279: Giving Back Insights #103 — Capacity to serve with Rob Lowe

Strong Communities exists to help nonprofits build their capacity to serve.

Welcome to the 103rd episode of Giving Back Insights! Insights are our solo show to celebrate how our guests and their charities serve others, explore actions each of can take to make a difference in people’s lives and connect.

Today we’re talking about Capacity to serve! Enjoy today’s episode and keep your comments and feedback coming.

Why I started Strong Communities?

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Key Takeaways:

When I started the Giving Back Podcast, I had no desire to start a nonprofit. Every guest is doing amazing things and I had no desire to replicate their work or compete for funding. Besides, it was too much fun talking to all these cool people to pick a single problem.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I was thinking about how I could do some good. I know that providing a platform for social impact leaders to share their mission is a step in the right direction, and I thought that I wanted to do more. And I wanted to do something that would help the people who give so much and make such a big difference to others and their communities.

Every guest, whether they lead, volunteer or donate, talked about nonprofits need for resources to make their organizations better. Think about it for a second: they bust their asses working to help those in need when no one else will. They get lousy pay or sometimes they don’t get paid at all. And they want to make their organization better so they can do MORE work.

Sounds like there’s a need right there. Since they’re already strapped for cash helping people, I had to find a way to fund all this do-gooding I had in mind, and I found an opportunity. One that matched the size of the scope of need. So I started Strong Communities with the belief that people doing amazing things for their community should have the resources to make their organizations better.

Our Mission: Strong Communities exists to help nonprofits build their capacity to serve.

Problem: nonprofits work on social issues that are critical to the strength of a community but struggle financially.

What we do: we invest in people and organizations doing amazing things for others. We provide them resources to build a stronger organization and develop sustainable funding that powers their mission.

How we do it: we turn vacant and underperforming real estate into working capital to serve communities across America. We work directly with property owners to identify the nonprofits that are solving problems they care most deeply about.

About Us:

The Giving Back Podcast launched on July 4, 2016, shining the spotlight on people and organizations doing amazing things for others. Since then, hundreds of guests have shared stories how giving back has made a difference in people’s lives, including their own. Serving needs ranging from Veterans and Animal Welfare to Domestic Violence and Cancer treatment, each show is a reminder that making an impact starts one person at a time, and that everyone has something to give.

Strong Communities was created to serve these incredibly dedicated servant leaders and their supporters. A recurring theme is that despite incredible results and life-transforming efforts, nonprofits continue to struggle financially. In order to grow, they need new sources of funding that are sustainable and reflect the value they hold to their communities.

To help them grow, Strong Communities connects nonprofits to people and resources to build their human, financial, and organizational strength. All with the goal of increasing their ability to fulfill their mission. In other words, we help them build their capacity to serve.

How to fund such a venture? As the host of the Giving Back Podcast, I connect with social impact leaders, purpose-minded individuals, and companies who seek to serve their communities in ways that last beyond the next fundraiser. As it turns out, America has a nationwide inventory of vacant, abandoned, and underperforming real estate that is ripe to transform into capital directed towards solving problems in our communities.

My friend Ryan Lee is a moderately intelligent guy with a lot of integrity who has a knack for not only creating successful businesses but also helping other people create successful businesses. He once said, “Just imagine who you’d want to hang out with all day — and build your business around solving their problems.” Well, I know that I love to hang out with people like my guests all day. And I know what their biggest problems are.

Keeping in mind the problem that we are working to solve, I’ve gathered some of the brightest business, real estate and tax people I know to harness the power of real estate to strengthen and rebuild communities across America. Our five-year goal is to transform $10 Billion in real estate into ongoing community service.

So that’s the start! We’d love to have you join us and make a difference for the community you care most about. Check us out at http://strongcommunities.us/ and let us know where you want to be a hero.

Dan Pallotta, TED 2013: “The way we think about charity is dead wrong”