Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 357. Adopting the Startup Mentality to Build Resilient Organizations - Dominic Kalms

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357. Adopting the Startup Mentality to Build Resilient Organizations - Dominic Kalms · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey friends, are you like us and tired of seeing your donors online gifts get slashed by credit card fees, platform fees and all the other fees hiding in the fine print?
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• 0:29
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• 0:38
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• 0:51
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• 1:14
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, I'm Jon.
• 1:15
  Becky Endicott: And I'm Becky.
• 1:16
  Jonathan McCoy: And this is the We Are For Good podcast,
• 1:18
  Becky Endicott: 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.
• 1:27
  Jonathan McCoy: 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.
• 1:36
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 1:47
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. Becky, what's up?
• 1:51
  Becky Endicott: I'm excited to like, give the community and exhale today because we know a lot of you and we've been getting a lot of information and feedback from you all that you're really anxious, and trepidatious about what seems to be an impending recession that's coming toward us. And it's like what does that mean to us now we know what it kind of meant pre pandemic, but now that the world has shifted, and the way that we interact is so different in the digital explosion that we're sitting in, you know, between purpose and impact in our businesses. So it's my great joy to introduce Dominic Kalms, he's the CEO and founder at B Generous. And he's also the president at Giving GVNG. And he is just an expert in building resilient organizations, particularly in fundraising practices for economic downturns and challenging times. But I got to tell you a little bit about Dominic, because your story Dominic is extreme and amazing.
• 2:45
  Becky Endicott: And I love the winding nature of it. He's a three time venture backed entrepreneur and philanthropist with this interest in FinTech, nonprofit charitable giving, and how to fuse them all together. So he's raised over 120 million in venture and philanthropic capital in his career. So we think he knows what he's talking about. So he is also just trying to revolutionize how people donate to nonprofits through this advent of the first ever philanthropic credit product.
• 3:15
  Becky Endicott: And B Generous is just that, and we're like, can't wait to dive into what that is and what that means to the sector. And I just got to drop some of the stuff you casually have buried at the bottom of your resume, which is like you sit on the board of forest Whitaker's Foundation, Val Kilmer's Foundation, you're a member of the Forbes nonprofit Council. And I just think, you know, yours is an incredible story. We can't wait to hear it.
• 3:42
  Becky Endicott: So get into our house, Dominic, and just let us get to know you.
• 3:45
  Becky Endicott: Thanks for making time.
• 3:50
  Dominic Kalms: Yes, thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be with you guys today. And I'm excited to be able to share some of my insights about the industry and what we're doing and of course, will we built with B Generous, I think it'd be a great conversation.
• 4:01
  Becky Endicott: I do too, because I think your story is I look back through the layers of some of it that we've seen. It's really at the intersection of so many hands coming to the table, whether that's business or philanthropy or the everyday donor or tech, you've worked in so many different circles, and it appears that you have just put hands together and the way that they can, but we don't think that just happens. We think that you know, how we've lived and our lived experience and where we've grown up really informs where we are today. So we want to know about you like take us back. Where did you grow up? Tell us about little Dominic and how he was pulled into this work.
• 4:40
  Dominic Kalms: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:40
  Dominic Kalms: It's so it is a pretty interesting story. I know. I'm sure everybody says that. But I am. I was born in Asia actually.
• 4:44
  Dominic Kalms: So I lived in China in Hong Kong. I was born in Hong Kong, and I lived there for first four years of my life, which was a great experience. I then moved to London, England, and lived there for about 10 years. is, and it's kind of a wild story because so my grandfather, you know, grew up very poor. And when he was 16 years old, he dropped out of high school to sell cameras to essentially try to make some money for our family. And he started this small camera shop in London called Dixon's and grew that into the largest consumer electronics company in Europe today. So now that that company has 45,000 employees, 2000 stores, I mean, it's just it's like Best Buy, essentially, it's like one on every street corner in the UK, and Western Europe.
• 5:31
  Dominic Kalms: And so he, he ended up getting knighted by the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth, which was incredible at the palace that was like, just unbelievable. And then he ended up getting into the House of Lords. So he's Lord Stanley Kalms, he's 91 years old. And he's in the House of Lords. And I tell him a little bit backstory, because he doesn't even have a high school degree.
• 5:47
  Dominic Kalms: And he built this incredible electronics empire. So I like to think that my somehow some of my entrepreneurial skills come from him. So then moved to LA went to high school here. And then I moved to university when I moved to New York City, went to university in grad school. And basically, that's kind of where my journey into what I call PhilTech philanthropy technology really began. I graduated from Columbia University. I'd studied international affairs and economics and did my did my master's degree. And I didn't know what I wanted to do, like a lot of people when they graduated. And so I decided, well, what's everybody else doing and like, my whole graduating class went to work for Wall Street. Surprise, surprise. I was like, I guess I'm supposed to do that, too.
• 6:29
  Dominic Kalms: So, you know, young, naive, didn't know what the hell I was doing. So I went to go work for Wall Street. And I was at some of the there was a two of the big banks. And I was not happy.
• 6:39
  Dominic Kalms: It's just to put it mildly. And I came to my, I came to my boss one day abruptly, and I was like, I'm quitting. He was shocked. And I quit in order to write articles for a think tank at $400 a pop. So I mean, literally, I was I was broke, like I was, I was writing three articles a month. So I was making $1,200 a month at a think tank in Washington, DC. And I was so happy, even though I couldn't make my rent, and I was struggling, I was so happy doing. I was like, This is what I want to do in my life, forget banking. And so I, I interviewed actually, on Afghanistan, I did an interview on BBC World News about Afghanistan, because I had written my senior dissertation at Columbia, on Afghanistan. And through a really round strange series of coincidences ended up meeting the ambassador of Afghanistan. And he hired me as a political aide during this during the war in Afghanistan.
• 7:31
  Dominic Kalms: So essentially, it joined as a political aide to the Afghanistan Ambassador during the war in Afghanistan, it was this incredible position. I literally, I'm not exaggerating, was representing Afghanistan at the United Nations and various committees. It was it was a wild experience. So I did that for a bit. And then I decided, well, actually, what happened was, I got a call from somebody in the chairman's office of the Senate Finance Committee, and they were looking for a political associate or a political adviser. And I thought this is this is it, this is what I want to do with my life, I wanted to be in national politics. Now remember, this is well before the craziness of the last eight years. Things were normal. It wasn't like the disaster that it is today. Now, I wouldn't, I mean, you couldn't pay me to even come to Washington, DC and the current environment, but it was a lot more normal. So I ended up taking this position, and I was the youngest associate in the chairman's office of the Senate Finance Committee. I was in my like, mid 20s. And I was on Capitol Hill, I was working in the upper chamber and the chairman's office, it was incredible. And so I was there for a while, and really got to see how government worked. I mean, like, really, really in depth, got to see how it worked.
• 8:40
  Dominic Kalms: Very interesting experience, but ultimately came to the same conclusion, like, I'm not helping anybody, you know, like I did this work to help people.
• 8:48
  Dominic Kalms: That's why I wanted to go into government, you definitely don't go to government for money, right? So you go into government to help people. I wasn't helping anybody. And so I'm like, there's, there's got to be there has to be a better way where you can help people and make some sort of sustainable living and live your life in a meaningful way. And so I ended up after a while on the Senate Finance Committee, I came to the chief of staff there, and I said, Thanks, but I'm moving on to my next thing. I'm still searching I'm young enough that I can make these reckless decisions, basically. And so I came out to LA and I met up with a guy named Trevor Nielsen who had started a company called Global Philanthropy Group, which was one of the first private philanthropic consulting firms in the United States. And he, we basically I joined and eventually was running business development for the firm. And over the next four years, that company grew into really becoming the preeminent philanthropic consulting firm in the country, and was then acquired by Charity Network in 2017. And during my time there I you know, I helped start running operate the foundations for Kobe Bryant Madonna, Miley Cyrus, Eva Longoria, John Legend, Forest Whitaker, our clients were Facebook and Gucci, American Apparel, the Getty family, the Buffett family, it was like this incredible group of people whose philanthropic work I got to you know, I got to help build out and we're gotten. So I really developed a strong understanding of philanthropy, having done that for, you know, for years, and then after the acquisition, I was like, Okay, this is what I want to do with my life, profit and purpose, helping people and waking up every day and trying to make the world a better place. But making an income that I can sustain myself off of, because the money on Capitol Hill, like the not possible to live in this environment, with with the paycheck they gave you, which at the end of the day is is self defeating I think. So, at that point, that's when I started giving that company I told you about earlier, which is the simplest way to call it is Forbes called us to Shopify, for nonprofits. I ran that company for six years as a CEO, company's done great. And then at the beginning of 2021, I came to my board and I'm like, I'd like to step out as CEO. And they were shocked. These were my VC investors, I raised a couple rounds of VC financing. They were shocked. They were like, why this is your company. And I said, because I'm starting something new, called B Generous. And they asked me to do it wasn't explained it to them. And not only did many of them invest in be generous, but they gave me their blessing and said, we'd like you to be the president of giving, and stay on the board, and help us find our next CEO. So I found our next CEO, He's great. He's been there for two years. I'm the president of giving to them on the board giving is awesome. And I started this just incredibly cool company called B Generous, which I'll tell you guys about later.
• 11:20
  Dominic Kalms: But that's been the journey kind of between, you know, being born essentially and now.
• 11:26
  Jonathan McCoy: Holy heck, yeah.
• 11:26
  Jonathan McCoy: Your story.
• 11:27
  Becky Endicott: Did you think we were about to get that story?
• 11:29
  Becky Endicott: When I asked that question, Jon, I mean, it, it is so important to ask, because I see your granddad's like vision, and moxie in you. And you positively light up. When you talk about it, you're in the space you need to be in. And it's just, it's just fascinating.
• 11:50
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, it runs in your blood, it's in your bones, you know, and I think we love talking to founders just because of how they show up, they create the change they want to see in the world. And you've done that numerous times over.
• 12:01
  Jonathan McCoy: But you also just have this startup mentality about you, you know, that you don't see the walls. And I think that's got to point to your international experience and just your broad worldview kind of colliding at this moment. So, you know, we're big proponents of this idea that nonprofits need to think more like a business, not become business and like, do all those things. But like, just adopt some of the principles, especially in startup life that could really revolutionize we call it grow, adapt, disrupt, repeat as some of our values.
• 12:28
  Jonathan McCoy: Can you kind of paint a picture?
• 12:28
  Jonathan McCoy: What do you think are some of those principles from startup life that nonprofits could adopt today and really infuse energy into what their work?
• 12:36
  Dominic Kalms: Well, it's a great question. I think, I think the first thing to understand is that nonprofits are corporations, legally, I mean, legally a net when you incorporate a nonprofit, what you're doing is you're incorporating a corporation at a state level, right. So that's just like the misnomer of a nonprofit. And it's a terrible name nonprofit, by the way, because it prevents innovation from coming into this space.
• 12:55
  Dominic Kalms: Because for better or worse, what drives innovation in the United States is the almighty dollar. For the most part, there are true believers and true altruists out there. But people are incentivized to innovate in industries, because they think at the end of the day, they can make a sustainable living, they can make a lot of money, whatever it might be, whether you agree with that or not. That is definitely I believe, to be the case. And so if you call something a nonprofit, you are taking out the primary motivator of innovation in the United States. And so I think the name does not do a lot of service to the industry, right? Which is the reason that I like to say the industry has been largely ignored by the big Silicon Valley tech companies, which is why my career being at the intersection of profit and purpose and being in FinTech, specifically for nonprofits is not only kind of unique, but also you can have success in industry without battling 500 competitors, because there aren't 500 competitors. Right.
• 13:44
  Dominic Kalms: That's kind of the point. So I think to answer your question, you know, when you're running a startup, I'm I'm running my third startup now, especially one that's venture capital backed or VC backed, the number one lesson I would give everybody is that you need to be almost delusional in your optimism, right? You need to be so optimistic, and so delusional in that optimism that you think you can do everything. Because otherwise, there's no point in even starting these ventures.
• 14:09
  Dominic Kalms: There's no point in if you don't believe you fundamentally believe that you can do it.
• 14:14
  Dominic Kalms: Don't start. That's honestly what I would say. Because it's so difficult. It's so difficult to successfully start and run a nonprofit, it's so difficult to successfully run and potentially exit a startup, that you have to have almost a borderline silly belief in yourself that, Oh, of course, I could do this, right?
• 14:33
  Dominic Kalms: Why Why wouldn't I be able to do this? This person did it? Of course, I could do it. Well, the reality is like, it's actually a relatively small percentage of people that run these organizations, startups or nonprofits to an actual level of sustainability. And you have to believe when you're raising money from other people, when asking them for their hard earned dollars, whether it's an investment or a philanthropic gift, you have to believe like that you're gonna be able to sustain the venture. And I think so I think you have to have this sort of like delusional optimism and and self confidence, if you will, and yourself. Luckily, I'm a little delusional. And I've always been that way. It's also delusional self confidence to like I, you know, my whole life, people always said to me, like, you're very confident and not narcissistic, because I am not like that. But confidence and belief in yourself is a different thing. And you need that you really do you need that it's actually a skill that needs that you need to have in order to do something like this be a CEO or an executive director or whatnot. So I think that's, I mean, there are many lessons, but that's one that I think is really important, psychologically, to sustain the ups and downs of a journey like this. So I would say that's the most important one.
• 16:08
  Becky Endicott: I could not agree more with you. And I think that we talk so much about mindsets on this podcast, because when you're doing something, as you know, to your point, reckless or crazy as going out and asking somebody for millions of dollars, or, you know, that seems ludicrous, to many people, and every fundraiser has had somebody in their life, say, I cannot believe that you ask somebody for money, you know, I could never do that. And I think your point is well taken that if you have the mindset of, well, I'm not asking somebody for money, I'm asking somebody to join me in this opportunity that going to change the world, and we think it's going to fill their hearts. That's a shift. And that can bring that confidence. And so love this challenge of sort of embracing the innovation, embracing the risk, failing forward and knowing that that's a part of the process. And you're right, we don't have a lot of space, or elbow room to try that not in our budgets and nonprofit, not with what we want to do in our programming and our mission delivery. So talk to us about, like that mindset of resilience and talk about how we can build resilient organizations and some of the key pillars that can make us sort of lean into those moments rather than lean against them.
• 17:29
  Dominic Kalms: Yeah, I It's a great question. I mean, the first thing is, you know, like, what percentage of people when they're starting an organization to start up a nonprofit, or trying to raise let's say,$100,000, probably a high percentage of people, it's relatively not that much money, it's attainable. But what percentage of people are trying to raise $50 million, a lot less just percentage wise, a lot less people will want that. So what I always say is, if from a competitive standpoint, if you want to be competing with the least number of people aim for the stars, right? Aim for the thing that people are not getting asked every day, don't go ask and ask for $100,000. Ask for something, that is, it doesn't have to be outrageous, by the way, doesn't have to be 50 million, it could be a million, whatever. But whatever your organization needs to really sustain itself, put yourself in that position, be bold, and you're going to be competing with a field of probably one, if I'm if I'm a venture capitalist, if I'm a philanthropist, and I have 100 meetings that day, I guarantee you 100 meetings are going to be can you 50k 100k 150k, whatever it is, but if you're the one person who says we're looking for a million dollars, I'd love you to be part of that story or whatever, you're going to be remembered you're going to be that person is bold, that person has a vision that people want to be around people like that people want to coalesce around someone with a vision, people want to be around someone who's ambitious as hell. And so I think like, I think that's the first thing that I would say, which is just aim for the stars.
• 18:45
  Dominic Kalms: And just by virtue of the fact of your ask being so such an outlier in whatever field it is, you are inherently competing with a much smaller group of people for the same amount of resources, right? There's a famous saying in Silicon Valley, you know, it's easier to raise$100 million than it is to raise a million dollars, something to that effect, right. And I think there's a lot of truth to that.
• 19:05
  Dominic Kalms: Secondly, in terms of building resilient organizations, I think always this is more of a practical tip. But I think always doubling or tripling the time and cost of doing anything is an important one for budgeting and forecasting. So if you if you really think, Oh, I only need $100,000 to sustain me to meet XYZ goal, you probably should be raising 250k something in that order. And you oh, it's only gonna take me a month to do this, well, probably more like three months. Because I mean, you know, imagine if a couple years ago, I told you, hey, in a year from now, we're all going to be at home wearing masks and getting vaccinated and the world is going to collapse literally.
• 19:39
  Dominic Kalms: Yeah, everyone would have laughed me out of the room. It was ridiculous, right? And yet we have the COVID-19 pandemic, or if in 2007, I said, you know, in a year from now, there's gonna be an economic meltdown, called the subprime mortgage crash, millions of jobs are gonna be lost, the banking sector is going to be on the border, and the border are collapsing. Everybody when he told me I'm crazy, right, so outliers happen. You know, definitionally, obviously, not that often, but they do happen.
• 20:01
  Dominic Kalms: And so you need to be prepared for things like that. And I think it's, it's, it's very easy for me to preach about raising more money and having more resources, everything but to the extent that someone can control this, and the extent that they can control their own destiny and say, I have the ability to raise what I need now. I would just say plan to raise a lot more money than you initially think you need and plan for it to take three to four times as long because nothing happens according to timeline, right.
• 20:24
  Dominic Kalms: There's another famous quote, life gets in the way when you're making plans right or life happens when you're busy making plans or Mike Tyson has a great quote. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Right. So, as an entrepreneur, I get punched in the face 10 times a day figuratively. And it's honestly essential. You have a plan, you wake up in the morning, okay, these are the 10 things I'm going to do. And then 50 fires break out of your organization or whatever it might be. And you know, you have a plan and you get punched in the face. And then you're like, Well, I gotta react to it. So, you know, being an entrepreneur, is in a funny ways, like being punched in the face every day, every day. So it's a good quote, I think.
• 21:02
  Becky Endicott: Taking a quick pause from today's episode to thank our sponsor, who also happens to be one of our favorite companies Virtuous, you know, we believe everyone matters. And we've witnessed the greatest philanthropic movements happen when you both see and activate donors at every level.
• 21:16
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• 21:19
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• 21:40
  Jonathan McCoy: Well, I think like threading kind of these first two kind of pillars we've talked about today, I think that there's something to what's the mindset? What's the scarcity that can be happening in people that are working for nonprofits, fun on the front runs, frontlines of fundraising, that can be even holding you back from asking for that bigger gift to you know, because of your own limited scarcity mindset? How is that, you know, impairing how we're showing up? And I think that's something that we need to talk about. Because, I mean, you came from that place, too. I mean, going from like, gonna say paycheck to paycheck is like Article to Article to like, sitting across and having these kind of high level conversations is a big change of just your personal growth, too. So I wonder if you'd speak to that?
• 22:26
  Dominic Kalms: Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right, it I think what you're getting at is a lot, a lot of this has to do with mindset. And mindset really is a sizable percentage of what I think makes people successful, right? There's, I don't mean to be quoting all day, but there's all these interesting quotes about the subject to, you know, Thomas Edison said, I've never failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work. And I just, you know, as an entrepreneur, like, it's just a brilliant quote, because failure, you really can't fail if you don't accept that you've ever failed, right? If you just say, well, it's just a work in progress, I'm still working on it, then you by definition have not failed, because it's a work in progress. You're still working on it, right? So I might, you know, like, everyone knows the famous story of JK Rowling applied to, you know, hundreds of publishing outlets and got got rejected from all of that, where Michael Jordan got cut from his basketball team, Albert Einstein flunked that math class. These are outliers, obviously. So I mean, there's millions of people that flunk that amount, math class that didn't go on to become Albert Einstein. And I realized that of course, but the stories are inspirational. And I think it has to do a lot with mindset.
• 23:19
  Dominic Kalms: You know, Michael Jordan also said, you know, I you miss, or Wayne Gretzky, or Jordan, and I said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And that's really the philosophy of being an entrepreneur. I mean, if you don't take a shot, you're guaranteed to miss it. Right? So I think for me, this is something that I could say, luckily, I haven't struggled with, I have no shame at all, in terms of approaching people asking for the things that I think I need or want to do. But it is for a lot of people it is it is challenging to do that.
• 23:47
  Dominic Kalms: Right. They feel like they don't deserve it. They feel like they're, it's inappropriate, whatever it is. But I think the reality is, people are gravitate toward other people who they find to be bold, audacious, and have momentum around them. And really, perception in many ways is reality, you might not really be bold and audacious and have this momentum. But if you were perceived in that way, you're gonna gravitate a lot more people toward you and your mission and what your galvanizing and what you're trying to do. So I think there's a little bit of fake it till you make it mentality, for sure. But this stuff really has to go has to do with mindset, which is just so powerful. So yeah, I mean, that's what I think.
• 24:22
  Becky Endicott: I agree with you. And I also think that if you're someone who says, I'm not a bold human being, I don't like putting myself out there. It's like, I don't think you're putting yourself out there. I think the mindset shift there would be, tell that story of your nonprofit, tell the story of the one human, tell the story of how you saw life change, because your mission existx. The superpower is how you show up and cast that vision, just share the story because you radically believe in what you're doing, and let that passion translate.
• 24:57
  Becky Endicott: So I think you just have this way about you, Dominic, where you can just look at creativity and tech and look at it a different way. So if we've learned anything over the last few years, it's that creative fundraising and digital fundraising is an absolute must to innovate in advance. So talk to us about how you've seen this model, and everything else that's coming into play right now during the digital explosion. Talk to us about what you're seeing and what opportunity there is for nonprofits to lean in now.
• 25:32
  Dominic Kalms: Yeah, I mean, I think you one of the things that I think is a no brainer that I've seen happening more now, but I've been preaching I've been evangelizing or preaching this for 10 years is, why are we? Why are we not in, we being people in the philanthropy and frankly, tech world, why are we not learning from all the success that technology companies have had in the ecommerce world? Right? As I mentioned, right at the start of the podcast profit, profit is the driver of innovation in the United States or making money that's the driver of innovation in the United States for better or worse. And so what you have is extraordinary innovation has occurred in the banking world, in the payment processing world, in the online buying and ecommerce world; extraordinary innovation, credit products, lending products, different ways of paying new payment processors, different ways of making money, saving money all the variety of the Buy Now pay later revolution happened to the E commerce world, the the digital banking world Pay Pal, I mean, look at all these these are incredibly recent innovations. PayPal is less than 25 years old, right? I mean, eBay, you think the innovation so what I've been saying for the last 10 years I now see happening is let's learn from what these guys did. These men and women did. And let's bring that and adapt these tools to do something good in the world.
• 26:42
  Dominic Kalms: Because that's the key if you can take these incredibly innovative tools that people have made to make money, by the way, buy more useless crap. And you can say, hey, let's Let's actually use this to make to create enough to solve the inefficiencies in the philanthropic market. Imagine how much capital you can unleash that trickles down to the organizations and of course, you hope it trickles down to the people on the ground that need the help. So I think I'm seeing that a lot now Donate now pay later, our company was inspired, undoubtedly by the by now pay later revolution. And, in fact, I am close friends with the founding COO, Chief Operations Officer of a firm, which is the largest Buy now pay later company in North America. I am I am friendly with the CEO of Pay Pal, which has the largest Buy now pay later company in North America's largest final payment from North America, we have learned from these organizations about ways that they've been able to create these brilliant products to help sell more stuff to people. And we've adapted them to, to create new ways to donate. And I see that in crypto as well. I'm sure you guys have crypto people on here all the time. My friend Alex Wilson is the CEO of the Giving Block.
• 27:51
  Dominic Kalms: They're an incredible company, which allows people
• 27:53
  Becky Endicott: We love them.
• 27:53
  Becky Endicott: Pat's been on.
• 27:55
  Dominic Kalms: Pat and Alex are friends of mine. And, and we we have a partnership with The Giving Block that we're creating as we speak, we're doing a joint webinar with them in two weeks.
• 28:03
  Dominic Kalms: They're awesome. But that's a great company as well, like, you know, taking again, the promise of crypto, which was used to create, essentially another way of fiat currency and saying, Hey, let's, let's adapt it to the philanthropic space. So I see this revolution happening partially because of COVID. It was sort of necessitated, and I ultimately do think it's a very good thing. And I'm pretty excited to see, you know, companies like mine and others, like where we can go over the next 10 years.
• 28:27
  Jonathan McCoy: Well, I mean, you know, it's the power, the threat of philanthropy that really can access. I know, it's a part huge part of your story.
• 28:32
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, how cool to be on the ground floor with some of these incredible creators in the space, artists that use their I hate to use the word celebrity, but that to just power people and get people active. You know, we love small stories. We love big stories. What's one that kind of resonates in your heart if we think about the power of philanthropy in your life?
• 28:52
  Dominic Kalms: Yeah, I mean, it's a great question, I think.
• 28:56
  Dominic Kalms: You know, I think okay, so here's a good one. If you remember during the fires in, okay, so about maybe, I guess, maybe like seven, eight years ago, there was something called the Woolsey fires in Malibu, and LA, I live in LA. And they burned down a sizable portion of what of Malibu, like really burned it to the ground. And one of my clients at the time was Miley Cyrus, the, the famous singer. And she had started a nonprofit called the Malibu Foundation on my platform, giving the company that I told you about them. I started and am President now, and her house had actually burned down to the ground.
• 29:35
  Becky Endicott: I remember that
• 29:36
  Dominic Kalms: in Malibu, yeah, her this is when she was with her ex husband, and they burned down. And so basically, you know, her report, people called me up and said, Hey, Miley wants to start the Malibu Foundation on your platform Giving, they're going to raise a couple million dollars, let's get going. So we started it for them. And they raised their money through our infrastructure. And we they started to do all this press about it. And one day I get a call from a woman saying, hey, is this Dominic from the Malibu Foundation? I said, Well, I'm the CEO of Giving, but the Malibu Foundation is one of our clients, you know, what can I do for you? And she said, Well, I live in a mobile home like an RV home, and I live in the largest mobile park in Malibu, and it's, you know, lower income people that don't have much and all we really had was the beautiful views of Malibu and we didn't have a lot else and the mobile home basically the mobile park basically burned to the ground during the Woolsey fires like 70% of the park burned to the ground these people's homes, these people's mobile homes. She says there anything you could do for us? And I said, yeah, there is something let me let me talk to Miley and her team and see what we can do. So we spoke to Miley's team. And they ended up giving them a huge grant to basically rebuild their lives. I mean, this was not like fluffy stuff. This was like, I need money that live. One of the one of the women said to me, my, my mother's 92 years old lives in this mobile Park, her house, her her Parker, mobile home burned to the ground, and she has nothing else can you help us and Miley gave them a couple$100,000. And I got a call like a week later, this one was in tears. She was like, literally, you saved our lives, like we had nothing, thank God for you know that you had this infrastructure and whatnot. And they were able to give us his grant, because we had nothing. And that was like, you know, you don't see a lot of impacts on philanthropy that quickly and that directly, you know, usually it's a multi year process. And you have to, you know, what's the ROI on the impact? And how do you measure impact, but this was like, as direct as it comes. And this woman was going to be homeless, she lost her home, she was 90, her mother was 91 years old, they didn't have a lot. And through the power of philanthropy, it was we were able to, I would say, save her, save her life, basically. So I just go back to that a lot, you know, especially during tough days. And just remember, like, why I started, B Generous, why I started Giving why I do what I do, because it's not easy to start these companies, it's in fact incredibly hard, incredibly hard trying to convince VCs and banks, everything to give you, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to do this to, you know, but I think stuff like that is meaningful and really affected me personally. So I always remember that story.
• 32:02
  Becky Endicott: I just think it never gets old that that one to one human connection of saving one person and your story is profound, because it's it wasn't just a one person it was it was an entire community and Bravo to that woman for making the connection making the call and standing up for her community.
• 32:23
  Becky Endicott: That was a great one. So Dominic, we end all of our conversations with one good thing. What would be your one good thing that you'd offer to the community today, it could be a quote or a piece of advice.
• 32:32
  Becky Endicott: You're the quote king, I'm expecting you to bring the thunder down on this one.
• 32:38
  Dominic Kalms: Oh, man, all the pressure. Now, I think the very good piece of advice would be that that failure is a prerequisite for success. You know, we always we always see on the news. You know, all these famous, wealthy people. And we always think, Oh, my God, they must have just, you know, become an overnight success. I heard this other funny quote, it took me 10 years to become an overnight success. Right? I love that quote, right. But I mean, the reality is, if you look at almost any successful person, think about the people that you admire, I guarantee you, I guarantee you, they failed multiple times, before they succeeded. They didn't get into the school they wanted, they got rejected for a date, they their first company blew up and went bankrupt. I mean, whatever, right? We all have our own failures. And that builds resiliency. And that builds the, the mental toughness to pick yourself up and do it again. So I would say failure is a prerequisite for success.
• 33:29
  Dominic Kalms: however you define those two things. And when you're having those tough days, and it's brutal, and miserable, and we've all had them, just remember that that your hero, whoever that person might be guaranteed, you went through something similar in their own life at some point, and they persevered. And that's ultimately most of the time, the difference between success and failure is perseverance. So I that would be my sort of quote of the day.
• 33:52
  Jonathan McCoy: Love that and totally agree, you know, and I think nowadays, especially with the advent of social media, it's so inspiring when people open up and tell that part of their story. You know, I think that's really what connects us with the people that inspire us today, that vulnerability. So, thanks for leading our conversation there. So let's connect up the dots. How can people find you online? Where do you hang out?
• 34:12
  Jonathan McCoy: How can we will follow and get connected with B Generous as well?
• 34:15
  Dominic Kalms: Yeah, thank you.
• 34:15
  Dominic Kalms: Um, well, I'm very active on LinkedIn, I don't have any other social media, Facebook, or Twitter or Instagram or anything like that.
• 34:22
  Jonathan McCoy: Don't even go look.
• 34:24
  Dominic Kalms: But I am active on LinkedIn. It's just my name Dominic Kalms with a K Kalms.
• 34:27
  Dominic Kalms: And our website is just a letter B, and then the word generous.com. So it's just a letter bgenerous.com. My personal email is my first name at bgenerous.com. It's D O M I N I C at b generous.com. So Dominic@bgenerous.com and I would love to anyone who wants to learn more chat, whatever it might be happy to chat and speak further.
• 34:55
  Becky Endicott: Well, I just want to thank you on behalf of everybody who is benefiting from the reckless and wonderful flights of fancy that our social entrepreneurs like you are chasing to help make our connections easier, and to make philanthropy accessible and democratic to everyone. And so keep going. We're rooting for you and keep us posted with what's happening with B Generous.
• 35:22
  Dominic Kalms: Thank you so much for having me on. I mean, awesome, awesome time with you guys. Really appreciate it. And I hope we can chat again soon.
• 35:29
  Becky Endicott: Indeed. Take care my friend.
• 35:31
  Jonathan McCoy: Thanks so much.
• 35:32
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• 35:34
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• 35:54
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• 35:57
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• 36:05
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• 36:15
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