 We are so delighted that you've joined us for another episode of The Non-Profit Show. And today we have a really interesting guest doing super interesting things. Maria Bruner, founder and director of Musically Fed, is going to come talk to us about her journey being a CEO and a really interesting trajectory that she took seeing a problem recognizing a solution and putting them together. Super hard to do, had to be a super creative person, and I can't wait to get into, you know, really talk to Maria about her journey and what this all looks like. So we are thrilled to have her with us. Before we get going, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Non-Profit Academy. Here at Ransom, the non-profit nerd, my trusty co-host, she is traveling back from AFP icon that's been held in New Orleans. If you joined us for the past two days, we were live on site from the Blumerang booth. And so Jarrett had an opportunity to talk to a lot of different folks that were attending the conference from all over the world and it was really, really fun. So we'll be interested to have her back with us tomorrow and learn even more about what went on at AFP icon. Again, we would not be here day in and day out if we did not have the support of our amazing sponsors. They include Blumerang, American Non-Profit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, the non-profit nerd, and non-profit tech talk. If you've missed any of our nearly 800 episodes or you want to search for a specific problem, you can find us on a lot of different streaming broadcast platforms. You can also get to us through podcasts if you like to consume your information via audio. And the coolest of cool things, Maria, we have a new app that just was launched and you can download actually from this image, connect us up, and then you'll get our content to you pushed out every day. Super fun and I want to make sure that we thank our internal team here on the American Non-Profit Academy, especially Kevin Pace, who actually created this app and has put us forward on this technology. Okay, Maria Brunner, woohoo! You, my friend, and I'm going to say this seriously, are a rock star. I try to work with them. Okay, talk to me about, first of all, best name ever, Musically Fed. Tell us what Musically Fed does. Musically Fed repurposes unused catering with major tours, major shows, major events, major festivals, etc. With the purpose in mind that when I first started this was to take care of our veterans. But of course, as we've grown and expanded, we are very strategic about finding outlets in every city we work with, including our own hometown here in Phoenix, as to all different sorts of non-profits, family organizations, etc., that are food insecure. Okay, so I think that what is so fascinating is that obviously you saw a problem. And then you figured out that there was a solution. And so often, you know, we grumble about, well, there ought to be a solution to this, but nobody does it. And you did. Talk about this. You mentioned you started it with veterans in mind, with a husband who's passed away, correct? Correct. And how many years ago was that? Seven. So only seven years ago, and then this corky thing happens called a global pandemic. How did that go into this whole ecosystem of public events and taking, you know, the food? So prior to that, we had been doing some national tours. We'd been going strong in Phoenix for, I'd say, three years or so, and we had just finished with the Grammys. I had just come back from Los Angeles, and we were getting ready to work on another project when the pandemic hit. And when it hit, we obviously had no events, but I began to wonder, having just come from Staples, which is now called crypto.com arena. What were they doing with all the food in their freezers and refrigerators? And I called Chef Manny, who was in charge of that at the time and said, what are you doing with all of that? And he said, well, this will be over in two weeks. And I said, hmm, the owner of your basketball team is going to be announcing at three o'clock today that the season is done. And this was before NBA came up with their fabulous bubble in Florida. But I think if we all remember that was the thing, the NBA and all the athletic, different athletic genres began to shut down. So he called me back two days later and said, I don't know what to do. And I said, we'll help you. Wow. I wasn't sure how, but an artist manager that I knew at the time called just to chat and say, what do you think? Are we in this for a month, two months? That's really the thinking everybody was in. And of course, in the entertainment industry, we couldn't imagine not being on the road, not doing shows, et cetera, little did we know. And then I heard him in the background talk about that a family, he was close to just lost their lunch program in the L.A. school district. Sure. So I called back Chef Manny and said, you know, there might be a need here. And I'll just try to figure out how that need is. Where do we go? Interesting way enough, Bernstein, who works with AEG, I called him and said, I'm getting ready to try to track down someone within the Los Angeles school district. And he said, well, my wife knows someone with Desert Ridge. And I went, Desert Ridge, they just lost their lunch program. And that's how it came together. And long story short, in about a week, we dispersed a little over twenty two thousand, thirty thousand meals by emptying out the freezers, refrigerators from staples at the time. And then produce companies came up and said, we bring a truck of produce because we have nowhere to get it. And a person with essentials called and said, I have dishwasher soap and I have toilet paper. And if you remember back in the day, toilet paper was gold. So we did that in L.A. Then I called up our wonderful arena here. It's now called footprint arena. But at the time it was Sun's Arena. Go Sun's. Just have to say that game coming up. And they said, oh, my gosh, let's talk with Levy, who we work with all the time, Levy catering and restaurants. We probably have something. Oh, my Lord. They too had twenty two freezers and twenty some refrigerators. So we repurposed meals all over the Valley, Tucson, Flagstaff, Etc., taking care of people in need. But Julia, the most interesting thing during the pandemic is about a week into it, I started getting voicemails on our office phone going, hi, I see you backstage. You have food. We need food. Click. No number to hit back. No name. I got eight calls like that. So I called a friend of mine, Jake Berry. Jake lives about two miles from me, and he is one of the world's top production managers. He does McCartney. He does Coldplay. He does you, too. And I said, Jake, what's going on here? And he goes, can you hold a minute? And I said, sure. And the next thing I knew is I was on with the CEO of Rhino Productions. Rhino is worldwide, but interestingly enough, their corporate office is in Tempe. Oh, wow. And so there. The good news is they learned how to reach us. The bad news is they were 1099, making $17 an hour and no medical so they couldn't get unemployment. They had no medical. They had no salary. They had nothing. And Jeff said, what do we do? And Jake said, well, I'm going to give X amount of dollars and you're going to give double that amount of dollars. And that's going to be a slush fund for Maria to figure out what we're going to do. And by 10 o'clock that night, I had figured out we could do a car drive through and we could do maybe 60 families. And I called Handelbar Jays, a local restaurant here in town and said, we have food that maybe you might need to disperse because of what's going on. And I told him what the deal was and he said, whether we do or don't, I will do six meals per car for 60 cars. And we'll have them boxed. They'll be all they have to do is heat them up. And then I went to a company, no wrong nonprofit, another one called Resurrection Street Ministry, Mesa. We had been providing them individual meals for three years for their veterans, their meals on wheels throughout Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert. So I called Bill Berry, their EV, and said, I could use a wee bit of help. I'm going to have 60 cars. Do you think we could get a jug of milk, maybe a six pack of yogurt? Two days later, he had a commitment of 10 pounds of dairy for every car, and pounds of protein, such as beef, et cetera, fish for every car. And then he said, why were you out at McClendon's trying to get produce? And I went, because we need produce. And he goes, we do that. Don't go to the farms. Let us go to the farms. So we ended up with 30 pounds of produce. So we staged it at Handel Bar Jays. It was wonderful. Sixty families came through. We were touchless. They couldn't get out of the car and they ended up with six boxes that took them through almost three weeks. However, Julia, we knew this wasn't going to end. So for the next 18 months, we did a car drive through every week here. Then we decided to do it in other cities across America. We did it in Minneapolis, Austin. Gosh, I'm just trying to remember everywhere we went. And Denver, we actually teamed up with another nonprofit called Conscious Alliance. They are fabulous out of Boulder. And they helped us do a drive through every other week. And then it began to be every week in Denver. We did LA, Anaheim. In fact, LA was so loaded with illness, we had to move it to in between LA and Anaheim. And that was an interesting story. And we did 300 cars there. In Austin, we did 600. So for 18 months or more, I was on a plane all the time. And we just were so lucky that the industry stepped up, upstaging, trucking, whatever we needed. They would truck it. They would get us refrigerator trucks. In Nashville, where we did a huge, huge car drive through, a country artist by the name of Martina McBride called me and said, my husband wants to talk to you. You're doing something at soundstage. Can you use some help? Oh, my God. Jesus. So we ended up with people from Florida, Georgia line on Jovi's people were there. I mean, it was just an amazing thing. So through the pandemic, we truly, I would say, learned the word of community. So let me ask you about this because your story is fascinating. And I really am interested about this this next question because everybody thinks, oh, my gosh, if I can get to a celebrity or a star or an endorser and an influencer, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to hit the jackpot for my nonprofit. And this is like one of those things that I feel like, you know, people in the entertainment sector are just hammered all the time to give back and give back. And it's fraught with a lot of issues. How have you seen your relationships grow? I mean, I know you do have a connection to the entertainment sector. But how have you been able to communicate that you're trustworthy, that you're safe, that you have shared values to a community of entertainment folks that a lot of times it's easier to say no than yes, maybe to look at it. Well, I have 30 years history in the entertainment industry. I've worked with everyone from not to be a name dropper, but just to follow the path that you're outlining here. I've worked with the Beach Boys for many years, Clapton. Many done many tours, know many people within the industry. Consequently, Jake Berry, when we talked about the car drive thru, the good thing is Jake was the first person I called to do musically fed. And he went, oh, great, more work. And I went, you've got you two coming into rehearse. They'll be here a week and then they're doing two sold out shows. You don't have to do anything except just help me talk to the tour manager. I'm going to catering and then I would say three minutes. He had the head of live nation for the Southwest Terry Burke on the phone. Terry became our first board member, by the way. Not sure how this is going to work. And I said, either way, but let's give it a try. So begrudgingly, and I will say it was begrudgingly on the part of the local caterer, Jake and everyone. I was like, OK, and the local caterer insisted I get my food handlers permit. And I was a step ahead of them. I had already gotten to and instead of doing it online, I actually went to school with the Gateway Community College. And it was amazing what I learned. And so the first night with Mitch Katz from Arizona catering who owned it at the time, we packaged up what was left. And we literally went to veterans on the street and had a little push cart. And this was in the days when cell phones were pretty good at taking a photo. Pretty good at showing what was going on. So we took a photo of the guys, including their dogs who benefited from burgers and said, look what you just did. You did this. You made this possible. And there you go from every night of their rehearsal, every night of their both shows, we repurposed the food and got a call the next day from a guy by the name of Louis Messina, who had Kenny Chesney coming in, doing his first stadium show. So we did that one. And then a few days later, he called and said. Some Dallas, I went and and he went tomorrow. So we did and and not without bumps in the road. So Louis is a very prominent promoter. He does Garth Brooks. He's been around for years. So by people like Jake and Louis and people, other promoters that we've worked with, were they open to it? Yes. Did we have to earn their trust? Yes, because there was a smaller company on the east coast that is still in business that does it. But I pride ourselves on being very healthy. We have good insurance. We have good liability. We have great part time people that are believers. We follow up. We follow through. We provide the figures. We provide the data. So walk me through for someone who's never been behind the scenes. I think a lot of times we hear the word like craft services or catering. But you're talking about quantities of food that are provided for the the working organizations that put on show. So I learned about you through the Super Bowl because you were engaged in one of the recent Super Bowls. What are you looking at when when you walk in and you've got to be talking about a lot of food that's different every time, right? Or or is it pretty much similar from venue to venue and how it's worked? We never know. In fact, I I was stunned by someone that knows this very well that texted me and said, well, how many meals is it going to be? And this was from a Hollywood Bowl situation that we're right in the middle of right now. And I went. We never know. But I know the caterers to I know Jeremy will have food left over or he would never have asked us to work with him on it. But it is what it is. And so here's the situation here locally. There is still an Arizona catering and they do 80 percent of the shows that come to town. We have approximately 100 between now and December at the various venues and will be most of those are live nation. And thanks to Terry and live nation, we have carte blanche at any of those in the Southwest. So the local caterer we've met with, we've worked with, we've had our ups and downs on policies and procedures. Sure, because they feel we should walk in, pack it, wrap it, heft it, move it, inventory it, temperature control it. Well, that's part of their job, too. So we've learned to become a good team. Tourists that are across the nation, 60 percent of them carry. They carry their own catering. Yega is a prominent caterer to do it, to do it as all of Coachella. So there's like four to five nationwide catering companies that work with tours. We have great relationships. I'm happy to say we're very, very blessed, so blessed to work with all of them. So we have local, which is one way of working. We have national tours, which is another way of working. We do Lollapalooza, we do the Grammys, we do other festivals, and those have another way of working. But the point is, it is to benefit each city and community where that event is like we're getting ready to work with Dirk Spently again. And he has 58 dates in 58 cities. The food will be repurposed in each one of those cities. It's given back to them. So what's that kind of answer, Sid? Yeah, it's absolutely fascinating because, you know, as a leader, you're really blessed to have come at this knowing the trade, knowing the sector, right? But what's, you know, you've known the entertainment business, you know, obviously know venue management, things of this nature, which most people would have no idea about. And then you were able to link it through to serving and this nonprofit aspect. What are some of the challenges that you've had as a leader and overcoming them? I mean, first and foremost, I gotta believe that most people have no idea the amount of food and waste that occurs with these major productions. I mean, have you had like a communication issue to start with as a leader? Or has that been something that you found was easy to communicate? Honestly, here, because we started here, I found it fairly easy. I can't say that Mitch was excited to acknowledge that, yes, they were throwing food away. He wasn't. And I said, but we're that solution for and with you and to you goes the glory. We're not in it for that. We just want to make sure we can feed people. And I would say nationwide, some of the tours that I have approached, I've been turned down by two and you know them. And it would be, no, don't want the liability. Well, but the Good Samaritan Act, which is very, very solid, by the way, and our liability, which is some of the priciest and about to get even tougher because we're upping the ante, we're covered. And then I think there's just some that go just don't want to deal with it. And then for us internally, I think our biggest issue is volunteers. And we are very, very fortunate to have a staff person, Suzanne Cooper, that helps us coordinate and reach out, et cetera. We haven't found that magic way to find a solid base. I would say we have in Nashville and we have in Chicago. Thank you, Lollipalooza. In Nashville, we do, we work with Live Nation there. We repurpose every show from Ascend, their outdoor amphitheater, and from Bridgestone, their arena. So over time, and we're getting ready to go to the CMA Fest for the umpteenth time, we've been able to formulate volunteer databases. But Julia, I don't know how it is when you talk with other nonprofits. Volunteering is such a serious issue and hard to find. Not only is it hard to find, but when they show up, what are we getting? And we've gone the gamut of, oh my gosh, I cannot believe this person showed up in this condition to absolutely wonderful stellar people. It's, you know, Maria, I gotta say that is a challenge. And I hear this a lot and it's one of those things. I mean, and especially now, I mean, let's face it, we're in a labor crisis in America anyway. And so that issue has even become more amplified and it's going to continue to be such. And I can tell you on the nonprofit show, we are spending more time on this topic because we're hearing from our viewers. I volunteer. Yeah, about this because you're absolutely right. You know, I could talk to you all day. I think you're just riveting. And I love your energy. I love your concept. And now I gotta finish this up and take this home with the question, I love to ask leaders and sometimes it's really hard. But where do you see yourself, Maria Brunner, in five and 10 years? You've done really interesting work in an, dare I say, an interesting time in this country. Where do you see yourself moving towards? Like how do you see this going forward? We need to find serious funding. And I believe it's out there. If we can just get the message to the right corporations, et cetera. Honestly, I put in no less than 80 hours is a good week. Hundreds pretty typical. So in five years, my hope is we have found the funding to actually hire a very legit ED executive director. I would be happy to stay on the board as a founder and really help keep those connections going. But it needs a solid staff because this is never going to go away. It shouldn't. It shouldn't because the need for food insecurity, I think has been there since the dawn of time. In fact, very close. You know, Joel Osteen, a person that's close to him, sent me this very interesting article on how they were starting food banks way back then, way back in biblical times because it was so needed. And they did flower, flower loaves. So in five years, a really great leader, a really great staff doing wonderful things. And I will be going to a desert or maybe a Bahama Island. In 10 years, I would just like to be able to watch it happening and being able to possibly just enjoy the things we want to enjoy. Nothing, though, makes me happier than, you know, this past Saturday we just fell together. We were at Resurrection Street Ministry and I ended up with two people coming down. And we just did some amazing things that resulted in us serendipitially feeding some families that we had heard about here in Phoenix. Oh my gosh, it was wonderful. So I hope that part doesn't ever go away, just seeing the good that people do. Well, this has really been fun. You know, I'll tell you, you know, I get to one of the joys of my work is I get to meet amazing people doing amazing things around the world that have done creative things. And I love, love, love the creativity within a creative community, right? Within a creative community that you've been able to come together, bring together. And it's really been fun to see this grow and to see that somebody's out there thinking about these opportunities and turning these things into really strong outcomes and impacts. Maria Bruner, founder, director of Musically Fed, check out their site MusicallyFed.org, and you can learn about who they're working with and why they do what they do and how it all comes about because it's just a fascinating approach to food insecurity and food waste. I think it's like this marriage that is so interesting, Maria. So check them out because they're doing great things around the country and maybe you too can get involved one way or the other. Maria, you've been just a delight. This has been a lot of fun for me. Well, Julia, just one last comment. You mentioned the word community without our part time staff, our board of directors, people in the industry that will step up here and there. It couldn't have been done and it can't be done without this ever-growing community. So them, again, goes the glory. Yeah, it's a cool thing. It's really a cool thing and good for you for providing that outlet for so many people to get involved. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom, my trusty co-host, the non-profit nerd will be back with us tomorrow. As we speak, she's on an airplane coming from Nashville back to our home community where she was attending and broadcasting for us at the AFP Icon 2023 convention. Again, we want to thank our amazing sponsors, Blumerang American Nonprofit Academy, Your Part Time Controller, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that allow us to come on air every day and have amazing conversations like we have had with Maria Brunner today. My new friend, I love this conversation. Thank you so much for this opportunity. We really appreciate it. Well, it's been lovely. Maria, we have this sign-off that we do every day and we started it with the pandemic and its meaning has changed throughout our three now going into our fourth year. And it goes like this. We'd like to remind everyone to stay well so you can do well. Maria, you're doing very well, my friend. And we'll chat soon.