Driving Change: Howard Pearl of CARS on Transformative Partnerships and Nonprofit Innovations

In this episode, Spencer Brooks interviews Howard Pearl, the CEO of Charitable Adult Rides and Services (CARS), a nonprofit organization that runs car donation and real estate donation programs. Howard shares insights into the unique approach CARS takes to building partnerships with nonprofits and the impact of these partnerships. He also discusses the benefits of vehicle and real estate donation programs for nonprofits and the types of nonprofits that can benefit from them. Additionally, Howard introduces the On The Go program, which provides transportation services for seniors and individuals with disabilities. Finally, he offers advice on navigating board relationships and securing funding for strategic initiatives. Discover how Howard’s leadership has transformed CARS, helping them raise over $60 million a year for nonprofits and working with over 8,000 charities.

About the guest

Howard Pearl is the Chief Executive Officer of Charitable Adult Rides & Services (CARS). He is an accomplished business leader with over 35 years of c-suite experience and is a graduate of Harvard Business School. He has provided services to organizations, including Johnson & Johnson, the Ford Motor Company, and Revlon. Since joining CARS in 2015, Howard has transformed the company culture around gratitude and has led a 500% increase in top-line revenue. Additionally, Howard is leading the charge to expand CARS’ On the Go transportation program nationally to support older adults across the country through transportation solutions and meal delivery services. 

Resources

• Car Easy  https://careasy.org/home
• Giving Property: https://givingproperty.org/
• On The Go Rides: https://otgrides.org/home

Contact Howard

• Email: howardp@careasy.org
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardpearl/

 

Full Transcript

00:04

Welcome to Health Nonprofit Digital Marketing, a podcast for nonprofit marketers in the health space. Join us as we discuss how to use the web to drive awareness, engagement and action for Health causes. This podcast is part of the thought education of Brooks digital, the web agency for health nonprofits. Now, here’s your host, Spencer Brooks.

Spencer Brooks 00:26

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Health Nonprofit Digital Marketing. My name is Spencer and today I’m joined by Howard Pearl. Howard is the Chief Executive Officer of Charitable Adult Rides and Services, also known as CARS. He’s an accomplished business leader with over 35 years of C suite experience and is a graduate of Harvard Business School is provided services to organizations including Johnson and Johnson, the Ford Motor Company, and Revlon. So, Howard, first of all, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. Would you mind starting by giving listeners a little bit more information about cars and its mission?

Howard Pearl 01:07

Well, sure. And thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. CARS is a unique nonprofit that is owned by 106-year-old nonprofit, and we only do business with nonprofits. We ourselves, of course, are nonprofit, I think perhaps the most substantial portion of our business, we run the largest car donation program in the country that no one has ever heard of. We are not the guys with the obnoxious jingle, that generally gets a bit of a laugh, because we’ve all you know, we’ve all heard that jingle, we’re not those guys. We’re not Cars for Kids. We provide the underpinning for approximately 8400 nonprofits across this country to run unique fundraising programs, either the car donation program, real estate donation programs, and so on. It’s 100% turnkey, at no outlay of cost by the nonprofit initially, well at all. And, you know, generally with most of the larger nonprofits, you know, we’re at an 80/20 split. So, the majority of that capital goes back to where it belongs. And, you know, that is the nonprofit itself.

Spencer Brooks 02:21

That’s wonderful. And I also understand, and we’re going to touch on this a little bit later, but there’s also some unique programs that you have, in addition to the vehicle donations and things like that.

Howard Pearl 02:31

We do,

Spencer Brooks 02:32

Which we will, I know that listeners are gonna love hearing about that. But Howard, I actually wanted to ask you, just to kick off here about a unique approach, I think that you have to building partnerships. And one of the things that I noticed when I was reviewing your work is just how you seem to be quite good at breaking barriers within the nonprofit sector and forming some innovative partnerships. So I’d love for you to just share a little bit about that, would you mind sharing some examples of partnerships that you’ve formed in their impact?

Howard Pearl 03:04

Sure, pleasure. First off, it’s interesting when a nonprofit approaches another nonprofit to do work, I find that we have a unique understanding of the problems and the challenges they have because we do operate, you know, two large nonprofits ourselves. One is, you know, our parent is a very large social services agency, here in San Diego, you know, with a budget, in the one almost 130, 130 million range, one of the largest social service agencies of its kind in the in the state, we ourselves all, you know, 100% of our surplus goes to support housing, safe parking programs for people living in their vehicles. And of course, it all goes up to our parent organization that, you know, does the social service work and, you know, in and around the county. And so this is really important, because when I, when I walk into an organization and say, hey, look, we’ve got some innovative fundraising programs, you know, that you should take a look at, you know, normally their first responses, you know, skepticism, because we see so many people trying to sell stuff into the nonprofit arena that have no idea what our problems are, they really don’t get it. They don’t understand the value of a donor, the importance of how and when you talk to and address a donor, the concerns you that most donors have, about where their money is going, how it’s being spent, what’s going to happen to the data, who owns the data, is the data going to be used and spread around again, the single, the diamond in the middle of the whole nonprofit arena, of course, is our data, our databases of donors, and the value of what a relationship with a donor looks like, you know, throughout his or her lifetime, and then the value of how that may or may not spread to his family or community. So, we’ve been able to you know, bring innovative car donation programs to places like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital that take millions of dollars out of the program every year. You know, initially, they sort of looked at that and said, Hmm, what really? You know, maybe not for us. But we’ve been, you know, we’ve been serving them now for six, you know, six plus years, with a program that has been expanding, ever expanding. And so we do some unique things with them. And by the way, it is a partnership. And what I mean by that is, we’re not professional fundraisers, we actually signed a partnership agreement with the nonprofit that we’re working with, so that we can go to market together. So we do in fact, go to market together, we provide 100% of the marketing materials that you need digital marketing, assets that can easily be downloaded from our website for those that have access to it. There’s 1000s and 1000s of bits and pieces and spots and commercials, we also do about 95% of the NPR and PBS networks that do car donations and real estate donations. So we, you know, we record using their talent as well. So, you might, you know, find an NPR host, a morning show host for national NPR, doing the spot that runs on your radio station on your NPR, local, NPR. But when you hear them asking for a car donation, whether it’s St. Jude or Dana Farber or your local NPR, PBS station, that’s all being managed by CARS by our organization. The idea is, and what does make this really unique. I guess that’s redundant, it is either is or isn’t unique. But the cost of money that is raised through this program, to our partner, to our nonprofit partner, is really insignificant. It requires a little bit of time from whoever the program champion is in your nonprofit. But other than that, there’s no long involvements, there’s no, we do at all, the thank you letters, you know, once we get whoever wants to sign that letter from the nonprofit, we send out the non, we send that out, we help you at the end of the year, to reconcile all of these things so you can file properly with the with the IRS. It’s again, a complete turnkey, so the cost to generate $1, which we need to do for us to make 20 cents for you to make 80 is zero. There’s no lengthy time. Also, our process revolves around turning that capital over, we do not do arbitrage, the capital comes in from the auction houses, we use over 300 of them across the country. When that capital comes in, it’s out within five working days. So we don’t sit on your capital, you get it when it you know, when it hits the rug.

Howard Pearl 03:47

Howard, that one thing that I think is really, really interesting about all this, well, I mean, first of all, the fact that you are it seems like a little bit of a hidden gem here, right. I’m sure everyone’s listened and seen NPR and in all of the fundraising and knowing that your organization is the one behind it is, it’s quite fascinating. You mentioned, I think something that’s very important, which is the lack of, in addition to of course, being able to get working capital quickly. I mean, that’s not to discount that at all. But the lack of effort required on the part of an organization in order to engage and partner with you, I think is quite key, because as I’m sure a lot of listeners here already know, there’s not a lot of capacity within nonprofits. I feel like I’m saying this every episode, because it’s just so true. Most people that I talk with, they have a job description, that’s really about three, and they’re trying to do all of these things. And there’s not a dearth of ideas as much as a dearth of time. And so the fact that you’ve solved that barrier is very significant, because the less amount of time and effort is required by a partner just equates with a much better partnership. And so, what I’m curious about how it is, what types of nonprofits tend to benefit most from this? Is this something that is a better fit for particular types? Or is it good across the board?

Howard Pearl 09:29

Oh, my gosh, just before we get to that, I want to comment on what you just said, you’ve made a really critical observation, which I’m sure that people who are listening to this podcast are already aware. The cost of labor, particularly, you know, if you’re in you know, California or New York or any of the, you know, challenging labor markets is expensive, but moreover, none of us have enough human resource. And so if we can, in addition to the gift of capital, one of our major objectives is to return to you the gift of time. So that every dollar that you can glean from one of these programs, whether again, it’s vehicle donation or real estate donation, or any of the other things that we do, anytime we can return time to you and still get the best results, that then we are really hitting on all cylinders. And that is the objective. It’s not just giving you a dollar, it’s giving you a dollar that didn’t cost you 99 cents. Yeah. So, I’m sorry, back to the which, you were moving me in a different direction. And I apologize, I get a little passionate with my answers and I forgot where you wanted to go.

Spencer Brooks 10:48

Oh, of course, not a not a problem. I do have about 1000 questions here. In addition to all the pepper of my comments, no, you have a very strong value proposition really right there like, money without a huge time investment is a is a absolutely a homerun. So thank you for mentioning that. The question I wanted to ask you, which was one that that popped into my mind when you’re talking is who is the most appropriate type of nonprofit for a vehicle or real estate kind of donation program? Is that as a particular type? Or is this universally applicable to pretty much any kind of nonprofit?

Howard Pearl 11:23

Oh, it’s pretty universal look, again, with 84-8500 nonprofits. And we get we get responses from all over the place, you can take, you know, Cox, you know, runs Kelley Blue Book, and if you go in Kelley Blue Book, if you don’t like the value you’re getting for your car, you can always donate it, and there’s a Donate button there. So, you hit it. And you know, it comes to our, you know, to our list, and it gives you a choice. It starts off by saying, you know, geographically where you know, where do you, are you looking for something that’s nationally looking for something regional, local? What are you interested in? Are you know, are you interested in, you know, animal protection charities, are you interested in food insecurities? Are you interested in housing issues? Are you interested in homelessness? Are you interested in you know, what, what’s subject I have everything in our list of partners, again, from St. Jude, Children’s Research Hospital, Shriners, Kidney, we’ve got environmental agencies, we’ve got Catholic Charities, St. Vincent DePaul. And so even in St. Vincent DePaul, for example, you’ve got, you’ve got guys that need, you know, three cars a year, get some 6000 bucks. And that’s the whole budget they need. They’re, you know, small parishes with one guy working out of the church basement. On the other hand, you know, we’ve got guys that gobble up, we’ve got NPR and PBS stations, you know, that are pulling 5 million bucks a year out of the program. So, it really depends, we don’t discriminate, if you are a 501C3, if the government is deemed you a legal nonprofit, and your particular nonprofit is, we are an animal protection agency, and we only protect three legged dogs that are spotted on the back and striped on the front, green eyes and curly tails, then so be it. You know, and maybe you’ll get a car or two or three, or you know, maybe you’re again, an NPR station, and you get 1000s of them. So it’s not limited to anything but you know, people donate their cars for lots of reasons, but the primary reason they donate their car, and we can talk about real estate in a bit, because it’s a different, it’s a different ask, but it’s very successful. People donate their cars for a myriad of reasons, but the biggest reason they donate their cars or gotta get rid of it, you know, it’s a spare car, there’s been a death in the family and it’s time to liquidate that asset or, you know, the car started off as you know, mom’s you know, mom’s minivan and, and then it went, you know, to the eldest son, you know, and then he went off to college, and it went to the middle daughter, and then it went down, finally, the thing is ready to go. And you gotta get rid of it. And people aren’t getting, you know, they don’t want to sell it, they don’t want people coming to their home, they don’t want to go to a shopping center and sit there and wait for God knows who to show up you know, in the dark at night, it’s just not convenient. So the most convenient thing is you pick up the phone, somebody comes in and hauls your car away, and you get a tax receipt, minimum 500 bucks, or whatever the thing sold for. And now with real estate, for example, its appraised value, not sales value, which is a whole different, you know, sort of value equation.

Spencer Brooks 14:42

Now, I think that’s it’s very important to highlight because I think especially if you know if you’re someone who’s working in a nonprofit trying to evaluate potential fundraising opportunities and things like that, understanding that not only is this not a big ask for you personally, as someone who might be you know, in charge of a program or in charge of development but also that you’re actually in a way, doing people a favor, by allowing them to maybe get rid of something that would have otherwise actually been much more difficult to get rid of. And then they can be generous in an exchange. That’s very powerful.

Howard Pearl 15:14

Spencer, I can bring you to tears of laughter, of pure joy with some of the stories that we, you know, that that our receptionists get when people call to donate or when they go online, and they’re encouraged to tell the stories. You know, we’re Americans for heaven’s sakes, we have this love affair with our vehicle, we live in our vehicles, I might, you know, one of my personal goals before I leave my position here is to produce a coffee table book with the stories that come along with the car donation, there are so many of them that are hilarious. You know, some are sad, some are tragic. But you know, the funny ones. I remember a story, a minivan that, that came in, they really had a hard time parting with the vehicle, why? They were young marrieds, and they were on their way to the hospital to give birth to their first child turned out to be a son, they got to the corner of walk and don’t walk, there was no waiting, this kid was coming. And so they had to pull over to the side of the road, and, you know, on a busy street and, you know, deliver a baby. And, you know, fortunately, the police came along, because they were parked where they shouldn’t have been parked, and help them deliver the baby and move the car out of the way, and so on. So, this, you know, this was what they said, look, our child was born in this cart, but the story doesn’t end there. You know, two years later, this time, they’re going to be prepared, they got the go bag, it’s in the in the car, they’re ready to go, they jump in the car, they’re heading to the hospital, she’s ready, they get to the corner of, that same intersection. And the second kid will not be denied. In the back of that van, at the same intersection. It’s I mean, you know, these sorts of stories are just and when people are telling them you should see, they beam, you know, they light up, they have their stories it’s incredible. We do a lot of collectibles. And to me, those are the fun ones, right? We get these, you know, more mature guys, you know, or on the sad side is, you know, the wife is left with a with a vehicle that he worked o, a collectible. And you know, sometimes you get comments like oh my god, he loved that car more than he loved me, I’m sure, certainly spend more time with it. You know, those sorts of things, but they not only create great stories, but they create great opportunities, last year at an event for St. Jude, we auctioned off a ’57 Chevy that had been, you know, rebuilt and reconditioned and, you know, went for $82,500.

Spencer Brook  17:50

Wow.

Howard Pearl 17:52

And I’ve got I’ve got dozens of stories like that we just $56,000 I think last week for ’63 Corvette Stingray, we get a lot of collectibles. And the thing is we got a group of guys here that deal specifically with them. So again, the job is to maximize right because again, we’re partners, i only get 20 cents out of every dollar you get. And of that 20 cents I have to I have to pay for my operation, you get the 80 cents with no load. So I’ve got to make sure that I maximize the profitability on every vehicle I take to auction or every vehicle I you know, I take into the community and sell whether it goes to be recycled or dismantled and turned into parts, or whether it goes to be repurposed, which is ecologically you know, a good thing, people donate cars with 60, 75, 80,000 miles, these cars are good for 250,000 miles. We want to see them going, you know, to a community and you know that they’re repurpose, because they’re mechanically sound.

Spencer Brooks 18:50

And Howard I, one of the things I did want to ask you about as well, it’s sort of related to this another program of yours called On the Go, and I don’t mean to cut you off, I just realized, oh, man, we got to talk about On the Go because especially while we’re on this train, would you mind sharing a little bit more about what this program is? Because I understand it, it seems to be a bit of a game changer in nonprofit transportation. So, would you mind sharing a little bit more about that program and what it is?

Howard Pearl 19:20

Thank you for asking. As you can tell, I get a little passionate sometimes I get caught up in, in the story of very lucky to, you know, to work in in something that is, you know, inspiring even even to those of us who are here. On the Go is, you know, was a small regional transportation system put together by JFS, San Diego, to serve an aging community and provide sort of dignity and aging and transportation and loneliness is a huge issue in this country. And as I was saying, we’ve got I think you and I were talking earlier, and I you know had mentioned that we have a 10,000 plus minus a few every day, people 10,000 people a day in this country are turning 65. And there’s no you know, formal programs out there to deal with, you know, some of the transportation issues and dignity in ageing, you know, means independence and transportation is, you know, one of the big, big, big, did I say big issues, and I’ll give you a personal example. And I guess one of the reasons it’s, I find such passion. And this is my own experience with my own mother, who, you know, passed at the age of 96. Now, I coincidentally saw her a few days before she, before she passed, but it was really coincidental. And one of the things she said to me and at her age it depended on the day, right, you know, you got a clear mind, or maybe it didn’t, but I walked in, and we were talking, walked up and said, Hello, and she looked up for took her a minute, and she recognized me, she said, Oh, Howie! I’m so glad you’re here. And I said, Okay, why she said, it’s Monday. And I said, Well, I know it’s Monday, but how is it you know, it’s Monday, and she cracked a wise line that my father used to say to me when I was being a bit of a smart, butt you know, and she said, Look, these guys here, don’t always get me to my hair appointment, I have a hair appointment every Wednesday, I’m supposed to go to they don’t always get me there. I’m not feeling well this week, and I am not going to meet my maker with roots, you make sure they get me to my hair Wednesday, right. And it sort of hit me at the moment, I wasn’t even involved in anything of this nature at the time. And, and it dawned on me that, you know, we have systems and we’re developing systems all around to deliver groceries and to deliver medicines and so on. But we got to be able to get these people out of the house, sometimes, you know, they want to go and for me, you know, a woman or a man wanting to get a haircut, you know, and get out into the community once in a while, it’s important. Look, I’m happy that somebody’s going to deliver my groceries. But you know what I really want about once a month, or maybe twice a month, I want to go to the grocery store myself and pick up my own fresh fruit or see if there isn’t something there that I can pick up as a treat or whatever. And we need to do this. So, we’ve designed this program called On the Go, that is mostly funded by state municipal or county governments. And or there are a number of organizations, AARP is working on a pilot, you know, the villages are looking to put together a program that, you know that provides sort of easy one touch and it comes in, they administer the program. And the real key here is, again, because of our background, because our routes, you know, is social service, you know, the magic is in the people that take our calls, it’s very high touch call center, very, very high touch call center. So when you call as the senior, one, you know, we know you need extra time, we know you don’t want to be pushing extra buttons. So we take our time, we make sure to get the right details, we reiterate. And at the same time, supposing you’re living in San Diego, but your parents have retired in Phoenix, you may want to know when your parent is picked up and goes to the doctor and when your parent is back home. And we can do that. And we can provide you access to the moving map. So, you know where your parent is in the journey. And so we do that dispatch, and that that high touch interaction with, it’s not always seniors, you know, sometimes it’s intellectual challenges or people who are on the spectrum, you know, that require transportation to and from work, you know, they’re now maybe an adult person, you know, dealing with a spectrum related issue, so they can’t drive themselves, and for the last 15 years, the parent has been driving them to and from the night shift because they’re working at a lab, a lot of autistic folks work for the, for the labs at night because it’s repetitive work and they’re just excellent at it. So, there’s that that whole variety that whole, you know, sort of rainbow of of services that we provide to seniors in that regard.

Spencer Brooks 24:14

Yeah, and I can imagine that, especially compared to a lot of the mainstream ride sharing programs, Uber, Lyft, something like that. That’s I mean, it’s a whole different ballgame, right? Because that’s quite, it’s going to be quite intimidating. I would imagine, for the market that you’re trying to serve, to just, I mean, download an app, hit a button, right. I mean, it’s this is a completely different experience that’s designed for people.

Howard Pearl 24:40

And the beauty of it is you know, we in most communities, we are using Uber, we’re using Lyft and we’re using Uber health. The difference is, you don’t have to deal with them. You’re going to deal with a nice, warm human being who’s going to walk you through the process and there’s no stress, you know, plus, we do communicate with the drivers, you know that this person will have a walker, and the driver can decide to accept or not the ride if they don’t want to deal with a door-indoor situation where they may have to go to the top of the stairs and assist the person down the stairs, and so on. So, all those issues are covered without any, you know, hesitation or reservation or again stress.

Spencer Brooks 25:22

It also occurs to me that that the impact of this program is probably much, much larger than meets the eye. In the sense that, especially I feel like with aging in North America, in particular, because everything is so geographically spread, that in order to facilitate really any kind of community, you’re not walking next door, like I’m thinking of a number of years ago, my wife and I spent a few months living in Italy, which is a real privilege and seeing how the communities there functioned compared to like North America as an example, where everyone’s living, very geographically close, you’re walking down to Grandma’s house, she’s walking down, she’s walking out to get her groceries, people are walking everywhere. They’re very close. Now, if you’re coming back to North America, you have to have a car to pretty much do anything.

Howard Pearl 26:15

You can’t go to the market in the morning on your bicycle here.

Spencer Brooks 26:18

No way. No, I mean, you know, there’s like, unless you’re maybe privileged enough to live in New York City, even then, you know, that can be a little bit of a trial sometimes. But, so this particular program, I think, it hits on an important need, which I think is community as you age, right, as soon as you lose access to transportation, use access, in large part to your ability to go engage in community, because all people can do is then come to you.

Howard Pearl 26:46

And sometimes you don’t want to be a burden, you know, maybe you want to go, you know, maybe you want to go to church on Sunday, or you maybe want to go to your synagogue on Saturday, or maybe you want to go to you know, somebody’s having a luncheon because somebody died, and so on. And you don’t want to have to depend on the same people all the time to come and pick you up, you know, your daughter, or your son or your neighbor, or whatever it is, this allows you to be independent and still have the ability to do these things.

Spencer Brooks 27:16

I think that’s, it’s pretty inspirational, to be honest there. And I think

Howard Pearl 27:20

Thank you. I appreciate your comment.

Spencer Brooks 27:23

Of course. Yeah. And so now I’m curious as well, what spawned the start of this program? Because I know that obviously, the parent organization of CARS is a social service type of nonprofit, where was the genesis of this, did you see a need and decide this is something we need to jump in and do? Where did it come from somewhere else?

Howard Pearl 27:44

Well, I, you know, we watched sort of how it unfolded in our local community. And while we were looking, you know, to develop our service range, and, you know, what can we do to build our, you know, our presence in a community because that’s, you know, that’s where we meet and how we understand the nonprofit’s in those regional communities. We, you know, we began to understand the challenges. So, we went to a couple of what to call NEMT trade shows and non emergency medical transport conferences and started to look at the numbers. And of course, at the time, when we started looking at this, loneliness was beginning to become a real big subject. I mean, has been for years, but it started sort of breaking out. And access to transportation and housing and so on, it was sort of became a very common discussion. And then what really pushed us over the edge was COVID. We have a food bank, we distribute a lot of hot meals, we have a kitchen that’s produced over four and a half million meals subsequently beginning of COVID, locally here. And, you know, we were we were asked, can we can we do something to help deliver food during this particular period, when we had a lot of seniors that were shut in and had no way of getting their food. So we wrote a piece of software that helped Uber or not Uber sorry that helped Lyft, as we had big arrangements with those guys to manage a one stop pickup, but with multi stop deliveries, which, you know, they weren’t set up for right there was like, you get in the car, you get picked up here, and you go there. So, you know, we sort of saw that happen. And we watched our volunteer base, you know, struggle to keep up with the needs. And we thought, well, let’s, let’s get at it. And so out of kind of our experiences in COVID, we felt there was a need nationally to provide this category of service. And we found that there were a lot of associations and agencies, local churches and other social service agents that were, you know, doing some of this but you know, but not, not the high touch and not with the objective of dignity was just the it was just the objective of let’s get them around. Let’s get them this, let’s get them that getting vets to and from, to and from the VA, but being able to put some, you know, geofencing on it. So they can’t take a ride at somebody else’s expense to, you know, to a liquor store, but they can do an appointment. And so being able to manage all that kind of all came together at the same time. And we decided, you know, let’s give it a shot. Let’s see where we can go with this. And, you know, we had success in one city, and then another, and another, and another. And, you know, it just sort of evolved. And people were getting enthusiastic about it because they could see the need, you know, in their own parents.

Spencer Brooks 30:39

Oh, absolutely. That’s, that’s really fascinating. I think just to see how that naturally grew, and the timing, of course, with COVID, and all that, you know, just to really boost I think the growth and the need for that. And so anyway, thank you for sharing that, Howard. I have so many other questions, I would love to ask you. It’s so little time. Which is always how these go, I think I’m going to choose one of them here for you. And one of them that I wanted to ask you about, switching gears a little bit is talking a bit about board management and fundraising. Obviously, as I’m sure you know, managing a board and seeking funding, especially substantial funding for strategic initiatives, that can be a real challenge. So as someone who has done this, could you share your experiences or any insights that you might have on how you are navigating those board relationships and securing funding for your significant projects?

Howard Pearl 31:32

Well, you’ve caught me on a day when actually I interrupted the drafting of a fairly lengthy letter to our board on a project we’re involved with now, to join you for our scheduled call. Nonprofit, lay boards, depending on the size of your nonprofit, you know, they’re all lay boards, nobody gets paid to be on a nonprofit board. In fact, usually, the larger nonprofits, it’s a paid to play board, you got to pay to be on that board. And people do that for a variety of reasons. But I think you have to understand that the people who are on your board, you know, are there for their reasons, not for yours, everybody’s got an agenda when they come to a lay board, you know, whether it’s just to help out, or whether it’s to be involved and get some recognition in the community, or, you know, whatever their reason is, and you should make sure, you know, that you assemble a board that includes I often joke, you know, one of the, you know, one of everything from every food group, you know, what do you what is your nonprofit need? Well, like where do you as an executive director, or a president or a CEO, or as a leader, you know, what do you need, that you’re not strong at, right, and we all know what our strengths are, I you know, I’m a marketing oriented chief executive, you know, I can deal with the finance stuff, but you know, that’s not where my interest lies. So, I make sure that on my board, in addition, you know, to good talent in my accounting and finance department, you know, that I’ve got a couple of guys and gals, on those on that board, you know, that are interested in finance, and that may or may not be accountants or chief financial officers somewhere else, you know, for their career. So that, you know, I’ve got a good strong finance committee who can oversee, you know, budget and finance and work with our accounting guys, you know, to make sure that we’re, you know, always ahead of the game. So, I think the selection of the people you bring to your board, you know, shouldn’t just be based on the fact that they can write a big cheque, you know, that’s important, but that should never be the motivation, the motivation should be understanding that your board is there to help, but also to challenge and to hold you accountable. And personally, I find that being accountable to a board, if it’s a good board that you’ve put together and that you can respect really makes you perform better, you know, it’s you just want to do a great job because you don’t want to disappoint them. You know, boards are like auditors in my opinion, they really are your friend, they keep you out of trouble, they keep you from breaking the law, they keep you aware of your responsibilities and your liabilities and by holding you accountable. You know, you provide them you do a better job, you provide a better service for your employees, for your community, for your constituents, all of that. But there’s no doubt some of the challenges of lay boards are the politics involved in people that are on the board, you know, they’re like Co Op boards, right? Everybody’s got an opinion. Everybody wants to be heard. Your job is to go in and be well prepared to communicate. I send a lot of, you know, sometimes three and four paragraph notes out to my board on a regular basis about oh, we’re doing this where we do out or, hey, look, we got this letter from this person. And that really exemplifies how we’ve developed in this area or that you know, great communication generally goes in two directions. So, If you want to have good communication, you know, with your board, you got to communicate with them, number one. Number two is you got to build a relationship that’s built on respect. And that goes two ways. You’re the management, your challenge is to run that business every day, that’s not boards management. And you’ll have one director comes in with some kind of an order or directive that they want, you know, that, you know, that goes against your management style, or goes up against your management strengths. You know, you got to have the courage of your conviction and say, No, we’re not doing that. And here’s why we’re not doing that. And this is the way we go and why we go, Now, generally, if I’m going to do that, I make sure that I’m on firm ground by talking to, you know, two or three other directors to make sure that I’m not offside. And you’ve got to be willing to understand that you may be sometimes offside that you may have a bias, you know, that you have to, you know, understand and deal to, but too many people, you know, look at their boards, as you know, either just a source of funds or as a nuisance team that, you know, get in their way or whatever. You know, it’s a two-edged sword when somebody says, But you run this business like it’s yours, it’s a two edged sword. You know, I spend the money like it’s mine, I’m pretty tight fisted with it, I want it to go as far as it can go. And I want the business to be as successful as it can be. Or I run the business, like, it’s my own, and I ignore everybody else’s rules but my own. You know, this is inappropriate. The truth is that boards are there to help you to guide you to provide assistance, and sometimes just to be able to have a sounding board or to have a confidant that you can talk to about some of the confidential challenges, you know, that you have.

Spencer Brooks 36:37

Yeah, that’s really good wisdom there, Howard. I really appreciate you sharing that with folks, especially from someone as seasoned as you are. So unfortunately, we are out of time for today. So, I just want to wrap up by asking how listeners can get in touch with you if they’d like to learn more about your work.

Howard Pearl 36:54

Well, we’re going to drop a couple addresses here one to learn more about on the go otgrides.org, CARS is careasy.org  and my, my email and I’d be happy to hear from people that have questions or inquiries or you know, maybe even interested to see whether or not the CARS program or one of our real estate programs works well for you, you know, would be Howard P, howardp@careasy.org you know large staff here that serves you know for business development to help answer your questions,  help set up we’ve got 11 people in the marketing department that do nothing but create material for you and show you how to use it.

Spencer Brooks 37:49

Wonderful. Well, that wraps up our show for today. So, if you’re listening and you liked this episode, please consider rating and reviewing this podcast on Apple podcasts or whatever platform you happen to be listening on. This show is also a part of the thought leadership of Brooks digital. We are a Web Design and Development Agency for Health nonprofits. So if you’d like this podcast, feel free to check out our website. It’s Brooks.digital. You can find more of our insights and learn about our work. But with all that said, Howard, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Howard Pearl 38:20

My pleasure. Thanks so much. It’s a privilege to do the job and I appreciate your interest.

38:30

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