it over to him.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: He is just this brilliant mind.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: You know he went through Y Combinator and if you haven't dug into what that process looks like, you're going to get a feel for the type of human that he is.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: He's also a cancer survivor.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: He's been recognized on Forbes 30 under 30 list.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: He's named one of the top 100 most intriguing entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs and you know new story was named one of the most innovative companies in the world four different times.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Brett and his team are working to pioneer solutions to end global homelessness.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: We talk about their vision.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: That's just so clear that they're really open handed to how it takes shape, and one of those ways they built the world's first 3D printed community is one of their experiments to figure out how can we do this in a sustainable way.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: So Brett is pairing innovation traditionally, you know, reserved for exclusive Silicon Valley type thinkers with this beautiful, altruistic mission, and we are so glad to have you, Brett, to talk about this topic with us today.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: I'm very happy to be here and love the podcast that you all have to inspire others, so thanks for having me on.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: So we're really talking about business as usual is gone, that that phase of life and for the sector is gone, and I just can't imagine a more progressive nonprofit enterprise, social enterprise, the new story.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: And so we want to talk about, like, the latest chapter of new story.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: We love, absolutely love your team, want to give a shout out to Sarah Lee, who we've had on the podcast and dragged into lots of panels before, but you're really working to pioneer these solutions to end global homelessness and I want to thank you for that because that's an issue that is really near and dear to our family's heart.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: But we want you to kind of walk our listeners through the journey of new stories mission.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: It really hasn't changed, but your strategy has evolved over time and we just want to know like what's that journey been like?
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Talk to us about the differences between, like a traditional housing charity and like the work that new story homes is doing.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot to impact there.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: It's a duality, meaning on one hand, it's been extremely exciting and on the other hand, it's been extremely challenging, right, because when you there are pros and cons of evolving and changing, right, there are most people think of evolving or changing or innovating as having usually associated with it a lot of upside potential, and that's true.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: But it also can bring real internal and external challenges to deal with, right.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: And so you know news story has gone through quite a significant it's deeper than evolution but quite a significant change from how we started, and I'll kind of walk everybody through that.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: So you know, we started when myself and my co-founders were 24 and 25 years old.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: We're very young.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: I think in our DNA is a lot of things that we still see today, and that is that like pioneering spirit and, come on, innovation, forward and status quo challenging spirit.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: I think we also have a just a maniacal desire for learning and improving.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: I think that we also and this isn't have to be for everybody, and I genuinely mean this but we also have a desire for kind of like fundamentally more scalable solutions.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: And so you kind of add all that up and what started as an organization that was essentially funding houses with philanthropy has evolved quite significantly to how we do our work, and I'll unpack a lot of that.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: The things that haven't changed is we are incredibly passionate about vulnerable families having the opportunity to have generational changing housing and land ownership and everything that comes with that, and so that has not changed.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: And I'd say our kind of passion for kind of having a pioneering spirit to find solutions hasn't changed.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: And so we kind of went through this process of in the very beginning, our first five years we were, we were really proud of the work we did, of how we did, you know, community planning and and human centered design, and how we use technology to build houses, how we engage local workers and local materials.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: I mean so many things that I'm proud of and that we're proud of, and we honestly could have kept doing for a very long time and probably could have had great year over year growth in that model.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: But what we learned is that for the problem that we're working on, which is the global housing crisis, we would argue that maybe, aside from something else like climate change, that this is the, this is the most expensive and the largest problem in the world, and it's growing.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: If you zoom out and think about the problem, one point six billion people live in inadequate housing.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: That does not mean that every single person is, you know, experiencing homelessness on the street, but they are not living in adequate housing and that number is expected to almost double, right.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: And so you see some math on how much philanthropy would that take to solve the problem.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: And then you keep needing to put philanthropy towards it year after year, and I'm not exaggerating this number, you're talking north of twenty, twenty five trillion dollars, right, and so Doesn't work at scale.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: And so we realize that, and and we kind of went down this multi year rabbit hole of figuring out a more efficient, more sustainable and more scalable way and, over the course of those years, made many mistakes, did many things that we thought had a chance to be more sustainable and scalable, what we were wrong.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: And it took about, say, at least three years, if not more four years, to finally arrive at a clear thesis and a clear model that we are incredibly excited to scale.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: But it took a lot of wandering and learning to get there.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: So I can unpack a lot of that.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: I'd say you know news story we kind of made those decisions intentionally and when you make those decisions and you're learning, you're making changes.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: That can be hard internally on team members, on people you recruit and you find something else.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: It also could be really hard on external communication and we experienced that I'm just being really really transparent like we experienced that the last two years externally.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: If you look at news story, who is, look at our kind of growth chart over this is going to be our ninth year.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: So if you look at news stories for six years I mean we're up into the right every year getting into, you know well over 10 million in revenue year over year climbing.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: And then our last two years have been have been down revenue wise, and I think a lot of that is because you need to have more clarity With communication and we're trying to learn and figure it out and innovate because we know what's on the other side of that is worth it and it's going to be way more scalable and fundamentally More impactful.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: But the path to get there has come with a lot of challenges for us the last last couple years, to be honest, and so, all to say, I feel today, starting to 24, truly the best ever felt about the organization, about what we've learned.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: But we definitely have gone through a metamorphosis and when you go through that it can be ugly and challenging in the middle but you go through it because on the other side is a whole new life and a whole new world of opportunities that you wouldn't have if you didn't go through it.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: So that's just kind of me sharing where, where we're at right now and what it's, what it's really been like the last couple years.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Brett, I am sending you the biggest fist bump across the screen for your vulnerability to come in here and to share what this looks like, that the journey Especially when you compare it to maybe what it looks like on the outside it's messy, there's collateral damage along the way, there's things that happen that you couldn't have expected.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: But to think back and I've met some of your other co-founders like to think back that you guys were in your mid-20s With just this passion in your heart and not knowing how it's gonna take shape.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: But to still be in the game, to still be Motivated by that at this level and you're still going like.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: You deserve like some massive props and I think that is the spirit that all of us can capture from this conversation of like.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely Go ahead, get in there be.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I just interrupted you and you're talking about relentless growth, which is exactly what it is, and I and I think it's such a beautiful example as we talk about.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: It's not business as usual.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: When you're thinking creatively, I love how you're failing forward and you're so open about it and I think that there's just no shame in failing.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I think you're really getting into the heart of what it is to end that mission, that global homelessness vision, that big vision that you have, and failing is a hundred percent Gonna be a part of the equation.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: We got to start normalizing it.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree Again, I think it.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: You know, whether you're an operator or funder listening it again, it comes with its.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: It comes with very real, very real pain and scars.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: So I went through this.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: This is really phenomenal organization I recommend.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: Called people is checking out their content, called praxis labs.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: It was an accelerator I went through and they have this really beautiful concept that their CEO, dave Blanchard, talked about, and he talked about re-risking what has been working for a bigger opportunity and and for us that's really what it was about.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: And and I say this, that not everybody has to do that Like I don't.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: I don't think, when we're talking about people that are trying to help others and do good, I don't believe that the scorecard is always about numbers and scale and growth.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Right, it's it to me.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: It's not really always about that.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: There are so many ways that you can genuinely help change people's lives and that doesn't always have to require this like fundamentally, systems changing.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: You know all this first principles stuff that I'm about to talk about, that doesn't have to be for everybody and I don't think it's better than anybody For us.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: We've chosen to go that path, so we've chosen to say we Genuinely believe that there is a real chance of news story impacting tens of millions of people, and so we want to design the organization to give us the best opportunity to do that, and that shows up in how we want to accomplish our mission, that shows up in this, in the strategy layer, and that's what all the learning has evolved to is what is the, what is the highest leverage strategy to achieve that bigger, more scalable mission for us?
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: And and so that's a lot of what we've done.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: You know, we took something that was working really well from a metric standpoint.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: If you were just to measure, you're over your growth of revenue, you're over your growth of homes.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: You know, our first six years were we're right up there with probably anybody, and, and we basically said we're gonna intentionally Change this because we think that there's an opportunity that could be, over time, a thousand times they arguably a million times bigger potential, but we're gonna have to go through some really hard times to get there, and so that's that's what we're kind of coming out of right now, and I'm speaking about it because I've been in it.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: We've been in it the last couple years and we're finally seeing, like, what the other side of that looks like and, despite all the challenges, it was a hundred percent the right move for our mission.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I mean really grateful for you sharing that because, like I mentioned this, there's something here for everybody.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: You don't have to be solving global homelessness To apply these principles of how you can show up with innovation, to keep getting better, to make sure you're focused on the right Metrics that matter, and all these things like I just I wonder if you would share Brett in your mind.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I mean innovations like get you in your DNA as you as people, but also like as an organization.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: I mean what opportunities do you think are there as you look around in the nonprofit space?
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: What opportunities are there if we lean more into innovation from your perspective?
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think if, if you want to Really try to solve Problems at a bigger scale, you've got to come at them in a different way than what the kind of status quo is doing.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Right, and so you know, in some sense that could look like on kind of the shiniest side Innovation can look like, for, in our case, a new type of technology to build houses.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Right, that's yes, that's 10 out of 10 on the innovation scale.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: But there's this whole other side that I think is just as innovative, if not more innovative.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: That, I think, applies to more people listening and it's really looking at the fundamental status quo Model and a given example for a news story and then thinking how could that be better or different on the financing side?
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: So what news story realized is we could be the best in the world, like a truly world-class, at designing lower-cost houses and using really cool technology to do that, a really cool architecture, which we're still doing, by the way.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: It's very important for us.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: What we realized was like how does it get funded at scale?
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, yeah, is it philanthropy?
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Is it government?
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: Is it which is now what we're doing?
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Is it essentially the capital markets, which is home financing and lending Like if you're listening in the US, it's more what you would know, right, is you're able to qualify for a certain type of home loan with a certain type of interest rate, et cetera, and we're like, okay, we think that's the much bigger opportunity is to help this massive underserved population, to help them have a chance to access affordable housing finance.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: And so we spent a lot of our time now thinking about finance, housing finance, and what are the mechanics that need to happen with credit profile, collateralization, all these things that add up to where that thing is.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: And so we had to add up to where that family actually has a real, fair shot and path to get affordable housing finance that can then create generational changing impact and wealth and all the things.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: So innovation to us wasn't just about building the house.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: It was about how does it get financed.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: I didn't think that was going to be the thing we'd focus on when we started a new story, but we realized over time with our learnings, that that was the biggest opportunity.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: If we could change that, then that would have the biggest impact.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I'm so stinking proud of you guys, like my mama, heart could burst in what you all have done, because I just think that, as we've been trained in philanthropy either as kids or just you know, professionals in the sector we have such a myopic view of what we think we're doing.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: It's like homelessness, but we don't think about the things behind us that are absolutely impeding someone from being a homeowner.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Bravo, on leaving into you.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Call them learnings.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, we call them pilots, whatever it is.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: We talk about pilots this year.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: You just got to try stuff, and I just think about someone who's listening to this episode right now and they're feeling that nudge to embrace this trend of it's no longer business as usual for their organization.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: What advice would you give them?
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, what is unlocked when we reimagine historical models, programs and then we literally what you said take these big, bold risks that may not pay out in the short term, but if you're really committed to core value number two of we Are, for Good, playing the long game, what's over the horizon is so much bigger than what we can actually dream.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I would love for you to unpack that.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: I love that you said that I think playing the long game and I talked about this in the past Other places like to me that's probably one of the top three, if not the number one most valuable mindsets If you truly want to make a large dent in something, because it changes your calculation on things.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: So, for example, if I'm just trying to optimize for the next year and the metrics for that year or even the year after, like I showed you new stories metrics last two years have been basically down right, but we were willing to forego that and we still didn't want them to be down right, so we prioritized certain things that we thought would set us up better for 2030.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And that long term thinking especially when you're able to sit down and look at it like at a bigger picture, in totality over 10 years or even 20 years and I know that may sound like a long time to people listening and it is but if you're truly able to think that long, it just helps with a lot of the short term challenges and issues that you go through because you're playing the long game, you're not playing the short term game, and I think in society so many people try to optimize myself included, can be the first one to do this.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: We try to optimize for the short term optics, right.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: We try to optimize for so many things that show up in the next three, six, nine, 12 months.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: And it's not to say that stuff isn't important, but it's not the most important.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: It's secondary and primary is playing and strategizing and setting your organization up in your mission for the long term.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: I didn't even really start thinking about a lot of what we're doing today for at least five years, and what really struck my mind was it's so normal the gravitational pull is to pull you into what you've seen before, what works or what you think works, and it's very scarce to truly go into and I'm going to unpack what this means to us what truly go into, what we call very first principles thinking, and I'm going to explain that for us and people can look up really first principles.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: They come out of Silicon Valley but it's allowed a lot of technology companies to get started.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: It's a lot of what Elon Musk did with his companies is they really went from a first principles standpoint.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: And so, for a new story, if you were to ask somebody that cared about people having housing, how do you help somebody get a house.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of different layers that would go into that At the highest basic level, especially as a charity or new story charity.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: You would and I'm going to say things without I'm not judging these things at all, I'm really not, I'm just kind of going through an order.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: So, like you would say, somebody goes and does a volunteer trip to build houses right, it's one way to do it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: You would say we raise a bunch of philanthropy 100 million, like new stories raised, more than that and we then take that philanthropy and we build really beautiful houses for people in need and they take care of them, and that's an awesome way to do it right.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: And then you could go deeper.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: You keep going layers down.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: You could say, well, maybe that family could get part of their 50% of their mortgage subsidized, right, and it's like, okay, that makes sense, you're really helping them.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: Then you get kind of all the way to the bottom, which is where we are now of this kind of these layers, and if we're thinking what is the most scalable, highest leverage thing, that if we helped, do you know XX and X that would lead to the biggest outcomes.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: And so for us, from a first principle standpoint, what we've learned is that if a family can actually own a piece of land that has property rights and has legal land title and that that land wasn't given to them, they actually paid for that land at affordable rates, and then we they're able to also pay for kind of like infrastructure, like you know, basic urbanization, which would be like electricity or things close by, so it's not just out in the middle of nowhere, not connected to anything.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: If they've paid for their land, if they have legal land title and property rights that the municipality signs off on, and that they have services or urbanization as well in that area, that family's story is 10, almost a hundred times better to then go get a mortgage or to get housing finance and new story doesn't have to provide the housing finance.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: The housing finance can come through local banks or local partners that we help set up and we've basically brought them qualified customers that have the credit profile and the collateralization that they would look at to underwrite as a customer that they wanna work with right.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: So for new stories thinking it's like, wow, if we can help a family get a really good piece of land that they can own with legal title, they can pay for it.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: You know we have a few other things that come in and help.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Then that's actually the thing that sets them up to get a $20,000, $30,000 housing loan to build their house.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: That new story doesn't have to provide because there's hundreds of billions, of billions, if not more a few trillion dollars worth of capital out there that would finance that.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: So they kind of just go down.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: And the biggest thing we learned from the first principle standpoint is how do you help that family have a path where they can have a credit profile and kind of the collateralization where they can actually onboard and join the economy, the housing market, and so that's what we found, is, in our opinion, you know, the kind of highest leverage thing we can do that will give the most people a chance at a path to life changing, home ownership.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: And so for anybody listening, there's so many different things that you could think about for your sector, your industry, that you just start going down these layers of like.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: What is the truly like the foundational thing that you can do from a first principles perspective that would have the biggest unlock for people to be part of that.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: And I'll say one more thing on that.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: So for philanthropy new story is kind of original model, which was again something I'm really proud of, but it was more or less raised philanthropy and then it was very cherry based.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: So homes were, there was a little more to it, but they were basically given to families right.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: The amount of philanthropy needed per person to help one person have life changing housing, which is still will sound low to people, was about $3,000 per person in philanthropy.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: But again, 1.6 billion people times $3,000 per person, if you try to do math it's gonna break the calculator.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: So what our new model has done with our evolution is that it's less than $100 per person in philanthropy needed for that family, that person, to have a shot at life changing housing.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: And we're thinking get even lower.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: The culture you have is you're really great at asking questions and center in community in this decision.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: They have the answers.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Let's just keep like iterating, you know, and ask better and better questions.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: So I mean, brett, y'all live in this vortex between business and social impact and nonprofit all the things you get to see philanthropy take shape in a real literal form.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Through this evolution, we create space to celebrate the moments that have just like pinged our hearts and stick with us.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you would take a minute and just take us back to a moment of philanthropy that really changed you as a person.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: I have two that came that come to mind that you know we're extremely life changing.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: You know one and this goes back to things I was saying earlier like I genuinely don't think that one path is is better than the other.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: They're just different.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: They're just different paths, right.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: And so for me, news story almost 100% would not have been started if I didn't take a basically a mission strip to Haiti and got to experience seeing families that were struggling after the 2010 earthquake, and we went down with an amazing organization called Mission of Hope and we were using philanthropy to help families get out of living in tents and to be, you know, to have new homes very small, you know, homes that were much better than tents and you know, seeing that in person, which was entirely funded by philanthropy, was completely life changing, changed my life trajectory.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: That was the thing that you know caught my heart and I wanted to learn more about as a 23 year old kid.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: And then the second thing was kind of right around that time, I had a, I had a for profit start up before this and we started partnering with with charity water, and I got to meet Scott Harrison and Scott's a close friend now and advisor, and his wife, vic, has actually been on our board of directors for a few years.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: She's talked about you on this podcast.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: It's really cool, yeah, yeah.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so, like you know, getting to experience what charity water has done for people and the impact that philanthropy can make all around the world through clean water is something that you know, I give to today, I think, is extremely life changing, and so those would be.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: Those would be two that come to mind for me that have personally affected my life and my trajectory of my life.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Love that I mean.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: These stories never get old and just the formative feeling.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: And I could tell you, julie, our producer also went to Haiti right after the 2010 earthquake, two spring breaks there had the same experience and I just think, when you can see it and you can touch it, and it's humanized with a face, everything changes and that's really our challenges mission.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: So we end all of our podcast, brett, with a one good thing, and I wonder what would be your one good thing?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: A piece of advice, life hack.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: What would you give to our audience today?
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: I'll probably try to keep to a theme we've talked about.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: I would say try to try to put a day, a full day, on your calendar in the next 90 days for whether you run an organization or you're part of the organization, and try to just really zoom out.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Try not to think about the current strategy that you have and just really try to ask yourself some of these questions of you know, what would a first principles, more kind of foundational solution look like for the problem that I'm passionate about?
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: And just allow yourself to dream some, to think, maybe get some inspiration of what you can go learn and just try to start thinking that way.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: You know, try to start thinking a little more out the box, that if something you know, deeper down into the foundation of the problem, like I kind of went through those examples.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: For us it started with, you know, a family just using philanthropy to give, to help them get a house, and now new story is that, well, how do we help them get land, and etc.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: And so I think that there's stories like that in all the causes we care about.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: They definitely don't all have to look the same, but I think us thinking that way is really productive and is fun to think about.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: So that would be my one good thing.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I love that advice.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I want to leave right now and go do that and step away.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: This has been an honor.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I wonder, if you just kind of link up, where do you show up online?
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: How can people follow you?
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: How can you connect with new story homes, all of the things?
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Just drop those links for us.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, new stories URL and our social handle is new story, homes, so newstoryhomesorg, and then you can social.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Actually, it's just a new story and then for me, probably most active on Twitter.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: So just my name, brett Hagler, awesome.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: I'm with you.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I still call it Twitter.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I never will.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, thanks.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Twitter so there we go Really really appreciate you coming and visiting with us today.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: All right, thank you, becky and John Appreciate it.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Friends, and you probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: We'd love for you to come join our good community.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Sign up today at weareforgoodcom.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Backslash hello.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: And one more thing if you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating interview?
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, friends.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Can't wait for our next conversation.