Once upon a time, when I was a young lad, I said hi to many, many people. I did not say hi to anyone when I was a young lad. Is that true? Well, you weren’t allowed, but no, I’m very much an introvert. Stop it, so am I.

So we’ve had this conversation, okay, Insights, about are you an extroverted introvert or are you an introverted extrovert? Because when you come to these things, you have to be one or the other. Much like me, I would assume most people would say you’re an extrovert. They would just assume you are. Because we’re in rooms and we’re trying to be- we’re trying to serve a function.

And I absolutely, positively love people, but then I get exhausted. I don’t absolutely love people either. Okay, I’ll cut that part out. Why? Why do you not?

Why would you not? I don’t know. I just- my social battery drains very quickly. Same. And I like genuine people.

I don’t like the fake people. And so to cut through that sometimes is just exhausting. You know what I’ve been thinking about more lately though, as a so-called introvert or as a self-identified introvert, I, I tend to be pretty authentic, pretty genuine. I have an acting background and I would, in a role, you show up and you use whatever you have within the context of that character. And I find the same thing to be true in my life.

I don’t tend to fake it a lot. But I know people expect something from me, so I try to rise to that expectation. Is that fake? No, that you’re still giving them your authentic self. You’re not creating a persona or talking about things that you don’t know.

Right, right, right, right. Okay. Making up some fake something. Yeah. So sometimes I’ll show up kind of grumpy.

Same. And I’m fine with that. Like, I just don’t have an issue with that. I don’t either. I’m at that point.

I think that’s the joy of getting older, right? They say that it just happens one day, that the flip, the switch just flips, that you’re like, this is me, and take it or leave it. Yeah. I give several speeches throughout a year, and frequently included in that is, I really don’t care if you like me. It makes zero difference.

But I do care absolutely positively how I affect you. I want to be mindful of that. That doesn’t mean that I need to- you have this codependent love fest where you go away thinking, oh, he’s the nicest guy ever. I don’t even need to be the nicest guy. I’m also not a hugger.

I have a list. I tend to not be. And I love it when I’m in a circle and people will go around, they’ll give hugs, and then they get- they stop at me. It’s like, well, it’s nice meeting you. That’s my favorite.

Because I don’t know if it like reads not huggable or what. I think it’s my body language. I think, you know. Yes. And yet people feel- but let me see if this is true.

Do people just pour out same? Yes, same. It’s like verbal vomit. We honestly just met. I’m not so sure I should be hearing all of this.

Exactly. And then they’ll confide in you and go, I have not- I’ve never told anybody this in my life. All the time. And I’m like, if you’ve never told anybody this, why are you telling me? Why can they tell you that but they can’t hug you?

I don’t know. I don’t- because the touching part, you don’t have to touch me to tell me a great story. And I’m a vault. You can tell me things and I won’t tell anybody. It’s not my story to tell.

I always say I can die with stuff because it’s not my story to tell. That’s my favorite line. People ask me, do you know what happened with so-and-so? Yes, but it’s not my story to tell. You need to ask them.

The other thing along those lines that I like is when people go, I don’t know if you’ve heard this yet, and I, and I don’t say anything. I just go, and then they continue their story and I don’t react even if I’ve heard it. Maybe that’s why they do it, because that’s me too. I don’t ask. You just- Yeah.

And then they feel the need to fill the silence. Because I can also tell you that I’ve not heard it from them and maybe they’ve got a different perspective or whatever it might be. Right. And I listen to it all. All right.

So we’ll probably use some of this. So let me ask you this. When you speak politics, do you speak politics? Do you let your viewpoints be known? Yes.

I tend not to. I, well, I guess it depends on who I’m talking to. It depends. I read the room.

I always say, I think part of, part of it’s my coaching, coaching background, maybe. And I tell people my belief system doesn’t matter in this relationship. Your belief system matters. I need to make sure it serves you and it’s healthy, right? So if I start to infuse my belief system in it, what does that do for you?

Correct. But maybe there’s a time when it makes sense. Like, do no harm is pretty- a pretty important core belief of my, my belief system. Yes. So I feel pretty good blabbering on about that.

But when we get to this Republican-Democrat stuff, I don’t talk too much about it unless I know I’m in a room of friendlies, in which case I kind of let loose. You know, I think that’s why I say I read the room. Yeah. And I also tend to go with the issue versus the party. I’m not straight one way or another.

I’m a registered independent. Me too, for years. I literally just changed it though because I’m so tired of not being able to vote in the primary. Oh, right. So I changed it for the first time ever.

I’ve had people, um, lecture me on that very fact. They go, well, then you’re throwing away your vote, it’s pointless. That’s what they tell me. I don’t think it’s pointless, but after 30 years of voting, which I guess I just aged myself, After 30 years of voting, when I just had to renew my driver’s license and it said, do you want to register? I thought, you know what?

Yes, I do. The way things are going, I want a vote in the primary. Okay. Um, so Sun Leaders, hello and welcome. Uh, I’m happy you’re here.

This is another edition of the Sun Leaders podcast. I am here with Meredith Pericles. I said your name right the first time. Meredith Pericles, and I always let my guests introduce themselves. So the first thing I want to do is let you say hello and tell people how you want them to know you.

Okay. I’m Meredith Pericles and I am the founder and executive director of the Do Good Foundation and also a longtime St. Petersburg resident and the wife of a longtime business owner here in town. Okay. So that’s a lot of St. Pete, isn’t it? It is a lot of St. Pete.

And you and I have been talking about 10, 15 minutes before this, and we don’t know each other really well, but we’re getting to know each other. And I learned today that you have nursing in your background. I do. Tell me about that. I love to go to school.

I wanted to be a nurse when I was 6 years old. And instead of going straight to nursing school, I studied a bunch of other things and came down here and went to USF for a little while. Had some family issues at home, went back to North Carolina and thought, this is the time to do nursing school. So it was kind of, I had started a 4-year degree, had to pause that to go take care of those things. So it was almost a gap filler.

Okay. And I did that and I was a pediatric cardiac intensive care nurse. Okay. So that’s pretty intensive. That’s pretty serious stuff.

Yes. Right. Quick burnout. You’re the mother of 4. I am.

How long did it take to burn out on the nursing? The 4- 3 of the 4 came after I quit nursing. Okay. And between number 1 and number 2, there’s a 6-year gap. Nursing career was there until 5 years, 5 years past my first, I guess he was 4 or 5.

Okay. And I quit. We wanted another, we’d been trying and trying and trying. And I worked over at St. Joe’s of Tampa. Mm-hmm.

And Memorial Day weekend we had a family drowning. 2 cousins drowned in their grandparents’ pool while the parents were out on a double date together. And the unit was just an emotional mess, and so was I. And I came home to John and I said, I don’t think I can do this anymore. And I quit.

And in November, we found out we were pregnant. I tell you what, you and I were talking about accidents, kids in accidents. The, the responsibility in that process, what we feel when we have those sort of challenges. I haven’t dealt with that, what you just shared with me, but it’s always in my mind. What if?

Yes. And I’m grateful, you know. I don’t know, I don’t care to be that tough. I don’t care. But I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine going through it.

I can’t imagine going back to it now. I think the only reason I could do it was because I when I started, I didn’t have children of my own, and now I had a baby, and it was able to separate. Now, having 4, I don’t think I could go deal- I’m an empath. I’m not sure I could go deal with that pain of other people and their children and their babies. And I can listen to it, and I can be as present as possible, but I don’t know what to do for them.

There’s nothing. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Yeah. I had one of my adult children visit me last weekend or the weekend there before. He just fell into my arms crying.

He’s an adult man, fell into my arms crying. And I realized there is nothing I can say that is going to take this pain away. The best thing to do is to be there, be present, hold him, cry it out without judgment. And move forward. But I tell you what, that healing process from some of those losses that you’re talking about- well, guess what Einstein didn’t do?

He didn’t turn off his phone. Hey listeners, it’s just spam, so we need not worry about that. Um, better you than me. Oh my gosh. So listening to some of that in your background, and I’ve read a little bit about you, I must assume there’s connective tissue there between this empathy, this empath, caring for kids, caring about humans, and what you’re currently doing now in the Do Good Day Foundation.

There is, and I’m also an environmentalist. I studied environmental science at USF. That was the beginning chapter of school. Then I did the nursing thing, then I had all the children, then COVID hit. Well, right before COVID hit, I went to my sister’s wedding in North Carolina and we traveled.

So driving home, 10 hours in the car, John and I are just talking about life. I think I wanna go back to school, finish my degree. This is in 2019. Meredith, we have 2 kids, 3 kids by then. We had 3 kids.

What are you gonna do? USF has an online criminology program. I think I’ll do that. And he says, okay, go for it. ‘Cause way back when the environmental science, I also studied political science..

So I thought I could do criminology. I can figure this out. So I did online at USF and studied criminology, finished the poli sci minor, was one credit away from the environmental minor, and they kicked me outta school for maxing out on credits. What? You can only have like 540 lifetime credits or something crazy.

What? It’s a business. I figured they just keep taking money. No, no, they won’t. They kick you out eventually.

So I, so my actual 4-year BS degree is in criminology. With a minor in poli sci and an environmental science minor, almost. And then when I was pregnant with number 4, I decided it’d be fun to take the LSAT. Yeah, just for fun, to see how I could do. So then I studied for the LSAT and took that.

That’s crazy to me. Okay, so all that- it’s all about service and caring and empath and helping. That was the impetus of all of it. What can I do in policy? How can I influence policy?

Environmental? How can I save the earth? Nurse? How can I save the children? So it’s been there because I said I want to be a nurse since I was 6.

And what’s interesting, I think a lot of this is still in your organization. I’ve got Do Good Day, which we just had. We just had it. It was huge. It was huge.

It’s the biggest one yet. Yeah, this is the third year. Third, third year. Well, the first two weren’t quite a year apart, but third event. And I didn’t mean to talk over you because I want people to hear this.

How big is the growth? 40%. It’s a pretty big deal. Yes. Congratulations.

Thank you. That’s very exciting. So we just got through that, which is really your signature event. It’s the flagship. Correct.

Then we have Do Good Together. Yes. Tell me about that. That is nonprofit executive leaders coming together in a space for them to have peer connection. So all Do Good events are free for nonprofits.

So there’s no charge for the nonprofits to table at Do Good Day. There’s no charge for them to come to Do Good Together. This will be the second one of those coming up on May 16th, and we’re hosting it at Voodoo Brewing for the second time. Okay. When is that?

May 16th. May 16th. That’s coming up. Yeah, but it’s only for nonprofit leaders. It’s invitation only.

95% of nonprofit leaders say they do not have peer connection with other nonprofit leaders. That’s really crazy to me. 70% are experiencing burnout, and 50% are experiencing burnout so severe they’re considering leaving the sector. So this is a space for them to come together, connect with one another without pressure, without an agenda, and talk, share their struggles, share what’s working, and share how they can work together. So we’ll get to the ecosystem thought, but Do Get Together is really meant for them to come together and work together.

Okay, so what do you know about the burnout of these people? Why do they burn out? What’s, what’s the, what are the main challenges? Well, there’s so many in nonprofit world, right? So funding, only 20% of funding is unrestricted.

So funding is very specific to your programs. Right now we’re in a funding crisis, I guess you would almost say. Right. Uh, where they don’t know where funding is coming from. There are 9,700 nonprofits in Pinellas County, so we have a lot of organizations who are overlapping with their services, uh-huh, which makes it not only confusing for the community, but it makes them more ineffective in their service provisions as well, right?

And again, the lack of peer communication, the lack of visibility, there, there’s so many. So you and I were just at an event that you sponsored, you helped sponsor. That was- I was the event sponsor. First of all, it was a frickin’ amazing day. I loved it.

It was fantastic. I learned so much and I got so many great ideas. And what I found about going around to these different organizations is there really is a lot of overlap, but they all do something just a little bit specific. Right. What’s the answer?

Is the answer for these people, these organizations to combine forces? Sort of. So think of an ecosystem. Think of all the plants in the ecosystem. They’re all plants.

Right. But each plant is providing a different service to the environment, to the, the natural world. We don’t want to get rid of a plant species, but we want them all to thrive. Well, why do they thrive? Well, because they have a connected root system, right?

So it’s the mycorrhizal layer, which is a connected root system. It helps the weaker plants feed when they’re getting weak. It helps them share resources. It helps spread the water equally. Then we also have the soil, so that’s a whole nother layer.

Those are the nonprofits. We’re not trying to get rid of a nonprofit. The whole function of the Do Good Foundation is to support and be the backbone for all of these nonprofits. Okay. To connect them together, to share resources, to support the weaker organizations, to make service collaboration easier and better.

Okay, super. So we have like well-intentioned people, beautiful people thinking, oh shoot, I want to do something good with my life. And then they start a- Correct. Nonprofit, a foundation. Yes.

Sometimes that’s the reason it’s not sustainable. Correct. Did you go see if someone else was already doing the thing you want to do? I was at this great Chamber event on Thursday, Ambassadors and Ales. It’s a new member networking event.

Okay. And someone was introduced to me, and the way that the person introduced them was, she is new here and she wants to start a nonprofit. And I know why the introduction was made, because the first question I say is, what service do you want to provide? Oh, I want to help the seniors. Do you know that we have Saving Our Seniors?

Do you know that we have, of course, now I’m not going to be able to think of anybody else, Seniors in Service, Hospice. You know, we have Neighborly, we have Impact, we have all of these organizations that already exist. Why don’t you take your skill set and plug in with them and help strengthen what they’re already doing? Yeah. What are you going to create that’s not already there?

And she was like, you’re amazing. I didn’t even know these places existed. So you didn’t know, but you were going to create a new one. That’s kind of cool. See, I wonder sometimes, and this might be the cynical part of me, I wonder sometimes when ego’s driving the project.

But for this person, they were excited to get this information. They were excited to get this information, and now they’re going to plug into our network that we already have, and hopefully they’ll find someone that they align with that’s doing what they were thinking of doing. Or maybe they can create a program in one of these nonprofits that’s already functioning and already has a budget and already has funders instead of trying to, you know, why reinvent the wheel, right? For sure. I mean, that’s- I think, I think that a lot about churches as well.

And, you know, we just get disgruntled and we go off and we start our own. It’s like, ah, I’m gonna go start my own. So let’s talk a little bit about Saturday’s event that was great. Sands Market and you guys. This is so this is cross-sector collaboration.

So the purpose of the nonprofit is to strengthen the nonprofit sector. But sectors work better when they work together, correct? You don’t, you don’t have plants operating in a silo or a bubble. They get fertilized by animals that are pooping on them. So you have to have a layer of animals.

So that’s your small business ecosystem. You’ve got your banking ecosystem, you’ve got your Chamber of Commerce ecosystem. So everybody has these ecosystems, but for the universe to function, the ecosystems also have to work together. Okay. So we had, I don’t know how many groups were out there.

15 nonprofits. Okay. Son’s Market was a small business sector. We had a functional beverage vendor, small business sector. We had a city vendor, so the city sector, um, another, another vendor for profit.

Yep. So nonprofits, for-profits, the city working together in one big event. All right, cool. Yeah. With a great turnout, over 100 people.

Yeah, it was, it was a great turnout. And we started with a little area cleanup, right? Little network cleanup. And we refreshed the native plants in the edge. Right.

And so I made sure to get everybody’s contact information. I’m gonna reach back out to them. And I wonder what that kind of ecosystem looks like connecting people. I’ll talk to you about that later. Definitely.

‘Cause I don’t want that to be the function of this. I just thought so. Some of the nonprofits were not Do Good Day. Since I run it, I started it, I contact the nonprofits. With 9,700 nonprofits, there’s no way I can contact everybody.

For sure. So I have to just fall into them or look, have people connect them with me Or maybe they see pictures and they go to the website and then they come to me. I’m at the mercy of who finds the event right now until I come up with a better system. So some of those nonprofits weren’t part of it and you can bet they all are now. Uh, that’s a great kind of thing to ask you then.

How, how big is your organization? Right now I don’t have a running total. 53 were present at Do Good Day. Well, no, how many people run? How, how big is your?

Like, is it just you? It’s you, you, and you? It’s me, me, me, me, myself, and I. How long will that be? Well, it’s, it’s not sustainable for long term, but until, as nonprofits know, until we secure funding.

Okay. Uh, talk to me about funding for your organization then. At the moment, we’re running on sponsorships, so I just cold- not cold call- use some of my contacts in town. Being here for 27 years, I know a lot of people. So I just started reaching out to people and at first it was more difficult because the idea was a concept, right?

But Mark Ferguson, great example, went to Ferg’s about the venue, started pitching in the idea. Less than 5 minutes in, he- I love this- walk with me and we start walking through the restaurant and he said, you’re going to put people here and you’re going to put people here and you’re going to put people here and you’re going to put the whole entire restaurant. He offers up to me. On the Saturday, that’s, that’s funding, right? Gotcha.

Okay, cool. So it’s a grassroots movement at the moment. Okay. And we are gladly accepting sponsorships if anybody is so moved. And now that we’ve been the 501 for a year, we are open to some grants.

Again, that’s a whole nother network of its own. Like I said, only 20% of funds are unrestricted, so I could get funds specifically for Sprouts for Good, or you could get funds specifically for Do Good Together. But there’s not many funds that say build your capacity. There are some. Foundation for a Healthy St. Pete does a capacity building grant, and some other people do that as well, but it’s limited.

Now, as we work with Foundation for a Healthy St. Pete, we have to be aligned with their mission as well in that process. Yes. And you have to apply for their funds and they have to choose you out of all the- there’s 9,700 people potentially applying for those grants. Right.

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Yeah, uh, I was just talking to somebody from 100 Good Guys. They had, uh, their event, and I said, well, how How many people apply for this? They go, well, we limit it to 20 and we pick 3 per quarter. Right. I mean, there’s a mathematical challenge to all of this.

And you have to appeal. And for some of those, you have to go and speak. So you have to be a good speaker. Right. So even if you have the most amazing mission and you get up and you can’t share that, then you’re limited.

There’s a lot. This is here is what we’re talking about with why the ecosystem is broken. Well, you’re sharing a lot of information and you mentioned Sprouts for Good. So I want to go back and pick that up. Explain what Sprouts for Good is.

Sprouts for Good is our children’s arm of the nonprofit. So people will say to me, how did you get into this? Mm-hmm. I’m from North Carolina. My nana sat on the board of everything you could sit on in North Carolina.

My mom went to the meetings with her, which meant I went to the meetings. So from the time I was a toddler, we were playing under tables. Mm-hmm. During women’s club meetings, we were helping serve at, you know, American Lawn Association dinners. So it’s just ingrained in me to be this part of service.

Right. Because I did it as a kid. Right. I was introduced to it as a child. So Sprouts for Good, the whole philosophy is to create that volunteer pipeline.

Another piece of the backbone of the ecosystem. Yeah. So we introduce children to local nonprofits by hands-on activities. Age, age range of the kids of the program. So far we haven’t had an age limit.

We had high schoolers all the way to, you know, babies in the mom’s arms. Okay. That’s one of the things I enjoyed most about Saturday was, were the young people behind the tables and they truly You know how when some people do community service, they’re just checking it in, they need the checkbox. These kids were fully invested in what they’re doing and they could talk to me all day about it. Yes.

I thought that was quite lovely. I can see the light. Yeah. When they’re talking. And so, you know, you and I were just talking about our families.

You’ve got 4 kids. I’ve got 5 kids. These are like kids, my kids’ age. Right. And I think the world of my kids, but it gives me so much hope for this whole generation.

They want to do good things, but They need guidance on where to go, how to do it, who to connect with. So there’s your pipeline. There’s come to these events for Sprouts for Good where you meet and work with different nonprofits. And even, let’s say there’s a few of the middle schools in town have community service requirements. Several of the high- Bright Futures, you have to volunteer.

So the high schoolers should be coming to Do Good Day to interact with the nonprofits to see what speaks to them so that they’re not just checking the box. Yes. So that they start volunteering and maybe it’s a cause that they really like. Then they go to USF and they create the Clio Institute and goes from there. Yeah, that’s a great idea.

I mean, I know just from my experience, it really was a box-checking sort of thing. You go, you sell a few hot dogs at the soccer game and then you get your 30 hours. It’s like, that’s not the way this is supposed to be. Exactly. You’re supposed to get something out of it.

Right. I think if we focused on service at a young age, almost as a requirement, I think we’d probably be in a healthier space than we are. Probably. And so this is, it’s more of a volunteer, but that’s what this is providing. I found when I had the children, I have children, where can I take them?

What nonprofit is appropriate for them? Are there kids activities? Daystar just did a great volunteer event. Oh, how cute. Yes.

So super sweet. But those are the things we need. But how do you find out about them? How do you know that they’re happening? There’s 9,700 nonprofits.

How do you know what they’re doing? How do you know which one have something that your children can do? And if we hear Sun Leaders or Connect St. Pete want to start promoting these to make people aware, can we possibly promote all 9,000? Exactly. It all gets lost, doesn’t it?

Right. So that’s kind of what I’m trying to use the social media platform of the foundation to do. Is right now it’s mainly highlighting who’s already plugged into the nonprofit ecosystem that I’m building. So if you come to Do Good Day, you get, you know, your stories shared through my social media. Because when I haven’t done this year’s count yet, just because it just happened 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, and then we had this event this weekend.

So I haven’t been able to sit down and do all the data that I like to do yet, which I’ll get to. But last year’s event, we had a combined 1.9 million followers. Between those nonprofits. But some of the nonprofits only have 54 followers, so they need that- here, here comes the, the mycorrhizal layer. You have to support the weaker organizations.

So you build a strong platform that’s promoting everybody, and then you have everybody promoting everybody’s events. Because if you’re following one nonprofit, you clearly have something that drew you to them, right? Something that you want to serve, something in you as a service heart. So you must their message of other nonprofits might also resonate with you. So if you went to follow Tampa Baywatch, you might also like to hear about St. Vincent de Paul because it’s helping the environment, helping the homeless.

You’re a helper, right? But if you’re only following Tampa Baywatch and not St. Vincent de Paul, you’re not gonna get St. Vincent de Paul’s information. So another arm of the foundation is this visibility, findability that I’m trying to create a platform that uplifts everybody. Not one nonprofit, not one cause, all the nonprofits, all the causes. Okay, that, that is probably the best explanation I’ve heard of what you do from our time together.

That may now make sense to me. The picture is clear. Now let’s get back to this idea of resources for you specifically. Where is burnout for you? How many hours are you putting in on this?

I’m not tracking it. Yeah. And what does that mean to family life with 4 kids and everything? Well, they are helpers. They love it.

My kids look forward to Do Good Day like it’s Christmas Day. They counted it down. They were so excited. They say it’s our favorite day of the year. That’s cool.

They really look forward to it. They help me with the planning stages. They- I go walk Fergs to place tables and they come right with me. So they’re a part of it. John is right involved in all of it.

He’s my social media advisor, secondhand person on all the things. Uh, I was actually a little under the weather at this year’s event. Yeah. And so he stepped in and then I have a whole team of people who volunteer for me. Uh, how big is your volunteer group?

Um, I think she, I think we were at least a solid 10, 12 this year. Bigger, a lot bigger this year than last year. You know? Right. I have certain people who’ve done it every single event, and then people have tacked on.

Okay, so I’m getting a little team of my own. So going back to that question, what can you- I mean, we’ve all reached burnout before. You did as a nurse. Where, where, where is burnout here? How- what do we have to be mindful of?

I’m not sure, because right now I’m still in that like excitement building phase. I’m still enjoying those feelings of it was a concept. And then it happened and it worked. And then Do Good Together was a concept and it happens and it works. So there’s too much of a positive loop feedback right now for burnout to happen.

You have a board? Not yet. I’m working on it. Okay. Uh, I’ve been to a lot of board governance, board leadership, board development classes.

Nonprofit Leadership Center in Tampa is a fantastic resource. Wow. Okay. And so I’ve studied a lot about what you look for in your board. Yeah.

I’ve served on boards, served on the EDGE board for 5 years. Mm-hmm. Step on a board with you. Yes. And so I know what I’m looking for and I have a skill set and I have some people ideas.

And so I’m just making sure that I’m gonna build the best one, but it’s coming in the next 6 months. Okay. You know, whenever I’ve served on the nonprofit, we always, there’s different ways to phrase it, but it always comes down to time, talent, and treasure. Correct. And it’s tricky sometimes because sometimes some of the boards I’m on, it’s like they want all 3 from you.

Yes. It’s like, what’s, kind of- that’s going to burn you out as a board member. Correct. Right. So I’m looking- I’m trying to be strategic about that.

And the other thing is, you have a little bit of leeway when you first start a nonprofit. Some people feel they need to fill a board instantly, and to me, that becomes a figurehead board that’s not serving you. Right. And I would rather build a slow board that’s going to serve me well than to have just thrown together some people to have a board. Okay, well, it speaks to kind of a little bit of my next question.

What does growth look like? Where are we headed? What do you want to accomplish here? Okay, so up next, I think I told you on Friday, is my own podcast that’s going to be Do Good Voices. Yeah, that’s really exciting.

I’m very- this is- tell us about that. Okay, so part of one- another piece of the ecosystem, the connectedness that’s missing, is this visibility. A lot of these organizations are working and you don’t know they’re there, you don’t know what they’re doing. So to get their volume and their word out there and heard, I’m going to do a podcast. I’m going to sit down with them and I’m going to let them tell their stories and what they’re doing and what they need.

Kind of like you’re doing with me. What do you need right now? What can listeners help you with? How can listeners get involved? So we’re going to start with the people who came to Do Good Day, and then we’ll just work through.

The thought process is 2 a month to start with. Okay. See how that goes. Probably 30, 45 minutes. I had thought about doing 2 at a time, but I think I’m going to focus on 1 and let somebody’s story really shine.

I put it out to my nonprofits in a post-event survey who came this year, and every single person that’s responded to the survey has said, yes, I would come on a podcast and sit with you and talk about what I’m doing. All right, cool. All right. So that’s going to launch sometime in June-ish. Sometime this summer.

Okay. That’s exciting. All right. And we’re talking about growth. So that’s one of the first steps.

What’s beyond that? We’re also working on Do Good Works. Which is skilled volunteers. Okay. So yes, nonprofits need hands in the dirt.

They need people who can just do anything. You can sort the clothing that just got donated. You can hand out the food bags that need to be handed out. You can hold the babies that need holding while the mom needs a self-care moment. But nonprofits, because somebody started this because they wanted to help fill a hole, they don’t necessarily know that they have to fill out a 990 every year and that your 990 can be a very integral piece that tells your story.

It gets a lot of information in there, but they don’t know that. They don’t care. They don’t care about an operating budget. They just want to help. Right.

So I’m looking for, and right now I’m building the database and figuring out exactly how it’s going to work. But the theory is skilled pro bono volunteers matched with nonprofit needs. Let’s say I’m a nonprofit and I need a lawyer to review my bylaws and my memorandums of service. For events that I’m putting on. So there’s another lawyer who- lawyers do pro bono work, so they say, I will donate 4 hours of pro bono time and then I will match them up with a nonprofit who has that need.

Very cool. CPA- I’ve already- and I already have people giving me cards. I’m a CPA, I want to be a part of this. I’m a marketing executive, I want to be a part of this. I’m a lawyer, I want to be a part of this.

So I’m working on the how do you match the needs with the offers. I’m thinking it’s probably not going to be till fall, late fall. Okay. To get the database built and then the matching system really worked out the kinks. And it’s going to be kinky at first.

Everything is- there are going to be kinks at first. Everything is- it’s a totally different podcast. Totally not this one. That’s the after hours. That’s right.

Right. That’s, that’s Night Leaders.

Moonlears. So that, that’s coming to help fill those needs because most nonprofits now, there are, there’s tiers of nonprofits, right? There’s small nonprofits, there’s intermediate nonprofits, and there’s large nonprofits. So those small nonprofits, they don’t even have the funding to have an accountant come do, you know, you have to do all these annual budgets, operating budgets, revenue models. Funders want to see all these things.

They won’t give you the funds to pay somebody to do it, but they want those data available to them. So this is kind of going to fill that need. I know that there are some shared service providers already doing things that you can pay for, but those lines are long, the applications. Sometimes they assign you to cohorts. This is going to be more of a one-off.

Okay. I need my 990 fixed. I’ve got 2 hours of time to donate. Done. That’s huge.

You know, I’m not going to be the service provider, right? Once again, I’m going to be the connector, the ecosystem, right? So this is interesting to me as we think about nonprofits and the large ones, the national ones. And people always- not people always- many people are concerned with donating because they assume so much is going to either admin or fat or whatever. And you’re currently running really, really thin.

Correct. Where should we, the consumer, be asking questions when we’re thinking about participation with nonprofits? You can research that. Candid is a really good resource where you can go. Uh, they rank nonprofits, okay, based on, uh, direct service provision versus overhead.

But see, then this is a whole nother discussion that you said, is anything off limits? This one kind of is an, as an over like an over-everybody’s-head topic, but when funders are looking at grant applications, they don’t want more than 15% of what they’re going to give you to go to your overhead. They want at least 85% to go to direct services. Okay. But that means only 15% to pay all your people who are running the nonprofit.

And the grant funders want you to give them reports. They want to know how you’re spending their money. Well, who’s supposed to do that if I’m not allowed to use your money to pay somebody to do that? Right. I mean, your, your idea that we were talking about previously is a great way, but that runs its course sooner or later, doesn’t it?

Exactly. And if you have, let’s say you have a grant that’s been given to you for 2 years and you’re doing monthly reporting or even quarterly reporting, that’s 8 reports. That’s a lot to ask somebody to donate. So it’s, it’s, it’s going to start on a smaller scale, more like we need you to help us build our annual budget. We need you to help us build our operating budget.

We need you to review our 990. We need you to review these specific documents as a lawyer and tell us that these are set up correctly. Okay. So it’s gonna be very founded to make sure that neither party’s getting taken advantage of. ‘Cause I don’t want the people who are donating their time to get sucked into a project that they thought was gonna be 4 hours and it’s 40.

Yeah. And I don’t want the nonprofits to think that they’re gonna be getting this mass amount of help and it really comes into, oh, well, I read 2 letters for you. Right.

Okay. Uh, we’re ba- this is interesting just because I think it’s kind of silly. You say Pinealis, I say Pin- Pinelis, which is, which is it? Well, I don’t know, cuz I’m not Greek. I don’t either.

But it’s based on the pine trees. Okay. So that’s why I’ve always called it Pinealis. Pinealis is named off of pine trees? Yes.

Do we have pine trees? Yes. No, we do not. Yes, we do. There’s no pine trees anywhere.

Yes, we do have pine trees. They’re palm trees. It should be Palm- Palmelis. It should be Palmelis, but before there, before developments, No, there was massive amounts of pine trees. Okay.

That’s like this. And there still are if you go to the more undeveloped areas, because Pine Hills is huge. Well, that’s what some of these tables on Saturday were serving, right? And they would tell me all these things to go, hey, do you know over there, 20 miles that way, we’ve got such and such. It’s like, what?

And you’re still in the same county. Yes. Crazy. We play county- my son’s in high school. We play county sports and you travel 45 minutes.

Right. Still in the county. That’s North Carolina county. Okay. It’s not Florida county.

But where I was going with this question was it’s like driving by a subdivision, division that says Grove something is like, there’s no grove here. But where I was going with this question is we’re currently based in Pinellas. Yes. Will it ever go beyond that? Is this a- the goal is to really grow.

Okay. So that’s the vision. I mean, the vision would be to go global. Okay. And then you have just even more connective tissue, more resources.

The ecosystem the world ecosystem isn’t just in one country, right? Right. There’s that ripple effect and the butterfly effect and all the things. But you know what happens in China affects us here. The weather in sub-Saharan Africa affects us here.

Not even remotely connected to anything we’re talking about. But as we think globally, I honestly thought we were connecting globally a few years ago. Kind of feels like maybe we’re taking a step backwards. Is that just me? I think that the internet and social media makes you feel connected, but it’s not true connection.

Yeah, we talked about real versus fake, right? That’s fake connection. That’s probably before the- there’s no- probably before this, before the mic came out. Yeah, uh, we had a, we had a great show before the show started. Yeah, there’s this little red light that was supposed to be on.

Um, okay, so I want everybody to know that you’ve not once looked at notes, but you do have notes. I do have notes. Is there anything that we’ve not talked about that you really want to make sure we cover? No, I don’t think so. I think we’re covering it because we’ve talked about the programs, we’ve talked about the, the real thing is building the ecosystem for all the nonprofits to thrive.

Mm-hmm. And we have pieces of that St. Pete Greenhouse. Nonprofit Connect is back. Roger has bought it. Yes.

Yes. It is fantastic. I went to the first one. The second one hasn’t happened, has it? No, it is April 24th.

Friday. This Friday. Good gosh. Oh my gosh. This week is, is insane, right?

There is so much happening. This is Monday and I feel like I’ve lived a full week. Yes. And, and there’s a, there’s a bunch of meetings between now and then. People keep inviting me to things this week and I said, And full.

What question did I ask you? Oh, check your notes. Okay, so while you check your notes, I’m going to say that’s one thing that’s awesome about our community is every day there’s 4 or 5 things to do, but it gets a little overwhelming sometimes. And sometimes it hurts to say no to everybody because you want to support everybody, but it’s impossible. That’s when your introvert comes out and you have to say no to people.

But also the FOMO. Correct. You know, there’s a small business summit tomorrow, right? I can’t go. Yeah, I have a small business, right?

It’s been here for longer than FERC has been here. Right. You know, so I- you feel like you’re- you feel like you’re missing out on something. There’s a district- next week I could go. District baseball game today.

Tonight. That’s FOMO. Let’s talk about the business that’s been here forever. You want to talk about that at all? Yeah, for sure.

Okay. Big John’s Brake and Alignment Service. Mechanic shop, shares a wall with Green Bench, used to- right by the police station, um, a block away from- across the street from where we are right now. Across the street from where we are right now, right? Yes.

And also now my mechanic since I live here. There you go. Yeah. And how long have they been here? Our family has owned it since 1980, but has been- it was Clark’s Brake Shop since 1940.

That’s crazy. Okay, but I bumped us off course. What were we looking at? I was looking at notes. I think we’re really headed- the main thing is just that the whole point of the foundation is to build the ecosystem.

This is- if you hear me speak, you’ll get tired of hearing the same analogies, the 9,700 number and then this story. We’ve got 10 nonprofits and they’re feeding 100 people each. That’s 1,000 people getting fed. What if they combined and worked together and fed 5,000 people?

That’s ecosystem-level feeding. Then what if that ecosystem combined with the small business ecosystem and we fed 25,000 people? We didn’t do away with those 10 organizations. Everybody is still here. Every plant is still growing, doing their thing, just more effectively.

That’d be magical. There you go. We’re building the magic. Okay. All right.

What is your call to action for the listeners? Would you- how do you want them? Do you even want them contacting you? Yes. Okay.

How should they contact you? Right now, the best way is to go to the website DoGoodDay.com. Okay. And there’s a Contact Us form and that comes to me directly in email. All right.

And why are they contacting you? What do you want them to do? How should they get involved? Well, if they know a nonprofit who isn’t already plugged in to what we’re doing, plug them in. Okay.

If you don’t know if they’re plugged in or not, send me all the nonprofits that you love and I’ll check into them and make sure that they’re plugged in. If you want to give us money, we would love, we would love that. You can sponsor programs. We have sponsorship decks for Do Good Day and Do Good Together. I haven’t officially made decks for anything else, but as I said, capacity building is one of the number one things that we need funds for to continue to grow and to be able to use for whatever need arises at the moment.

So funding. If you want to volunteer with me, at, and the Do Good Foundation, uh, if you’re looking for a board to serve on, just all the things. So tons of opportunities. Tons of opportunities. So if you have a heart out there, uh, wait, let’s write, that’s a rude way to say this.

If you have a heart, I’m gonna guilt everybody into, there’s a heart in the middle of my sunshine, which is my logo. Right. That’s cool. Yeah. No, if you have a heart for doing good in community, And that’s really- and if you’re a business, I like to say one of my favorite things to do is to do good and do work.

So we can partner with small businesses too. Like you said, the Saturday event, we had the city, we had small businesses, and we had nonprofits. Yeah, magical, magical. So if you have a heart for this, please reach out to Meredith at the address she provided. It will be in our show notes as well.

One more time, let the people know who you are, and then we’ll sign off. I’m Meredith Pericles, founder and executive director of the Do Good Foundation. There you have it, Sun listeners. This is Eric Nutting for another episode of the Sun Leaders podcast. I’m sure happy that you were here with us today.

Please take action and stay safe until next time.