By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 23rd episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guest today is Gabe Angieri. Gabe is the Director of Development & Strategy for Arch Grants, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides $50,000 equity-free grants and access to an ecosystem of resources, helping early-stage startups grow and scale in St. Louis.To be honest, I was somewhat skeptical coming into this interview. Why should an organization that funds for-profit companies be granted nonprofit status? I don’t think many people would argue that giving equity-free grants to early-stage startups and then helping those startups to grow and scale is a bad thing for our region, but just because it’s a good thing doesn’t mean you should get a tax deduction for your donation to an organization that does that.However, Gabe successfully convinced me that Arch Grants is less venture capital fund and more economic development association. Obviously, the grants they give to these companies are good for the companies and their founders, but it’s also making a positive impact on the economic environment throughout our region, and economic wellbeing is an essential component of overall wellbeing.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Gabe!Gabe Angieri and Arch Grants are not affiliated with or endorsed by LPL Financial, Gateway Wealth Management, or Cornerstone Wealth Management.LinksHomepageDonate2019 IRS Form 9902020 IRS Form 990AboutAnnual Startup CompetitionImpact Report

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 22nd episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guest today is Harley Monk. Harley is the Founder and Executive Director of Giving Alpha, a community of like-minded finance professionals that have committed to improving the world by donating to the most evidence-based, impactful interventions.Although Harley and I do spend some time discussing his organization, today’s episode primarily serves as an introduction to the “Effective Altruism” movement, a movement and a concept that is very near and dear to my heart.When I first decided a few years ago to devote my financial planning practice to working with philanthropists, one of the catalysts for that shift was a book I read called “The Life You Can Save” by a philosopher named Peter Singer. That book, originally published in 2009, kickstarted what is now known as the “Effective Altruism” movement. That movement makes, essentially, two arguments:If you live in the developed world (The U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.), then your income is likely at least in the top 10% globally, and very possibly in the top 1%. Therefore, you have a moral obligation to donate some of your income to help others who didn’t have the good fortune of being born into one of those rich countries.You should make your donations based on reason and evidence, not geography and sentiment.As you can imagine, telling people, particularly Americans, that they’re being selfish by hoarding their money and that when they do give, they’re probably doing it wrong, or at least inefficiently, sparks a visceral reaction among many. To some degree I had that same reaction when I was first introduced to these concepts, but I encourage you to keep an open mind before you dismiss them.One of the primary reasons people tend to list for either not giving or not giving more money to charity is because they are concerned that their donations won’t have the intended impact. If that describes you, then giving through the lens of “Effective Altruism” can help you to be confident that your good intentions are having real impact.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Harley!LinksGiving Alpha HomepageAn Introduction To Effective AltruismDefining AlphaThe PledgeIs There Such A Thing As Bad Charity?

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 21st episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!Try to imagine, for a moment, that you’re living your life as you have always lived it, and, all of a sudden, in order to save your life and the lives of your family, you must flee to a foreign country with no money, no connections, no housing, and no job. This is the situation that Afghan refugees are facing today. As you are probably aware, the United States’ decision to pull all of our troops out of Afghanistan has caused massive societal upheaval and created tens of thousands of refugees out of the people who had been assisting the U.S. in its fight against the Taliban. The St. Louis area has agreed to take in up to 500 of those individuals.Luckily for them and for us, the International Institute of St. Louis is prepared to meet the challenge. It is their goal to help these people achieve self-sufficiency as quickly as possible. My guest today is Paul Costigan, the Sr. Vice President for Operations & Missouri Refugee Coordinator for the International Institute of St. Louis. He’ll tell you about how the International Institute works to achieve that goal of self-sufficiency through short term housing assistance, job training, English classes, and job placement, among other things.If you believe, as I do, that that the U.S. bears most of the responsibility for turning these people into refugees in the first place, and, thus, we are obligated to help them to escape their oppressors, then I think you’ll get a lot out of this interview.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Paul!LinksHomepageDonateVolunteer2019 IRS Form 9902020 Annual ReportAbout UsFAQImmigrant Stories14 Most Common Arguments Against Immigration & Why They're WrongWelcome.USAirbnb Nonprofit FoundationOperation Allies Welcome

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 20th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!For this episode, the tables have been turned! Tosha Anderson, who was my guest in episode #13 of this podcast, Assessing The Financial Health of a Nonprofit, has her own podcast called A Modern Nonprofit, and she had me on to talk about some of the mistakes I have seen nonprofit fundraisers make when asking my clients for money.If you are a donor, this topic may be less compelling to you, but if you work for a nonprofit, particularly if you are a fundraiser or development officer, or even if you’re just a volunteer, then you should absolutely listen to this episode!As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is Tosha's interview with me!LinksThe Charity CFOA Modern Nonprofit Facebook GroupCharity CFO YouTubeCharity CFO LinkedInCharity CFO TwitterCharity CFO FacebokTosha Anderson LinkedIn

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 19th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guest today is Emily Stuart, the Executive Director of Gateway Pet Guardians, whose mission is to champion a thriving pet welfare community in East St. Louis, Cahokia Heights, Washington Park and Fairmont City, which they have coined the East Side Pet District.I have been hesitant to have any animal focused nonprofits on the podcast thus far, because it can be hard to justify donating money to a charity that works with animals when there are so many humans who need our help. Even if you don’t believe that animal suffering deserves the same attention as human suffering, I think there are still two compelling reasons to consider donating to animal welfare causes:A great deal of animal suffering is the result of human action or inaction. If we caused the mess, we should take responsibility for cleaning it up.At least in the case of Gateway Pet Guardians, a donation to their organization is just as much about the people in the community as it is the animals.I think about my dog, Rosemary, and the joy she brings my family and me, and I know that’s true for so many other families. We’re fortunate enough that we have the resources to take her to see a veterinarian who’s only about a 4 minute drive from our house, but that isn’t always true for the people who live in the East Side Pet District. Until Gateway Pet Guardians opened their facility in East St. Louis in 2020, there wasn’t a single veterinary clinic in the area!If you love animals, like I do, you’ll enjoy this interview!As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Emily!LinksHomepageDonateVolunteerFosterAmazon Wish ListAdoptYouTube Channel2020 Impact Report2020 IRS Form 9902019 IRS Form 9902020 Audited Financial Statements

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 18th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guests today are Aurdeen Clarkson, Tami Timmer, and Latrice Dinkins, all of whom work for Flance Early Learning Center, a diverse, intentional early childhood education center that nurtures children and adults in a trusting culture of love, Respect, Accountability, Compassion and Consistency.Early childhood education is an issue that is near and dear to my heart, as I have two kids currently in an early childhood education center, and I have another kid who’s not far removed from one. In contrast with K-12 education in our country, early childhood education is primarily funded by tuition paid by the families utilizing those services. As a result, instead of spreading the costs of early childhood education across our communities, the way we do with K-12, the families who are currently utilizing those services have to foot the entire bill, which is usually somewhere between $1,000 and $1,500 per kid per month. This means that if you’re not in the top income quintile, you’re likely going to have to make some tough choices.You might decide not to send your kid to an ECEC because the cost would be greater than the amount you would earn from your job. Of course, for a parent who chooses to stay home with their kids, re-entering the workforce can prove challenging, and most people who find themselves in that situation will never be able to get back on their pre-kid income trajectory. And, of course, this phenomenon impacts women, disproportionately. Alternatively, you might decide to send your kid to a home-based daycare, but, if you do that, the odds are high that your kid will be less safe, and they won’t be instructed by someone who has an educational background in early childhood development. Lastly, you might just decide to bite the bullet and pay for the entire cost of a high quality ECEC, which has the potential to put a strain on the rest of your finances.Taking into consideration the context of what I’ve just described, what the staff at Flance Early Learning Center is doing is remarkable. They’re providing as high a quality of early childhood education as you’ll find in a state of the art facility, and they’re doing it in the poorest zip code in Missouri. A zip code where the median annual household income is roughly equivalent to the cost of providing high quality early childhood education to one infant for one year. Obviously, most of the families they serve don’t have the income to pay full tuition, which means that they rely heavily on philanthropy, as well as government grants through the Head Start Program that is administered, in our area, by Youth In Need.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Latrice, Aurdeen, and Tami!LinksHomepageDonateVolunteer2019 Annual Report2019 IRS Form 990HistoryFacebook

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 17th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guest today is Sean Ballard, the operations director for Home Sweet Home, the only furniture bank in the St. Louis region.For my very first interview in episode 1 of this podcast, I interviewed Mary Kitley of the St. Louis Area Foodbank, and I learned that foodbanks are, essentially, just giant logistics operations. They figure out how to get food to people who either don’t have access to it, or don’t have the resources to afford it on their own.Well, a furniture bank follows the exact same concept, but the difference here is that there is only one of them in the St. Louis region, and, as evidenced by their rapid growth in just the 6 years since the organization as been in existence, there is an enormous unmet need.Obviously, all else being equal, having a roof over your head is better than not having a roof over your head, but it’s hard to make a house a home with just a roof and four walls. 90% of the families that Home Sweet Home serves have a household income of less than $18,000 per year. $18,000 per year! If your household income is $18,000 or less, quality furnishings, or any furnishings at all, just aren’t going to be in the budget, so Home Sweet Home has partnered with dozens of organizations from all over the region to connect their donors, people who have furniture they’re no longer using, with people who need it. And, to be clear, they’re not just giving their clients whatever they can find. They are extremely selective on what furniture they will accept, and they have their clients to come to their warehouse to hand pick the items themselves, giving them a sense of pride and dignity in the process.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Sean!LinksHome Sweet HomeDonateVolunteer2020 Annual Report2020 IRS Form 990Partner AgenciesFacebookTwitterLinkedIn

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 16th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guest today is Maxine Clark. You may or may not be familiar with her name, but, especially if you are from the St. Louis area, you are almost certainly familiar with her work. She is the founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop.Since she stepped down from her role as Chief Executive Bear in 2013, she has been spending her time using her wealth and influence to improve the lives of others in the St. Louis region, primarily through the foundation she and her husband, Bob Fox, founded in 2004. In particular, right now she is focused on putting the finishing touches on the Delmar Divine; a mixed-use development for social innovators that will provide office space and shared resources for nonprofits, as well as approximately 150 affordable apartments designed for young, diverse professionals.I wanted to have Maxine on the podcast, not only because I wanted to hear more about her work with the Delmar Divine, but also because I am fascinated by how people with significant wealth think about the opportunity and/or responsibility they have to use that wealth to give back to the community that helped create it in the first place. One of my missions in life is to convince people with excess wealth to give more of that wealth away to people who aren’t related to them, so I want to know how I can help to replicate Maxine’s attitude about philanthropy and the responsibility we all have to one another across our region and our country.As you’ll hear in this interview, it's impossible to interact with Maxine and not come away from it feeling more optimistic about the future of St. Louis. This was a delightful conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Maxine Clark!LinksClark-Fox Family Foundation2018 IRS Form 990Delmar DivineBlueprint4SummerSTLProsper Women's CapitalSt. Louis Magazine FeatureNewswise FeatureWikipediaMaxine's Twitter

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 15th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!Today, I have an interview with Will Jordan, the Executive Director, and Elisabeth Risch, the Assistant Director of the St. Louis Metropolitan Equal Housing and Opportunity Council (EHOC). The EHOC seeks to ensure equal access to housing and places of public accommodation for all people through education, counseling, investigation, and enforcement.It can be tempting to imagine that, since the Fair Housing Act has been in place for over 50 years now, housing discrimination is a thing of the past. But, as you’ll hear in this discussion, housing discrimination is alive and well. Even if it wasn’t, the legacy of past housing discrimination is still with us today.The median white family in the U.S. has a net worth that is roughly 10 times that of the median black family, and home equity, or the lack thereof, is the single greatest contributor to that gap. I am no expert on housing discrimination, historical or current, but I am an expert on building wealth and how compound interest works, and, from that lens, it’s easy to understand why this gap persists. Prior to the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, it was legal to discriminate against someone for the purpose of housing based on the color of their skin, which means that, even if the Fair Housing Act had magically fixed everything overnight, most black families had to start from scratch on their home equity building journey, while white families had been on that journey for decades with lots of help from the federal government along the way.So, it makes sense that housing policy is one of the most important places to focus if we’re trying to right the wrongs of our past. The EHOC, like so many nonprofits in our area, is working hard not only to provide relief to those who are being wronged currently, but to change the way our region operates so that we can prevent these problems in the future. And, as you’ll hear in the interview, this isn’t just a racial issue. Housing discrimination cuts across all lines; income, race, family status, age, gender, etc. In fact, the number one source of housing discrimination today is against people with disabilities.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Will Jordan and Elisabeth Risch!LinksEHOC HomepageDonate2019 IRS Form 990Report Housing DiscriminationKnow Your RightsEviction PreventionLandlord-Tenant CounselingFair Housing InvestigationOutreach & EducationAdvocacy & ResearchGateway Neighborhood FundTwitterFacebook

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 14th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!In a 2018 U.S. Trust study of philanthropy, 9 out of 10 households with a $200,000 household income and/or a net worth greater than $1 million gave money to charity. Disturbingly, among that same group of people, only 42% believed that their giving was having the impact they intended. The other 58% either believed that their giving was not having the intended impact, or, more frequently, they just didn’t know. This group gave an average of almost $30,000 in 2017, and the majority didn’t know if their generosity was helping anyone!You may or may not be a millionaire, but chances are, if you’re listening to this podcast, you are a giver, and you care about the impact of those gifts. So how can you make sure you’re among the 42% who is confident in the impact of their giving?My guests today have devoted their professional lives to answering that question. Phil Buchanan is the President of the Center For Effective Philanthropy, and Grace Chiang Nicolette is the VP of Programming & External Relations.If you’re looking for easy answers to the question of how to make sure your donations are having the desired impact, you won’t find them here. As I discuss with Grace and Phil, philanthropic effectiveness cannot be boiled down to an easy to understand and easy to compare metric the way that return on investment can be used to determine the success of an investment in a for-profit business. But, just because there are no easy answers doesn’t mean there are no answers at all. If you truly believe, as I do, that philanthropy is one of the best ways to impact the world and the community around you, then doing the hard work of determining effectiveness is worth it, and, in this interview, Grace and Phil offer several valuable insights to make that difficult task a little easier.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Grace Chiang Nicolette & Phil Buchanan!LinksThe Center For Effective PhilanthropyAbout CEPDonate2019 Form 9902019 Annual ReportCEP's Definition of Philanthropic EffectivenessHow Major Givers Can Best Support NonprofitsDonors: 5 Things Nonprofits Want You To KnowGiving Done Right BookGiving Done Right PodcastCEP's YouTube ChannelFacebookTwitterGrace's TwitterPhil's Twitter

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 13th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!I have found that the primary reason most people either don’t give or don’t give more to charity is not because they don’t have a desire to use their money to make the world a better place, but rather because they are worried that their money will be wasted. One specific flavor of that concern is the fear that a nonprofit doesn’t have its act together behind the scenes in terms of their financial stability.That’s where today’s guest comes in. Tosha Anderson founded The Charity CFO to offer outsourced accounting and bookkeeping to small and mid-sized nonprofit organizations, and she has over a decade of experience peeking behind the curtain of nonprofits of all sizes to help assess and improve their bookkeeping and accounting operations. There are few people as qualified to assess the financial health of a nonprofit.In this interview, Tosha shares her organization’s three step framework for evaluating a nonprofit’s finances:Financial ManagementHow well organized are they? Are their records up to date?StabilityIs this organization likely going to exist in its current form in the future?LiquidityDo they have a strong balance sheet?If you want to get serious about making sure you’re getting the desired result with your philanthropy, understanding an organization’s finances is crucial, and this interview with Tosha is a great place to start if you’d like to learn how to do that.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Tosha Anderson!LinksThe Charity CFOFacebookTwitterA Modern Nonprofit PodcastA Modern Nonprofit Facebook Group

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 12th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!I’m sure it won’t be surprising to anyone listening to this that illiteracy is a significant predictor of all kinds of bad life outcomes. Specifically, children who can’t read proficiently by 3rd grade are four times more likely to drop out before acquiring their high school diploma. Why is 3rd grade the relevant line of demarcation? Because that’s when schools generally stop teaching kids to read, and, instead, expect them to read to learn. As with many things, this problem is particularly acute in the St. Louis area, and you probably won’t be shocked to learn that there is a significant racial disparity in reading proficiency.My guest today is hoping to organize our region’s many institutions to tackle this problem head on. Lisa Greening is the Project Director for Turn The Page STL, a city-county wide literacy initiative dedicated to increasing the number of children that are reading at or above grade level by the end third grade in the St. Louis community. Lisa was formerly the executive director of Ready Readers, and while her organization was having an impact on the kids they worked with, she could see that the region continued to fall behind despite her efforts there. So, about two year ago she set out to form Turn The Page STL based partly on the model that Turn The Page Kansas City established where they were able to raise 3rd grade reading proficiency from about 30% to about 50% in only 7 years! As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Lisa Greening!LinksTurn The Page STL HomepageStrategic PlanNational Campaign For Grade Level ReadingTurn The Page KCYouthBridge Blog PostFacebook PageTwitter PageLisa's LinkedInHow 3rd Grade Reading Skills & Poverty Influence High School Graduation

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello listeners and welcome to the 11th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!I think most people, at this point, would agree with the idea that our justice system often does a poor job of meting out justice, and that the negative consequences of that disproportionately fall on black communities, particularly in a city as segregated as St. Louis.That’s where the organization we’re profiling today comes in. My guest is Blake Strode, the executive director of ArchCity Defenders, a holistic legal advocacy organization that combats the criminalization of poverty and state violence, especially in communities of color.Even if you don’t know exactly what it is that ArchCity Defenders does, odds are good that, if you live in the St. Louis area, you’ve at least heard of them. That’s for two reasons: 1) they have done a tremendous amount of good in the community over the years, and 2) they truly excel at promoting themselves and their work through their media and policy advocacy.There are two things I would like to emphasize before we get to the interview:#1) Did you know that public defenders are only available for state courts and not municipal courts? I didn’t know that before conducting this interview, and that was rather shocking to me. That is one of the gaps that ArchCity Defenders tries to fill, and I think that is especially important in the St. Louis region given our uniquely convoluted and extractive municipal court system.#2) In this interview, Blake and I have a discussion about the terms and the movements behind defunding the police and abolishing the police. If you reflexively recoil at either of those notions, that’s understandable. I think we’ve all been conditioned to believe that the police are keeping us safe, and, absent their presence, the world around us would descend into chaos. However, Blake argues that most of what we call “public safety” is not keeping anyone safe, and we’d all be better off if at least some of the resources we currently allocate to those services were diverted elsewhere, say to mental health and homelessness, for example. Regardless of your feelings on the matter, I would ask and encourage you to keep an open mind, and listen to what he has to say.  As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Blake Strode!LinksArchCity Defenders HomepageBlake's Wikipedia PageDonateVolunteer2020 Annual Report2019 IRS Form 990ImpactYouTubeClose The Workhouse CampaignThe People's Plan St. LouisBlake's Podcast

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello listeners, and welcome to the 10th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!Today’s episode is going to be a little different than our previous 9 episodes. My guest today is Dan Julius. Dan is an attorney, and he is the head of the estate planning division of Stock Legal. He, like me, has a focus on charitable giving in his practice, and so I wanted to bring him on the podcast to have a discussion about how to think about philanthropy in the context of estate planning. He and I agree that wealthy families have a tremendous, and frequently overlooked, opportunity to have an enormous impact on the causes and organizations they care about in their estate plans.While you’re alive, if you’re being prudent, you necessarily have to hold back on giving to charity, because you don’t know how long you’re going to live, or how much you’re going to spend, and the last thing you want to do is run out of money before you run out of life. To be blunt, after you’re dead, those questions have been answered, and your estate and your heirs are no longer constrained by that uncertainty.Look, I am under no illusion that contemplating your own mortality is most people’s idea of a good time, but, I think the best way to frame this type of discussion is in the context of the positive impact your wealth can have, both for your heirs and for the world around you.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Dan Julius!Dan Julius and Stock Legal are not affiliated with or endorsed by LPL Financial, Gateway Wealth Management, or Cornerstone Wealth Management.Links​Dan's LinkedInStock LegalLesterEvidence of the impact of public philanthropyHow To Prepare Your Adult Children For Their Inheritance

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 9th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guest today is Rosemary Hanley, the CEO and Co-Founder of the Little Bit Foundation, a non-profit that is committed to breaking down barriers to learning for students living in poverty through partnerships and programs that serve the needs of the whole child. Their aim is to empower students to achieve their academic goals and dreams for the future, while leaving an imprint of love and hope on young lives for whom a little bit means a lot.That phrase, “a little bit means a lot,” is a concise summary of their theory of change. Little Bit only partners with schools where at least 90% of the kids attending qualify for free or reduced lunch. The idea here, is that kids in those schools perpetually lag behind, academically, because they lack many of the basics that most of us take for granted. They might not have shoes that fit, or a warm coat in the winter, or 3 square meals per day. If my feet hurt, or I feel cold or hungry, I am inevitably going to perform worse at whatever task I am engaged in, and so I think it makes perfect sense that solving those relatively minor, but chronic problems would likely lead to better academic results down the line.Although Little Bit doesn’t yet have the data to directly link their program to improved academic performance, they do have data that suggests that their program leads to less absenteeism, and there is academic literature that links absenteeism in school to worse outcomes in school and later in life.One final note, about a week after we recorded this podcast, Rosemary announced that at the end of the year she would be retiring from Little Bit after dedicating the last 20 years of her life to building this organization. So, Rosemary, if you are listening, I’d like to personally wish you all the luck and happiness you can handle in the next phase of your life!As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Rosemary Hanley!LinksThe Little Bit Foundation HomepageDonateVolunteer2020 Annual Report2019 IRS Form 990OverviewHistoryStaff LeadershipWhole Child ModelThe ProcessProgramsSchools ServedWhy It MattersYouTube Channel

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 8th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guest today is Traci Riechmann, the Founder, President, and sole employee of Leaps of Love, a non-profit focused on embracing families affected by childhood brain tumors & late-effects of childhood cancer.“Embracing” is, obviously, a somewhat ambiguous term here, but what that really means is that Leaps of Love connects families who have a child with cancer to one another through a series of support groups and retreats. For any of us facing difficult circumstances of any kind, having a network of people who can relate to what you’re experiencing can be crucial to making it through to the other side, and, of course, having a child with cancer is no exception to this.Honestly, I just can’t even wrap my brain around what it must be like to have a child with cancer. There is nothing that most of us wouldn’t do for our kids, and it must be awful to feel so powerless in a situation like that. Measuring the impact of the work that Leaps of Love does is always going to be impossible, because you can’t quantify the benefits of having a support group like this, but I don’t think there is any question that its impact can be tremendous.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Traci Riechmann!LinksLeaps of Love HomepageAbout Us2018 Form 990ProgramsFundraisersDonateVolunteerContactShare Your Love ProgramNo Longer Awkward

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 7th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guest today is Natalie Self. Natalie is the executive director of STEMSTL, whose mission is to collectively develop and deploy quality systems-level changes that will advance STEM learning and career opportunities to empower the growth of diverse problem solvers, innovators, and critical thinkers, enabling them to thrive in a globally connected world.Now, if the sentence I just read felt intimidating to wrap your brain around, don’t worry, Natalie is going to translate all of that while explaining how, exactly, STEMSTL goes about attempting to achieve that mission. However, the thing I want to point out is here is how STEMSTL differs from all of the organizations my previous guests represent.If you look through the list of my previous podcast guests, the St. Louis Area Foodbank, St. Patrick Center, Meds & Food For Kids, etc., you’ll notice that those organizations are primarily focused on treating the symptoms rather than curing the disease. In the interview, Natalie used the term “remediation” to describe the focus of these non-profits and most of the non-profits you’re probably familiar with. To be clear, that is not a pejorative; there are few greater callings than aiding human suffering where it exists. However, Natalie’s focus, both at STEMSTL and more broadly, is on systems change. In other words, how do we change the systems and institutions that create the necessity for these remediation focused non-profits to exist. For example, whereas St. Patrick Center is asking the question, “How do we help this person who is experiencing homelessness to find and maintain stable housing?” an organization that was focused on systems change would be asking, “How do we adapt and change our institutions so that we can reduce or eliminate the need for people to reach out to St. Patrick Center in the first place?”Of course, the challenge with funding and working on systems change is that, in most cases, it’s much harder to measure and track results. If I give $1,000 to the St. Louis Area Foodbank, I know that I’m buying 4,000 meals for needy families. If I give $1,000 to an organization fighting for systems change, how much systems change, exactly, am I funding? It’s a tough question to answer, but it’s an important one, because I believe that systems change can ultimately be so much more impactful than remediation and Natalie provides a fantastic framework for thinking about exactly how to approach that problem.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Natalie Self!LinksSTEMSTL HomepageBioSTLBioSTL 2018 Form 990What We DoWorkgroupsSt. Louis Equity In Entrepreneurship CollectiveFunding Systems Change

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 6th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!My guest today is Demetria Lightfoot. Demetria is the Director of Philanthropy for Youth In Need, a nonprofit child and family services agency that is dedicated to building positive futures for the community’s most vulnerable children, teens and families.This is my longest interview to date because Youth In Need is a really substantial organization with a whole host of different programs designed to aid disadvantaged youth in our area. In particular, they receive about $16 million/year in federal dollars to run the Head Start program in the area, which as you’ll hear in our discussion, is a cause that is near and dear to my heart given that I have two kids who are currently in daycare plus one who has been through it, which means that I am intimately familiar with how expensive it is, and how important it is to support people who can’t afford it on their own.To be honest, I struggled to sum up this interview the way that I usually do in these introductions, because Youth In Need does so many different things in and for the community. So, let me just put it this way, if you care about helping disadvantaged kids in the area, you’re going to get a lot out of this conversation.As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Demetria Lightfoot!LinksYouth In Need HomepageDonateVolunteer2019 Form 9902019 Annual ReportMission & Core ValuesService PhilosophyHistorical TimelineEarly Head Start & Head Start ProgramProject Safe PlaceEmergency ShelterTeen Parent ProgramCounselingStreet OutreachTransitional Living ProgramFoster Care & AdoptionYouTube Channel

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello listeners, and welcome to the 5th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast. My guest today is Dr. Patricia Wolff, Founder and Senior Advisor for Meds & Food For Kids.Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere.  Over half of the population lives on less than $1 per day. Currently, 1 in 5 children in Haiti are malnourished, 1 in 10 are acutely malnourished and 1 in 14 will die before reaching the age of 5.  For some context, in the United States, that figure is roughly 6.5/1000, which means that kids in Haiti die before their fifth birthday at more than 10 times the rate of kids in the U.S.Meds & Food For Kids manufactures a peanut based Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food that they call Medika Mamba, which means “Peanut Butter Medicine” in Haitian Creole. Since Dr. Wolff founded the organization in 2003, they have treated nearly half a million severely malnourished kids in Haiti and around the world, at a cost of roughly $69 per child, and it’s not hyperbole to suggest that many of those kids would have died if not for this intervention. They have managed to do all of this while also employing local Haitians, who would otherwise probably not have gainful employment, to produce their products.The most recent Giving USA report indicated that only about 6% of our charitable dollars flowed directly to international organizations. I believe that Americans are missing a significant opportunity by not giving more of our charitable dollars to organizations that operate and serve populations outside our borders because, quite honestly, there is still so much low hanging fruit in many of these countries, and Haiti is no exception.I learned a lot during my preparation for this interview, and I think you’ll get a lot out of hearing it. So, without further ado, here is my interview with Dr. Patricia Wolff!LinksMeds & Food For Kids Website Home PageDonate2019 Annual Report2018 Form 990Audited Financial StatementsAbout MFKTimelineAnemia & MalnutritionThe Need For Clean WaterMalnutrition StatisticsThe SolutionYouTube Channel

By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®Hello listeners, and welcome to the fourth episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast. My guest today is Courtney Noto, the Chief Development Officer for Marygrove.There are lot of debates in our society about who is deserving of help, and I hope to be able to explore that topic in future episodes of this podcast, but the good news is that pretty much everyone agrees that kids are innocent and blameless for their own circumstances. That’s part of the reason it’s so heartbreaking to see kids who have the deck stacked against them in so many ways. Whether it’s something as horrifying as having physically abusive parents, or something as simple as lack of access to laundry facilities to be able to wear clean clothes to school every day, Marygrove exists to create an environment where kids focus on thriving, instead of just surviving.  Often called the “hidden gem of Florissant” (and they’d like to eliminate the “hidden” part), Marygrove was founded in 1849 to take care of neglected and abandoned girls, but in the present day, they care for girls and boys from birth to age 21. On any given day, they will have around 200 kids in their care, but over the course of a typical year, they will impact the lives of roughly 1,000 kids through the various programs and services they offer. As a parent, I would do just about anything for my kids, and I want to live in a world where every kid has a support system like the one I had growing up and like the one my kids have today.If you’d like to learn more about what you can do to help create that environment for these kids and kids like them, then please listen to and enjoy my interview with Courtney Noto.Courtney Noto and Marygrove are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial, Gateway Wealth Management, or Cornerstone Wealth Management. Show NotesMarygrove's Website Home Page2019 Annual ReportFiscal Year 2018 Form 990Therapeutic Residential TreatmentTherapeutic Foster CareTransitional Living ProgramIndependent Living ProgramCrisis ServicesThe Marygrove SchoolYouTube Channel