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December 31, 2024 52 mins

America is one of the most generous countries in the world and yet many of our worst problems aren't getting any better. One of the greatest reasons why is the lack of return on investment analysis that is expected in the business world, but is pervasively absent in philanthropy. Slingshot has conducted this analysis for 55 Memphis nonprofits, which empowers givers to fuel the most effective nonprofits, and this innovative model could be adopted by any community across the country! 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
We continue now with part two of our conversation with
Justin Miller and Jared Barnett. Right after these brief messages
from our general sponsors, as I was listening to you

(00:32):
after the movie, and you know, I got interviewed a
bunch still do. And one of the things I try
to explain to people is that kids in high school
do not. If you put bulletins out and said everybody
show up to this mentoring program, they ain't gonna show up.

(00:55):
I don't know. A couple kids might, but you're not
gonna have kids standing in line to get excited about
showing up to the ing program. And when I was fifteen,
I wouldn't. I don't want to go. Who was? I mean,
maybe a dude that goes Yodel theology and Switzerland shows supplement,
but the vast majority of us don't. But if you say,
hey we got a football team, we've got a rugby team,

(01:17):
kids will show up for that. Uniforms, buses, games, stuff
to do. The point is my experience has been the
basketball and football. That's the hook. Yes, that's the hook
the kids, it's the biggest ruse known to mand The

(01:37):
kids were snowing. These kids, we're giving them football, but
what we really want to give them is the mentoring.
But we really want to give them as a chance
at life, and we're using that medium to be able
to mentor and bring them along and help them with
things they don't even know they need help for. Right
And to your point, Shane wanted to teach kids rugby

(02:04):
and that's what he started off doing and it's a
beautiful thing, and hey, it kept kids out of the street. Yeah,
they're playing rugby, and then at the end of high
school when they go do whatever it is they do
after that, they can at least have a great experience
of two three four years not school playing rug But honestly,
that's it. In North Memphis, an eighteen year old male

(02:30):
around New Chicago and Smoky City and eighteen year old
male is three times more likely to be dead or
incarcerated by his twenty first birthday than he is to
have a job or being college. That is the truth.
That's the demographic. Think of what happens to that demographic.
Its shattered if that kid decides to play football or

(02:54):
rugby or whatever. In a program that also does the
wrap around and also does the FASTPA help and also
does the work you're talking about. But the point is
Shane was not a FASTPA expert, nor was he a
college entrance expert. He was a rugby guy.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
He was, and it was just for fun. It's like, hey,
I love rugby.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, look what can transform when you when you employ
that passion with the hook and you give that person
with the passion and the hook an opportunity to see
that he has an opportunity to change lives and you
partner with him. And that's exactly what Memphis City Rugby
is done as a result of their relationship with Slingshot.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
One thing that's interesting about Shane, and this I give
him a compliment by way of telling you a little
bit more about Slingshot, is he is as passionate as
he is. He is equally, if not more, humble, and
so what he's helping do is flip the script locally.
In philanthropy, for example, what nonprofits are typically trained to

(03:58):
do is to go on bend to knee and to
tell great stories that it's really working, it's really working,
and then they get just enough money to come back
and get on bended knee again.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
The next year.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
What Shane does is he takes this analysis that Slingshot
provides Memphis int or City rugby, and he celebrates what's working,
and he talks about how they can get better, and
he invites donors to participate in them getting better. It's
more truthful and it's way more energizing.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
And I guarantee a donor feels good that their money
is being used as well as possible as that endeavor.
So that's that side, But you still have to unpack
these givers that we kind of talked about a few
minutes ago. So how did you guys unpack that?

Speaker 2 (04:51):
So, you know, it's really interesting to me because most
a lot of philanthropists, especially when you've reached a certain
level of wealth, often have gotten there through the business,
being successful businesses, right, and so they've applied a lot
of financial practices to their business.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
There.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
You know, they're not gonna they're not going to go
out and invest in a company or in an opportunity
just because someone told them a good story. They want
to see the financials, they want to understand what's going on.
But when it comes to philanthropy, that's not there, and
I don't blame philanthropists per se for that because in
my belief, I don't think there has been a way
to measure that until an organization like Sleinshot has come

(05:28):
around and given us a way to measure that and
do that consistently. But that same rigor isn't there, and
I you know, you talked about and our people philanthropists
shamed or hurt because maybe what they're doing wasn't as effective.
I also think sometimes a lot of philanthropists just they
don't think about what's next. They're just like, I want

(05:49):
to feel good, I care about something, I give to
something I care about, I've done my job, and they
don't think about well, no, like, what philanthropists are really
doing if you think about it in the grand scheme
of this is they're providing the resources so that services
can be provided to people who can't afford those services themselves.

(06:10):
And so it's more than just I'm doing something because
it feels good or because I'm passionate about it. It's
really if we can get philanthropists to think about this,
is I am providing something that someone can't provide, and
I'm helping them access resources, skills, training, whatever it might
be that's going to help better their lives, then you

(06:30):
think about it differently. And so, you know, a great
example I like to share is I have a younger
brother who's the brains in my family. He's a brilliant guy.
He's a professor and finance and econ or something crazy.
He's at Arizona State University, so market he and I.
Actually I was doing my master's in business at the
same time he was doing his PhD program. We were

(06:51):
both at Universe Chicago at the same time. He's five
years younger than me, and I'm going to him to
tutor me. My e constant because it's just that is
a smart kid, and we love each other. We shared
the same room ever since he was born until I
left the house. Like that's how close we were. I
have no doubt that he's smart, talented, cares about me deeply,

(07:12):
and I would never, ever, ever, ever let him perform
surgery on me, no matter how much he cares about me,
how much.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
You know, he's a.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Doctor, but in he cut in finance, right, And so
the idea here is that when it comes to being philanthropic,
intent alone isn't enough, right. My brother has the greatest
intent for me, and I know he would do everything
he could to help me. But if he doesn't know
how to help me, that intent it's a requirement, but

(07:40):
it's insufficient in my mind. And so as a philanthropist,
as we think about that, if we're trying to provide services, right,
I want my children to receive the best services possible. Right,
I want my parents as they age to receive the
best services possible. As a philanthropist, my hope is that
we take that same mindset of I want people who
are experiencing poverty and Memphis or struggling with not able

(08:03):
to access certain resources or benefits to have the best
possible because that's going to help the most. And so
transitioning that is really big, and that's a big part
of what we try and do is it's not just
here's some information, good luck, it's shifting the mindset to
As a philanthropist, you are providing capital that can create

(08:24):
that is funding services that people need. And you can
provide and fund crappy services that aren't moving the needle
or with some thought, with some intentionality, with the resources
that we try and provide, you can support the organizations
that are most effective at helping people with whatever you're
passionate about. I don't think you can change people's passions.
So if you care about education, great focus on that.

(08:44):
If you care about workforce development, great focus on that.
If you care about transportation, whatever it might be that
you are particularly passionate about, stick with that because I
think we all have to pursue our passions, but do
it in a way that's going to be the most helpful,
because that's what you're doing as a philanthropist, is It's
not just throwing some money over the fence and saying
good luck, nonprofit. I hope you figure it out. You

(09:07):
have a responsibility, in my mind, to try and provide
those services in the most effective way.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Okay, I'm a five to zero one C three and
I'm working in foster care world. Okay, And there's six
of us in town, And as I'm hearing you, I'm
starting to wonder how this dynamic works out. I'm sure
you have an answer for it, but I got to
hear it. So there's six of us, and we're all

(09:34):
fighting for those same dollars in our community, yeah, to
run our organization, and all six are well intentioned We're
not going to say there's a fraudulent one out there,
six well intentioned people trying to help kids in foster
care or parents a faud just we're just gonna use
foster cares as the place, all right, And you evaluate

(09:57):
me as the logo on the totem pole, it's my
money gonna get short now because you've identified people that
also are working in the same world as doing a
better job and thus shifting more donation dollars to the
more effective. I mean, the capitalist in me, the business

(10:18):
guy in me says that's the way it should be.
If there's six people doing it, and there's three doing
it really well and three doing it really poorly, we
need to pull our resources for the three doing it
really well and the three doing it really poorly probably
need to go find something else to do. Just like
your pastor said, there are good things that need a
good burial sometimes. But if I'm those five, zero, one,

(10:39):
c three's competing for those dollars in a limited amount
of philanthropic giving in my community, and as I get evaluated,
I'm doing a poor job than my competitors. Thusly, you
guys are also talking to the ones giving the money.

(11:00):
Have you run into that, We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
So I'm a business guy. My whole career was in
business before I found slang Shot, and it was the
most unplanned thing in my life. If my children were
needing foster care, I would want them to go to
the foster care programs that are most effective. And so

(11:40):
I don't think that's saying anything negative about an organization
if they're not effective. It's just I want what's best
for my children, and if this nonprofit is better at
providing those services than this nonprofit, my hope is that
as if I'm funding that, I would fund those that
are going to provide the best services. And so, yes,
it is, but I.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
Do so you guys that really do employ a very
business focus based approach that the best are the best,
and you have no qualms about that.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Could I Jim, I don't think it's that binary. And
the reason I say that is I stand by what
doctor Maxie Dunham said, and in many cases that is true,
and that, in many cases is the best way to
love our neighbors is to stop funding things. However, we
knew early on for Slingshot to actually have an impact, right,

(12:37):
a meaningful impact in the city and the lives of
our neighbors experiencing poverty. We needed to we need to
reach critical mass in all these different sectors. So, for example,
if you came to slingshots website and you can right now,
you can go look at a lot of different information
on specific nonprofits, which is a testament to those nonprofits
willingness to be transparent. If we were to have just

(13:00):
evaluated one after school program and one women's shelter and
one fill in the blank, it would be interesting. But
where it gets way more interesting is when we reach
critical mass in all after school programs. So it's not
as draconian is Hey, look, these four are great, these
five are bad. Let's shut these down and double down

(13:23):
in many cases because we're making it all transparent. Organizations,
even that Slingshot doesn't work with right now, knows what
questions to begin asking of themselves. They can read the
reports of other after school programs. They can follow best practices.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
They could also call you up and say, hey, how
do we move up on the list? Come help? Okay,
that's actually what I was trying to get to. I
was not trying to paint the picture that we're pitting
philanthropic organizations against one another, because that's not what we're doing.
I can get though, how some people might hear this
and say that old reason I did this whole thing

(14:01):
is to spell the notion. But the point is, if
you aren't up to snuff, nobody's locking you out. You're
also saying Hallis will help you get there.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yes, and I think that's the biggest thing for me.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
To reach that critical mass.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
That's right, yes, And so one thing, sorry to cut
I'm sorry, funny thing that's really important. And Jared Is
takes a much kinder, genuinely, a much kinder approach to
this work than I ever did. But one of the

(14:38):
things I would ask often, and I believe Slingshot still
does this, is like, hey, foundation, you're very influential in Memphis.
If you don't want to support Slingshot, that's cool, but
we want you to think about consider making it a
prerequisite for nonprofits to go through our pros before you

(15:01):
release capital. If you're in fact using Slingshots information to
make decisions, that's how this thing could really take root.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
That's how it should take root. I mean, I mean,
we evaluate everything in our lives and business we evaluate
when we're choosing a school for our children. We should
evaluate when we're buying a car. We evaluate when you're
buying a house. You evaluate when you, god forbid, gets sick.

(15:32):
You don't go to the doctor that everybody says as
a quack. You try to find the best. Why wouldn't
we be evaluating this world it? I mean, as interesting
as this is, it's actually kind of obvious in it.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
It's very logical and it's counter cultural.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
At the same time, it is countercultural, but you know,
this is the way we've always done. It is the
last words of a dying organization, right, and so you
are taking a really unique business centered, efficient approach at
both evaluating the nonprofits but also getting the philanthropic dollars

(16:16):
to use that evaluation.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
I think one thing to give back to an earlier
topic around robin Hood and robin Hood is great.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
They're very good at what they do.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
The ecosystem in New York is generally speaking, way more
advanced than Memphis because they've been asking good questions.

Speaker 4 (16:31):
For a long time, much longer than we have, much
longer than we.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Have, and probably most municipalities.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
I think that might be the case. I definitely know
it's the case up there.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
No, No, what I'm saying is robin Hood's the questions
they've been asking. I mean, this same issue we're talking
about at Memphis probably exists in Little Rock Albuquerue, Denver.
I'm saying maybe Robinhood is much more advanced because they've
been analytical and asking questions longer. But they're the atypical,
that's right.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yes, And they have the ability to raise a significant
to your earlier point amount of capital. And they are
and I think they might push back on this little bit.
I'm friends with them that they have the ability to
be a lot more objective and less personal sometimes in
their giving. One of the things I believed back in

(17:21):
the day and believe maybe even more adamantly now is
that for this to have the chance to work in Memphis,
it needed to be done with grace and humility. And
so the people like Jared that work there. The approach itself,

(17:42):
I mean, you can look at the algorithm and it
can be really whatever stark, but the way in which
they they meet people where they are is rare. And
so they've engendered trust with nonprofits in particular and in
many cases donors to actually give this thing a five
chance to work.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
I think a big part of that, too, Bill is
we don't say good or bad, right, We're not like, oh,
this is a two thumbs up nonprofit or a two thumbs.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
You don't have a five star rating services.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
It's really around, here's the information, here's where an organization
is at. And just like you would use financial statements
to make different financial decisions. Some people care a lot
about growth, other people care a lot about profit. Other
people are big on margins. Right, there's different things you
might care about. Our goal is make that transparent, like
Justin talked about, so people can make informed decisions. They

(18:32):
can understand as a nonprofit, what are the most effective
practices at trying to do what you do? If you're
a funder, what are the organizations that are making the
greatest impact in the areas that I care about. And
we give that information to people so they can make
informed decisions. And one of the things that I love,
it's been the most inspiring and one of the most
inspiring things for me, is getting the point around. We

(18:52):
do study some nonprofits that are not very effective. We
don't know that going in and you know, as justin
talked about earlier. They go in not knowing how this
report's going to come out. And what's inspiring to me
is that it's in almost every case, the organizations that
have the lowest we call it impact results tend to
be the most energetic at doing something about it.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Really, and they it's great.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
News, It's amazing. I mean, it's what you want, right,
is this idea that with more information, you're now empowered
to go do something about it. So half of our
report is where are you in terms of your impact
and where you're at the other half of the port
is how do you get better? And so we'll identify
very clear opportunities that will help them create more impact
for the participants that they serve. And it's invigorating to

(19:35):
see these nonprofits do that and say, okay, great, we
can do A, B and C of these opportunities and
that will help us get better. We now are empowered
to know what to do where a lot of times
they're fighting fires are having to deal with just what's
right there. And then it's just talked about that. Shane
uses that to then say, hey, I can get more
effective if I can get support for this and this

(19:56):
which are often things that we've helped them identify because
we have this objective, analytical approach to doing it. And
so it creates this ecosystem of information, of evidence of
transparency that again empowers My view is it empowers everybody
to fight poverty more effectively. A nonprofit foundation, a corporation,
we work with a lot of the big corporations here

(20:16):
in Memphis, politicians and policymakers. All of this information is
powerful to help make more informed decisions that lead to
better outcomes here.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
So I'm sorry, I think it's really important just say
a little bit about how it's not a one and
done report and how's that's so.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
I mean, if you took someone's financial statements in you know,
two thousand and said, all right, I have their financial
statements for the year two thousand and you're trying to
use those in twenty twenty four, everyone would laugh at
you like you're crazy, because you would be. And so
what we do is we do the reports annually with
every organization we work with, and so it's a way
that we can say, you know, we do the first
year as a base time we really get to know
their organizations. One of the things that I'm proud of

(20:57):
is that the organizations we work with would say that
we know that organization better than anybody else because we
invest the time to know what they do and listen
to what they why they set it up that way,
what they're trying to accomplish, the pain points they're experiencing,
and we get that solid understanding. But then every year
afterwards we'll go in and measure their impact again and
that helps them understand, hey, we tried these two things

(21:18):
last year, did it help us get more effective?

Speaker 1 (21:21):
And it really is an effective balance sheet?

Speaker 2 (21:24):
It is, it's a dashboard it is, and it's intent
effectiveness balance sheet, it's yeah, and so again it transforms
all of these things when it comes to philanthropy. I
want to feel good, I have good intent, I have
this or that or that I graduate so many people,
and it allows us to drill it down into outcomes.
How are people's lives changing because of my money or

(21:44):
my work is a nonprofit, or because of this program,
and it makes the outcomes that people experiencing poverty are
experiencing like driving factor behind decisions. Just like in business,
at the end of the day, it's the bottom line, right,
If I make money. At some point in time, someone's
going to stop funding my business. I'm not going to

(22:04):
if I have crappy products, clients aren't going to buy
my products. It all gets down to the financial aspect
of it. What we want to do is make that
so simple through our work that it's How are people's
lives changing? Is the driving factor behind how we think
about philanthropy, how we think about the effectiveness of a nonprofit.
At some point, how people who are disadvantaged and lack

(22:27):
of resources can compare nonprofits, And at some point in
time we think that will be possible that you know,
if I'm living in you know, a community here in
Memphis that doesn't have a lot of resources, that doesn't
have a lot of opportunities, and I don't have the
financial resources to do all the things I want to,
I can go to sling Shots website and say, hey,
there's three nonprofits that provide something that I need. This

(22:49):
one's the most effective out of those three. I want
that most effective service. And so at some point that's
going to be possible that we're going to be able
to gain How is it changing people's lives? Want that
to be the driving force behind everything that deals with
fighting poverty.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
We'll be right back. How many philanthropic organizations do you
work with annually? Right now?

Speaker 2 (23:25):
So we work with fifty seven nonprofits today.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
And how many philanthropic donor organizations do you work with?

Speaker 2 (23:36):
We've worked with well organizations.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Organizations, done or visuals. That's hard to quantifize.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
It's been about a thousand since our inception, a little
over a thousand between your reception was twenty seventeens our
first year of operations.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
So in seven years you've started one thousand or so
and fifty seven nonprofits. But the point is, every time
you add, you get a bigger data system, data source.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Right, it's exponential, Yes.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, so that I guess it would be. That's what
I'm getting at. So, as the CEO of this thing, Jared,
what's what's the two, three, five year plan? Because I'm
curious to hear those numbers because then I want to
understand exponentially what the data systems look like.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, we nerd out on that here, but so I
think the the bigger picture here is we want to
get to a spot where we work with critical masks
of nonprofits.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Right.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
We don't need to work with every nonprofit because when
we work with enough, we know what the best practices are.
We know what a good benefit cost issue.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Is in each world, each kind of sector, category sector.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Such a good example is we work with five or
six organizations that help people who are reentering from the
justice system right they've been incarcerated, are now coming back
into society, and we've done enough research and work with
enough those organizations that we know that these are the
practices that are going to help people the most. For instance,
just helping someone get a job, which has been the
historical way of doing that. There's statistically no difference between

(25:13):
a program that just helps someone get a job and
no program at all.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Really of recid is.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
So what you need is you need some help staying
in that job, the retention of that job for a
period of time so that it becomes stable. You've worked
through those, you know, the honeymoon period. That is a
big piece. You need mental health support. You know, there's
a high concentration of mental health conditions of people rentering
from the justice system, and if you don't have support
for that, it impacts employment and other things. And then

(25:40):
individualize kind of mentoring or as another piece, right, you
need someone who can help guide you, not just some
cookie cutter program. Those three practices produce substantially greater differences
for things like your earnings over time and recidivism rates,
so the rate of reoffending and having to go back
to prison. And so we now know that make that public.

(26:00):
So anyone who's trying to help people reentering from the
justice system can go to our website and say, hey,
here are the practices that if I want to support
a nonprofit or a program, or if I want to
start a program, I need to be doing these things
if I want to see the most impact for the
people that I'm serving. And so the vision is we
want to kind of become the Amazon of poverty fighting resources.

(26:22):
We want you to be able to come and find
research that's really simple to understand. Analysis, it's easy to understand,
so that you can say, I want to fight poverty,
I want to do it this way. Slingshot gives me
resources to help me do.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
That based on their study, their research, their data, which
is real on time data points from the people that.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
You serve exactly. And so the idea is we'll team
to study more nonprofits will be in the hundreds by
the time we reach critical scale, and then that's one
aspect of it. Then we have kind of that we
call it our impact study work. Then we have insights,
which is around all the knowledge and research that we've
looked through over years. We have like seven hundred and
eight hundred research articles that we've now pulled together in

(27:04):
kind of a library that we know tell us about
what's effective at fighting poverty in those ways, and so
we want to create those insights and make those available
for people. But then the biggest piece of all of
this is that it doesn't do any good if it
sits on our hard drives or if it sits on
a website and nobody uses it. So this really next
horizon for us is really around how do we activate

(27:24):
people to use our work? And so that includes how
do we make people aware of it and how do
we make it easier for people to find it. It
includes how do we create I mean it's a business guy,
how do we create products and services and tools that
are really helpful for people that meet pain points that
they have. You know, justin you talked about this idea
of you know, you, as your wealth and your income grew,

(27:46):
you got approached by more people, but you weren't sure
how to give that in a way there. I've talked
to someone who's built a one hundred million dollar business
here and she told me that I grew up without resources.
The only giving I did with the ten that was
passed around at church. She goes, I have resources now,
and I have no idea how to give them. She goes,

(28:06):
I'm a CFO. I understand money. She goes, I know
how to create strategies for my business, but I need
help creating a strategy for my philanthropy. Slingshot has resources
that can help people with that, right. We want to
provide those resources to do that, and so the vision
is that we do that, and the last piece of
that is we want to help influence decision makers on
how to use those resources. And so an example right

(28:28):
now of that is that there's a large national company
that's going to invest one hundred million dollars in Memphis
over the next ten years, and we're working with them
to think about how do you invest that one hundred
million dollars in a way that one meets your business needs? Right,
there's some business behind this, their business. They're there for profit,
but two has the most impact in the city, and
so we're helping them create a strategy for how to

(28:51):
invest those resources philanthropically that's going to help move the needle.
So it's not one hundred million dollars over ten years,
and then we look back and say, well, what changed.
Unfortunately a lot of times that's not much, and say, hey,
what's changed over ten years? Oh, we can point to
that because we're measuring it and we've seen it, and
we've focused on these areas that make the biggest impact

(29:12):
or the nonprofits that are most effective at helping us
achieve a certain outcome we want, and they're going to
be able to say in ten years if we continue
to work together, hey, this is what's happened as a
result of it, and these resources have been funneled into
a spot that's moved the needle or use the word
move the rock and the areas that they wanted to go.
And so that's the other part of that is really
being that trusted advisor for people who want to fight

(29:38):
poverty and want to actually see the needle move and
are willing to be humble and open minded that we
don't always know the answer. I didn't before I found slingshot,
and there's still things that we don't know, which is
why we need to study more organizations and learn more.
But that's the vision, is creating all of those resources
so that people can fight poverty in a way that

(29:58):
actually moves the needle. And we can do that with
confidence because we measure it, we track it, and we're
doing it with coupling the intent and the hard work
with the ways that lead to the outcomes we all
want again getting back to those outcomes as the bottom line.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
Justin when you hear Jared talk about what this will
be in I guess that's a two to five year
plan born from these two unique skill sets you have

(30:34):
and just a simple desire at some point in your
life to make philanthropy more more focused on what the
ROI is. How doesn't make you feel, dude, I mean,
that's that's a cool legacy.

Speaker 4 (30:51):
Yeah, well, I've never thought about it that way, I guess.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
But it is that way though. I know you're probably
a humble dude and all that, but that's what this is.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, you know, I guess where my mind just went.
One of our uh one of a dear friend of
mine who is a co founder of Slingshot. He also
was a He was a senior senior partner at Mackenzie
for years and years and sat on the board at Slingshot.
He took a very different approach than I was used to,

(31:22):
and it was like, Hey, we're gonna give this thing
a shot, and it's either gonna work or it's not,
and if it doesn't work, we're gonna move on. And
I've never really thought about that. I was more not
even like it's gonna work.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
It has to work.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
And I still have some of that in me, but
I've I've sort of gravitated a little bit more into
his camp. And so on one hand, I get excited.
I'm just excited about knowing and being a friend of
Jared and all the people that are doing great work
at Slingshot.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
I'm hopeful that it works.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
I'm hopeful that everything he just said is comes to
fruition because our neighbors deserve it, period. I'm also scared
because there's a lot of history that will substantiate this fear.
I'm scared that even if it is truth and it
is made available, that it doesn't take root in the

(32:11):
way it should in this area. And so I think
the jury is still out on that front. But I'm grateful.
I wouldn't say proud. I'm grateful to have participated in
this thing very deeply, because it certainly affected my life
and my wife's life, my children's lives in a way
that I never anticipated.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
I just have a sneaky suspicion when I sit and
listen to Jared talk about it and I look at
the glean in his eyes and the passion in his voice.
You know, you got to have a product that works,
and you got to be able to market it, and
typically the passion cares the marketing. I just can't imagine

(32:55):
why this doesn't exponentially is a g and the data
and the information becomes more and more and more valuable.
I don't understand why in the world everybody wouldn't want
to use it. I don't also don't understand, Jerry, why
this is not scalable. I don't understand why people in
Tulsa wouldn't want to employ these same things, or Little

(33:18):
Rock or Louisville or Charlotte or Pick City. I mean,
is this model now that you've really, after seven years,
started to figure out what you're doing, and you read
that reach that quote critical mass point in this market?
Is it not a job of obviously maintaining, like you said,

(33:39):
annually those numbers so you meet that critical mass, but
your information is always current that once you do that,
you can take that same those same data points and
that that same effort and print it on other cities.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
So that's the vision, right, If we can get something
that works here in Memphis and we see it making
a difference, it would be selfish not to share it.
And so what we've been working towards is building the
infrastructure to do that. So again I'm I'm an efficiencies guy.
I love building organizations and processes, and so we're trying
to build the toolkit that could be. I don't like

(34:15):
to use the word franchise because I don't think we
would necessarily do that, but it's franchisable, right. It's so
packaged that we can say, hey, we've got the data systems,
we've got the processes, you know, we've got the playbooks
which we do. We're building all of that, and we
have our own data system that records all this information,
allows us to do what we want to that we
can share it with others. But I think the biggest

(34:36):
thing I think that I would say would set this
back from our side of it is the people. And so,
you know, Justin and our co founders were incredibly thoughtful
about the relationships, building the trust that was needed with
the nonprofits, with the funding community, with others to be
able to get behind this and support that. And without
the right people, you know, the greatest widget in the world,

(34:59):
and it's not going to work. And so as we
go to other you know, as we consider taking this
to other cities, it's really going to be a factor
of can we get the right people who share our
values in ethos, who can understand that community and build
the trust within those communities to say, hey, we're going
to come and study you. We want you to kind
of open up your books in essence, right, and we're
going to understand and measure your impact and then use

(35:21):
that in a productive way versus using that in less
productive ways. And so I think that's where I think
our challenge would be if we go beyond Memphis, and
I think to Justin's point around you know, in Memphis,
I haven't talked to somebody, which has been really rewarding,
and we've been able to explain and they kind of
the light bulb goes off around what we're doing and

(35:42):
they say, that's a really stupid idea. Why the heck
are you doing that. I haven't had one of those, right,
I've had a lot of ideas where people have said
that in my life. They're just like, Jared, it's crazy,
it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
What are you think?

Speaker 2 (35:54):
And the concept of slingshot is not one of those.
When people get it, it's like, oh, that makes sense.
I've been meeting with, you know, college students, We've talked
about this, and just the other day I was meeting
with co founders of one of the biggest regional banks
in Memphis yesterday and introducing slingshot to them, and you
could just tell it like why hasn't this been existing before?

(36:14):
But I think the adoption is going to be the
key part, right, And again, I don't think that's on
the nonprofit side. We've been really surprised we have more
nonprofits that want to work with us than we can
work with right now. But it's on that funding side.
Can people reframe how they think about philanthropy, which has
been done the same way for so long and say
I'm not just giving because it feels good. I'm not

(36:36):
just giving because I know Bill or I know Justin.
But I'm going to be more take more accountability of
my philanthropy and think of myself as I'm providing services
for people who can't access them otherwise, and I have
an obligation to provide the most effective services, just like
I would for myself, my children, those I care about.

(36:58):
If we can get to that point, it'll be great,
but that's the thing we have to overcome.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
I think it's also important to note that Slingshot, for
lack of better words, takes its own medicine, so it
measures and has other people measured it so that we
know that we are making the most difference.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
So you know your own analystic that's right.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
That's right, and so.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
And we've had a third party, very respected third party
do it alongside us as well. And I tell you
that because early on I would engage somebody in Birmingham
with Memphis roots and I would pitch it and they
would be like, I love it. Do it in Birmingham,
I love it, do it in Tulsa. To Jared's point,
our neighbors in Tulsa and Birmingham deserve the same type

(37:37):
of care. However, you reference Slingshot the name, I mean,
if you watch Malcolm Gladwell's Ted Talk, it's ten minutes
on David and Goliath.

Speaker 4 (37:48):
It is about being super focused.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
It's not luck and so it is a herculean task.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
We ain't going to Birmingham and Tulsa until we know
we got it on.

Speaker 4 (38:02):
And so Mission Creep is real. It's real.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
With our nonprofit partners, donors often drive it in. So
Slingshot is trying to be very thoughtful in how it
scales or doesn't to create the most impact possible.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
We'll be right back, so we you know, rightfully. So
we've talked a lot about Shane and mephis Center City
Rugby as a great example. But I think i've read

(38:47):
justin where you mentioned there's how many philanthropic organizations are
there in a city in a metropolitan area of about
a million and five the numbers?

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Do you know?

Speaker 5 (39:00):
It's over ten thousand? How many over ten thousand? Ten
thousand bloody do getter organizations run around Memphis. Well, that
in and of itself, in my opinion, causes a little
bit of problem. In twofold one is for the giver
with ten thousand options, where do I give my hundred bucks?

(39:23):
And two is there's no way there's not massive overlap
with that many people work. There's only so many categories
of need. So that's an interesting thing to talk about.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Is one, Yes, you work with big corporations given away
maybe tens of millions of dollars and millions of dollars whatever,
But there are campaigns that will tell you that the
most effective fundraising campaigns for people running for office are
not the ones that get five large donations from big givers,

(39:59):
but the ones that at ten dollars from thousands of givers.
And there are a lot of people who have philanthropic
cards that want to help, but they're the one hundred
thousand dollars giver. Where in the world do they put
that money with ten thousand options? And how does slingshot
help them in those decisions? How does Slingshot also encourage

(40:21):
them to understand that they're ten dollars is just as
important as the other guy's thousand dollars. And how do
you search through all the noise of ten thousand to
find where your money needs to go?

Speaker 2 (40:34):
So two approaches I think on this one. So one
the two biggest things I hear from philanthropists that they
struggle with is one not knowing if their philanthropy is
making a difference, and two not having the time or
resources to go study that out themselves. They all have jobs, families, responsibilities.
They can't spend all their time studying ten thousand nonprofits

(40:55):
to figure out which ones are going to be most helpful.
And so we approach that is twofold one. We have
community fund. We call it the Accelerat Impact Fund, and
anyone from anywhere can invest philanthropically, which and we use
the term invest, not donate, because we want people to
have a mindset ship that I'm investing in something and

(41:17):
should expect a return, which in our case is reduction
of poverty. But they can invest in this Accelerate Impact Fund.
And again, one hundred percent of that goes to the
nonprofits we study, but it goes based on how effective
they are, and so it's kind of like a mutual
fund concept, but instead of just spreading that out evenly
across the fifty seven nonprofits we work with the most
effective nonprofits get the largest share of that money and

(41:41):
all and the other thing that drives out is are
they getting more effective because we can measure are they
improving over time and if they're.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Approval love that, so that can give you to the
quote fund. And then based on your analytics, you make
sure the most effective people get the line share of
the fund.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yes, we do.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Also you know, oh, then the money is going to
the most effective exactly.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
And so if I'm an intervial philanthropist of any amount,
it's a way to guarantee that your philanthropy is making
a difference because it's we do all the research to
understand how effective these organizations are, and we allocate it
based on their impact. And that way you don't have
to go do all that research yourself, and you don't
have to go figure out among these ten thousand which
ones to do. But whether you give ten dollars a

(42:25):
month or whether you give ten million dollars, this ensures
your philanthropy is making a difference because we do all
the work to measure it and study it and do
all of that. And so you mentioned something around. You know,
if I'm given ten dollars a month versus somebody's given
a thousand versus a million, Well, if you're giving your
money effectively at ten dollars a month. I would venture
to say that's pretty more impact than if you're giving

(42:48):
a million dollars ineffectively to the organizations that aren't. Actually
such a.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Good point to the earlier point is maybe it's better
to help two hundred and fifty effectively than touch a
thousand pece people ineffectively the same things the money. If
I'm given one thousand dollars to an organization that is
really effective, my thousand dollars well, based on your thing
with Rugby, the dollar creates now two dollars and forty

(43:15):
cents of value, So my one hundred dollars can create
two hundred and forty dollars of value, where somebody given
one thousand dollars is someone ineffective as one thousand dollars
of zero value. So my one hundred creates two forty value.
Your thousand creates zero value. So truthfully, my one hundred
dollars has a greater effect than this guy thousand dollars

(43:37):
based on following the analytics of the work that.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
You did right and again getting back to is it
improving people's lives? And so that ROI, or we call
it a benefit cost ratio, is an easy way to
help understand that, and it allows anybody at any amount
to have an impact because they're now able to give
it in a way that is making the most impact.
And so that's the first way that people can kind
of benefit from our work and contribute to that. The

(44:00):
second way, and justin allude to this, if you're passionate
about a sector of poverty fighting or organizations, we'll just
use our work to make an informed decision. Because if
you only like our Accelerat Impact Fund supports all the
organizations we study our entire fifty seven and so if
you care just about early childhood education, great, go to
our website. You can look at the early childhood education

(44:22):
providers that we work with. You can see which of
those are most effective or are doing the things that
you care most about, and then you can just invest
directly in them. But you use our insights. And so
that's how we try and work with the philanthropic foundations
and the large corporations with their community giving is hey,
we have these reports, focus those on what you care about.
But again you can do that at any dollar amount

(44:44):
if you're passionate about a certain area. So we have
two ways that our work can directly help people ensure
their philanthropies, making a difference regardless of the amount they're giving.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
And clear up the noise of ten thousand voices. Exactly,
very cool, Absolutely love it. It is a really fresh, analytical,
fact based, driven with grace and compassion approach on how
to best use the dollars and have the most effective

(45:12):
use for the people that we're all talking about here,
which is the most disadvantaged among us. It is maximizing potential.
It's freaking awesome. Someone wants to do Someone's listening this.
They want to donate, they want to get involved, they
want to learn more, they want to do anything. And
this is a national show. Actually international people listen to

(45:34):
other countries, but this is a show that people from
all over the world. I don't want to hear them them,
hear this last bit of Tulson Birmingham and not feel
comfortable reaching out because God only knows where your next
superstar could come from. Right, right, somebody wants to.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Go ahead and the research and the things on our website,
you can still apply that.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
To other community and even community that's right. So it's
you glad to give it.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Yeah, and it's there. It's available, there's things that we
can do to benefit. Obviously, we can do more in
Memphis because that's where we are, and you know, we
be more ingrained here, but anyone could pick up what
we're doing.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
And I also believe there's going to be a time
that this will reach I believe in you guys. I
think the critical mass will happen and there will be
export of this at some point. I know. That's like
you said, that's the goal, that's the dream. So I
want to find slingshot on the on the interweb Internet,

(46:30):
whatever that thing's called. What's the website? And then if
I want to get in touch with somebody, what's the email?
A truss what do we do?

Speaker 2 (46:36):
So website is slingshot Memphis dot org and so you
can go there and that's all of our informations there.
We're on social media on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, very
active there. We share what everything we can or reports
go up on social media and then anyone can reach
out to me directly at Jared dot Barnett at slingshot

(46:57):
Memphis dot org.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
That's be all are in E T T correct G
A one R J R E D then B A
R N E T T one R two ts right,
and you'll respond yes.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Now, I mean we want to help. I mean that's
why would exist. That's why I'm doing this, and I
make a lot more money doing other things, but I
believe in this. I see it working at this point.
It's not a vision. You know, justin took the leap
of saying, you know, is this going to work? Is
there any way to do this? The answers after seven
years is yes, it works. We're seeing organizations get better.

(47:34):
We're seeing two foundations here in the city that use
our reports and their investment decisions and nonprofits and they've
told us that just publish that in our end report here.
So we're seeing that uptake, we're seeing the impact. We're
seeing nonprofits get more effective, and I want to share
that with everybody. We're we want to give that away.
That's why we exist, is to help people fight poverty

(47:55):
more effectively.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Justin the last four years, was not lost on me
that the name of this thing is slingshot and you
evoked David Goliath. You want to finish with that?

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Yeah, you know, I don't remember the story well, but
I was actually.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Oh I do there was a philistine.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah, you know, I was sitting on a plane coming back.
This is after Slingshot. I think we were right before
we became an official five oh ones e three, And
I tried to involve a.

Speaker 4 (48:29):
Lot of people that were early adopters, thought.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Partners in this work to come up with some names
and some of the names and retrospect her hilarious and horrible.
I was doing some research haul Tutor Jones again rolled
out the red carpet in New York, and I was
up there just doing research, meeting with all the really
smart people at Robin Hood. And I was coming back
on the plane and there was this young lady who

(48:52):
was sitting next to me, and she lives in New York,
but she's from Memphis. She was coming back to see
her little sister graduate at Saint Mary's, a school here
in East Memphis. And she was reading Malcolm Gladwell's David
and Goliath. I referenced earlier. One of the similar organizations
doing work like this in San Francisco is called Tipping Point. Anyway,

(49:15):
Malcolm Gladwell wrote that David Glyth, and it just hit
me Slingshot because again a seminary, and I know enough
to be dangerous about that story. And if you read
the book or as you should, or if you listen
to the again Gladwell's ten minute Ted talk, it's a
radically different story than what we think it is.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
It is purposeful, it is.

Speaker 3 (49:41):
It is very purposeful, and you have to paint the
target for lack of better words, and be really thoughtful
about what you do to have a chance to do
something really hard.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
And so that's the name.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
I love it, guys. I can't tell you how much
I thank you for sharing this and spending the morning
with me. You know, every week there's somebody involved in
philanthropic endeavors and we tell their stories and where they
came from and why they do what they do. I

(50:12):
cannot imagine a single listener here or a single guest
here not hearing this episode and saying, am I as
effective as I want to be? And is there way
to be more effective? And could I get help evaluating
and being more analytical about it so that my resources
reach the greatest effect in the community I'm seeking to

(50:36):
serve and people listen all the time that don't operate organizations,
but our heartfelt lovers of people and good givers. And
I can't imagine them not asking are my resources being
used to the best of their ability? After hearing this,
and that entire population of people would absolutely say that

(51:02):
this is the way you go about it. This is
a great idea. I have no doubt in what this
organization's successful be and what it can be to other communities.
So God speed, my friend, take that passion and that
that brain of yours and go get them. And I
wish you the best of luck, and I thank both

(51:24):
of you for joining me this morning.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Thank you, thanks Bill.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
And thank you for joining us this week. If Justin
and Jared have inspired you in general, or better yet,
by thinking about your charitable work differently, checking out slingshots reports,
starting something like it in your community, or something else entirely,
please let me know. I'd love to hear about it.

(51:55):
You can write me anytime at Bill at normal folks
dot us, and I guarantee you this I will respond
to you. If you enjoyed this episode, guys, share it
with friends that are on social subscribe to the podcast,
rate it, review it, join the army at normalfolks dot us,

(52:16):
consider becoming a Premium member there. Do any and all
of these things that can help us grow an army
of normal folks. The more view, the more impact we
have thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'll see you next week.
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