A Recession Proof Marketing Plan with Karla Greenway

And it was a recession. So they when I, when I was brought in, I was handed a budget my first year and, said, well, we're projecting $125,000 deficit. Wow. But, you know, good luck. Okay. Welcome back to Exploring Growth. Today we have, I think, an interesting story of a local Central Florida nonprofit. I'm here with Carla Greenway, she's, the leader executive director. The executive director in the nonprofit world is like a CEO. And the real, you know, the the other world, at Interfaith Emergen

cy Services over in Ocala in Marion County. Welcome, Carla. Hi. Thank you. It's good to be here. Yeah. So, you know, when I came across your organization, I immediately thought, okay, well, you've got to have some interesting stories to tell about growth. And, you know, when you talk about the nonprofit world, it's, it's a different it's a different breed, you know, it's it's it's not it's it's got a lot of the makings of the for profit world, but there's a lot of additional layers that go go on

as well. I would say, in addition to the things you have to deal with in the typical for profit world, I've worked with a number of, 20 00:01:19,690 --> 00:01:23,020, nonprofits and, kind of coming up through the years. My wife was actually, for her career before kids, she did event planning and fundraising for, a couple nonprofits, small nonprofits up in Birmingham, Alabama. And so, of course, I was her number one volunteer. You know, anytime there was an event or something happening, I had to

be there, you know, doing the helping her with a silent auction or, you know, doing some kind of thing that has to do with fundraising. And, you know, I did it mostly willingly. It was it was it was good for the most part. But then there was a late nights of tear down that I didn't didn't enjoy. But I've seen that side of it and I've also worked. I've had a couple clients that have been nonprofits and, helped them with some strategy and seeing, you know, the business side of things. And, you kn

ow, I. I think that there's a lot to be said for people who, run nonprofits because it is a can can be a thankless world, so, you know, I'm excited to have you on and, and talk about some of those things that you've done behind the scenes to, to grow, interfaith and, just kind of learn a little bit more of that about your organization. Thank you. Well, first, I would say I appreciate you even acknowledging as a business, a lot of people don't think of nonprofits as businesses, but we do have to

operate as a business. Yes, we just instead of employees, we have to deal with volunteers, right? That's right. You know, and, and again, our clients get what they get for free. They're not your patrons that are purchasing something. So it's. That's right. It is. It is. There are some nuances that make it a little more challenging, but we definitely have to follow a lot of business practices and principles. And yeah, a lot of people don't appreciate that. So thank you for acknowledging. Yeah. Ye

ah. Well, you know, and for the people who have not worked with volunteers directly or lead volunteers, they're basically employees who are working for free and they're just basically working on passion. So if you think about your employees and how much passion they have, but they really show up because they get paid, just take away the money part. And that's about how challenging more challenging it gets. Yeah, that's true, that's true. And they and you know and a lot here we have a lot of our

volunteers are retirees. So you know we have to deal with their schedules and their travel plans and all that. But right. It somehow always works. Yeah. You know, so we were talking just a minute ago before we jumped on here, about some of the the early days of you getting started in your role, give us a quick, like, succinct story about, how you got started and a little bit about the organization. So we have some context to the work that you're doing. Okay. Well, to start with the history of th

e organization, it was started in 1983 by a group of local pastors that were in a networking meeting, and the topic that kept coming to light was, you know, we had these people coming to our churches and they're not coming for spiritual needs. They're coming for food and they're coming for clothing and shelter. And so all the churches were scrambling to create clothing closets and soup kitchens. And, somebody finally had this idea and said, you know, why don't we just pull all of our resources t

ogether and create one place to do it efficiently, and then we can refer people there when they come to us. And that's how interfaith was started. So it was, it was kind of it's a really cool, connecting point for all of the faith based community here in Marion County. Of course. 80 00:04:43,430 --> 00:04:47,300, what I love about interfaith is that so many different faiths come together to serve, and it's like all those lines are erased. At interfaith. We're just all people who love people and

want to want to help. So that part's really cool. But it was you know, Ocala historically has kind of been considered a small rural area and, with kind of a good old boys network here. Yeah. And, and so I came in after the, the man who was, who had had built it to what the point it was when I took over, I had been there 23 years. He was well loved by the community, but, you know, and I and I get it because it's. This is such hard work. I think he had just the last couple of years he was here pro

bably struggling with some burnout. And, and it was a recession. So they when I, when I was brought in, I was handed a budget my first year and, said, well, we're projecting $125,000 deficit. Wow. But, you know, good luck. Yeah. Good luck. There you go. You can. And and to be honest, my background was not in fundraising, 97 00:05:50,990 --> 00:05:53,420, or marketing. I had worked for a government, a state government agency. Okay. And was always just handed my budget. Yeah. Here's Ben. So, so th

is was a new challenge for me. And, but you know what? One of the things I learned right out of the gate was you can't be afraid to try things. That's right. If I wouldn't have, you know, tried different. I tried so many different things, to try to start building momentum and and and increasing our donor base, and if I had been afraid to try things or afraid what people would say or think, I. There's no way I wouldn't have made it. 107 00:06:29,660 --> 00:06:32,660, we would have been done in ab

out two years, and our faith would have been no more. Yeah. So, so it it's been a it's been a really fun journey for me to learn, how to market, kind of, you know, from scratch. Right. And, I mean, I had a really good base to build on because we had a really good reputation in the community. The problem with. Yeah, the vast majority of the community didn't know about interfaith. 114 00:06:53,270 --> 00:06:57,380, so my first goal was to make interfaith a household name. I wanted I wanted the res

idents of interfaith to think of us as their charity. Like, this is our community's charity. And we're here to take care of our neighbors. And I want everyone to feel a part of this. I like that. It was. That's a great initial vision. You know, I like how you articulated that. Was it that clear to you in those early days that that's what you needed to do? Because to me, when you say it, you know, hindsight, it sounds great. But in the early days when you're, you know, for lack of a better word,

scrambling to, to make this thing get off the ground and, and get to where it needs to be, even coming from a deficit, I think that that thought is a very advanced way of thinking, like, that's a that's very much a vision for the organization. Did it come about over time or did you did you come in and say, no, this is what we needed? No, I mean, it's pretty immediate. I mean, my immediate thought was and then what's funny is I'm I'm struggling with the fact that I'm about I need to raise money.

And, and people are struggling right now, you know, and so where I did struggle was coming up with a recession proof fundraising theme or campaign. Okay. And so, and I, you know, in my head, I'm going, okay, there's 300,000 people in Marion County, if, if I can even get a third of them to give me $5. Yeah. Our our total budget at that time was a little over $500,000. Okay. I thought I'd have almost my whole budget. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, and I'm thinking, okay, if I can get a third and

it sounds like much a third of Marion County people to just give me $5. How hard is that? Right. 142 00:08:36,260 --> 00:08:40,460, and that's where, you know, again, people probably when I shared that thought, okay, you're you're crazy but. But you can try and, and I created this idea of, of giving interfaith a high five because people that didn't know interfaith loved interfaith, and love what we did. So I, I turned it into this high five campaign where it was give interfaith a high five if y

ou like what we do or if you support us. And the high five was a $5 bill. Okay. We also made big, foam red hands, right smack people. But and it was really kind of grassroots. I started, I recruited some volunteers and we would set up in front of the local grocery stores. We would go to every public event, every fair, every festival, anything, set up a table and just say, hey, give us a high five and, you know, and collect $5 bills. And then I started getting into businesses. 157 00:09:34,550 --

> 00:09:36,170, you know, and trying to, you know, I'd ask employers if I could just hit their employees up for a $5 bill, and and so many of them just loved the the shtick that they. Well, I. Mean, let me tell you, that is that's a great marketing campaign. Like, I couldn't think of one better myself. I think that's such a great, very simple. It's very clear. It's very approachable. You know, we're talking about $5. And again, even though you're kind of coming out of a recession period of time,

it's still very approachable. If people have any inkling to give, they can just do that one thing and feel connected. But it's not about the $5. It's about starting those conversations and doing all the things that you're probably about to explain is it's all the things that come along with it. Exactly. And that the simplicity of it, it's funny, we I'm we're actually working this week on a piece of content for something else we do in Signal Media, for an email. And I'm talking about exactly. Th

at is, if you want to get awareness, you have to think about your target audience. What does they care about? How do you get their attention? Keep it simple, keep it clear. And I couldn't think of a better example than that. I mean, that's such a great, you know, tagline. It's easy for you to remember. Yeah, yeah. So congrats on that. I mean, that's that's awesome. Coming right out of the gate. What was fun was, I don't know where this came from, but, my thought was, I, you know, I wanted to to

create this sense of inclusivity, you know, when people feel like they were included. So, we called it the High five club, actually. Oh, cool. Yeah. And before I even started the campaign, I got some college kids to help me plaster these signs all over town. That's awesome. Just they all they said were, are you in the club? That's it. It didn't say anything about interfaith, just. Are you in the club? I even got a couple of local magazines. You just do a whole page. Are you in the club? And my t

hought was if you could get people asking the question, you know, what club. What's the club? When I come back and go, it's the high five club. They go, oh you know, then they already they have a quick connection right. And so and then that's what we did. We launched it as a high five club. You know give us a high five and be in the club when we got the high fives. We even had a sticker that we gave everybody to wear on their shirt that says, I'm in the club. Hoping to that people would go, what

club? Well, it's a club. Give them a high five you can get. Yeah, it's sort of almost like a social contagion type of. Yeah. You type of, you're tapping into the human piece of a human spirit. There is. It makes me think of, you know, when you go vote and it says, I voted. Yeah, you want to you want people to know if you put that sticker on, you won't be able to know I voted, right. It's mean. Something. Everybody wants to be in the club, you know. So that's right. If somebody else has, it's ju

st stickers. As I'm in the club, they're going to go, what club I want to be. Yeah. Right. So it's at least. Piques their curiosity which is step. One. It worked and it worked, somehow, someway. But, so fast forward, we, we ended that year, in a surplus, not a deficit, not a big business. But, you know, we we made it for the $125,000 deficit, and then in a surplus. And but the thing is, it built this momentum that people were talking about. Interfaith people were thinking of interfaith, you know

, we were growing by volunteers. And it opened so many doors for me to get in front of, church groups and civic groups. And, I spent the first 2 or 3 years literally just day in and day out, speaking to groups. I mean, I just yeah, I remember there was a 15 month span that I didn't attend my own church because I was in a different church every week. Yeah. Speaking about interfaith, but, but again, that, that that campaign is what opened the door for that, right? When I could tell a pastor, I'm n

ot asking for a lot of money, I'm just asking for $5 bills. Yeah, they were a lot more much more. Open to it. Yeah. I just stand at the back of the church when church was over and, you know, and people would walk by and, give me the $5. So it really did just get my foot in the door for the donations I'm getting now where I can pick up a phone, call a bank president and say, hey, I need sponsorship money, or yeah, and it's and of course, back then even, you know, people a lot, most people gave $5

, but the people that could afford 50 gave 50, people could afford 25 gave 25. That's right. You know, we got some $500. They're naturally going. To give, give to their, you know, comfortability. Yeah. So, and that was like I said, that was that was right out of the gate. And then, we but but you know, once I started getting into the, the arenas that I wanted to get in, that's when I could really start doing more education about going in depth about what we do. Because at that point, most people

just thought we were a food pantry. Okay. I went into a room and said, how many of you know what interfaith do everyone wants? Oh yeah, you're a food pantry. They didn't know that. We had a prescription medication program and a homeless shelter and did all these other, you know, services. And, so that was, you know, like I said, anything you can come up with, it'll just get your foot in the door, no matter how simple. And and and sometimes. Even now, I will start out with with not an ask with a

, you know, just a I just want to come talk to you. I just I want to come say thank you. Yeah. Maybe not even for what you do for for, you know, interfaith, but what you do in the community. Right. And, and that goes a long way, caring and caring about what they care about too. Yes. Yeah. I think that's that's number one. You know, when you when you understand what it is that your donors, your, your, your primary audience, their, for fundraising cares about, then you can tap into that and align

yourself with it. 258 00:15:09,360 --> 00:15:13,290, so you said you went from, you know, kind of, en masse to these other arenas. What kind of other arenas are you talking about? Local civic groups or business like commercial. Businesses, civic groups. And then I, you know, then I got invited to, you know, to be on some local radio stations, interviewed with the local newspapers, yeah, I was interviewed several times by our local, some of our local news outlets and, 266 00:15:36,660 --> 00:15:4

0,050, and then, you know, even TV 20 would come down, out of Gainesville and, they started keeping up with us, like, you know. That's on the. Holidays or whatever. It's great exposure. And and, you know, the, the local newspapers here just really wrap their arms around us and, 271 00:15:54,450 --> 00:15:58,680, and, and really, you know, any anything that I wanted to get out there, they would help me get out there. Yeah. That's amazing. So it was, you know, it's it's been a it's been a fun run,

but yeah. That's. Yeah. Go ahead. We also though what people don't realize is we also are in the business of competition, which I hate to use that word in nonprofits because in Marion County anyway, we're all friends. We all support each other. We donate to each other's charities. If I have something that can bless another charity, we give it and vice versa. 280 00:16:28,110 --> 00:16:33,810, but the reality is we are all competing for the same dollars. That's right. You know, because so again,

that's the, going back to tapping into what matters to people. If I know there's a local business that's already, supporting the Humane Society. And I know, I know that's what matters to them. Yeah. I'm not even going to go there. I'm not going to spend my time going after somebody who I know that their their passion is animals. Right? You know, so, you know, it's paying attention to those kind of things, to not just going after everybody because they're there. Yeah. And it's good to be aware o

f that because, you know, it's true. It's a it's a marketplace. And you know, you have to, to, to acknowledge that. 292 00:17:11,940 --> 00:17:13,770, curious though, it makes me think. Have you ever gotten together in the same room, like around the table with these other organizations and had sort of like a consortium of sorts where, you know, you just have these conversations transparently and say, you know, not that you would necessarily say, hey, we're all competing for the same dollar, but

but how can we align ourselves, to more benefit each other? Have you ever done that or is that kind of faux pas? Actually, we have a local nonprofit business council that pulls us together and we have those conversations frequently. That's awesome. And so like I said, it's we talk about ethics. We talk about, you know, you know, not stepping on each other's toes when somebody's spent a lot of time establishing a relationship with a donor and just kind of out of out of, yeah, we don't we don't go

after them. And and I've even had people call me when they know one of my donors has approached them and say, I just want you to know they approached us. I don't, you know, so I'm like, that's amazing. So it's, it's a great relationship. We're. Yeah, we're very fortunate to have our nonprofit business council here in Marion County. And the way, the way that we work together and support each other. And we do share a lot of the same donors. So, you know, so it's really cool. It's like we're havin

g it we're having a beer fest coming up. It's one of my favorite events to fundraise for because, two of my other favorite charities, the Literacy Council and Kimberly Center for Child Protection, that they, they do, counseling for children of abuse and neglected. Okay, the three of us get to work together, and it's it's such an easy sell to tell a business. Hey, you get to help three charities with one sponsorship. Yeah, so it's a three for deal. You know. You get to drink. Beer, which doesn't.

Usually hurt. You know? Yeah. So yeah, it's a it's a lot of fun. A lot of fun to work with these two other charities. And it's funny because people do, you know, are surprised when they see us all coming together, you know, and working together so hard on this event, not worrying about who gets what, just. Yeah, that's really that's really cool to see. Especially in a small town, you know, smaller town where you can easily you could easily go the opposite way. Yeah, yeah. So I'm, I'm curious no

w. Okay. So you, you, I mean, from my perspective, you came out of the gate swinging like amazing campaign, got a lot of exposure. You got the newspapers on your. Radio stations like you. You know, if you have a clear message, people are going to know who you are and know how to give. Now where it is, where do you take that? You know, and the more recent years or months, what have you done to continue that momentum of growth, you know, to to get more donors and maybe talk about what types of don

ors, I'm curious about, you know, getting new people. Well, of course, social media started to really explode around that time. So I work that really hard for the next few years, and it's funny because the interfaith page isn't really, we don't we don't have as many connections on that as we do my personal one. And I just friend anybody and everybody because anything I share on that I would share on my personal page. Yeah. And, it's so funny because when I got married a couple of years ago and m

y husband was looking at me because he assumed I knew all those 3000. Yeah, like, I don't know. So I yeah. I just, you know, like them. So when I have something to share for interfaith, it gets it gets the message out, so social media is, you know, it's a great tool, it's getting more and more again, competitive to, for, for people's attention even, you know, now, we're trying to figure out how to do the reels and the video, you know, all the trainings telling us that you that this short and sho

rt, succinct videos are what's getting people's attention. So, you know, and it's keeping up with those things. Yeah. 360 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:03,510, that's just so important to, to keep up with those, trends for social media. That's sure. That's a, but and also, I think just relationship building, like I. I joined, a few different groups and networks. To, partially for myself, but. But they have turned out also to be great ways for me to meet new people and just keep progressing. 366 00:21:2

8,420 --> 00:21:31,600, the, the familiarity with interfaith. So I joined, a local Rotary Club. Okay. Mainly because, you know, I work and people, you know, it's funny, when you work for a nonprofit, think people think you're just this wonderful person because. Yeah, right. But that's. My job. And I do care about the people, and I do it because I'm passionate about it. But personally, for me, I get paid for that. So yes, I need outlets where I can feel like I'm just giving. I'm not, you know? So

I, joined the. And one of the things that is a nice diversion from the things I deal with it at interfaith, at my job with poverty and all that is art. I love art, so I joined the, the local, art association and, joined their board and got and got enmeshed in that really for my own gratification. Yeah, but it connected me to new donors. I can do that. Yeah. 381 00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:22,840, you know, and and I help with their fundraisers without, you know, without, you know, I avoided the conf

lict of going after my own donors, but. Yeah, and, you know, of course, I didn't steal their donors, but a lot of people, you find out that care about art also care about homelessness. So. Yes. 386 00:22:36,010 --> 00:22:38,050, and then I did the same thing. You know, I got involved in a Rotary Club, really, just to increase my little social network. And, and now I'm connected to five local rotary clubs that will, you know, embrace interfaith. They, you know, I'll, I'll donate to us in some way

. Yeah. So it's, you know, just my own personal giving back to the community sure benefited interfaith. Yeah. That's that's so great. I love to I mean, just to, you know, not miss the fact that you're such a good person. Okay? You you are you are doing all these good things as your job, and then you're like, no, that's not enough. I'm going to go do other things on my free time, you know, so, you know, thanks for being that that that person that we need in the community, we need more people like

you. Yeah, I. Would say let's shift, you know, from awareness where you're going out and getting new eyeballs and new people looking at what you're doing and giving to, nurturing or retaining, current donors. You know, what are some of the things that you do, maybe explicitly or specifically, or maybe that sort of happened naturally, organically to keep donors engaged. So it's funny, one of the other first crazy things I tried to do, 405 00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:50,920, I think was probably my se

cond or third year. I started this, at at the holidays with the we get almost two thirds of our donations come in the last two months of the year. And I had this wild idea that I was going to do a handwritten Christmas card to every donor that gave a donation. I love that, yeah. And it was a challenge. But I did it. Hired hand. You know, and but but I, you know, I just made that part of my that was a priority every day. You know, when the mail came in, I got that list and I, and I wrote those ca

rds and now I, you know, I'm happy to say I've built my donor base to the point I. There's no way I could possibly do that. I still do it to some degree. 416 00:24:30,940 --> 00:24:32,830, you know, it's kind of hit or miss, but a couple things that I have that I have incorporated because there's no way for me to do a personal, contact with every donor. Yeah, but, I get a report every week of all the brand new donors, first time donors. Every first time donor gets us, they're going to get their

acknowledgement letter for taxes, but they're also going to get a handwritten note from me that says, you know, thank you for being one of the people that make us, make us happen, you know, that make this ministry possible. And, and it's funny because I've never traveled to see how many of those become repeat donors. I was I was telling my staff, I really need to do that. Yeah. 428 00:25:14,490 --> 00:25:19,530, but but I do believe a lot of them do continue to be donors because now, you know, e

very so often I'll get a report for repeat donors. And that list keeps growing. Yeah. And a lot of those names I recognize because they're people I sent notes to. So randomly, I'll send a note to somebody who's just been, you know, a consistent donor, and then also, I started this past year because the other thing that's happened is the level of our donations have gone up, the, the dollar amounts. And so I get, a report every week or every. Yeah, every week for, any donations that came in over $

500. Okay. And they're going to get a handwritten note from me, if it's someone that I've written a bunch of handwritten notes to already, then they might get a phone call from me just to say thanks. Right. 442 00:26:05,370 --> 00:26:09,660, so it's really about, you know, making them know that you're you're seeing. Yeah. Keeping it personal number. Yeah. You matter. And you matter to us. And. And it's fun. You know, some of I've got one donor that I've never met in person, but, I've talked to h

im a couple of times on the phone. We get on the phone, we can't. It's like we could talk all day. Yeah. There's just such a great connection there, and again, I've never met him. We just connect on the the passion for what interfaith does and. Great. And again, it started with me just writing him notes saying thank you. Right. So I'm curious, you know, if we were to say, I know you probably do a lot of the same, 454 00:26:46,980 --> 00:26:49,650, type of things with, corporate donors. But if yo

u were to kind of categorize everything you're talking about is, you know, individual donors, is there anything different you do for corporate or how do you approach corporate? How do you you know, what's that ask look like? And maybe, you know, once they do come on board, what does that relationship look like? Yeah. So they ask for corporate typically, 461 00:27:10,950 --> 00:27:13,470, I try to involve my board with that. So, you know, I just feel like it's important to have them on board for

those. And it's especially nice if some of them know, you know, that that's like the, the that's the bomb when they can when someone on my board knows someone in a and a business at that top level. Yeah. And, and again I don't, I don't typically go in first time with my hand out. I go in saying, I just want you to know what interfaith does. I want you to know, you know, what we do for this community. And usually I'll acknowledge what they've done for our community. You know, what what impact the

y've had, whether, you know, they're a great employer. Some, some businesses employ, 473 00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,030, the people that we serve. And I'll point that out to them. 474 00:27:57,420 --> 00:28:01,470, so, you know, I try like again, I try to connect on a level that it's not just about Jimmy, you know, and then. And then typically, you know, when I do have to go back around and ask for something, then it's a yes. So I don't like calling and asking for for money. And that being my fir

st connection. Yeah. I just I'm not comfortable with that. I know a lot of people are and I guess as a, you know, have a nonprofit you're supposed to be. But I'm not good with those kind of cold calls. Because. To me it's the relationship aspects to important. And then, you know, the ongoing. 484 00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:35,800, so and one like one of the examples is we get a lot of church support. Okay. And, so one of the things we're doing right now, for the churches that support us is they're g

etting a letter A, not not the regular, you know, letter. Thank you for your gift, but just a random letter to the church saying how much it means to us, how what the impact their donation makes. But it's going to be signed by everybody on my board. Okay. 491 00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,320, so, I mean, you know, that might not seem like much, but I know when I get a handwritten note, it catches my attention. That's right. When I get, you know, a letter that's got more than one signature on it, yo

u know, it does. Things like that do catch my attention. So you got to figure a way. Small ways like that, that don't cost you anything. Yeah. That help you stand out? Yeah. I think in today's world of everything being so quick and impersonal, I think those types of things have an element of surprise that anybody would would be caught off guard to say, oh, that's kind of cool. I didn't then expect that, you know, and that helps to make that connection, either make it initially or make it stronge

r. And, and I think that's really, 504 00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,870, I know that's what's kept some of my, my corporate donors in the churches that we, that we, have on our team coming back every year. Yeah. And you mentioned, you know, relating back to the churches, the impact that they're having. I know through our church when when, you know, if I'm just a congregant, I'm hearing about, a nonprofit that we support, it can seem very surface. But if they talk about specific stories that have ha

ppened inside of that organization and how our funds helped to to make that impact, and the more compelling the better, the more palpable, like where where you're you, you can feel the hurt of that situation that was mended. Yeah. 515 00:30:27,250 --> 00:30:32,800, it makes me feel like, hey, we are we we we're doing a good thing. We should continue to do this, and we should maybe even do more. Yeah, and. You know it. We're all prone to want to tell. Like, you know, we we help 14,000 families, r

ight? Every year. And you went because it's such a big number. It's so hard to get my head around that we can actually impact that many people. But quite honestly, when I go into groups and start touting off those numbers, yeah, they glaze over. Yeah. But when I start talking about red, you know, I was homeless. And now now he works at interfaith and he drives a forklift in his house. And yeah, he's come back to life. That's it. I mean, one like you said, one good story that about a real human,

a real person. Yes. Is, is really what makes the impact. And yes, I agree 100%. I and and to you know, it's I want people to see who they're helping, when we were launching, a campaign for, an engagement center, we're actually finally building. I actually know this was this wasn't the engagement. This was a we bought an apartment complex to house some chronically homeless. And when I was going around and we didn't need monetary support to buy it, I needed I needed support to help furnish it and,

you know, and get people to partner and just support it that way. Yeah. So when I went to churches, I, really, really any group, I made these poster size pictures of just the faces of the people that we had targeted to put in there. Yeah. And, and, and just, you know, just two seconds on each one to tell their background, their story and how this is going to help them. And that was one of the easiest ask. Oh my. Gosh. Yeah, I can totally see people connecting with that because it is not surface

level. You're looking at these 1 to 20 people that right in front of you that these are the actually people that are going to live in this apartment. And then the church is it. The church is rallied when when we posted a picture of them moving into Facebook, they're in the picture with this same person. You know, I love it. So I love it. There's so much about just the human, the humanness of everything. It's so true. It's so true. Okay, so for this last little bit, what I want to know now is, y

ou know, you come so far, it seems like everything is just rocking along. I know it doesn't look like that under the surface. It never does. But, you know, from our perspective, everything's great. What does a future look like for interfaith, you know that. That's the hard. Part. 557 00:32:57,690 --> 00:33:02,820, we never dreamed that we would be doing housing, or be doing, you know, really taking on this, initiative to end homelessness in our community, but it's it's something that we're as a

or as an organization, we just can't ignore it anymore. You know, we we're just we just have this burden, for these people that we see day in and day out that we've gone, you know, that we've come into relationship with and. Our challenge is trying to continue to grow and expand in a meaningful way to help people in their homelessness. When a lot of people don't understand homelessness, that it's a real hard piece to educate the community on. Yeah, it's easy to say, yeah, we've got these single

moms or single parent households that are struggling. They need food for, you know, somebody had a financial crisis and now they're in our shelter. But the chronically homeless, most people think they're lazy or they chose it. I hear that so often that, you know, they want to be out there, and it's so, so the challenge for, for us is just trying to do the education piece with the community that, you know, that, that so many of these people are intellectually disabled. They're, have they suffer f

rom mental illness and other things that most people can't even imagine. And, and that's, you know, that's the challenge. We are building an engagement center, right now for the whole purpose of trying to engage them in services, help them overcome the barriers they can't overcome on their own and then, you know, ultimately want to see them housed. Yeah, I don't I my my board's kind of, like, pump the brakes. Carla, we're not going to do any more housing because. So we we have a, we have a duple

x and then we own an apartment complex. And that's kind of where they want me to stop that. But the good news is that I think some other organizations have watched us venture into. That. And and not collapse. And so I just actually just made a donation before I got on here to one of my partner agencies that. That's awesome. I just bought a house so they can house some women. So, you know, and not trying to be in this alone is important. In the nonprofit world, you are so much more impactful if y

ou link arms with the other agencies and try not to duplicate what they're doing, but compliment each other. It's such a waste of time and resources to try to do the same thing somebody's doing up the road. Yes, but, but yeah, our challenge is going to be just trying to keep up with that demand and meet that, that need, and of course, you know as more nonprofits come on the scene, there's always that, you know, challenge of, of keeping your funds going. A lot of our donors, our senior citizens t

hat are, passing on, we lost a lot of our donors during the the pandemic years, not not all of the pandemic, but we just lost a lot of them to age and other things. And so, you know, trying to, connect with the up and coming professionals that's going to be, 606 00:36:07,250 --> 00:36:10,250, that's going to be a challenge, I think. 607 00:36:10,340 --> 00:36:14,840, and how you get to them because they, a lot of the senior citizens and the people that I reach out to, they're in civic groups or

they're in churches that they I get these groups of people that are collective together, and I can just do one presentation and hit 300 people. It's hard to find that with, the younger generations. Yes, where they're, you know, in one room like that together. So we're going to have to get creative and, and come up with some, some new ways of reaching the next generation. Yeah. It sounds like you have your work cut out for you a little bit there, but, not and it could be too much harder, maybe di

fferent, but not harder than starting in a recession. So, you know, I wish you guys all all all the best. And. Thank you. I'm sure everything will. We'll go. Great. Thanks again for being on. Is there any, you know, people want to reach out to you and get in touch with you? Where can I send them? 622 00:37:05,510 --> 00:37:08,390, you can just give them my email address. It's Carla with a K. Carla and I for interfaith, E for emergency. S for services. Is Marion the county we live in.org. So it's

Carla at IHS Marion. Org feel free to to email me there and I'll get back to you. Yeah that's great. Well thanks again for being on and. Thank you for. Wishing you all the best. Thank you so much.