 Hey there and welcome to the non-profit show. We are so glad that you found your way here. Hopefully it was seamless and that you'll stay because today we have a fantastic guest and conversation that is going to possibly hit a home run. So Jason Wolfe is here, sports reporter investigations at the Arizona Republic and USA Today Network. This is a conversation about athletes and their sports foundations and I just cannot wait to hear all the goodness that you have to share with us, Jason. But before we turn the microphone over to you, we want to remind all of our viewers and listeners around the globe who we are. Julia Patrick is here, of course. Hello to you Julia. She is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and we have Julia to thank for these conversations and the going Jesse, we refer to it up the non-profit show. Also I'm Jarrett Ransom, your non-profit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group, honored to be here day in and day out to have these conversations. Also extremely honored to have the ongoing investment and support from these amazing partners. So shout out of gratitude to our friends, our teammates if you will, over at Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, non-profit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, 180 management group, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, JMT consulting, non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk. So these companies are here day in and day out not only for your viewing pleasure but truly to help you do more good in your community. And if you missed any previous episodes, that's okay. We've got you some homework and assignment. You can watch the replays, how about that? Download the app, streaming broadcast and podcast platform. So check us out wherever you like to consume your entertainment. And Jason, back to you, thrilled to have you here. Jason Wolfe, Sports Investigative Reporter the Arizona Republic and USA Today Network, welcome. Thank you for inviting me, I appreciate it. You know, Jason, you've really captured our attention as we were saying during the green room chatter. We really love sports. We talk about them a lot off camera even on camera. But then I came across this amazing work that you had done just about a year ago but it's really been a professional trajectory of yours covering sports but then digging into the philanthropic side of what specifically is going on in the NFL and with the players. Could you give us a really quick recap of what that trajectory has looked like and how you've come to be so knowledgeable and write about this really important topic? Well, yeah, sure, of course, briefly. And I love that you say briefly considering we had a four hour lunch discussing this in advance of the show. We're gonna have to pack quite a lot into this. I have worked for eight newspapers in 20 years. For the first decade, I worked at small community papers, chased a bunch of high school kids around for quotes about 10 years ago. I came from Philadelphia originally, got a chance to cover the Philadelphia 76ers. From there, a few years later, I ended up in Nashville, Tennessee as an NFL beat reporter covering the Tennessee Titans. Did that for a few years. From there, I ended up in Buffalo, New York as a columnist and long form feature reporter for the sports department there. And for about a year and a half now, I have been here in Phoenix at the Arizona Republic. This particular story, it's a long journey. Even though I've hopped around a lot, it's giving me sort of a unique perspective, getting to cover the league in various cities, getting to see different fan bases, getting to meet different executives, different players from all over the place. And I first started paying attention to athletes in the nonprofit space in Tennessee covering Delaney Walker, a Pro Bowl Titan in the Tennessee Titans. He was their two-time Walter Payton NFL man of the year nominee, wrote a good feature, a good profile about him, but didn't really dive into the nonprofit side too hard, at least technically, right? Because I knew I could pull 90s. I knew they were public records, but I didn't know what the heck I was looking at. Or anybody who could tell me, quite frankly, what I was looking at because there aren't very many true nonprofit experts out there. Wait, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, this is like a dagger to my heart. No, clearly we hadn't met yet, Jason. Yeah, no, I hadn't met anybody in the, keep in mind, I've covered high school sports for a decade. I'm a kid from Philadelphia, I covered the NBA, I covered the NFL, and suddenly I'm looking at a 990. Yeah, I got it. You know what I mean? And I'm not dumb, but like I'm looking at it. And some of the document is pretty intuitive, but you do need a professional to walk you through and explain things, especially because so many of them are filled out incorrectly, as this one I found out was. Yeah, you know, let me talk about that a little bit because I give you a hell of a credit. I love jabbing you a little bit, but you know, I love that you went after the 990 and what you said is pretty magical. Two things really caught my attention. One, it can be arduous to figure out, but more importantly, it's oftentimes not filled out correctly. And what a travesty, because that was the pipeline and actually kind of the foundation of this report. And so anybody watching or listening to this, man, that's a huge takeaway because there are people out there looking at those 990s starting their journey with how they're going to work with an organization. And so to me, that's a really powerful piece. So let's move on a little bit. What did you find out with these 990s and how did you even get help to figure this out? Well, after Tennessee, I went to Buffalo and I wrote a story about Andy Dalton's nonprofit. Andy Dalton was a, he is an NFL quarterback at the time he was the quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals. On New Year's Eve, December 31st, 2017, he threw a late touchdown pass to beat Baltimore and not Baltimore out of the playoffs and it put Buffalo into the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. It ended what had been the longest playoff throughout North American pro sports, any league. Bill's fans on New Year's Eve, they just live and die the bills. I love Bill's mafia, they're an incredible fan base, very charitable, incredible. I mean, the city's nickname is the city of good neighbors that has to do with Canada, but they really take that to heart. They're good people. And so Bill's fans collectively through social media, grassroots social media campaign donated nearly a half a million dollars to Andy Dalton's charity, all most of it in $17 increments for the 17 years. It added up to $442,000 and what I found out is that the for-profit management company that ran this nonprofit was the same for-profit management company that ran Delaney Walker's nonprofit in Tennessee. I ended up getting their contract from the Ohio attorney general's office. Andy Dalton's nonprofit was based in Cincinnati, Ohio's open record laws mandated that they fundraiser had to file their contract and what it showed is that pro-lanthropy, the company was contractually entitled to 22 and a half percent of gross revenue. For all of their nonprofits, regardless of whether they had a hand in raising the funds, they also took 20% of in-kind goods and services. They were also terribly inefficient with the way that they then went ahead and spent the money. And in many cases, many of these nonprofits were spending less than 25 cents of every dollar on program services. What this meant is that when Bill's fans out of the goodness of their heart gave Andy Dalton nearly a half a million dollars to help sick children, because that's what his nonprofit did, this for-profit management company took $100,000 off the top. That story won a national investigative award for investigative sports reporting. It caught the attention of the Arizona Republic. They recruited me to come here six months before the Super Bowl was here and the first six months I was here, what I did with the Walter Payton Man of the Year investigation where I essentially did what I did investigating Andy Dalton for the last 10 nonprofits founded by Walter for Payton Man of the Year award winners and others pulled their 990s dating back to inception, created spreadsheets for each one of them and analyzed them, stuck the numbers in the documents in front of tax experts, legal and accounting experts, used that information to compel nearly a dozen of these guys, all of them have gatekeepers to open up and speak with me about their nonprofit struggles and successes and many of them wanted to be held accountable. And many of them did not speak with each other and many of them had experienced the same types of struggles that guys are still experiencing to this day. So it's so, let's back up to the uninitiated. We just put up an image of the Walter Payton Award. It is probably one of the most prestigious awards that a professional athlete can ever even be considered for. What happens if you are nominated or you win this award? So let's back the bus up a little bit. Every team in the NFL, that's 32, nominate a player each year to be their Walter Payton NFL man of the year. Those guys get a sticker on the back of their helmet, they're each guaranteed $40,000 donation to their charity of choice, which is typically their own charity. Right. The winner, which is announced at NFL Honors, which is their annual national telecast award show a few days before the Super Bowl each year, receives a quarter of a million dollars donation for their charity of choice, which again is often their own nonprofit. It is described by the NFL as the league's most prestigious award. So let's not make any bones about that. It is extraordinarily prestigious. Yeah. And guys who win, not only do they get the quarter of a million dollar donation, but they get a patch to wear on their jersey right over their heart for the rest of their careers. Wow. Interesting. And that is something that guys aspire to even more than the money. I mean, the guys have money by them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's really a fascinating thing because I feel like this is more of an internal thing that not a lot of people on the outside know. I mean, Jared, I know all the time I get questions that come into the nonprofit show that people just ask me when I'm out and about and I'm sure this happens to you. How do we get in front of professional athletes? How do we reach those foundations? Jason, you used this phrase right out the gate. These folks have tremendously organized gatekeepers and systems where you can't just get to them. And so yet there's this sense that there's a huge pipeline of opportunity, if you wanna use that word, by associating with these organizations. And so I find it to be really an amazing discussion, especially given the fact that you can really have all intentions to do well, but then you're not really doing good, if you will, because of these structures. So talk to us a little bit about that because it sounds like there's not a lot of knowledge or emphasis on how this side of management works for professional athletes from the NFL specifically into the nonprofit sector. Well, and I wanna add to Jason, before you jump into that, I feel like there's this other side of the coin, if you will. I'm trying to bring in all the like, you know- You're up to four, sister, you're up to four. I'm glad someone's keeping a scoreboard. So really looking at it from a fact of our athletes and professional teams really only essentially money washing so that they look good, they look like, look at how amazing and charitable and philanthropic and like, let's forget that DUI that might have hit the press, let's put some money into something else. And I feel like whether it's right or it's wrong, I feel like that happens and is said and has talked about more often in professional athletes and their philanthropy than any others. And I'm not sure how I feel about that. Well, it's a part of it, right? Like if it wasn't good for marketing, if it wasn't good for branding, many of these guys wouldn't be starting nonprofits. And that's not my opinion. That's, I mean, just the truth. I've had athletes tell me that they hired a publicist because they wanted to win the Walter Peyton Man of the Year Award and they also wanted to be a great football player, right, which is their job. And they didn't know how to do both. So they bring in help. And publicists often bring in management companies, right? Same with agents, marketers. The thing that I found, which I don't know that it was surprising to me necessarily, but so much of the sports philanthropy industry seems to be run by marketers as opposed to nonprofit professionals. Right. And so it ends up being unfortunately in many cases more about the show than the actual impact. And taken on a larger, on a grander scale, there are players and players, family members who have criticized the NFL and the NFLPA, the Players Union for offering these extraordinarily prestigious awards with significant cash prizes. The NFLPA has a similar award and their winner receives $100,000 donation to their charity of choice. And it makes everybody look good and they have television broadcast. And there is a lot of good being done to be clear even an inefficient charity is helping people. There is good work being done. And many of these guys, they're not with none of them are nonprofit professionals. Many of them don't know what they don't know, right? They rely on agent for help. And the agent contacts a marketing person and the marketing person contacts pro-anthropy. That's exactly what happened with Andy Dalton. How he ended up there. Kid coming out of school, right? Gets handed off to this company. Hey, we'll handle everything. It's easy. Sign on the line, go concentrate on football. We'll call you when we need you to show up to an event. We'll even handle your media. So it's like a nice tight ecosystem and it's a hard nut to crack once you're in there. And there were players that didn't realize that they were being taken advantage of in many cases. Well, look at all the good work we've done. And it's like, okay, but that's 25 cents of every dollar that you're spending going to that. Imagine if it was 75 cents. Now you're helping three times, as many people are. Yeah. You know, it's such an interesting thing. And I got to imagine that as an investigative reporter, as a reporter in the span of, you know, successful award-winning career, there weren't a lot of people that were interested in talking to you for fear of being called out. And then all of a sudden, they're looking into this themselves and realizing that they've been part of kind of an unfortunate situation without even knowing it. What were some of the responses about that? And how did you look at them? How have people said, yeah, we can do better and what is better, I guess. Maybe that's even a better question. Yeah, you know, I would mention Anquan Bolden and his wife, Deon Bolden. Anquan, incredible NFL star, receiver for many years. He retired from the league because he felt a calling to do more for society and for his community. And he has, he and his wife have both dedicated their lives since to making the world a better place. He co-founded the Players Coalition in 2017 and it was pretty controversial at the time. This was at the height of players kneeling during the national anthem. But in the five, six years since, the Players Coalition has really gone about proving itself and its value by virtue of the impact that it's had. You can see it in their 990s. You can see it in their impact statements. They've done a phenomenal job so far from what I've been able to gather, certainly compared to, you know, so many of these one-off players organizations. And so what Deon and what Anquan and Deon told me when I first told them, they did realize years ago that they were being had. And it was the media that let them know there was a story that ran in the Boston Globe and it was similar to what I ran, but not nearly as in-depth. They never talked to the players or anything along those lines. It was basically just pulled data from 990s and they were shocked. And what they told me is like, we had to fire a lot of people. They started paying attention to what was going on in the business side and they started handling things themselves and Deon took control of the organization, the Q81 Foundation. And while Anquan was playing for the Baltimore Ravens, she ended up making it so that the organization was spending better than 90 cents of every dollar on charity as opposed to about a quarter, which is what was happening under the previous management. Yeah. Anquan and Deon now, by the way, and this is probably segueing into our next section, but they've created an organization based off of my reporting in conjunction with professionals at the Players Coalition in order to address these issues. Before we get on to that, some other ways athletes can do good, just partner with an existing nonprofit, right? Eli, they already have the infrastructure in place. They know what they're doing. They're established. Eli Manning, the former New York Giants quarterback, two-time Super Bowl winner, former Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award winner, partnered directly with Hack and Sack Hospital System in North Jersey and raised over $20 million directly for the Children's Hospital. And there's no middleman. There's no, right? None of those donations are being chewed up in the gears. I mean, possibly by the Children's Hospital, but not by a third party, right? There are organizations, fiscal sponsorship organizations, community foundations that charge very tiny amounts, right? And can give you 501c3 status. You can become an athlete, can start a fiscally sponsored project with these organizations and use their nonprofit status to legally collect tax exempt donations, right? Oh, Jason, you're talking our love language here. Oh, yeah. There are tons of ways that athletes can give back and not only in ways that are more efficient, but they're actually easier and less risky for them. Like you help more people and you put yourself at lesser risk, financially, reputationally, right? And you still get the benefits from giving to charity, from being community minded. It's just, you know, I talked to the mother of one player who has multiple kids who are fortunate enough to make the NFL and she's like, you know, it's a cliche nowadays. You make the NFL and you start your own nonprofit. And there isn't a single nonprofit expert who I have spoken to who thinks has a good idea. Well, we should talk because I have spoken with several NFL players and I feel, you know, the same. Their platform, whether it's a financial platform, a vocal platform, a social media platform, there is so much good to offer. And in the last decade, so much has changed by way of access to information, the masses, right? Like all of this, my nephew is on the, you know, pro soccer track, you know, looking at that at the age of 15 and what that considers for sponsorship dollars and how he uses his voice. And there's so many things. There's a question here and I, well, first of all, there's a call out that there are some serious nonprofit experts on this broadcast, absolutely. So Jason, your LinkedIn might just blow up after that. I hope it does. I hope it does. Yeah, on speed dial. Okay, I'd love to hear about strategies for making inroads to getting grant funding from these athlete foundations. And I don't know if that's gonna, you know, take us off course, but if you have any insight there. Grant funding from these foundations. I mean, the foundations themselves are basically fundraising vehicles, right? That's the unique thing about these athletes nonprofits is they rely on the athlete celebrity, right? Like that's what they have to offer in order to draw attention and raise money. And many of these guys, they might give out turkeys at Thanksgiving or take some kids on some, you know, some, at Christmas time, take them on some shopping sprees, this morning good store or whatever else. But by and large, they exist to be passed through organizations, to raise money, simply to give to other nonprofits that are actually doing programmatic work, food banks, children's hospitals, that type of thing. And so it becomes sort of interesting when you're looking at the money that is going in and going out, right? Like how much should be chewed up in those years? If all you're doing is collecting this money and then passing out a few turkeys and a few gift cards, and then you're passing on the bulk of what you do is to pass that money onto a children's hospital. How do you justify only a quarter of every dollar being spent on charity? Where does it go? Why is that efficient? So it's not like these organizations, I mean, they give out grants. People apply to them, fans, whoever else. I mean, if an organization supports a children's hospital, usually that hospital will direct its patients to a grant application. By and large, what I found is these are the people that they're helping, right? But these organizations need money and they are applying to organizations like the NFL Foundation, so their individual teams have community foundations for grants, $5,000, $10,000 grants, whatever else. And so the league, the union, the teams, not only by giving these big cash prizes and these prestigious awards, they encourage athletes to create these foundations and then apply for grants, right? So like the emails that they send out are, here's the NFL Foundation will send out a grant application and attached to that will be a four-page tips nonprofit tip sheet on starting a foundation, which they do not require that teams distribute to their players. And the second sentence in bold says, not all players should start a 501c3. But then they're gonna have a national, they're not gonna require that to be distributed, but then they're gonna have a national television broadcast for the Peyton Man of the Year award. So they will give out the grant application along with this tip sheet. And all of these players will apply for money that are then funneled to these organizations this way. So a lot of it is supported not only by the fans, but by the league and the teams as well. You know, it's been fascinating to have you on today and our time is almost up. We had one last comment that came in and I have seen this in my own community. I know that Jared sees this as well and that is signed memorabilia, signed swag, things that come from partner sponsors or endorsements. That seems to be something that we see a lot, especially in the gala space and the opportunity to have auction items, things of that nature. So this is a conversation that we need to continue. We are thrilled that you would come on and talk to us about this, especially during the time of Super Bowl frenzy that's coming up. I assume, Jason, that you're not giving up this. If you learned how to read a 990, you're going forward on this. What's next? Can you give us a really quick kind of glimpse into what home runs? Jared had to say that. What home runs you're gonna be hitting in terms of your writing and your investigative work? Yeah, absolutely. The memorabilia issue, just real quick, that is an extension of these guys' celebrity, right? This is what they bring to the table. You see every single fundraising dinner, there's a silent auction of memorabilia that's donated not only by the player himself, but their teammates, their teams, right? Like that's a big part of it. What's coming next? Well, February 8th is the one-year anniversary of us publishing this series last year, a five-part series, Miss Management of the Year, that exposed the systemic waste and mismanagement of among non-profits that have been founded by Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award winners. It inspired Anquan and Dionne Bolden and the nonprofit professionals behind the Players Coalition to found this new organization called Sport for Impact, which not only is it a fiscal sponsorship organization, but they are utilizing a unique structure of LLCs where guys can maintain their brands, but still contribute, but still have the checks and balances from the larger organization. And not only is it a fiscal sponsor, but it is the standalone charity as well, and it will address various issues, such as climate justice, food insecurity, on and on and on and on, where it uses the Players Coalition model. Players Coalition is based on social justice initiatives. This is going to tackle everything else and provide guys that a unique fiscal sponsorship opportunity to make sure that everything is done legally and correct and that the beneficiaries are front of mind. Next week, Thursday is the eighth, that will be NFL Honors this year in Las Vegas a few days before the Super Bowl on February 11th. Sport for Impact will be having a launch party in Las Vegas on that day, on Saturday. They have 150 plus RSVPs already, players, agents, other players, representatives, team representatives. The NFL walked to Peyton Manley, your award winner executive vice president of the league Troy Vincent has thrown his support behind this organization. The Jacksonville Jaguars, I understand, have already donated five figure amount to the organization to help it get started. They're hoping other teams follow the suit. And so we're seeing a real world change. We're seeing these athletes who I said want to be held accountable in many respects going out there and actively trying to make a difference. So that way the guys coming into the league today don't experience the same types of heartaches and troubles that they all have by and large throughout their nonprofit journeys. Well, this has been a fabulous conversation. I assume that we're going to continue it at some point and actually delve into it. We've had a lot of questions come in, a lot of comments. This is really exciting. It has been an opportunity, especially for me with a publishing background, that four-hour lunch that we spent, we chatted a lot about the process. It went like that, but we chatted a lot about the process of being in journalism and the sacred responsibility that one has when they pursue this as a career. So Jason Wolf, sports reporter, enterprise and investigations for the Arizona Republic USA Today Network. It's really been a pleasure to know that there's somebody out there. I love, love, love that you tried to figure out the 990 and you marched through that and you continue to march through that. So we're definitely going to be watch your star and get you back on here because we just think this is such an amazing conversation. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. We have amazing sponsors that are here with us day in and day out. They include Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, nonprofit thought leader, Staffing Boutique, your part-time controller, 180 management group, Fundraising Academy at National University, JMT Consulting, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. These are the folks that join us day in and day out. Hey, everybody, we end every episode of the nonprofit show with this message and especially in the athletic realm, Jared, it means something else as well. And that is to stay well so you can do well. Thank you so much, Jason. This has been a highlight for me. I really, really appreciate it.