 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad you're here. Today we have a special guest with us, Steve Smith, and he is Executive Director at the TW Lewis Foundation. We are getting the insider view from Steve today as he talks about leading a foundation. So Steve's going to share with us in just a moment a little bit about himself. I want to say thank you to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. If you notice she's not here today. She is at a luau, perhaps. No, she is in Hawaii working with a client, doing some great work in our sector. So I hope you're having a wonderful time. I'm Jared Ransom. I get to play alongside with Julia day in and day out as the co-host of the nonprofit show. I'm also a CEO of the Raven Group and call myself non-profit nerd. So we are honored, truly esteemed to have the ongoing support from our amazing presenting sponsors. Shout out of gratitude goes to our friends over at Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, fundraising Academy at National University, nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. These companies, I believe all of them have been with us from the very beginning and have helped to produce a lot of episodes where you can find them. You can scan the app right now that QR code. You can still find us on streaming broadcast and podcast. So again, wherever you gain your entertainment, I want to say binge watch your entertainment, you can find us there. So Steve, you patiently waited. And again, for those of you that have joined us today, we are honored to have with us Steve Smith, executive director at TW Lewis Foundation. Welcome to you. Well, thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm going to ask you to hold off on TW Lewis Foundation. But tell us a little bit, Steve, about yourself and how you found your way to the foundation. Sure. It's, boy, every, everything has its own story, right? And it's hard to believe because I didn't know that I was going to certainly end up here. It's, you know, I moved here from Michigan. I went to Michigan State University and born and raised in Michigan. I came out here and met my wife and we have now five kids. So it's, you know, just, just crazy being a big family. But, but I've been in politics in Arizona actually for a number of years. I served as one of our senators in Arizona and just had the chance to work with just a unique perspective in government because during budget season, right, where everybody's got their hand out, you know, coming into the capital, hey, well, we need money for this project and these roads and this Well, there was also some, some, some needs in there from the community, right? So as a legislative, you try to say, well, how can government help in that way if we can? And I did a lot of work in education as well. So after I left the legislature a few years ago, I did a lot of the education work across our country about school choice and bringing school choice opportunities to families. So we did that. And it was through that work that a mutual friend introduced me to Tom Lewis. Well, Tom Lewis started the TW Lewis Foundation. And so when I met Tom, boy, just, just seeing his heart that he took his extremely successful home builder in Arizona. And he started the foundation in 2000. And since then, I mean, just to see a person like him who's taken up, who's had a tremendous amount of success in his own life, but, but has now focused so much on just giving back to so many great people. Boy, when I met him, it was like, how could you not get on board with helping in this cause? And so I went from, you know, from the from the land of government to to something like this to the land of non-profit. So it's definitely been, it's definitely been an interesting shift, but a lot of similarity and of course, a lot of differences, but, but just just an amazing opportunity. What an amazing opportunity. Well, tell us more. You touched on this, right? For Tom Lewis, tell us a little bit about the origin of the founders as well as the foundation mission. Yeah. So Tom and his, Tom and his wife, Jan, started the foundation, like I said, back in about 2000. They initially wanted to help scholarship kids go into college. And so they started writing scholarship after scholarship. And they'd actually interviewed the, you know, the seniors in high school. And and they provided, you know, over 200 scholarship for kids to go to college. And when they started doing that, they said, well, what are other ways that we can give? And so so they started doing, you know, certainly a lot more things, right, you know, just outside of education. They started seeing the needs in the community, both locally and nationally. So now that's grown to over 30 different non-profit organizations that we serve. And, you know, and that's, and that's it's, it's amazing. I mean, you know, millions of hours each year to help so many people that are helping others. And so the main goal of the T. W. Lewis Foundation is that it's to mainly help children and families in need. That's a big portion of what we do help impact Christian education. So we try to help K-12 and even a higher Christian education. A lot of civic minded causes, we can go to some organizations that deal with that. And something that you call it to end, just strengthening America and building God's kingdom. So it's just very much an intentional effort on what we do. We look for very specific places to partner with and give to that kind of adhere to some of that mission set. But like I said, we now help over 30 different national and local non-profits. That is foundations are fantastic for the foundation to do that. I'm curious who started off really as scholarships. And now are we still providing scholarships as well as some non-profit support? What does that mix look like? Yeah, the foundation now just primarily gives to these 30 causes. And now now Tom and Jan Lewis can still personally do a lot of things on their own as well. But the mission of the foundation is to have as much broad impact as possible. So so we were giving to, you know, several universities as well. So as a different way. So Tom Lewis started the Honors College at the University of Kentucky. As he wrote a very impactful book called Solid Ground. And so that's actually a course now at the University of North Carolina. He had the TWA Lewis Center for Personal Development at Arizona State University. So so the foundation itself has been very impactful in universities. But now a big shift of ours has been at the K-12. And so and that's where we do some of our specifically in Christian education helping up in those schools expand to get bigger and allow more students to come. And so they've always been education focused and centered. But but but as we speak now, a lot of our focus is on K-12. Yeah. And this is I know you're in Arizona, but serving outside of the state too. Can you talk to us about your geographic scope? Oh, my gosh, yeah, nationwide. So I support a lot of so a lot of the work that we do nationally is is under that you know, strength in America, right? You know, type type headline. So we want to, you know, help causes that are that are doing just that. And so some of those things are like, you know, the Heritage Foundation and, you know, Alliance Offending Freedom and places like that. They're just more national and scope and their reach. So we have a good mixture of local and national. But so the national ones certainly touch every pretty much every state because they're headquartered in and they have 50 state outreach. But but the local ones certainly are certainly near and dear to us as well. Yeah, that's great. Talk to us about, you know, I love this reach and how you're serving truly, you know, national talk to us about the grant cycle. What does that look like? And I'm really curious. So you mentioned, you know, the foundation started in 2000. I can only imagine some evolution and changes have happened with the grant cycle. What is the grant cycle entailed currently? What does that look like? Well, so we write a lot of our preceding years grants, you know, certainly this time of year and the last quarter of each year. So we'll have a very strong idea and who and what we're giving to in the upcoming year. But that being said, you know, there's no grant cycle per se where it's like, well, the cutoff date is, you know, December 1st. I mean, so, you know, if you go to TW Lewis dot com and click on philanthropy, you'll see there's an application on how to apply for a grant. And I personally review every one of them that comes in to see, hey, does this align with our mission and our values? And does and if it does, do we have any capacity to it? Because as you could probably imagine, the requests are many. And so we we get a lot of requests, but we kind of hone in on about 30 in terms of what we think we can manage, you know, with with our resources. And so so we do a really deep dive and Tom Lewis himself, who's still extremely active in the foundation. He and I will actually review each grant request together. And so whenever we decide on a grantee, you know, you get a lot of people that just are good at writing checks. And that's great. But the way that Tom does it, the way that the TW Lewis Foundation does it, the way that I do it is our our giving is really, really intentional. And we really do a deep dive into the people and then the partners that we work with. So check writing is certainly a big part of it. But what we like to do is really find out, talk to them, visit their location, find out specifically, let me let me see what you are doing now. Show me how it's working. How are you looking to improve it or expand it or make it different or better? Right. Is there a new need that's out there? Explain that to us. And so we really take a lot of time and effort to actually just pour into those nonprofits and really see what they're doing. Tom Lewis, again, extremely successful businessman. So a lot of our grants try to encourage the grantee to to think a little bit more of, you know, that biblical principle of, yeah, we could just keep giving you a fish every day, but we'd like to teach you how to be a fisherman yourself. And so so we could just help you get to that next level where you can sustain yourself a little bit too. So we do, we do various metrics with our grantees. Tell me, you know, how you can get to this level if we did this or if we did a matching grant, you know, what could you do over here? And so we really try to help them live life without the T.W. Lewis Foundation one day, right? So if we can help them help themselves, that's when it really becomes impactful. So so that goes a lot into the decision making as well. Who do we think, you know, can take the baton and keep running with it? If and when T.W. Lewis is not there to help them in the future. Yeah. And I know that's always a struggle, you know, and I feel like in most proposals, it does say if we weren't to fund you, how would this project or program still continue? So you have to you have to really do that due diligence. I'm really curious and it's not often, right, that we have someone like you, Steve, join us on the show. And so I feel like I have the opportunity to ask questions that maybe many of our viewers and listeners are like, man, if I had this opportunity, right? So I'm curious, do you find organizations that are new? Do they need to be mature like over that three year mark? What about, you know, the operating budget? And I'm sure all of this is on your website. So I'm really curious, you know, how that selection process goes for the for the people that are submitting, you know, proposals. Yeah, sure. It's, you know, like I say, it's it's it's a process. So, you know, we certainly want to make sure that we're kind of checking all the boxes and and reviewing everything. But, you know, to be honest, it's just a matter of what what what are you looking to do? How long you've been doing it, right? Is this a brand new idea? Are you a brand new nonprofit? And so what what what we do at our foundation, we usually like to work with those that are that are a bit more established. So certainly, and, you know, this is you hear this all the time. We'll say, well, if I were established, you know, I need help becoming established, right? It's it's one of those things that, you know, you hear from a lot of people, but we actually like working with people that and organizations that have a very good track record. No ideas are a dime a dozen. Just and unfortunately, it's that way, the nonprofit area too. Well, I got, you know, why don't we fund this? And that sounds like a great idea. But have you ever done it? Do you have any success whatsoever in doing that idea? Do you know that pitfalls and challenges of doing that specific thing that you are trying to do? Right. And so while while you can't become established until you start. So I'm not dissuading anybody. You got to start. You got to passion go do it. But for us, we try to look at those that are a bit established, you know, that have been around for you at your point, at least a couple of three years have had pretty strong revenues. You know, it has a track record of showing, hey, I do what I say. If I say I'm going to do a project like this, we do have the ability to raise those funds. We do have the ability to deliver those the funds that we raise, you know, through their nonprofit work. And so we like folks that are like that. Now, that does not mean we've never worked with a new organization or things like that. But but by and large, we'd like to focus on those that clearly are doing it right and they're looking to get even bigger and bigger and bigger. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. Well, I love that you said, you know, Tom is still involved. Talk to us about other people involved in the foundation. I'm really curious. What is the staff, the board? Do you have volunteers? What is the makeup really of the foundation behind the scenes that we don't we don't get to see? Sure. So we have a we have a pretty lean, but but very competent staff. So we have Michelle, who's our senior grant writer. We have a force, our CFO, Alan. We have Jamie, our office manager, Dana, who does a lot of our research and background. So we have a great team of course, Tom and Jen Lewis themselves are still very active. You know, not only does Tom Lewis, again, go through each application with me and help the day to day running, but but his wife, Jan Lewis, actually sits on some of the boards of some of our grantees as well. So again, very, very, very involved in the nonprofit space and the nonprofits that we're serving. So the whole team is as, yeah, it's all hands on deck. And, you know, and so we all operate out of our office here in Scottsdale. And but they have a great board of directors as well that we meet quarterly with and and go over long term goals and strategies. And, you know, and look at, hey, you know, is there a certain amount of turnover that we want to have with our grantees? I mean, some of them we worked with for for years. And I call it, you know, are we doing a project or are we doing a partnership? No, because some will come in and say, hey, I just need help doing this. You know, we're building this expansion on our building. We can serve so many more people if we just had this expansion. OK. And maybe we do the project with that part with that person for a year or two until their to their project is built. And then, OK, great, keep going, do your thing. And now we're going to move on. And some of them are just long term partnerships, you know, people like Satan into the Paul and others. They're like, hey, there's a constant need in the community that will never go away. Can you help us, whether it's, you know, with with homelessness or or, you know, shortages or this and that? And so so that's how we look at ours. But but those are some of the things that we discuss with our board, with our staff, you know, hey, who's a who's a project? Who's a partner? Sure, absolutely. Well, and I'm curious, you know, since 2000, lots of money has been gifted to some fantastic charities. What are you looking at? I mean, as we're talking now, it's what? The middle of December. So are you a calendar or a fiscal year? And I'm curious, really, Steve, like, what does that award amount typically total on an annual basis? Sure, it completely depends on the nonprofit. I mean, we have some that, so, for example, so, you know, banner, health, M.D. Anderson. So so Tom Lewis had had and he's been very public about this, but but had melanoma, a very serious case of it. And so he helps start the T.W. Lewis Melanoma Center at banner M.D. Anderson. And so so that's an extremely large gift that we do, you know, for I mean, that's millions of dollars of the course of several years. Same thing his wife, Jan, suffered from migraines. So we part with Barrow Neurological Institute and Bill, you know, the Lewis headache center there, where it's like to help people, you know, suffering through migraines. So that's again, multimillion dollar gift over many years. As I mentioned in the beginning, Tom Lewis started the Honors College at University of Kentucky. That's a 15 million dollar gift over several years. So some of them are right. I mean, very large projects. And especially when you're talking about, right, you know, we're working with major, you know, health research or hospital organizations or universities. And but but most of our grants are, are, you know, around the hundred thousand dollar range in terms of, you know, hey, what can we do in this? But then again, we scale all the way down to, right. And some people come in and say, well, I just need, boy, if we had twenty five hundred dollars, you know, we could do this this year and pack this many extra food kits or do this. I mean, so the grants, the gifts really do kind of range in size. A lot of our giving is predetermined for the following year. So again, if we're sitting here now in the middle of December, like you say, we have a really strong idea of what twenty twenty four looks like who we're going to help on how our budget is laid out. But we but we do also save a little bit of room for for causes that maybe we weren't aware of, urgent needs that might come up. And so we're always trying to be flexible and and just trying to be a resource as many as that we can be. Well, thank you for sharing all of this. I know the selection process is is I don't know if hectic's the right word, right, but there's a lot that goes into that. Let's talk about navigating media. And I'm really curious, because when I see the word scrutiny, I'm like, oh, there's got to be more to this story. Talk to us about navigating media scrutiny with founders wishes. What does that look like, Steve? Well, hey, you know, you would figure that that just about everybody would be on board with you if you just want to help those that are less fortunate, but hey, I guess everybody's going to have scrutiny one way or another. You know, thankfully it's, you know, the foundation for over 20 years has just been operating, I don't want to say under the radar, but with just I mean, put our head down and just get the work done and help those in need. So we've been able to avoid a lot of, you know, frankly, any scrutiny really, because it's because, again, I think if you look at the list of the folks that we helped historically, but it's, you know, matter of fact, we just had the local fox station just came down last week because we did it. We do an extra. We do a kind of an end of year giving campaign, especially for the foundations that help children and families in need. And so we brought in organizations that do that help foster kids and again, like Saint Vincent of Paul and help homelessness and, you know, and, you know, a fresh start, which is like a women's organization that helps women get back on their feet. So we brought in these five organizations last week and then the media came down and filmed it. And we gave them all, you know, nice, you know, $10,000 a year and giving checks to help with specific needs at Christmas time, calling in the community. Hey, can you join us in helping these these great organizations and just kind of heard more for them? And obviously, you know, great partnership with just, you know, a lot of our local media that covered that. And so again, we've been fortunate that boy, I think, you know, Tom Lewis has just an outstanding reputation as an amazing homebuilder. I mean, the T.W. Lewis homebuilding company had won the war for like the number one luxury homebuilder in the country, right? I mean, so I mean, you know, national acclaim. And so the people in Arizona really know Tom Lewis as just a high quality, top of the line, benevolent person who's just been a staple in our community for decades. And so the foundation kind of is lucky to get piggyback off his, not only his success, but his great reputation. So I think a lot of the media knows that. I think a lot of the community knows that. So they know, hey, if the T.W. Lewis Foundation is supporting something, they're probably a good cause. And that's probably something that we, you know, that we as individuals want to look into because if it's good enough for them, it's probably good enough for us. Yeah, to stand behind. Well, social media has come a long way when we think of media, right? We have news media, we have social media. What is the foundations? And again, I mean, all of this is unscripted. So just a curious question. What is the foundation strategy when it comes to all of the media, right? Like there's so much out there. We talk often, Julia, Patrick and I do about the noise, right? Whether it's the news, whether it's, you know, from our phone or wherever we're getting information. What does the foundation do by way of sharing the impact that you make? And then I can only imagine with the media really advancing. So, you know, so quickly, you're probably also becoming more known and receiving more requests. So how do you manage that? Well, the part you just touched on at the end, that's definitely true. So lots and lots and lots of requests, which is great because people obviously know of us and come to us, you know, with the help that we can help. But it's also unfortunate that there's the need is so great, too. I mean, so it's a double-edged sword. But social media has been working, you know, very well for us in terms of it helps us get our message out there. And so like I say, actually, right now we're the middle of a giving campaign, you know, the one that I mentioned where the news came down and we're asking people to kind of match our gift to some of these organizations. So if you go to twluis.com, you'll see these five organizations pop up that help children and families during Christmas time. We're just asking people, hey, give $10, $20, $100, whatever you can give. Getting that good Christmas spirit, getting that giving mood and help. And so we use social media, we use traditional media to kind of get that message out, you know, the foundation and Tom Lewis, both, you know, have, you know, our own presence on social media platforms, especially Facebook. So that's where I do a lot of our messaging. So for this specific campaign, each of the five organizations made just a very short 30 second video about the specific need that they have. So we help kind of amplify that, put that out there and are just telling people, please, you know, just consider giving to organizations like this. There's a lot of people that need help at Christmas time, especially. But, you know, so we try to partner with with our nonprofits and of course with media and social media and really try to push those messages out because it's not about us, it's kind of about them. We're just kind of the tool to bring more donors to those organizations. And so we just want our nonprofits to be made more aware of as well, some more and more people. And if you can't get financially going, volunteer and do whatever you can do. A matter of fact, our staff here just volunteered at a place called the Phoenix Rescue Mission, which helps, you know, men and women were, you know, trying to, you know, may have been addicted, that are homeless, that are, you know, the victims of domestic violence and whatnot. And so we go there and we try to serve food and we try to, you know, just do whatever we can. But so we just encourage everybody through social media, traditional media, every platform we can have, you know, go and help, go and help, go and help and whichever way can do it. So, you know, we usually really lean on those efforts that kind of get the word out. You know, there's such a huge need out there and I love to hear how the foundation is leveraging your own network to really garner the support. But overall, the awareness, because as you said, I mean, not everyone can give, however, maybe someone can give up their time as opposed to their financial resources. So I really commend you and the foundation overall truly for seeing that, you know, because we can see media as bad, right? We can all see media as bad, but we can also see the good ways and how we can leverage those connections and the network, you know, to do more good. So Steve Smith, you are doing a lot of good and we are so appreciative. Again, for those of you that have joined us, we've had Steve Smith with us. He serves as the executive director at the TW Lewis Foundation. Check them out. That is TW Lewis.com. You know, if you joined us earlier or if you didn't, that's okay. You can still go back and listen to what he said. There is no deadline for their grant submission, but I will say as a professional grant writer and fundraiser, make sure you read the guidelines. Make sure you make sure you're a good fit, right? There's a lot that goes into that. So Steve, thank you so very much. I would love to throw a curve ball to you. I know baseball season's over, but one of the questions we always like to throw out to our guest is, you know, if you had a crystal ball, what are you forecasting essentially for next year? So I would like to pose that to you really open-ended. What are you looking forward to as we move into 2024? And what would you say, like really, I don't know, the foundation is looking forward to to serve in the community? Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I've attended a few conferences over the last few months as well in state and out of state, you know, national non-profit organization conferences to talk about these very things. You know, what do trends look like? Where's the biggest needs at? Where's the biggest interest at? And pay 12 education again after event, after conference, after conference, after event continues to pop up as this is a space where so many families and parents are looking at for help with. And so it's interesting, like, you know, a lot of people are interested in, you know, immediately think, well, joblessness or homelessness or right, you know, food banks or right, I mean, the traditional things, but K-12 continues to come up. And so I think families are looking for things that and options and alternatives that that fit their families, morals, values, ethics, what they're looking for their kid. People just might not be able to afford if they did want to do homeschooling or other different things. And so more and more K-12 keeps popping up. And so that's why in 2024, we really made a big shift in what we want to do in our giving and focus on some of these K-12 efforts that are that are trying to do just that. And again, you know, we, like I said, we specifically focus on Christian education now because that seems like the biggest need in our area locally. But it's, oh boy, that keeps coming up in both local and national conferences. So I would just say the state of education is the forefront of a lot of people's minds right now. And again, you might say, well, how does that fit my with the foundation? Well, again, I think, I think families are looking for alternative options that that might kind of fit them and their specific needs because, you know, you have lots of families that have special need children that just can't, that just kind of, you know, traditional schools don't help them. So they have different needs. You have people that are looking for more faith or value, you know, in their learning. So they want to go to, to like a Christian school, you have folks that are, and as I mentioned, looking to do homeschooling efforts. And anything to a lot of it is to, is to frankly catch up from the leading loss from COVID that that was experienced throughout our country. But a lot of it, again, is just, you know, hey, how do I just provide a something better for my kid to help really launch them for when they graduate and get into the real world and start working. And it's really, you know, make the most of these childhood years. So again, you know, lots of different requests out there. So you'll see a lot of places expanding their footprint or offering new technologies or, or just new services to families and parents. So, so the K-12 space is an exciting place for us. Well, thank you for that. We will pay attention. I'm curious, you know, it's really interesting. Many of our guests have really been spot on with some of their crystal ball answers. So Steve Smith, thank you so much. Thank you to Julia Patrick for creating this platform and allowing me, Jarrett Ransom, to serve as the co-host. Also an extent, extend immense gratitude to our presenting sponsors that allow us these opportunities. So thank you to Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Your Part-Time Controller, Stapping Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd, as well as Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the companies that allow us conversations that we just had here with Steve. So again, thank you for joining us. And as we end every episode, we say the same words, but they always ring a little different. And for me, they're going to ring even more different today. But it is to stay well so you can do well. Thank you so much, Steve, and for everyone who joined us.