A Non-Profit is Just a Business That Doesn't Turn a Profit

Sean Weisbrot: John Kozeski is the founder and principal of John Thomas Consulting, a full service consulting firm experienced in government affairs, grant strategy, association management, resource development, and marketing strategy, and more.

Sean Weisbrot: His firm has helped all sorts of companies, institutions, and nonprofits alike around the world. We'll be hearing about his experience with working with nonprofits and how nonprofits can actually be profitable and his experiences traveling to Africa and other countries to help all sorts of really cool companies and institutions.

Sean Weisbrot: So thank you for taking the time to talk with me, John. I appreciate it. Why don't you tell everyone a little bit more about yourself and how you got into this, and we'll go from there.

Jon Kozesky: I went on to work on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. I worked for my local congressman in Ohio, and later I worked for Senator Hillary Clinton in, from the state of New York. So I, my, the congressman was a Republican, obviously, Senator Clinton was a Democrat, so I was very bipartisan in, in working with both sides of the aisle. but in both of those roles, I had the opportunity to work with nonprofits and small businesses.

Jon Kozesky: In our districts to identify federal pots of money, access those program managers and then even give advice as to what that session of Congress was looking to fund so they could really work to hone their message in their grant applications. So after a couple years of doing that, it was. The natural progression, just go into the private sector and actually start writing those grants.

Jon Kozesky: so I started very high level medical device, medical research grants with a group affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. I love the work. It was fascinating to the cutting edge science and everything else that the biotechnology community has. But after a few years, I realized my real passion was, was in the smaller nonprofit space, helping the neighborhood and community groups.

Jon Kozesky: that really didn't have a voice. They were getting passed over for a lot of the bigger dollars. and really they were the groups that those dollars could have the biggest impact directly on the community. so. What started out as just grant writing quickly evolved. As anybody who's worked in a nonprofit knows, if you work in a nonprofit, you wear all the hats because there's not many people and, and everybody's overworked.

Jon Kozesky: so grant writing quickly became donor stewardship. It quickly became managing and planning events. It became our individual donor appeals and things of that nature, social media. and then it evolved into overall organization management. So if you're gonna wear all those hats for some organizations, we started wearing the executive director hat as well, for groups that wanted to outsource their executive director roles.

Jon Kozesky: And so now I'm very proud to say that, we just celebrated our 10th anniversary as a company, and we've been able to raise over just over a hundred million dollars for our clients all around the world. There was a point last year where we were on six continents and, currently we're on five, which we'll dig into here in a minute, but we're really proud of what we've accomplished.

Sean Weisbrot: Congrats on a hundred million and congrats on 10 years. That's pretty cool. Some people might think that running a nonprofit shouldn't be considered entrepreneurial because the goal isn't profit.

Jon Kozesky: I think it is my mission to help nonprofit professionals to destroy that idea because anyone that thinks that they're going to start a nonprofit and think it's simpler or any different than starting a restaurant or an ice cream stand down the street is completely mistaken.

Jon Kozesky: They are starting a small business. there are customers and those are. Twofold. Those are in both the individuals that you're serving. So you have to find what it is, where there's a void that you can fill just like an entrepreneur would, and how you are better equipped to fill that void than someone else, just like an entrepreneur.

Jon Kozesky: But you also have the stakeholders that are your investors. So just like you would with a small business, these are gonna be individuals that are donating to you. These are institutions and granting foundations that are saying to you. You go out and you make this money and you make a difference with it just like an entrepreneur does.

Jon Kozesky: So you have to take all of this into consideration. And then you have to have all the regular skills of an entrepreneur. So you have to have marketing skills. How, how are you going to appeal to both of those, quote unquote customer bases that we just talked about? you have to have a financial background.

Jon Kozesky: You have to be able to balance your books and scrutinize every dollar coming in and going out. Just like an entrepreneur does it. It's absolutely no different. You have to have human resources skills, I mean, nonprofits as they grow. Either have volunteers or employees that need to be managed, that have to be appreciated, that have to show up to work every day and have a clear mission that you're leading them on to make a difference.

Jon Kozesky: So overall, I, I always say, that you are, you're, you're just starting a business that's. That's not gonna make a, that's not gonna turn a profit.

Sean Weisbrot: How would a nonprofit juggle operational spending versus spending on the mission?

Jon Kozesky: They are extremely different. And I will say one of the more difficult parts, especially when it comes to. Donors and in, grant funders, things of that nature. More and more we're seeing groups saying, we don't want our money going to organizational spending. We don't want it to go towards overhead as they call it, but we all know that to run a business or to run a nonprofit, it takes overhead. There's no question about it.

Jon Kozesky: I mean, some organizations can be 100%. volunteers led, pushing a hundred percent of their dollars into the community, and that's wonderful, but it's very hard to scale that kind of impact and it's very hard to grow. And, and really, honestly, it's really hard, I say to scrutinize those dollars because it's volunteers, so they're not there every day.

Jon Kozesky: Balancing the books deep into the figures, making sure every dollar is accounted for. So I always make the argument soon. Institutional funders or donors of you actually want some overhead because that's how you ensure that your dollars are being properly spent.

Sean Weisbrot: I know when I was in China, my first supposed business actually ended up getting pigeonholed as a nonprofit by the people. So basically it was a live speech event. And the guy I started it with, his goal was, I don't want to charge people for this. like I don't want them to pay for the tickets, but like we could sell coffee and drinks and all that and like use that to pay for whatever we need, whether we're renting a room, et cetera.

Sean Weisbrot: And after that event, it became almost impossible to start charging for it, because we had a hundred people at that event, and then we got two 50 at the next event, and then we had 400 at the next event. Right? And then the government picked us up and they started sponsoring us with media coverage and other sorts of opportunities where we basically couldn't charge.

Sean Weisbrot: And so we had to do things like, okay, you can buy water, you can buy the VIP dinner and all that. And between all of those things, my partner and I barely made enough money to cover our own costs. We were doing this full time, so I ended up actually going broke, doing it for two years. But it was an incredible experience the entire time.

Sean Weisbrot: And I tried desperately to get people to donate to give us grants or funding in a sizable manner so that we could build a team because I was doing everything that wasn't on the day. Right. I would spend the entire month finding the guests, scheduling them, preparing their speeches with them, making sure their PowerPoints made sense, getting them in advance so I could put them all together, dealing with the videographer and the other people that were gonna be taking photos and making, meeting with the volunteers to make sure they were actually gonna show up and, and what they knew what they did. And I had to create doc, standard operating procedure documents for all of them. So they knew, and I had a diagram of the venue so they knew what spots they were gonna be standing in.

Sean Weisbrot: And, and based on that spot, what role they were gonna be playing that day. And, On top of, creating marketing materials and doing promotion and going out and promoting the events at bars and clubs and, and other places where, other events where people would be, it's like it was 80 hours a week job.

Sean Weisbrot: I was getting like $200 a month to do it all. I wasn't in China, so I wasn't dying, but I still couldn't pay for anything. And, it was extremely frustrating because I couldn't build a team to help me full time. So I, I totally understand, and that's why I was like, I'm never doing nonprofit again. But what I, what I learned from that experience, I was like 26, 27.

Sean Weisbrot: And what I learned from that experience was you should never attempt to help people until you can take care of yourself first. Because if you can't take care of yourself, you don't have the energy to help others. there's someone I know, he calls it, serving people without a cup that's full, right?

Sean Weisbrot: He is like, if you're. If your cup's not full, you can't fill other people's cups. That's a hundred percent right. So I totally understand the operational spending. That's why I asked the question, and I'm like, yep. You can't do anything without people, at some point. 'cause like, 'cause we had, we had government officials from other parts of China flying to our events and offering for us to set up in their cities too.

Sean Weisbrot: And I'm like, I can barely handle the thing I have now. How am I supposed to do this? 'cause it's a, it wasn't a, an online thing, right? It's not like you can scale globally by just having people promote you in different regions. Like no, you have to physically set up. Just couldn't do it. Had no ability to scale.

Jon Kozesky: I guarantee anyone that works in a nonprofit or has worked in a nonprofit that's listening today is saying, I know exactly what you're talking about, working 80 hours a week, being wildly underpaid. and that's why, you really find one of two types of people in nonprofits. It's either people that are, you know.

Jon Kozesky: Stable financially at a point in their life to now give back to the community, or it's people that are entirely passionate about the cause and, and they don't care what they make because they live and die by the people that they're able to serve. and and so it, it, it is a labor of passion as you found out, certainly over those two years.

Sean Weisbrot: Yes. What was important was. The relationships I built out of that. And I'm still close friends with a, with a number of the, the speakers and audience members, from that event. And, and that's really cool, 'cause I've known them now for almost 10 years, some of them. That's incredible. So beyond what I just expressed, what are the other huge problems that you've seen in running a nonprofit?

Jon Kozesky: But it's no different than running a business. So you run into, for example, I mean, we're heading into a recession here in the United States and, and arguably globally. And so you know that the same way customers get tighter with their dollars. So do donors, so do institutional funders, even for.

Jon Kozesky: And so that becomes very difficult where you have to be able to pivot and change parts of your mission and, and be able to realize where you can cut, to still survive. I think there's always the problem of trying to stand out. I mean, there is a record number of nonprofits in the United States today.

Jon Kozesky: it is an incredible figure and it's, it's into the millions. And so knowing that and. Still trying to figure out a way that you can stand out amongst all that noise to donors, to funders.

Jon Kozesky: and I think we saw a lot of that during COVID. I mean, just like small businesses, a number of nonprofits had to close their doors.

Jon Kozesky: Because it was even more difficult to stand out in this electronic environment. arguably some of that is good though, because to a certain extent those people didn't go away. They were able to join forces with a lot of other nonprofits that were like-minded, and be able to create what we call collective impact, which is something that a lot of funders want to see today.

Jon Kozesky: So anyone looking to raise money for their nonprofits or even start a nonprofit, it is tremendously important to find others that you can work together with, and that's something that we've seen a lot in the last few years.

Sean Weisbrot: So how can a nonprofit actually stand out?

Jon Kozesky: There's different ways to do it. First and foremost is to be transparent. The more transparent you can be with your donors and with your funders, the better. And, that is to have clean books. That is to always have reporting standards. There are companies like GuideStar and others that actually rate nonprofits and a lot more funders are turning to those organizations now, to delineate between groups.

Jon Kozesky: I think getting very creative in your marketing standards. Nowadays it is really important. gone are the days where you can just write a few things on Facebook and hope that the dollars will come in. I mean, we're pushing ourselves to basically become marketing experts as to how we stand out, what, what resonates amongst our donors and what doesn't.

Jon Kozesky: And so that's a fun and unique challenge. And really at the end of the day, it's no different than a small business. It's being the best at what you do. So finding ways to benefit the most number of people that you can with the least amount of dollars and still make a difference. Those facts and figures really are what are important.

Sean Weisbrot: So you said, accounting standards, you're referring to the gap. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So for anyone who doesn't know what GAP is, it's generally accepted accounting principles. And I interviewed someone about this like 50, 60 episodes ago. Her name was Angela Rice. So if you're interested in knowing more about, CFO practices, accounting practices, how to protect yourself from people screwing around with your books, your employees or partners, then definitely go check out that episode.

Sean Weisbrot: So we've established that being a nonprofit generally is way harder than being a profitable business. Mostly because you're constantly fundraising, you're not really allowed to spend the money that you're fundraising for, like building a team, managing the team, and marketing yourself to be able to be sustainable.

Sean Weisbrot: Which leads me to the idea that I had. Years ago, which was why not all nonprofits run profitable activities and just use that profit to support themselves, and sometimes that's another company. So they'll say, I'm going to create a second company. This company is going to offer services. There's multiple ways of looking at it.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm curious to know what you think is the most common one. But I've heard of like a nonprofit starting as a for-profit and then using profit to create the nonprofit and fund it, which was something that I was hoping to do with my tech company, where we were for-profit to start with the concept of let's use 10% of our profit to just fund another, nonprofit, or getting, for profitable companies to pledge a yearly amount of their profit in percent.

Sean Weisbrot: So you don't have to beg every year. or having your nonprofit actually do things that generate income so that you can use that money for your own operating expenses. And, the donations and grants and all that can just go directly to what you're, so there's, there's many different ways of thinking about it.

Sean Weisbrot: What percentage of companies, what percentage of nonprofits do you think, think this way? And what percentage of them are actually doing something in this realm?

Jon Kozesky: I think the only answer to that is not enough. and because what exactly you just described there works both ways, and I've seen it wildly successful.

Jon Kozesky: So, some great examples of that are, schools for, for, for students that are looking, non-traditional, course of education. And, and then what I've seen very successful is that once they graduate. They create businesses of their own, where they go out and do service in the community.

Jon Kozesky: And that generates funds back to the nonprofit school so that they can continue that, that, that service. And that's everything from landscaping to restaurants and things of that nature. I pet care. I mean, it's really some incredible, incredible things that we all use every day.

Jon Kozesky: And if you can do some global good with the money you are gonna spend regardless, then, then why not?

Jon Kozesky: And so that message works very well for those nonprofits. On the flip side, you really hit the nail on the head. On the other side of it is for-profit businesses that realize, Hey, you know what? My services that I offer, there's a lot of people out there that can't afford them and I can't afford to give it away for free.

Jon Kozesky: But that's where my services would do the most good. And so a lot of those for-profits then will start nonprofit entities, that go out and pursue funding essentially, that offsets the cost of their services to underserved communities to utilize that. Now, keep in mind, there are laws that regulate how much can be spent directly to the for-profit company.

Jon Kozesky: There still has to be a proper bidding process. They can't just be a pass through, even a certain amount of them. Their income has to go to auxiliary services. so not just to their for-profit company, but to other entities as well. But generally, again, that goes back to that collective impact where their nonprofit.

Jon Kozesky: Can work with other groups that augment their services that they're offering. So at the end of the day, everybody wins.

Sean Weisbrot: So you're saying there's for-profit companies that will go out and, and look for grants?

Jon Kozesky: I mean, there's grants out there that for-profit companies can certainly go for. Most of them are around workforce development or job creation, expansion, buying buildings and properties, things like that.

Jon Kozesky: and those, those have always been available, but 90% of grants that are out there are for. nonprofit entities.

Jon Kozesky: And so that's where a lot of for-profits find that nonprofit parts, either, again, pay for some of their services to groups that otherwise couldn't afford it. And you see that a lot in counseling services and other social services that are for-profit companies that are trying to expand their reach.

Jon Kozesky: but also too, they're just using it as an arm to do good.

Jon Kozesky: And, and sometimes those nonprofit entities are just an affiliate of the for-profit, and, and could do an array of things.

Sean Weisbrot: So. If you're running a for-profit and you don't really have the energy to set up a nonprofit and go hunting for grants and all of that, what's, what are some things that you can do to support nonprofits or. Or your community or anything like that.

Jon Kozesky: There's a lot of different ways to go about that. And what's exciting to me is, having been in this business now for, like I said, 17 years, I've seen more corporate citizenship in the last four years, than at any other point in my career. And the trajectory is very positive.

Jon Kozesky: forever. The local store in the corner would sponsor the kids' baseball team or the Boy Scouts or whatever that is.

Jon Kozesky: And that still continues today. And believe me, that's the lifeblood of a lot of those smaller nonprofits. you see sponsorships and things like that with medium sized companies.

Jon Kozesky: And then even the larger companies, I. Are putting so much more emphasis on what's called corporate social responsibility giving or CSR, and they're hiring full-time staff and in some cases departments that manage that corporate citizenship. What can we be doing in the community? This isn't our foundation giving money.

Jon Kozesky: This is our actual corporation putting money into the community to solve a need. And so, we're seeing a lot more of that. But for those people that have for-profits that say, Hey, you know what? We're heading into a recession and we can barely get by. So the idea of me giving away five and six figure sums of money probably isn't in the cards for 2023.

Jon Kozesky: I say look around at your workforce. I mean, a lot of times we have staff that, we, we all have down days, whether that's, a certain day of the week or a certain day of the month where business is slower. You could be deploying that you're still paying your employees, so you could be deploying them into the community to volunteer at nonprofits that both create goodwill for your company.

Jon Kozesky: Certainly, but also create good in the community of which they serve as well.

Sean Weisbrot: I love that. That's really cool. I dunno why I hadn't thought of that. But it's really, it's, it's a really cool idea to go, yeah, what's something you're passionate about? You got no work today. Go ahead, go do this thing. The only thing is there, there are definitely some people I, I'm already thinking of like people that I used to work with.

Sean Weisbrot: Like I know there's people that'd be like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go do this thing. And then they just don't, they get paid to basically sit around and, and smoke weed and watch Netflix

Jon Kozesky: a hundred percent. But even, even in that case, if you're a CEO and that's what you're worried about. Yeah. It's unfortunate that your employee decided to do that. There's also the goodwill that you created with your employee that, we're, we're in an age where it's, the employees are running the table, not the employers. I mean, they can go from job to job. And so if they see a CEO or a boss that is, you know what, this, this person wants me to go out into the community and do some good, or they're trusting me to not come into work today.

Jon Kozesky: And just that, they have that faith in me. They're gonna, you're gonna create goodwill in your employees too, and that's gonna go a long way to longevity.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, unfortunately there's some people that are very willing to take advantage over the long term and it's one of the struggles has been trying to figure out who that, who that type of person is, and which specific people in any organization are the ones actually taking advantage.

Sean Weisbrot: 'cause some people can be really efficient. So for example. my brother, his stated goal in life is I want a 40 hour per week job that I can automate, so I only need to do 20 hours of work per week. Like some people would go, oh, that's, that's disingenuous. But he would go. Yeah, but I've actually made the company more efficient by not needing to spend 20 extra hours a week on that thing.

Sean Weisbrot: It's just your fault for not realizing that I haven't that, that I have the extra 20 hours a week to do other stuff. Other stuff for you.

Jon Kozesky: That is what has always been my mantra at John Thomas Consulting to all of my team is work smarter, not harder. I don't care if you're working 20 hours a week or 80 hours a week if you're getting the job done.

Jon Kozesky: I have nothing to complain about and the rest of the time is yours.

Sean Weisbrot: So I want to circle back kind of the corporate social responsibility. I have a friend in China who for the last five years or so, has been running a corporate social responsibility firm and basically his pitch was, Hey, you companies are making tremendous amounts of money and if you want people to hate you a little bit less, you should give me some money and I'm gonna make you look good by doing stuff for society with it.

Sean Weisbrot: Saying You're the one that did it. And he would, I think he takes like 10 or 15% of what they give him. So let's say their budget is a million dollars. He's gonna take a hundred, 150 K and go, all right, this is my cut. And he does like millions of dollars a year off of these large companies, just like giving him money, like just throwing money.

Sean Weisbrot: I think one company gave him like $30 million one year to just like to spend, to make them look good.

Jon Kozesky: I am like, I should start a corporate social responsibility firm. it's the business to be in if you can get into it. But I'll say what's equally interesting, the same way those corporations have clearing houses.

Jon Kozesky: These multi multimillionaires and billionaires today have the same clearing houses. They exist. There are entire firms that exist and they have. Two or three clients at most. And their job is just to give away these funds. I mean, it's been a race for all nonprofits to try to identify, who's that clearing house for the Mackenzie Scotts of the world that are just sprinkling $20 million on school districts and food pantries, who's making those decisions because it's not Mackenzie Scott that's doing it.

Sean Weisbrot: Mr. Beast has over a hundred million followers on YouTube. Oh, wow. And he started out about eight or nine years ago, and he's like involved in Minecraft and other things.

Sean Weisbrot: But what he does, the biggest is philanthropy. So basically like in every one of his videos, he's giving away money, right? He started off giving out a hundred dollars. He's now giving away the last video he did, he gave away a $2.5 million private jet. And what, what, so what he, what he is known for doing in some of them is like, alright, I'm gonna put you next to this jet.

Sean Weisbrot: You're gonna put your hand on this jet, and whoever takes their hand off last gets it, but it's not yours. You have to give it to someone else. Oh wow. And like he's given away island private islands that are worth like a million dollars. So like he gets paid by brands to promote them in the process of doing this good for society.

Sean Weisbrot: He's bought houses for homeless people. He's bought people cars where their cars weren't working anywhere. He's done all like, he must have already given away, hun, like a few hundred million dollars probably. He'll go into Walmart and go, Hey. If you quit your job right now, I'll give you $10,000.

Sean Weisbrot: And they're like, okay. Or, here's, here's $10,000. I want you to go give it to someone else that you have to give it to the next person you see, and you've got 30 seconds to do it. Right? So he does all sorts of things, these are really interesting, and the, the, and the bigger they get, the bigger the things are, but the whole thing is.

Sean Weisbrot: He, his model is, give me as much money as you can, and I'm gonna give more of it away than you give me. And I'm gonna do it because I wanna help people. Because life is hard and people are struggling. And like if, if at least one person doesn't cry in one of his videos, like the video is a failure basically.

Jon Kozesky: It's amazing and I love videos like that because they're entertaining and all that. But most importantly, I, I always hope that they're inspiring to people to realize, you know what, you may not be able to give away a private jet or an island, but maybe you can give away 20 bucks, or maybe you can buy the coffee for somebody behind Jet Starbucks, and you know it to that person.

Jon Kozesky: It's just as exciting and it's just as inspiring. And so, those sorts of things can really have a really positive spiral effect.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, there's, there's times when. It's like when I was in Portugal, there were a few people that were clearly homeless, hanging out around supermarkets, and you would see person after person walking by ignoring them.

Sean Weisbrot: And like, fair enough, they're sitting out there, they're trying to, for whatever reason, they're hoping people will give them something without having to really do anything for it. And it's so hard to know if they really need help or if they're just lazy. Right. And so like I've, I've had different kinds of people come up to me.

Sean Weisbrot: Some have like, one guy was like, I need aspirin. Like, he showed me a medication list and he is like, I'm out of aspirin. Like, do you have aspirin? I'm like, no, I don't. I'm not carrying aspirin on me. But like, I think he may have needed meds to take care of himself. It's like in those situations it's like, if I can help, yeah, I'm gonna help, but like.

Sean Weisbrot: If you just ask for money, then no. Like me, I was at Wells Fargo Bank yesterday trying to get some notary work done, and a woman stopped me before I entered and she's like, look, this is my car and I'm out of gas. I have no cash on me. Like, can you give, can you give me, a few dollars for like a gallon?

Sean Weisbrot: I was like. I don't have cash on me. She's like, oh, well, can you go into the bank and get cash? I'm like, I don't have an account with Wells Fargo. I'm just going to get a notary service done. It's like, in that situation, it's like, yeah, I know it's only a few bucks, but like, is she just trying to pawn a few dollars off me?

Sean Weisbrot: Like, like who is this person? Right. So it's, it's so hard to know genuine need from love. Scammers and there's so many scammers.

Jon Kozesky: It's so very true. And, and there are, and there's, I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say there aren't bad people either. 'cause there surely are, and trust me, running as many charitable groups as we do, we unfortunately come across 'em and we can usually recognize it pretty quick when somebody's just trying to take advantage of goodwill.

Jon Kozesky: at the same time though, you, you really highlighted. As a society, we have become very cynical because we have to be, and, and to protect ourselves in certain cases. But, a great example of that is, I run a pediatric cancer foundation and, and we provide emergency financial support to the families while the children are in treatment.

Jon Kozesky: And, we've run into a lot of organizations to say, that's great. Certainly we want to help the kids, but. What's wrong with mom and dad? Why can't they provide for 'em? Why can'tthey work a little harder? And, and we really have to lay out that, no, you don't understand when a child's in treatment five days a week, six hours a day, I mean.

Jon Kozesky: Nine times outta 10 if it, if they're fortunate enough to be a two-parent home, one of them is taking, leaving their job because this becomes a full-time job because then you have to be with the child at home. You have to make sure they're taking their medications.

Jon Kozesky: And then once we start to draw that out, and then, think of, we, we illustrate, you go from a, a two, two income family to a one income family and you have all these medical expenses and you're parking at the hospital and you're eating takeout because you're away from home for hours every day.

Jon Kozesky: it's very, very quick to fall behind on the bills, and so we find, back to your example, you, we really have to illustrate what the need is and why that need is there before people open their wallets.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. I came across this really cool TikTok account like a month or so ago. There's a guy, I don't know where in America runs like a gas station and like a, it's like a seven 11 kind of a store, like where there's like a little store attached to it.

Sean Weisbrot: And he will show people that are clearly homeless or, or really poor, coming into a store and trying to buy things. And like, they're, they're not trying to steal or anything. They're just trying to do things like they need something. And like, he'll tell their stories on TikTok and then his followers will then like, donate money.

Sean Weisbrot: 'cause they feel bad for these people and they want to help. And there was this. And, as part of his videos, he'll show follow ups to their stories where he's like, where they come in the next time and he starts recording, and he'll say, oh, my followers sent $500 and like a pair of shoes.

Sean Weisbrot: Because they know, they, they, they saw your shoes were falling apart. It's like, I love to see that he's got like 400,000 followers on TikTok. And he had this, this one woman and her son and the son needed some, some kind of surgery and the woman would make street food. She had a food stall. So he actually had someone make her a new food cart because hers was falling apart.

Sean Weisbrot: And he likes pre-filled it with all of the ingredients she needed for like, I guess a few days and. The subscribers to his channel ended up donating like $10, like $10,000 towards his surgery so that she didn't have to work so hard, during the next month or two so she could be with him and spend time with him and pay for part of the surgery.

Sean Weisbrot: It's like, it's so cool to see stuff like that in particular because those people are a part of his community and. Even though he's not putting his own money into it, or if he is, he is not putting too much. But sometimes he'll give them something for free when they come to the store. Oh yeah, here's another, here's a coffee or here's, whatever, something.

Sean Weisbrot: But it's just cool. I know this is completely not entrepreneurship, but I just love seeing people like that. I love seeing these stories and you're documenting the need and people are responding. 'cause he's not even asking people for money. He's just saying, this is this person's story. I thought you'd wanna know about it.

Jon Kozesky: I would make the case the other way, that is entrepreneurship. So, we all have our social media. Channels and things of that nature. And some people do it to show, Hey, look at me, look how cool I am, or look how good my life is, or blah, blah, blah. And then you got cases like that and, and really what?

Jon Kozesky: I, I'd like to think we all hope to be where people are using their social media to build a following. So they have customers that are coming in and they're looking for inspiration. They're looking for a way to give back. They're looking for a way to be involved, and that's somebody who's wildly successful at doing it.

Jon Kozesky: And. Again, that's inspiring to me and others that they're using their tools to do good and clearly by their follower account. They're doing very well at it. So, in, in its own way. It's almost like a nonprofit social media account, which is very cool.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. Many years ago, my dad was on one of those talk shows. I can't remember. Monte Williams, he was on Monte Williams and Monte Williams like. Wanted my dad to do a makeover for someone who was homeless or very, or poor. And so my dad did it. It was like probably $15,000 worth of words, and it was like a complete makeover. The guy's mouth was just destroyed, right?

Sean Weisbrot: My dad's a dentist and it was great publicity, but I felt like it didn't really help his business. Like he was doing something good. He, my, my dad knew that there was gonna be publicity. He knew that it was gonna look good, but I don't think it turned into something that would've enabled him to help more people, which I think he was bummed about and I was bummed about because I loved it.

Sean Weisbrot: I met the guy multiple times. I was there the whole time as my dad was planning out what we were going to wait. So I've worked with him multiple times in the past, so I still. Bundle us together. I spent years of my life working in his business and so I, it was cool to see it happen, but it didn't scale in a way that he could make more money.

Sean Weisbrot: So he could also then offer to help other people because like, he's not a great businessman, but he's an amazing dentist and he is super caring like everybody. And, I wish more businesses had the ability. To make so much money that they could just go, yeah, I'm gonna give back. Right? So for example, there's a guy, Alex Hormo, I dunno if you've heard of him.

Sean Weisbrot: So his business model is if you're making less than $3 million a year, I'm gonna teach you how to make $3 million per year. And I'm never gonna charge you a single cent because I want you to get to that point so then I can invest in you and turn your company into a hundred million dollar company. Me.

Sean Weisbrot: So there's stuff like that that's really cool. So what I'd like to be able to do is, with my consulting firm, I'd like to be able to make so much that I can afford to have the time to mentor people who are just starting out in their entrepreneurship journey. I did it before when I was doing my consulting years ago, and I loved it.

Sean Weisbrot: It was really, really cool.

Jon Kozesky: No, those are, those are the cool stories that I like to hear. And, and you know what's interesting is, speaking of your dad, it reminds me of another group that I work with that their model we're seeing a lot more of, and I think it's probably because of experiences like your dad.

Jon Kozesky: So in particular, this is a free dental clinic. It's in the Maasai region of Kenya. So for those not familiar, that's about. Seven hours outside the Capitol. It's as rural as rural can get and there is absolutely no oral healthcare. And so in recognizing that they built this free clinic because they also recognize that there's dentists like your dad from all around the world that wanna volunteer their time.

Jon Kozesky: They don't have millions and millions to give away, but they have two weeks perhaps that they can take off of work. They can afford to do that. They're gonna take a vacation anyway. So they take the time to fly into this area. They provide the patience 'cause there's. Always a line out the door every day.

Jon Kozesky: And give them the opportunity to, to, to perform those, those free operations like your dad, was really, really looking to dig into. and we find that dentists come for two weeks and then they stay for six weeks and then they come back year after year because they had that same experience that your dad had on Montel and that's really cool to see.

Sean Weisbrot: There is something very different about doing something for money and doing something because it feels good and even better when. You're doing something for free because you can afford to, even though you would normally make money doing it.

Jon Kozesky: And that's the entrepreneurial cycle right there.

Jon Kozesky: I mean, that is it in a nutshell, there is nothing that feels better in the world than when that first person pays you for whatever your skills are. When you hang out your shingle and you say, this is what I'm gonna do, and somebody walks in and says, I'm gonna give you money to do it, you're on top of the world and the only thing that beats it is when you get through that cycle and you get to the point.

Jon Kozesky: Where you're able to give it away for free and people want it, and they stand in line for that service even though they can't afford it. But they know you're the best at what you do and they can utilize it and you can afford to do it for them. Those two feelings together really are that entrepreneurial cycle that we all experience.

Jon Kozesky: Or we hope to experience it. So when do you anticipate you'll be there? I'm always cautious to say this, especially on a podcast, but, I'm really excited to say that we've been there now for a few years. We have a number of clients that we take on pro bono every year. It's really important to me amongst the John Thomas consulting team, that every member of the team every year can bring in at least one client that can't afford our services, that they genuinely wanna work with.

Jon Kozesky: And so we give them the time and their calendar to work directly. With those organizations as they would any paying employee. And then I think on the flip side of that. The other thing we're able to do is, a lot of times with our paying employee or paying clients, excuse me, if, if for some reason they're at a point where, they can't afford our services, whether that be at the beginning of a contract and we just want to get them to the point where they can, or if they have some kind of capital expenditure that, we recognize that we wanna be a part of.

Jon Kozesky: So we can say, what, forgo our pay for a month, two months, three months, so that you can do that. we're really fortunate as a company. That's one way that we can give back.

Sean Weisbrot: I am part of multiple entrepreneur communities and a lot of them are starting out, so they're at the point where I was mentoring people before for free, where I would love to work with them, but they can't afford to pay me and I can't afford to work with them for free right now.

Sean Weisbrot: And so like I know that it would take months of my effort to get them to a point where they might be able to afford me. Which is a shame because I think they're all doing really interesting businesses, and I would love to work with them. They're, they're interesting, they're hardworking. They're like in their early twenties, a lot of them.

Sean Weisbrot: And, so yeah, I'm, I'm trying to like. Juggle that. I would just spend an hour yesterday giving this one guy free advice on a really cool business. And, so I'm like, look, I would normally never tell anyone to raise funds, but like, I think you need to raise funds. And if you decide to raise funds, then we can work together in a more professional capacity long term.

Sean Weisbrot: But, but if you can't, if you don't wanna raise the funds and, and you can't afford to work with me, then maybe we can talk about something equity based.

Jon Kozesky: Back in 2012, when I started my company, that's exactly what I was doing, I was hanging out at, we had some local business incubators, so these were really, really startups, very similar probably to the ones that you're talking about.

Jon Kozesky: And they, they couldn't, they were barely getting by. I mean, they could barely afford the desks that they were sitting on, the same way I could barely afford the desk that I was renting. but where we, we really started to get interested was, what I was saying to them was. Hey, does your spouse do your parents?

Jon Kozesky: Do you have family that work at companies that maybe could use my services? Because if you can introduce me to them, if you can get my foot in the door and that results in a contract, then hey, I'm happy to put in some volunteer hours to help you. 'cause in, roundabout way you just paid me.

Jon Kozesky: and so, this can be a quid pro quo situation, and there were a number of groups that I was fortunate enough to work with. Based on those kinds of arrangements.

Sean Weisbrot: That's really cool. I, I mean, I do that now, with guests and other people that I know. I ask them about their networks, but usually I don't offer to work with them.

Sean Weisbrot: I usually just offer something like a commission. Some of them say they will, they're cool. Others say, yeah, I don't need a commission. But, but yeah, the smaller sized ones would probably go, oh yeah, we could use that to like, buy a year's worth of server credits or something. Exactly. Yeah. So is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to add to this?

Jon Kozesky: I always sound a little bit like a skeptic or maybe that it's, it, it's, make it sound too hard, but, I, I don't wanna project that it's easy. At the same time though, I would say anybody listening that feels. That they want to get into the nonprofit space. I'd say, as I would to any entrepreneur, go for it.

Jon Kozesky: figure out what your niche is, figure out what you are good at, and figure out where there's a need, and figure out what you're passionate about and just go for it. I mean, to file online is relatively cheap, just the same way as starting a business. but what I would always, always caution is.

Jon Kozesky: Take a strong look around and see if anybody else is doing what it is that you want to do. Because unlike entrepreneurship where you can elbow somebody out, if somebody's already doing good in that space. See if you can join forces with them and, and be a part of their nonprofit. The one thing about this space is you really need to leave your pride at the door if you're getting into this.

Jon Kozesky: 'cause you wanna be able to say, I started a nonprofit and I'm a philanthropist. This, you're not in it for the right reasons. So really see where that impact is and then take yourself from there.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I agree. I think there's a lot of good that's done where you normally never hear about it. And I think that's it. That's the good that we need. Because I feel like Elon Musk could be the kind of person that likes to do something good and then tells everyone about it just because he wants people to know, like, I'm not so bad of a person.

Jon Kozesky: There's memes and stuff you see online where somebody's, giving food to the homeless and then they're taking a selfie as they do it.

Jon Kozesky: And I think there's an extremely fine line between, what we coin as poverty porn, where it's, Hey, just look and look. Look at what we're doing. I'm doing all this good and look at these poor people and we're better than them. Let's help. And using your platforms to raise awareness and to get others to join forces and to get others to donate, to expand your mission.

Jon Kozesky: So that's the other part I always caution nonprofits to know where that line is, be mindful of it, and make sure you're on the right side of it.

Sean Weisbrot: I've been planning my trip to Guatemala that should be going in January, and I originally planned on going to Guatemala like 12 years ago and it didn't work out.

Sean Weisbrot: It's fine. I'm going now. When I first went, when I first was planning all those years ago, I saw this place where you could go and teach English, like in this rural, rural area. And I was like, that sounds like a really cool way to spend a week of my trip. get, get a chance to meet a bunch of indigenous kids and help them out.

Sean Weisbrot: Even though I used to make money from teaching English, I don't teach English anymore. I thought it could be interesting. So like, I'm, I'm, I try to find these things because I, I don't think of it as I am like trying to do something good. I look at it as this is an opportunity for me to have a unique experience while traveling that I would not get if I didn't do it.

Sean Weisbrot: And if it helps people, great. I'm not gonna go and promote it because. It doesn't do anything, but, maybe I'll, I'll look for something again, I have, I haven't really gotten deep into the planning now yet. I'm gonna do more after we get off this interview, but like maybe I'll look for something like that or maybe I'll look for that place and see if they still exist and then maybe talk about that experience in one of the episodes and promote people to, 'cause like a lot of the people that are listening are entrepreneurs and a lot of them are digital nomads as well, nomad entrepreneurs.

Sean Weisbrot: So like. We're all stressed as hell. We're all dealing with a lot of trauma from being entrepreneurs. Like I have PTSD almost from my tech company. Like I get panic, exact panic attacks and anxiety. Like it's nasty and it's like, I feel like this, this would be a really great way to like spend some of that time as we, as we travel around. I'm doing cool stuff. So maybe that's an episode.

Jon Kozesky: First and foremost, I think you and I could set up a support group because, as an entrepreneur, I can't remember the last time I didn't wake up sweating, first thing in the morning, panicked about what I need to do. that comes with the entrepreneurial space, certainly.

Jon Kozesky: And, and we all, I. have to survive through that. But no, I, I love your idea and it, it's so in line with my philosophy. So, you mentioned at the top of the show, my recent trip to Africa and, and what we did on that trip is, what I always try to do when we travel abroad is, get out of the city center, get out of the hotel, and. The best way to do it is, find a place that you can volunteer no matter what it is. 'cause it's gonna take you to a part of town that as a tourist, no one's ever going to see. 'cause nobody's ever gonna go there.

Jon Kozesky: You're gonna do some good and you're gonna meet some real people from that country and you're gonna understand it, you know?

Jon Kozesky: Yeah. You can go to the restaurant and go to the mall and maybe you'll speak the local language a little bit and have fun while ordering your dish. Get into the community and see what they're doing because it's not only gonna. Make your vacation incredibly memorable, but you're gonna be more fulfilled on that trip than you ever could be.

Jon Kozesky: And that was something that, like I said, in Africa, we were able to do in South America. And, it's just, it's a real traveler's philosophy we try to stick to.