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Building a Business That Gives Back: Jason Humphrey on Turning Purpose into Impact
10 Plays24 days ago
Can doing good also be good for business? In this heartfelt episode of The Future of Finance Podcast, host Marissa Wood talks with Jason Humphrey, founder of the Sun Raising Foundation, about how philanthropy can—and should—become part of your business strategy.
From turning plastic bags into bedrolls for the homeless, to organizing emergency hurricane relief through poker nights, Jason shares real-world stories that prove doing good isn’t just the right thing—it’s smart business.
💡 You’ll also learn:
How the Power Partner Program makes philanthropy easy for busy entrepreneurs
What donor-advised funds are and how they grow tax-efficient charitable giving
The personal financial lessons that shaped Jason’s journey
How your business can launch its own branded Impact Fund with just a few simple steps
💻 Get in touch with Jason: https://sunraising.org
📅 Work with Marissa: https://www.union-financial.com/
⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 – Intro: Doing good = good business
01:16 – What is the Sun Raising Foundation?
02:22 – Origin of the name “Sun Raising” ☀️
03:11 – The Nepal earthquake & Jason’s inspiration
03:34 – Current projects: clean water, solar, and Bags to Bedrolls ♻️
05:03 – Collection bins & community support
06:14 – Surprising benefit: retirees creating bedrolls
06:44 – Lights Out Poker Night: hurricane relief with a twist
08:38 – Over $11K raised for storm victims! 💰
10:14 – How Lisa Green (Marissa’s mom!) won the poker tourney & paid it forward
11:18 – Philanthropy is contagious
12:06 – Making it easier for businesses to give back
12:41 – Power Partner Program explained
14:21 – Union Financial’s own Impact Fund 🎯
15:07 – Annual giving goals and involving the community
16:03 – Where the funds actually go: hands-on grant writing
17:26 – Metropolitan Ministries: a model charity
18:34 – Power Partners = scalable, plug-and-play giving
19:31 – Fee structure: 93% to impact, 7% to run operations
20:43 – Charitable giving = tax savings for businesses and retirees 🧾
23:03 – The four buckets of legacy planning
24:38 – Building long-term client relationships through giving
26:33 – Donor-Advised Funds: grow your giving over time
28:22 – How to start your own Impact Fund
29:20 – Jason’s worst financial mistake: no legal counsel in divorce
30:56 – Best decision: building an 800+ credit score 💳
32:36 – 2025 goals: serve 5,000 meals & grow Power Partners
33:50 – Final message: doing good is just good business
34:52 – How to contact Jason & Union Financial
📌 Hashtags
#BusinessForGood #Philanthropy #SocialImpact #FinancialFreedom #SunRaisingFoundation #FutureOfFinance #UnionFinancial #DonorAdvisedFund #ImpactFund #CharitableGiving #PowerPartners #NonprofitInnovation #BagsToBedrolls
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:09
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Future of Finance podcast. I'm your host, Marissa Wood. And today I'm joined with Jason Humphrey from the Sunraising Foundation, where we're going to share how doing good can really just be good business. Thanks for having me, Marissa. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming, Jason.
Networking and Foundation Motivation
00:00:26
Speaker
um and so Jason and I met about a year and a half ago at our BNI chapter, which stands for Business Networking International. It's a networking group that You know, the common goal is to help each other's businesses grow.
00:00:41
Speaker
And, you know, we've we've developed a nice business relationship. And, you know, Jason has recently launched Sunraising Foundation, which tell me a little bit more about what that means and and how this came to be.
00:00:56
Speaker
Yeah, BNI specifically has been just a great foundation for us to grow our foundation on. um And it's awesome, especially here, having BNI here in the 4&Co building. lot of good entrepreneurs, lot of of people that are growing their businesses. And, you know, for us, you know my wife and I started Sunraising Foundation two years ago. We really wanted to focus on writing grants and helping, you know, clean water projects, food insecurity projects, sustainable community projects.
BNI Influence and Foundation's Name Inspiration
00:01:24
Speaker
And, know,
00:01:25
Speaker
yeah It was kind of a slow start um and B&I gave us an opportunity to come in and really share our story and network with a lot of business-minded professionals and really gave us the confidence to kind of cultivate our power partner program and and really kind of put ourselves out there to grow. So it's been ah it's been a boon.
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And we're going to get into that power partner program today because, you know, it's it's one of the most exciting launches that we've heard of from SunRising. Now, how did you come up with the name SunRising? Good question. So we're going to have to go back in in time just a little bit. ah I was in the renewable energy energy industry late 2014. 2015, there was an earthquake in Nepal,
00:02:06
Speaker
right And there was something like 30,000 people died. And the company that I was with, SolarCity, they had a program. It was called SunRaising. And they said, okay, salespeople, for every megawatt of solar that you sold, we're going to fund a project in Nepal. It's either going to be solar panels on schools, on a community center, help to reestablish those communities.
00:02:28
Speaker
I thought that was the coolest thing, right? And that kind of became my drumbeat, my why, if you will. And so I thought it was really cool. sun, solar. Sun, solar, sun raising, fundraising, using the sun is is kind of the the essence of what sun raising came to be.
00:02:41
Speaker
Exactly. Wow. Yeah. And how did you develop such a passion for
Philanthropy in Action: Projects and Impact
00:02:46
Speaker
philanthropy? So this Nepal mission, it just, it spoke to you. Is that kind of what snowballed everything?
00:02:52
Speaker
You know, throughout the career, there's always been a little bit of of impact on the fringes of the day-to-day. But really in that situation, I thought it was incredibly cool that you could be doing work in, in this case, it was Colorado.
00:03:03
Speaker
And doing work, sitting at a table, helping someone save a couple of dollars with solar energy. And as a direct result, impacting lives halfway around the world. And that was just a concept that... was amazing to really think about. And that was something that i was hoping we'd be able to weave into the career the rest of the way. And so with the start of the Sunraising Foundation, um we're hopefully going to allow other businesses to follow follow suit.
00:03:27
Speaker
Amazing. What are some of the projects that you guys have going on right now, either with other businesses or just yourself? Yeah, great question. um We've just completed funding for a clean water project in Chiapas, Mexico, where we worked with Healing Waters International.
00:03:43
Speaker
We're bringing piped water, piped clean water into homes in Mexico for the first time in their history, 600 homes, which was great. We've deployed some solar panels to Haiti recently, which is great. We've started a new recycling program called Bags to Bed Rolls, which has been a at BNI. Yeah, tell everyone about that because that's really, really cool.
00:04:00
Speaker
Bags to Bed Rolls has been great. ah Literally your public shopping bags, Walmart shopping bags, your CVS, most of the time they're used for ah either pet waste, right, and then throwing it in the trash or just throwing in the trash, rarely recycled. And so um through our volunteering at the Trinity Cafe with Feeding Tampa Bay, we uncovered a way that we can recycle those those bags into plarn, which is plastic yarn, and then weave ah bedrolls.
00:04:27
Speaker
And then we distribute those out to the homeless population here in Tampa, for which there's about 4,000. And so with 700 Publix bags, we can turn that into a bedroll so someone can sleep a little bit more comfortably at night.
00:04:39
Speaker
Wow. And how are
Bags to Bed Rolls: Community and Environmental Impact
00:04:40
Speaker
you collecting them? Is there bins throughout the area? Yep. So we've so far deployed about a dozen a dozen bins. There's one right here at 4&Co. We've just partnered up with the Key Club at Sun Lake High School, various ah credit unions around town. ah Dr. Ron at 100% Chiropractic just ah launched his collection bins. And so You can go on our website. There's about, again, about a dozen locations that you can go to to drop off bags. And we're starting to get more corporations interested in hosting collection bins, which is great.
00:05:08
Speaker
That's brilliant because not only are you helping, of course, the homeless that need a little bit of cushion, um you're also recycling the bags, which have become just waste for our planet. So it's it really is brilliant. And it's such a simple thing that, you know, who who doesn't have a bunch of bags laying around in their pantry that they can donate and feel like, okay, I'm making somewhat of an impact on Yeah, absolutely. I think everyone has that that drawer or that area in their house that just collects these plastic bags knowing that you don't want to throw them away and you don't really know what to do with them.
00:05:43
Speaker
And so this is a great a great opportunity to repurpose those into something that's really cool. And there's a third effect that we found out from this program that we weren't really... thinking about but most of our volunteers that make the bedrolls are actually retirees right and so it's become a really cool opportunity for them to get together you know work on some mental dexterity you know weaving those together some camaraderie stuff and so it's really started to be this kind of three pillars of of impact that just really it really satisfies and people are getting really excited about it
00:06:14
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah, yeah super cool. That's really cool to hear.
Poker Night Fundraiser and Challenges of Post-Disaster Help
00:06:17
Speaker
And now another event that I wanted to speak about today is your poker night, which benefited the victims of the two hurricanes that we had in the Tampa Bay area in the fall of 2024, which were devastating to a lot of families close to home.
00:06:35
Speaker
I mean, I know in our office building that I work in every day, one of the office members on staff Lost everything in that hurricane. You know, she lived closer to the coast than we do. And, you know, what an amazing thing to be able to help a family directly. You know, we all want to give in any way that we can, but I think is.
00:06:59
Speaker
It has a stronger impact when you can see exactly who that person is that you're helping and you you feel the need. You know, you feel like, oh my gosh, you know, if if this person's right down the hall and I can help them rebuild a house or have shelter for the next couple months, of course, I want to do that.
00:07:17
Speaker
And so you did this poker night. Tell us about that. Tell us about the success of it and how much how much were we able to raise for these hurricane victim Absolutely. You know, part of of having an ah nonprofit organization is the ability to to be flexible. The way we set it up is to respond when when needs arise. And that's a perfect example. We originally had started the the Lights Out Poker Night, which was you know an immersive experience where we were going to play poker with no with no light whatsoever, just candlelight, right? To really simulate what it would be like to have to put ourselves in an uncomfortable position that many live in.
00:07:52
Speaker
yeah I think there's there's over 500 million people on this planet that don't have access to electricity, yet we have access to it on our day-to-day. So it was plenty planned to be just kind of a fun awareness meeting. But then the hurricanes hit and we immediately pivoted and said, okay, we need to raise money for our local community. um And so thankfully, B and I rose to the equ equation with lots of sponsors, lots of attendees. um We even doubled that up. We raised $5,000, which great.
00:08:17
Speaker
which was great We then partnered with the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, which matched our $5,000, turning it into $10,000. um Raised a little bit more, $11,500 total. um And that took various forms.
00:08:31
Speaker
There was a nonprofit organization in Tampa that got completely wiped out, ah both their their location and their vehicles. And so $10,000, the bulk majority went to rebuilding their entire facility and getting them a new vehicle.
00:08:44
Speaker
And they're a nonprofit that does food programs for um minority women, domestic violence victims, things like that. So there was a ripple effect of that that was was in desperate need. But like you mentioned, it's also closer to home. What most people don't realize right now is that there's a lot of need very close to them, but people don't talk about it, right? And so we were able to take the other $1,500 from that event, um help the specific individual here in the 4&Co building. And then John Pinnell, Smart Home Services, and I, we ah got a bunch of gift cards.
00:09:15
Speaker
I know Philippe from ProCare you know jumped in on the the gift cards, and we went out to a couple of different communities that were just devastated. you know Mobile homes completely devastated. flooded seniors basically camping out in a community center, passing out gift cards to Publix, Home Depot, trying to do a little bit of what we can. you know It's tough because after disasters, it's unorganized help. You get a lot of people that want to help, but there's no organizing body directing those resources. So it's very hit or miss. You can have communities that have more donations than what they need right next to a community that is being forgotten about. And we were fortunate enough to find a couple of those communities and help them out as well.
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that poker night, the lights at poker night, it was such a success. I was at it. um Believe it or not, my mom, Lisa Green, actually won the entire poker night. did she. She took down everyone. And it's funny because when we first arrived that night, she was joking with everyone and saying, well, I'm going to win.
00:10:09
Speaker
yeah and in her head, she was saying she would win a like a hand of poker she wasn't talking about winning the entire thing and you know so we're there all night you know and it's down to her and another guy and and she ends up winning and it it was so much fun to see the joy it brought her and then you know she was able to take her winnings and donate it then to this woman that we're speaking about right on spot yeah she was at the building we were at and How cool is that? I mean, it was a and a massive success for your first really big event.
00:10:44
Speaker
And, you know, that was like, okay, sunraising knows what they're doing and they can make a real impact in this community and and even globally. Yeah.
Philanthropy Strategy for Businesses
00:10:54
Speaker
um it It did have a little bit of dream come true, you know, and and that was that was the part that I think we were all most proud about is is just the support, um obviously, from 4&Co, from the B&I chapter.
00:11:06
Speaker
But then seeing your mom win and immediately look forward, you know, how to pay that forward and have that opportunity right then and there. You know, to to start a foundation, you know, is is typically built on our hopes and dreams. And I think philanthropy is contagious. That's what we're kind of kind of the premise of why we're doing what we're doing is to try and and make philanthropy just more accessible for people. Because when you give them that opportunity to participate and then pay that forward, you'd be surprised at how quickly that that ground swells. Yeah.
00:11:35
Speaker
Absolutely. And, you know, I think a lot of us, a lot of businesses, we want to give back. You know, i I believe that most people are good. And, know, We want to give back, but we don't know how.
00:11:49
Speaker
We don't even know where to begin, which charity to to give to, how to facilitate it. We don't have time to make sure that that money is actually getting there. And we can see that it's being used properly.
00:12:02
Speaker
And so we just throw our hands up and go, ah i don't know. I guess I can't. I can't donate. Yeah. You know, I'll try to throw some money in next time does someone does a collection, but I can't really take on ah whole foundation myself because it's just too much work while I'm already managing my business.
00:12:20
Speaker
And i know I even felt that way. And so that's why and want to talk about the Power Partners program that you've created to alleviate all of the work that goes behind giving so that you know we can continue servicing our clients and running our business while making a difference in the background. So tell me a little bit more about that Yeah, excellent, excellent segue.
Union Financial Impact Fund Introduction
00:12:46
Speaker
um You know modern philanthropy is very reactionary based, right?
00:12:51
Speaker
See sponsor, give sponsor, you know, you feel good about it right then and there. And there's really just not a lot of accountability in that. Where does the money go? Who do you touch? How do you report that back? to you know So when we were looking at you know ways to grow the the organization, we really wanted to make philanthropy easy. And so we kind of settled on this concept of philanthropy as a service or for a better term, white labeled philanthropy. Right. and so Most people, like you mentioned, want to do more good in business, but they don't have the time or the resources to do it. It really is kind of complex, you know, from setting up a 501c3 to running it on a day-to-day to finding the right impact partners to holding them accountable, reporting it back, leveraging that to grow your business. It's really a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. So unless you're in a situation where you can dedicate and grow a department, you know, we said, okay, well, what if we become that for our partners?
00:13:42
Speaker
You know, sunraising for me, my wife and our board, it's that name is very, very important. It's very emotional. But for our partners, that's the same the same connection that you have with your brand, Union Financial. And it it deserves to be put front and center.
00:13:57
Speaker
So how do we marriage those two? And so we said, OK, for our power partners, what if we do a branded impact fund? where it's their passion. We guide them on helping find where their passions are, find the right partners, vet those partners.
00:14:11
Speaker
We'll do the organization of the funds. We'll write the grants. you know We'll work together on that side, but we'll do all the back-end compliance. We'll do all the back-end reporting, the the transparency, reporting that back. And so...
00:14:23
Speaker
Really, this kind of we took an entrepreneurial approach to philanthropy and we feel like we have something that's pretty special, you know, and yeah we're hoping that with our partnership with with Union Financial, that we can really set the stage for how businesses can grow through philanthropy without having to to worry about it slowing down their traditional business trajectory.
00:14:42
Speaker
Absolutely. So, you know, with that being said, we are officially launching yes the Union Financial Impact Fund, which in 2025, the recipient is going to be Metropolitan Ministries, which is a Tampa Bay charity that focuses on helping homeless, helping women and children in difficult situations, helping those get back on their feet. Everything from food, shelter to job interview, prep, you know, really a large variety of ways that they help in the area.
00:15:14
Speaker
But the exciting thing is, is that, you know, every year we want to change our recipient. There's so many charities that are local to the area that really do need our help.
00:15:25
Speaker
And So what we want to do is we want feedback from our listeners. We want feedback from our clients. What's you know a charity that you hold close to heart that you'd want our 2026 money to go towards? Because what we're committing to at Union Financial is $100 for every new account opened.
00:15:44
Speaker
throughout the course of the year. We will put into that impact fund and you know whether it be once or twice a year, SunRising will help us you know funnel that money to where it needs to go.
00:15:57
Speaker
And you know the great thing is is that you know Jason and his team are going to be creating a landing page where it's really simple. You can just go right to that landing page, make your donation, read a little bit about where it's going to be going.
00:16:10
Speaker
What else can they find on that landing page? They'll be able to give through the landing page directly into your your fund bucket, if you will. And then, like you said, twice a year we'll get together, we'll write grants. um One of the great ways that we can support our power partners is by working directly with your organization of chores ah choice to find, you know, what is their most pressing need, right? You know, real quick, just...
00:16:32
Speaker
Metropolitan Ministries is a huge organization doing lots of good, but there's probably specific intricacies in there that they desperately need money for. And so when it comes time to write grants, one of the roles that we'll play is is a kind of a bridge between the two organizations to find out exactly where the the urgent need is to see if that matches up with your giving giving style.
00:16:51
Speaker
And you know so that way we can, instead of just blanket giving to an organization, we can find those specific use cases that that that fit really well. Okay. One of the reasons we chose Metropolitan Ministries, first of all, a few of our clients are involved lovely with them. But last year and the year before, we had done a collection for the holidays, a toy collection. And, you know, I think a lot of charities do that.
00:17:16
Speaker
But the cool thing was we were able to go. They have tents throughout the Pasco County area. That families in need can go and actually shop for the gifts for their children. I love it And it's, you know, sectioned into, you know, five years old, 10 years old,
Impact Fund Setup and Tax Benefits
00:17:32
Speaker
15.
00:17:32
Speaker
And so they feel like they're still shopping for their child with those toys. They're not just getting handed whatever toy was collected. And so it had that personal touch that we really – resonated with um and you know the one section of toys for for teenagers well not toys but like gifts for teenagers was a little low and so that might be you know where they need funding for ye maybe yep and that's that's going to be your job to yeah we'll figure that out for you which is great you know and then work together to make it happen and that's really where the magic is yeah absolutely and i mean
00:18:07
Speaker
So basically, you know white labeling or making a union financial impact fund, that is, first of all, brilliant. And second of all, something that a lot of our business owner clients or business owner listeners could do for their own business with you, right? Yeah, absolutely. It is very plug and play. Three easy steps to to set up your own impact fund. One, we do a discovery call. We learn a little bit about your mission, the the types of communities that you're interested in impacting.
00:18:35
Speaker
If they fall within our our range of expertise, we'll set you up a fund. Second thing to do is to figure out your giving style, right? You're doing $100 new client. It could be a monthly donation. It could be a per transaction donation, you know, whatever. We'll customize that to fit, you know, a scalable model for your business.
00:18:53
Speaker
Then three, we create your your landing page, your own branded landing page inside of our website. So that way, from a compliance standpoint, everyone knows that, you know, Sunraising Foundation carries the 501c3, but the brand, the the impact fund is branded as our as our power partner. So it gives you a destination to send your employees, your clients, your your kind of sphere of influence too, to support your specific causes as well, which is easy. That's it. Simple as that. Awesome. yeah So do you charge a fee? Do you charge a one time upfront? How,
00:19:22
Speaker
You know, we typically ask for... Because I don't expect anyone to do something for nothing. No, no. We want to do as much as we can. um The way that we have it set up is a minimum donation yearly. you know um Typically, we'll ask for a $500 start and then you know a yearly a yearly goal. But again, we have to we have to donate at least 75% of that each year. We can roll forward the remainder. Yeah.
00:19:45
Speaker
you know And then we're going to keep a ah management fee of 7% to basically run run the business, you know vet the partners, create the the impact reports, everything, all the deliverables that we would give to our power partners. so We keep us a small percentage. So that way 93% is going directly to end user impact, which is great. Yeah.
00:20:04
Speaker
I mean, and for anyone not willing to pay a small management fee, let's face it, you're not going to do it yourself. No. And so, you know, 93% versus 0%, it's pretty awesome. I think so too. That's a pretty big impact. I think so too. You know, we're we're committed to running the organization with ah zero human resources expense, right? And so, you know, we're trying just ah just the technology of of creating what we need to be able to help you grow your business through philanthropy.
00:20:33
Speaker
Those deliverables, they take time. They take a little bit of effort. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, the other great thing, too, of course, we all want to do good. But, you know, because I'm in finance, I got to mention charitable donations are tax deductible to corporations. That they are.
00:20:52
Speaker
So, I mean, if it's Uncle Sam or a charity... You know, where would you rather your money go? it It usually makes sense for any profitable companies to be donating to charities throughout the course of the year. Get that tax deduction.
00:21:10
Speaker
You're doing good while also saving your company some money on taxes. Yeah, that doesn't hurt. You know, so it it really doesn't hurt. And, you know, the other version of charitable donations comes in, too, for for our retirees that are required to take their RMDs, which stands for Required Minimum Distributions.
00:21:31
Speaker
Once you hit the age of 73... You're required, per the government, to start withdrawing a certain percentage of any retirement assets every year, any IRA, 401k, 403b assets.
00:21:44
Speaker
You have to start distributing them to yourself peak because you want to guess why? They want their tax dollars. course That's money that's never been taxed. They want to start bringing some tax revenue in.
00:21:55
Speaker
They don't want you to just leave it sit there forever and ever. And so 73, which they keep raising that age, but right now at 73, Let's say Mary Smith has to withdraw, I don't know, $10,000 from her IRA, and she really doesn't need the money.
00:22:13
Speaker
She has other income sources, or she only needs $5,000 of it. Mary Smith can then have that extra $5,000 or whatever percentage of that RMD be funneled into a charitable distribution.
00:22:28
Speaker
They call it a qualified charitable distribution. And now she avoids the tax on it. And so you know if it's a year where that extra money is going to bump them into a different tax bracket or whatever the circumstances may be,
00:22:42
Speaker
it might make sense to do that charitable distribution that year with the RMD. You can do it do it into our impact fund. You can set up your own. um So that's – I always just want to bring that up because, you know, when we speak to our clients about legacy planning, once they, you know, get into that retirement age, there's really four buckets that your money can go into.
00:23:05
Speaker
Bucket number one is you. You want to spend every dime that you have. And nothing wrong with that. Some people are like, you know what? I want to spend every dime of this. I've worked hard for it. Fine. Sure.
00:23:17
Speaker
We'll plan accordingly. You know, bucket number two would be you want it to go to your heirs, which if that's the case, you know, we need to make sure that we have estate planning in place. We have life insurance. We have beneficiaries listed.
00:23:33
Speaker
Bucket number three would be charity. yeah You know, you might want to list a charity as your beneficiary or you might want to make sure that you have those donations set up on a systematic basis.
00:23:45
Speaker
And then bucket number four is the IRS. If you don't plan properly, majority of your assets will go to the IRS. No one wants that. No, I mean, maybe some people do. I don't know any, but me.
00:23:57
Speaker
maybe And so, you know, that is, it's part of that planning discussion. Where do you want your legacy to go? And if charity is one of the places you want it to go, even if it's you know a small percentage, let's have a conversation about that. We can do it in an efficient way where you want it to go.
00:24:16
Speaker
Absolutely. And i think I think it's such a ah ah great conversation to have as a financial advisor with your clients, right? Mm-hmm. Because oftentimes it's on the role of the individual to kind of figure out where they want to put the money. But for you as a money manager to be able to weave that into the conversation from an early stage of the relationship just builds so much more stickiness in the in the relationship. They're going long term.
00:24:41
Speaker
You going to be doing good together. And soliciting their feedback I think is really smart, you know, because now the whole community is – providing you know recommendations for what lives you guys should change together as
Global Need and Business-Driven Philanthropy
00:24:52
Speaker
a collective. And you can report back on that. And from ah scaling a business through philanthropy, you can't get any better than that.
00:24:58
Speaker
That's fantastic. yeah No, because I mean, we all want to be successful and make a lot of money, but deep down, that's not enough. No, it never not for me either.
00:25:09
Speaker
Like, if you're not making others' lives better, why do you need so much money? You know, even if it's just making your family's lives better. That's the real reason behind all of us wanting to make a lot of money, I think, at least for me personally.
00:25:26
Speaker
I agree. I think we live in a world that it's it's easy to forget how much need still exists, right? And so if we can just pull back the curtain just a little we're privileged, honestly. we We know it.
00:25:36
Speaker
We live where we live, you know? and And especially as as a father of three, You know, the next generation, they they want to do even more good than we do. And it's important to show them the different avenues where they can go and and really pull back the curtain of how much need there is out there.
00:25:51
Speaker
Because it's it's everywhere, unfortunately. Unfortunately, we live in a world where there's so much, so much need. And we all need to come together to to be able to do that. and i think we have a great opportunity to really, you know, take our entrepreneurial brains and apply it to helping others.
00:26:06
Speaker
i think that And I think some special things can happen. Yeah. And I mean, on that same realm of, you know, building up that impact fund, talk to me a little bit about donor advised funds, yes which is how you can totally yeah you know grow that account. Yep. Yep. And so as we, as we grow the the basic impact fund, we can definitely grow that into a door a formal donor advised fund where, you know, Union Financial can be a registered agent and we can start investing those funds throughout the year and and watch them grow to to even scale the impact even more so, right? And so this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to impact funding and how to set it up in a partnership sense. And so really, you know, much like a managed assets that that you have on the on the nonprofit side, we can do the same exact thing, you know, invest it into, you
00:26:57
Speaker
High risk, high reward, low risk across the board, you know, but for something like that, we would need to strengthen our partnership and I would need to have someone licensed. I just don't think most people know that. Yes. That exists. Absolutely. You know, it it doesn't have to be a piggy bank of of cash. It can truly be invested and that thousand dollars can easily grow to five thousand over the years if it's invested even in like low cost index funds. We're not talking, you know, crazy high risk strategies, obviously. But yeah.
00:27:25
Speaker
you You know, that that does exist. And that's probably stage three or four. It's not right off the top. But as a company becomes more comfortable with their impact fund, speaking about investing yeah that money, it's really exciting. Yeah, once the organization grows to collective funds of a yeah six figures, you know, that's about the time that we would say, okay, let's take a look at, you know, really increasing our our passive growth of this fund so we can help everyone continue to do even more good, you know.
Contributing to Sunraising Impact Fund
00:27:59
Speaker
Absolutely. So say if a listener wants to find out how they can start their impact fund, yeah what would be the first steps that they would do? The best thing to do is just go onto our website, which is sunraising.org, and put in ah a ticket, a contact ticket to set up a discovery call. And we can learn more about what their goals and and interests are in philanthropy and see if we can make that a reality for them. That's easy. No charge for that? charge. No. Okay.
00:28:27
Speaker
No. What if they feel like they don't have enough money? So they can donate to us. You can, on our website, you can just set up a ah general recurring donation um and be part of our Sunraising Impact Fund. You know, and we stick to our three verticals of food, water, and sustainability.
00:28:44
Speaker
You know, Metropolitan Ministries falls into those buckets. um You know, so if you just want to be a part of what we're doing, you can go on there, set up a monthly recurring donation, and you'll get your impact report at the end of the year of all the good that we've done collectively. Yeah. Okay, great. easy Yeah, that's awesome.
Personal Financial Lessons and Future Goals
00:28:59
Speaker
And now something that I'm starting to implement with any guests that we have on is to ask the best financial decision you've ever made and the worst. Yes. And no judgment, of course. course. But, you know, our our goal is relatability with our listeners. Maybe they can learn from a mistake you made or implement...
00:29:19
Speaker
something that has worked really well for you. sure So what would you say? We'll start with bad first. what we're going to start with dad What would you say your worst financial decision thus far in life has been? Don't know if you're going to want to repeat this one.
00:29:31
Speaker
ah The worst financial mistake I ever made um was
00:29:38
Speaker
was not having proper legal counsel during a divorce. Okay. Would you go the mediation route? That's – I self-represented on a mediation against a opposing party that was well stocked.
00:29:55
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So certain things are worth spending money on. Yes. Yes. um We work with a lot of clients that are going through a divorce or just – Went through a divorce. And yeah, there's there's huge financial implications to it.
00:30:14
Speaker
um Splitting the assets properly. If this is something you can relate to and you were just divorced, we can help you with with splitting those assets and laying your new foundation for what really is your new financial reality.
00:30:26
Speaker
um And oftentimes, you don't want to keep the same advisor that your ex-spouse used. yeah You can. Yeah. Usually both parties want to go their separate ways.
00:30:37
Speaker
And it's always good to have someone who's not emotionally invested in in everything. yeah So, okay, legal counsel, very important. Yes, learn that the hard way, which is perfectly okay. um And the best piece of advice...
00:30:52
Speaker
that I ever received financially was from my my beautiful bride, my my wife. ah When we got together, my credit score was not very sterling.
00:31:02
Speaker
um And she really worked with me hard to explain the the value of an 800 credit score. And now I sit here with ah an 800 credit score and I can tell you that the best piece of advice was from her making that a priority and and what that unlocks for you as ah as an individual is is tremendous, both on the the business and on the personal side. Having a great credit score is crucial.
00:31:27
Speaker
How did you build up that credit score? It took a while. It took a while. A lot of it was paying off paying off old debts, getting things organized.
00:31:38
Speaker
um I would say that was the the bulk majority of it is I was really, really heavy on the revolving credit card debt, getting that rebalanced out, understanding the percentages.
00:31:50
Speaker
Basically understanding how credit scores work, you know, what are the grading criteria is. Because there's good debt to have there's bad debt. Absolutely. Credit card debt bad, bad, bad. And so you reorganize that a little bit, you pay it down here, you get into the right percentages and it can it can jump 100 points overnight if you do it if you do it right and get it all balanced the way that it needs to be. so Okay. Yeah. I mean, hey, that's, that's great. I'm happy that you're in a good spot with that now. Yeah.
00:32:16
Speaker
Yeah. so now if, you know, another COVID comes around or anything like that, you know, you have, um, a lot of, what's the word? Borrowability. Borrowing power. Yeah. Borrowing power to get through life's challenges because they're definitely coming, you know, it's just the way that it is. Yeah.
00:32:30
Speaker
What are your goals for this year, either on a business standpoint or, or it can be, you know, what kind of impact you want to make? Oh, great question. um So this year for the foundation, um we volunteer every month at the Trinity Cafe. So we our goal for the year is 5,000 meals physically served, which is great. We're already a third of the way there, which is which is awesome.
00:32:54
Speaker
You're more than invited to join us anytime anytime you'd like. um We would like to set up about a dozen power partners. um We're at three right now that we're that we're working with, which is really exciting. And so we'd like to scale that.
00:33:07
Speaker
um And from there... And we'd like to be able to have reportable impact in all three of our verticals, water, food, and sustainability. And I think we'll be able to do that. um And then have obviously see if your mom is going to be defending champ at the second annual you poker night. yeah Hey, we will be there.
00:33:26
Speaker
She's got... yeah Pressure's on this year. We need someone to come we need someone someone to come knock her knock her off the throne. She's tough. Yeah. Come on, poker players. If you're good, you've got come. This fall, be on the lookout. Absolutely.
00:33:38
Speaker
All right. Well, that is great. I mean, I think it's going to be ah wonderful year of changing lives and you know improving all of our own businesses as well. Because as you said, you know using business as a means for good, that's just plain old good business. Good business. Yep. And I think we can all relate to
Contact Information and Episode Conclusion
00:33:57
Speaker
that.
00:33:57
Speaker
And so for anyone that's listening and wants to have a conversation with Jason about maybe starting an impact fund for your own business or just how to give back to maybe the funds that are already set up.
00:34:09
Speaker
And if you have questions for me, of course, I can funnel them over to Jason. But how can people get in touch with you? ah You can find us on on social media. We have ah the Sunraising Foundation has a Facebook page. I think we have an Instagram page as well um or through the website. and That's the easiest way.
00:34:25
Speaker
um Or just- Sunraising. Sunraising.org. Sunraising. Yep. Sunraising.org. That's the easiest way to find us or through one of our valued partners like yourself. So yeah go to Marissa. She'll send you my way and and we'll be off to the races.
00:34:38
Speaker
Awesome. And for anyone else that has questions about how to save on taxes by contributing to charities or any other financial questions that are in the back of your mind, we'd be happy to have a conversation with you either by phone, Zoom, or in person. If you'd like to head to our website, union-financial.com, click on book a meeting, and it'll take you right to my personal schedule.
00:35:02
Speaker
and we can schedule a time that works best for both of us, we'd be happy to help you live a better financial future and do good in this world. So thank you all for tuning in to another episode of the Future of Finance podcast. I'm your host, Marissa Wood, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you, guys.
00:35:20
Speaker
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00:35:35
Speaker
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00:35:51
Speaker
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00:36:31
Speaker
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00:36:50
Speaker
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