 Those of you again that joined us for the Chitty Chat Chat, you learned a lot more about our guest today who is a dynamic powerhouse, Jasmine Fain. Thank you so much. Jasmine Joining is joining us today to talk more about creating cash flow without grants. So thank you for joining us today for that topic. We of course want to start by saying thank you, thank you, thank you to our presenting sponsors. We're so grateful to have their continued commitment, dedication, and investment not only to these episodes but to each and every one of you to help move your mission-driven goals forward. So if you haven't yet, please do find them, check them out because they exist to help you do more good. Julia Patrick joins us, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, and I'm Jarrett Ransom, her sidekick also known as the non-profit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And we want to give all of our time and attention to our guest today, again, Jasmine Fain, the non-profit guru jasminefain.com to talk to us more about this creating cash flow without grants. So welcome, Jasmine. Thank you for having me today. I'm excited. I feel like this week has been like a speaking engagement week for me so I'm excited. I have the fire and the energy to speak this week under my belt so I'm excited to be here. Awesome. Great. And as you move forward in your law classes, your law degree, I mean, I didn't realize that that is something that you're pursuing. So first of all, congratulations. And I think that our world will be much better to have you in that space for sure. And you better get used to talking because if I know anything about attorneys, I know they do a lot of that. I love to talk. I love to talk. I was doing my classes last night and I was like, oh, this is my field. I get to talk. I get to represent people because I'm already representing people and non-profits now in the space. So it just takes it up another level now. You know, I love this. And if you joined us for the Chitty Chat Chat, one of the things that Jared said, which I think is really important and bears repeating, and that is if she was pursuing her education and higher education, there was no direction for the discussion of nonprofit management. It had to kind of be couched under for-profit, you know, the business sector and shit, Jared, you have your MBA, which is amazing and really helps. But imagine if that education had been more funneled down to nonprofit. And in law, it's the same way. And so this is, I'm like so excited that you're doing this and I want to witness to you, if you ever need a cheerleader, reach out to us because we need more women invested in this type of education and excellence for our entire sector. It's really important. And if you thought you joined us for a power out, you're mistaken. But the nonprofit guru. Okay, we talked about this. Your work took you to an international place. Share with us your journey to South Africa post grad and then what you were looking at. Yeah. So for me, I remember sitting in one of my literature classes. I was like, I graduated a couple of months. What am I going to do with my life? Because I'm already immersed in my field by this point. I'm grant writing. So for me, it was the, what is the next step? Like how can I elevate my career? And I remember like my thing was I want to work for the UEN. I want to grant write for the UEN. I want to help nonprofit in the UEN. And so eventually I was like, but the UEN, like, it's too governmental, like for me right now. And so I found a program where I was able to just submit my resume. And they found a nonprofit for me to work with them based off my credentials and what I was already providing. And so I ended up working for NGO called the Women's Legal Center in K-Town, South Africa. And it's funny when I got there, because I had, I had done marketing directing work, you know, during my undergraduate days or in nonprofits. But when they got there, their marketing director had like completely left. And so they were like, hey, we know you came here to do litigation work, you know, to help with funding. But like we've seen that you've been a marketing director. So do you want to add that to your plate also? And I was like, might as well. I'm here for the journey. And so I lived there for three months. And I would say it was the most amazing, but eye opening experience because I went during the height of a high political time. And it's funny, we live right down the street from Parliament. So I was able to like look out my window and see Parliament and able to see, you know, President Ramposa's address. But it was crazy because when I got there, three women had been raped and murdered within the span of four days. And so the women had just had enough. And so I remember my second day in the office of our law firm, you know, I'm seeing everybody have their protest stuff on. And I'm like, what is going on? Like, I am new here. And they're like, Jasmine, we're going protesting. And I think there was over like 500,000 people at this protest all in front of Parliament. And it was very eye opening in the sense of, you know, us as Americans realizing the privilege that we have, me as a black woman realizing in an international sense, back in the homeland country, I still had this level of privilege. But I also had the privilege and the resources to represent these women, to hear their cases, the knowledge to be able to afford, you know, Oklahoma State University and to grant right in college. That's just a rare opportunity that everyone doesn't get. And to be able to take my knowledge and apply it to these women lives and help them. So. Amazing. Okay, so I feel like a slug when I hear you. When I hear you. What have we done? No. Yeah, I'm like, I'm going to step it up today. Oh my gosh. Well, I want to talk to you and drill down a little bit about this, the nonprofit cash crunch. I mean, Jared and I hear about this from our viewers and from our guests. Funding is always at the heart. It seems like of every discussion we have, because without money, you can't really pursue your mission. But you can tell us a little different of a strategy. Yeah. Yeah. So, like I said, when I was building my social enterprise startup, I realized going to investors and raising capital that way was so much easier than like my career in writing grants. And so I was like, I'm going to teach nonprofits how to do this. And the thing is we don't realize that grants are only supposed to account for 2% of our overall annual budget. And so technically 60% of the nonprofit industry works from other income sources outside of grants. So this narrative that we spread to people that as soon as you start a 511c3, go get a grant, apply for the grant. At times beg for the grant, it's actually completely opposite of what the industry is actually doing in sustaining. And so once, like I said, got into the tech startup industry and I'm then researching more about the nonprofit industry, I realized we're giving people completely different advice and this is why they're struggling. I will even say the nonprofit industry is very black or white. And not in the census race, but in the sense of wealth and money. So you have the 1% who the 511c3 is a tax break, you know, it's not a solid business structure. And so it was created to give a tax break to wealth. So you have that side of the nonprofit industry where you see the more Cubans and all the Goodwill's and you're like, how do they have millions of dollars? Well, they have tax breaks and wealthy people who need tax breaks. That's how it gets funded. And then you have the black side of the nonprofit industry where you did not come from wealth. You faced the wealth inequality all your life, whether you did have some wealth but you don't have, you know, millions of dollars to throw away. And so therefore creating a solid business structure within your nonprofit, all it is is giving a place for money. It gives like a train for money to move on the tracks to go to a certain position. And that's really all it is. And so with our industry being so like one way or the other, you know, most of the advice that you're hearing is from the top 1%, you know, just give your money, do this, you'll get the tax break. But it doesn't apply to the way you need to fund yourself in the black sense of our nonprofit industry. There's just no gray area, but it's funny, I believe we're moving into a gray area, just pull, well, not really post COVID because we're still in COVID, but the nonprofit industry is moved back up and moving now. But we're moving into a gray area where I know a lot of consultants, a lot of nonprofits are realizing COVID killed, you know, our industry on both sides, you know, especially for, you know, the grant processes because grant foundations were like, hey, we're a nonprofit too. We gotta cut the funding. We can't give out all the money. We have to raise funding just like you. So the grants are limited. The old advice, you know, does not apply anymore and a lot of nonprofits are shifting into the social enterprise space and raising money like tech startups because we have people like YC Combinator that accepts nonprofits 501C3 now. We have programs such as Mass Challenge. Even here in Dallas, the DEC Network has programs in pitch competitions for nonprofits. It's just an easier way to raise capital and it puts the money directly into your hands. You know, one of the things, and I love this, I'm gonna say like you're on your soapbox and preach because I love it and it's so necessary. One of the things that I have seen over decades is the amount of like, I'm gonna call it, asinine questions that nonprofits are asked to not report, but like some foundations now will say, submit this video. We want you to create this video and this now is our grant request. And it's like, we don't do videos. That's not how we are. And so now you're actually asking us to invest and they will say, we don't want you to invest any money. And it's like, well, then how are we making this video? Right? So it's like all of these hoops and hoops and hoops that we're jumping through. And then it's like, well, let's like this hoop on fire and see if you can jump through that one. So what I'm hearing you say, Jasmine, is a lot of going through these other revenue availability options, possibilities is much easier, can be much easier than jumping through this, burning hoop of submitting a grant proposal. So I am thrilled to learn more about this because this has been a point of contention for so many of us. Yeah, yeah. And it's funny, I even give an example, I talked to a startup founder by the name of Reuben Harris. We had an IG Live masterclass and he runs Career Karma. And so they're a marketplace, a tech marketplace. And we were having a conversation live on Instagram and he was saying, they were trying to start a nonprofit initiative. And he was like, Jasmine, it was easier for me to go to my initial investors and to re-ask and pitch for money than it was for me to try to fill out one grant application. And that's just like a real life example of just how hard it is. And like you said, it's like we put one hoop and then we light the hoop on fire and then we put everything in front of the hoop. And then we're like figure out a way to get to the other side. And we're like, I don't even know why is the elephant here? You're asking these questions, why is it on fire? And all of these different things. But the main thing we're creating cash over without grants, I would say is you have to learn that you can make a profit. That is the myth in another profit industry when you first go into the 501c3, we tell people, you're gonna be struggling for 20 years to help your community and you're not gonna make a salary, you can't make a profit, which is a complete lie. Your fundraisers are your revenue. This is why we go back to the core of what exactly is a fundraiser. Oftentimes we think if we're a small to medium-sized grassroots nonprofit, we have to throw the big gala like we see everybody else doing. We gotta do the typical fundraisers. But I'll tell you, fundraisers are any creative way that you can come up to raise funds. I had a client, she called me and she had took my summit and all of that. And she was like, Jasmine, we just made $2,000. And it's been like a couple of weeks and I was like, you made $2,000 already? I was like, well, what did you do with fundraisers? Like, cause that's a pretty quick turnaround. You just took this program. And she was like, well, we took your advice and we gathered the community together and they went to different churches and family members and they gathered old cell phones. And she went to the recycling center and they got there, I think from the community, 13 full boxes of cell phones, took them to the recycling center and got $2,000 off of them. And then followed up with her community, sent surveys, thank you notes. Thank you for donating. This is where your money is going to and raise funds within two weeks that way. And that's the main thing about creating cash flow without grants is raising funds with your community. Community-centric minded fundraisers. And what that means is oftentimes we're used to donor-centric fundraisers, meaning we put the donor, the individual donor first in our minds. So therefore, if I go to the investor, I need to put them first and above my mission at times. So what they say goes because it's their money. But when we switch over to community-centric fundraisers, this means I need to think about the collective good of the community and what they want to do. And if I go with what they want to do, then therefore, of course, is going to quite naturally raise funds. I always tell people, if you ask your community and they say, we want a roller skating party, throw the roller skating party because you're probably gonna get 50 community members and you can charge $10 and you're making revenue that way. Even yesterday when I was doing my presentation, I was like, if you want to do a TikTok tournament for the kids and they're down with that and they're willing to pay like $10 to $20 to sit in a room and watch each other do dances, that's a fundraiser because one, they're gonna pay. And then because it's a trend, it's what they love to do. They're gonna tell their friends and their friends are gonna tell their friends. And before you know it, you have like $3,000 of a TikTok tournament because it's what your community wants to do. But it's also going back to finding creative ways to raise funds. TikTok tournaments are on Google. It's not in your typical nonprofit article that they're saying like, do this to raise funds, but it's what the kids are willing to pay for. And if you make them feel a part of the fundraising process in your community, they're gonna keep coming back. They're gonna show up for your programs when you have scholarship or mentorship programs because you've shown first that you care about them and what they want to do within this community and mission. Interesting. One of the quotes I have in my head is people support that in which they help create, right? People support that in which they help create. And as you were sharing, I had this aha moment because I'm guilty, Jasmine, as a fundraiser, as a nonprofit professional, I have been very donor-centric, right? And so as you say, community-centric, it literally shifts my perspective. We exist, nonprofits exist because there is a community problem. So we are providing a solution to the community problem. Therefore, we should be including the community in that fundraising. And so that to me was a huge aha that was happening like literally as I sat here listening to you. So thank you for bringing this new perspective to all of us. Yeah, no, even in just to go into a further example of that, like I always tell people, you don't wanna end up like the gallows where you see all the big investors there and you don't see the community. You also wanna create fundraisers where they both can meet because that takes the pressure off of you. If you're having a gala and you're continuously walking around throughout the gala and having to pitch or talk about a key that is in this program or create the PowerPoint of the program, it makes it easier if you can find a common ground, a great area in the fundraising process where both the community can participate and the donors can come if they want to. And you don't have to constantly pitch the donor about the community. If they wanna meet them, they can talk to them right there. You know, they can have the conversations and it creates this relationship between the two. So now you're not doing all the work but everybody is in this ecosystem where it just all works together. You know, it's interesting too. I think that when, and I agree with you, Jared, I've kind of been thinking about my own journey and being donor-centric versus community-centric. And I'm super guilty of that. Chasing the dollar is just such a bad thing versus chasing the mission. And that's where I think this is really powerful. It seems to me that if you're strong-arming somebody for a check and you haven't really built that relationship or you're not even thinking that way, that's just not sustainable. But if you put, let's say, to your example, something that deals with youth and you have that investor-donor relationship that is able to witness what a child needs or how they're responding, pretty ding-dang powerful. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is more powerful than any pitch that you could give in the entire world because they're establishing that connection for themselves. And it goes beyond you at this point now. Maybe they went through the same experiences as that kid. So now they become a personal mentor to that kid. You know, they give resources that you could never be able to provide to that child and they're able to have a direct relationship with them. And that's just the beauty of community-centric fundraising, community-centric programs, just keeping the community first. And I would say there is a time and place for donor-centric fundraising, especially when I've talked to NGOs in Nigeria and West Africa, they have to utilize donor-centric because the community is just not at a point to support in any type of way. They are kick-hard in every single area. But because we're here in America and our communities do have some level of privilege in housing and economy, you know, we can utilize community-centric fundraising more. But I do want to point that out, especially in third-world countries and especially we talk about Africa or even Jamaica, donor-centric is the fundraising source that they need and they have to go into the investor realm first before they can even think about doing community-centric. Right. You know, Julia, as I listen to Jasmine and you referenced during Dallas, and I keep thinking, we have had some really amazing talent from the Dallas community and I feel like we need to make it to Dallas at some point and have a gathering. That would be great. We have. We've had very interesting thought leaders. We have. I'm thinking of what you just said and it reminded me I had an opportunity to speak to a board of girls high school. And one of the things that the organizer did before the board meeting, which was so cool, is that she found a video clip of a news piece. It wasn't even something that her school had produced and it was a student that had gone on to do some amazing things. And in her community, this news channel had done a small segment and she ran that segment for the board members. Well, as I was able to look out at their faces, they had like a switch in the hubs moment where they were just like, this is why we are here. We wanna work harder. You know, we talk about the mission moment but you can achieve that even if you can't get maybe something in reality that works together because I was so inspired even as the speaker, I got up and I was like, holy moly, this is why we're here. You know, I think this is that human element that we lose in the nonprofit sector. And it's a shame because it impacts the bottom line. No, it does. And what you're talking about is the videography piece and that's why grant applications have started wanting to see videos and nonprofits are trying to figure out how do I produce a high quality video all of a sudden because especially going into the COVID realm, how do we convey those stories without being able to contact each other physically? Because as a nonprofit industry, we're used to direct, direct talking in your face, like hugging you if you need a hug, we're mom, dad, and mentor to you. And now we can't do that. And so it's like, how do I compensate for that? And that's through the videography piece. I would say that was the biggest thing as a marketing director that I did here in Dallas when I was working with Foro Cliff is like every back to school festival, we created a video to convey the emotion of the community. And we always pick like a central theme song that like all of us in the office felt like this is the theme song of the summer. And we put that in the video and we would choose clips that really conveyed emotion in the face and skin tone so that as you watched it and heard the song, you've really grasped what the community was going through. And so like videography is definitely key in all of this now across all industries. You need some type of video or audio now. Yeah, I would say that is so true. Yeah, very true. You know, and we talk about social media and that was one of the things they added to your responsibility in South Africa was so many people now are watching videos even in mute and so the captions are really important. So having that video, I don't know, it really makes you feel like you're there, you're a part of it. And we have heard Julia from so many of our guests, I'm thinking in particular the Licking County Humane Society, they went into the animal shelter and literally just did like a Facebook live with the pets because nobody could come in. So I don't know if it was the CEO or whom, but someone went in and utilized that video. I think that is a great opportunity. One of the things you talked about Jasmine and maybe you could go a little bit further, in particular when we are supporting initiatives in another location. And I am thinking internationally, how do we bring in some of these revenue generating initiatives that you've talked about if they're not in our local backyard community. I would say that is one of the questions that keeps me up at night and puzzles me. And I just had a conversation with a marketing consultant and she switched into the nonprofit fundraising side, but I met with a client in, you know, I think Uganda, if I remember correctly, I was about to say Nigeria, but Uganda and he's the only NGO near Lake Victoria. And because the need during COVID and the government has cut off a main economic source, like everybody from any neighboring city is coming to him now. And so it's funny you asked this question because it leaves me, you know, in purpose, it leaves me praying because I'm like, what solution is there? Because the thing where we're dealing with and now that we're talking about the NGO sense is governments and everybody's different regulations for nonprofits here in America and, you know, the UK and majority of Europe, we run on the same nonprofit level. We know that our government provides resources to us to be able to get additional funding. But when we talk about more in Africa, especially Africa and Caribbean islands and those other islands, Indonesian islands that are supporting, you know, these local areas, a lot of governments are different. We know from our government, there's a lot of restrictions and also, like I said, donor centric is needed, but at the same time, there's not donors to ask, you know, there's not just a phone number that we are so used to like Googling and finding their email and just calling them up or sending an email, like it's like a ghost town pretty much. And so me and another consultant, like I said, we're talking and she's actually trying to develop a tech startup to kind of have a database to put them on one spot and to say, if you want to find them like here they are, but I even think that goes back into the mission work of what I'm doing would empower you. And what we do is promote nonprofit programs, really marketing them for less than 1% of your annual budget. And so it was the same problems that I faced even here working, you know, in Oak Cliff, which is where my family's from is Southern Dallas and it's a lower income area. And so people didn't know the resources. They didn't know who to reach out to. They couldn't find the service and programs. I remember spending summers, you know, printing out flyers and driving around in this Texas heat and like handing out flyers to people going to different businesses, you know, spending eight hours a day just driving around all the DFW because there was not a source whether through social media or, you know, any marketing tool where people could just directly find the services and programs. And I think that's just the constant challenge of the evolvedness of our, you know, our industry. We're just now emerging into tech. You know, we're just now figuring out that there's different solutions than like what we're typically used to. But it's also one of the downfalls of our industry is the hindrance towards tech for so long, you know, because it does create easier solutions to the problems that we've been looking for. And then it also provides quicker ways and access for people to find out about us and what we do. But there's plenty, you know, just of platforms, especially donor platform where you can find people, but, you know, to answer your question, to find specific pinpoints of how we can fund these people, there's just besides empower you and like I said, we're still growing. We haven't even touched the international since yet. You know, there's really nothing that I have found. It literally, it puzzles me all the time. But you know, you've been great. And we have really enjoyed our time with you. It's blown by, we wanna make sure that we get Jasmine's information up here for everybody to see. This is a really exciting time. I feel, Jarrett, like you and I are on the cusp of seeing that next generation and witnessing a new voice that's gonna really propel our sector forward. And so it's really an exciting thing. Here's Jasmine's information. You've got a great website, Jasmine. It's really beautiful. And I encourage folks to take a look at it. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Been joined today by my partner in crime, Jarrett Ransom, the nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. Hey, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors and you will see I'm a new sponsor here, Generate Impact. We're gonna be hearing more and more from them. They are a tech-based consultancy that works within the nonprofit sector and they're doing more and more NGO work, figuring out how nonprofits can leverage technology in their operations. A lot of what Jasmine was saying, this is one of these things that we have been so far behind as a sector. And so we wanna welcome Generate Impact to the nonprofit show family. Wow, a really another great episode. I say this a lot, Jarrett, but I'm always inspired by our guests and ready to go on. Well, I'm definitely inspired by you, Jasmine. Thank you so much for sharing your time, your passion, your expertise with all of us that have joined us live. And for those of you that are watching the recording as well, so thank you for joining us. And I hope that all of you will join us again here tomorrow. We will be back with, I'm sure, another amazing guest. So you wanna tune in then. And until then, as we end every episode, we like to say, stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow.