Your Mark On The World

#plugintodevin Show Guest: Jenny Kassan Office Held: Fremont City Council Office Sought: None currently Issue: Getting sufficient friendly capital for small businesses that are doing good in the world. I have run several undercapitalized businesses and I hate living in a world where the most needed changemakers are struggling just to make ends meet. We need to make it easier for everyone to move their investment dollars into the businesses they love and care about - this requires legal reform but even more important massive education and support for small businesses and non-professional investors. Bio: Jenny has 25 years of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven enterprises. She has helped her clients raise millions of dollars from values-aligned investors and raised over $1.5 million for her own businesses. She is the author of Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business without Selling Your Soul (Berrett-Koehler, October 2017). Jenny earned her J.D. from Yale Law School a

#plugintodevin Show Guest: Gay Lynn Bennion Office Sought: Utah House of Representatives, District 46 Issue: Education, historically underfunded, now challenged by COVID-19 and social distancing policies. All of our family members have attended public schools. I currently serve as Director of Education Committee with Women's State Legislative Council and have been following bills, attending hearings. Our 3-year old granddaughter is already excited to go to school. I want to work for the best education possible for her and all of our children. Being involved with the refugee/immigrant community for the past 5 years, I know they bring new energy and drive to our society, but they also need dedicated support from schools to thrive in a new culture and sometimes language. Our democracy's foundation is educated citizens who have critical thinking skills, especially given the challenge of "fake news" and inundation of information with the internet. Funding has increased this year, but we still have many improvem

#plugintodevin Show Guest: Jennifer Miller-Smith Disable Rights Caucus Chair Issue: Accessibility Some places are not accessible. We need more accessibility. Bio: Utah Democratic Party Disability Caucus Chair, Salt Lake County Party Disability Caucus Chair. Disability activist/organizer. Twitter: @jlms_qkw Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.millersmith Photo credit: Karen Sewell

#plugintodevin Show Guest: Elizabeth Hill Chair of the Democratic Women of Utah County Issue: solving the homeless crisis in Utah County, access to Mental Health Services and Suicide Prevention, gerrymandering, Affordable Insurance or Universal Health Care, overcrowded classrooms, helping folks transition from gov assistance with a better living wage, equal pay for women and rational student loan programs We all know someone or are someone that has been personally affected by these issues Elect leaders that also care deeply about these issues that are committed to addressing and solving them. Volunteering time and resources can make a big difference in many of these areas. Bio: Elizabeth Hill- Chair of the Board for Democratic Women of Utah County. I am a paralegal working in Family Law and a firm believer in access to justice. I am a senior manager of volunteers for FanX, managing 150+ volunteers for Vendor Floor and Artist Alley. A firm believer in the value of volunteering whenever and wherever I can to

Guest: Joel McKay Smith Issue: Creating and cultivating economic opportunities for marginalized communities (rural and neurodiversity) I grew up on a farm in Utah county in what is now referred to as Silicon Slopes, I have a passion for education and empowerment. Once this current crisis passes the ability for urban cores and rural communities will be even more important. The neurodiverse are uniquely qualified to execute critical tech positions that are hard if not impossible to fill. https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/disaster-assistance Bio: Rural Business Development Champion, Cause Supporter, Super Connector, Public Speaker, Geek Evangelist, Father, Husband Website: accelerantbsp.com Twitter: @joelmeister Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joelmckaysmith Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelmckaysmith/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joelmeisterslc/

Guest: Aaron Dekeyzer Office Sought: SL County Council 6 Issue: Dark Skies Light pollution is growing at twice the rate of human population. As cities transition to LEDs in the name of energy efficiency (which they should), they often overlook the unintended consequences that those have on human and environmental health. And now, the first generation has been born that will never experience the Milky Way. Fortunately, you can do something about it! Follow these two fundamental dark-sky principles: 1) only light your intended area when you need it by using a full-cutoff fixture, and 2) use bulbs with a color temperature of 3,000 Kelvin or fewer (think soft white, or warm yellow). You can also inquire with your city about their lighting ordinance. If you would like assistance on working to ensure that it is appropriate, you can connect with the Utah Chapter of the International Dark-Sky Association at utah.darksky.ngo Bio: Aaron Dekeyzer has the passion to connect with voters and a strategy to win the electi

Guest: Dayton Thorpe Bio: I am a Data Scientist in San Francisco. I completed a PhD in physics at UC Berkeley and a bachelor's in math and physics from the University of Southern California. I serve on the Board of Directors for Eden I&R/211 Alameda County and Conard House, two California non-profits. Website: howto115.com Facebook: facebook.com/dayton.thorpe.7 Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/dayton-thorpe-45240658/ Instagram: @dayton.thorpe

Guest: Daisy Thomas Office Sought: Utah State House District 46 Issue: Health care We all need healthcare. Every human being deserves to live a life of dignity and in the US that means life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I don't believe people should suffer and die in poverty because they lack the financial capacity to pay for required medical services. Healthcare is an investment into a functioning society, as we are seeing with this worldwide pandemic. Bio: Daisy Thomas served as the Utah Democratic State Party Chair 2017-2019, presiding over more growth in the Democratic Party than Utah has seen since the 1990s—retaining all incumbents, while adding three State House seats, one State Senate seat, and a seat in the US Congress -- all turned blue during Daisy’s tenure. Website: http://www.daisyforutah.com/ Twitter: @daisygthomas Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDaisyThomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daisygthomas/ Instagram: @daisyforutah Photo credit: Karen Sewell, Avenue Twelve P

Guest: Kurt Bestor Office Held: National Delegate for Obama 2008 Issue: Health Care As a free-lance musician, I have no employer and health insurance is very expensive. There was a time in my life when I COULDN'T get health insurance (because I had two children with Spina Bifida). I made too much money to get Medicaid or other help while not making enough to pay for expensive medical specialists out of pocket. No insurance companies would cover my family due to the cost of the kids' care. Talk about medical care "no man's land!" I have LONG been a fan of taking the profit margin out of health care. R & D is one thing, but the profane world that health insurance and hospital monopolies have created need to be curtailed. A version of a one-payer system is a good place to start. This would cover all Americans for basic health care. Of course, like in Canada and the UK, one can always pay for luxury care or nicer hospital digs, but EVERY American should have the constitutional promise of "life, liberty and th

Guest: Angela Krull, Campaign Manager Issue: Opportunity and economic mobility for all I grew up in a relatively small town in Idaho. I was taught that if you work hard, you can achieve your dreams. What I didn’t understand then and only really started to understand with more life experience was that not everyone starts in the same place and that all too often, the obstacles to achieving one’s dreams are almost insurmountable. That is especially true for minority communities and some rural communities. Bio: Angela is the campaign manager for Devin Thorpe’s campaign for Congress. She is a lawyer by trade and has been working in the non-profit sector doing development work for the past 10 years. She helped create the Community Foundation of Utah, raised over $1M to expand Quatere’s entrepreneurial peer cohorts to several urban and rural communities across Utah, and has served in the boards of several nonprofits, including Encircle House and Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum. Angela has a BS from the UofU i

Pulitzer Prize Winners Nicholas Kristof and Cheryl WuDunn have written a new book, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, to be released next month. The book will follow the model of the couple’s previous collaborations, Half the Sky and A Path Appears, painful analyses of big social problems that also celebrate the hope found in existing solutions. Without the benefit of a review copy, I recorded a discussion of the book and some of his other writing with Kristof several months ago. I invite you to watch the interview in the player above. Kristof’s thoughtful manner of speaking reflects a mind practiced in editing his prose as he goes, sometimes causing him to pause mid-sentence only to finish the thought by starting or finishing a new sentence, leaving the last incomplete. It’s a style that has garnered the New York Times columnist millions of social media followers to whom he has often appeared in self-produced videos like mine (the key difference being the size of our respective audiences). His millions

We at the Your Mark on the World Center have been sharing podcasts and YouTube episodes of the Your Mark on the World Show - The Social Impact Podcast about crowdfunding for good and other topics for the past eight years. In that time, we’ve had many sponsors but none so generous as Johnson & Johnson’s CaringCrowd. CaringCrowd is J&J’s crowdfunding platform for global public health nonprofits. J&J collects no fees from users and matches most individual donations on the site up to $250. The mission alignment between CaringCrowd and the Your Mark on the World Center has been perfect, making the two organization synergistic partners. CaringCrowd has provided funding not only to continue the show but also to do on-site training for nonprofit organizations across the country. This training, conducted from Montana to Mississippi and New York, has empowered nonprofits of all sorts to become more effective fundraisers, accelerating their various missions from serving the homeless to educating children around the wo

Gail McGovern, 67, became the eighth CEO in five years at the American Red Cross in 2008, as the country entered its most severe economic downturn in seven decades. Today, she remains at the head of what is once again a fiscally healthy nonprofit. Looking back, she reflects on what she learned. The $3 billion annual revenue organization responds to 60,000 disasters every year, ranging from single house fires affecting one family to natural disasters that impact hundreds of thousands. At the time she took the helm, the large nonprofit had drawn down its available credit lines and was nearing the brink of its own disaster. McGovern successfully steered the organization through the crisis and credits the leaders of the organization for their resilience during the challenging period. She had been through challenges before; in fact, she often sought them out early in her career. Along with 1900 men, she was one of just 50 women admitted to Johns Hopkins University the first year that women were allowed. She jo

Alex Scott never remembered a time she didn’t have cancer, having been diagnosed before her first birthday. She died at age eight. During her lifetime, Alex led efforts to raise over $1 million to fight childhood cancer. Her mother, Liz Scott, has continued the effort inspired by her daughter. The organization she inspired has now raised $175 million to fight cancer, about $25 million this year. As we approach the end of the run of the Your Mark on the World Show, I invited Liz to return to the show to provide an update as her inspiring story remains one of my favorites. Interview with Liz Scott, the Co-Executive Director of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. The following is the pre-interview with Liz Scott. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above. Revenue model: ALSF generates revenue through supporter donations, partnerships with local and national businesses and by hosting special events. Scale: ALSF now has more than 50 employees and generates about $25 million annually What is the pr

In 2008, Aussie Daniel Flynn came across two facts: children were dying (some still are) due to waterborne illnesses and the world market for bottled water was about $50 billion (now it is about $140 billion). In that juxtaposition, he saw a solution. The idea for Thankyou Water was born. Working with his buddy Jared Burns and his then girlfriend now wife Justine Flynn, as first-year university students, they launched a consumer brand that features 55 different products and is sold in 5,500 locations across Australia and more recently New Zealand, dropping “water” from the brand to become “Thankyou.” The plan was to give 100% of profits to nonprofits working to eradicate extreme poverty. In 2015, the company set up a charitable trust which now owns the business. All dividends flow to the trust to be distributed ultimate to charities. But I’ve skipped the good parts. At the outset, the team found a bottler that agreed to produce their product without charging anything upfront. “I remember we pitched to th

Rotary General Secretary John Hewko was recently given the additional title of Chief Executive Officer, which didn’t change his job description so much as it gives clarity to his role, especially for those outside the organization. John is passionate about ending polio—and not just because that’s his job. For the past eight years, he has traveled to Tuscon, Arizona to participate in a 106-mile bike ride known as El Tour De Tuscon. Over the years, he and other Rotarians have raised over $50 million for the fight. From his desk, John has a view of Rotary International that is uniquely broad and all-encompassing. No one knows more about the wide-ranging work Rotary does from local park projects around the world to international projects undertaken collaboratively among clubs from different parts of the world to address critical problems like clean water and maternal and child health. Rotary is also working, he says, to create a new membership model that will allow people to join Rotary International without j

In a series of discussions at the University of California Los Angeles Anderson School of Management, hosted by Originate and BCG Digital Ventures, experts comment on "Tomorrow's Technologies." For one on social good, I was invited to moderate. The panelists were: Margret Trilli: President & Chief Investment Officer of Impact Assets Rebecca Masisak: CEO of TechSoup Gunnar Lovelace: Founder, Thrive Market & Founder & CEO, GoodMoney Peter Felix: Director of Inventory Control, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank About Margret Trilli: Margret's 25-year career includes executive leadership, investment and operating roles for large and small companies including Barclays Global Investors/Blackrock and Charles Schwab. Currently, Margret is the President and Chief Investment Officer of ImpactAssets where she recently led the firm through the $1B AUM milestone. ImpactAssets advises philanthropists on their impact investing across the spectrum of asset classes and impact themes. The firm specializes in helping families

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist who leads the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University and is the host and producer of the PBS series Global Weirding. I asked her everything you want to know about climate change but were afraid to ask. Hayhoe has a positive, upbeat manner that leaves listeners feeling as if she’s talking about planning the best birthday party ever rather than warning about climate change. Perhaps that is her appeal. She has earned a reputation—she’s been named to Time’s 100 most influential people list and Fortune added her to their World’s Greatest Leaders list—for being able to communicate climate science better than most. She explained why a difference as small as two degrees actually matters, why she calls it global weirding, how she explains climate science to skeptics who are religious, and the respective roles of big business, entrepreneurs and individuals in fighting climate science. Customarily, I think it is my role as a Forbes contributor to distill a source’s

On World Polio Day, I had the opportunity to sit down with Jennifer Jones who now serves on The Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees and who previously served on the Rotary International Board of Directors and as its Vice President. In that capacity, she reached the highest rank achieved by a female in Rotary. Rotary excluded women until a United States Supreme Court ruling on May 5, 1987 that opened the door for women to join the organization. Jennifer was a reporter who covered Rotary before women were allowed to join and remembers attending at least one club meeting with all men. She was treated well and later, when the opportunity presented itself, she joined. She has risen through the ranks in an unprecedented way. Speculation abounds that she could one day be Rotary’s first female president. In our discussion, we talked about her experiences and thoughts about women in Rotary. She points out that because women slightly outnumber men in the world and are also underrepresented in Rotary, an emphasis

Alex Budak co-founded a crowdfunding site called StartSomeGood.com, a platform for social entrepreneurs and other changemakers. As he became acquainted with people around the world who were starting to do some good, his passion increased. He continues to advise StartSomeGood and now works as a full-time faculty member at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. He’s teaching people how to become changemakers. He shares some of his insights below and in the video above. The following is the pre-interview with Alex Budak. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above. Expert Tips: Tip 1: Companies, communities and, indeed, our world are calling out for a new type of leader. A leader who is resilient, creative, collaborative and optimistic. A leader who can work across sectors and hierarchies and defies stereotypes, and the status quo. A leader ready and able to create the future. I call this new type of leader a changemaker. Tip 2: The mindset and leadership skills a changemaker needs are all lea