Nonprofits pay attention! Travis Johnson, the Nonprofit Architect, lays out the blueprint for elevating your cause. From relationships with volunteers, fundraising, and today's biggest challenges you can't miss this interview. Travis not only has the blueprint for taking your non-profit to the next level, he also has an amazing guide for podcasters that serves as an almost literal blueprint for podcast growth and success.

Guest Links: https://nonprofitarchitect.org/

Transcript from Episode 10 with Travis Johnson:

Keith McKeever 0:50

All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of battle buddy podcast. Got a great lineup for you tonight we got Travis Johnson. He is the nonprofit architect and he has got a heck of a story. Can't wait to hear some of the sound bites from for what is his past is because this guy has moved 50 times in his life. He's been five foster homes. He's been to 12 different schools. He's a post author. And this guy is pretty much the guru when it comes to nonprofits. So we're going to talk about nonprofits today. The challenges, the things that you should look for if you're looking to start a nonprofit or get involved in a nonprofit. And we'll see where it goes from there. So without further ado, let's play the intro and talk to Travis. Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Hey, Travis, welcome to the show. I'm really glad to finally have you on here and talk about some nonprofit stuff.

Travis Johnson 1:41

Hey, Keith, thanks for having me on.

Keith McKeever 1:43

We talk pretty frequently just about just about every week through the warrior Council through the intrapreneur tribe. And it's usually about podcasting. So to flip the script to talk about the other thing you really good at talking about. And that's right, which which you are the nonprofit architect. And you've got a lot of a lot of conversations you've had through your podcast and with people over the years and some of the nonprofit's you've been on. So be really interesting for anybody who's in the nonprofit world are interested about it, to tune in and see what you got to say with some of the questions I was telling earlier. I think I got a couple of them here. My three for a little bit of a loop. Try try stuff a little bit.

Travis Johnson 2:22

Maybe just bring it on, please. Bring it on, Keith to see what you got.

Keith McKeever 2:26

We'll do it. I'll try my best. And now you're just putting the pressure on the shoulders. Oh, yeah.

Travis Johnson 2:31

So I'll presses on you. Yeah. So

Keith McKeever 2:33

so like I said in the intro, you've moved 50 times you're on your 50th move. You're living in foster homes. You had one crazy ly childhood, you survived a murder tat. And so go ahead and tell us a little bit about your life growing up and to to Sri soo murders attempt.

Travis Johnson 2:49

Yeah. Tell us

Keith McKeever 2:51

about your life growing up and how you got to where you're at today, as a nonprofit architect?

Travis Johnson 2:56

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you covered the intro, you know, 36, move 12. School, six days, five foster home to murder attempts, all before graduating high school at 17. And that's just part of living a life when your mother has bipolar type one with psychotic features to include hallucinations, delusions, delusions of grandeur, it makes it really interesting. Growing up. So every time she needed a treatment, my sister and I would go live with a family member or into a foster home. And every time she got to treatment, we go move somewhere else. So depending on how frequently that was, it's depending on how many times we moved. And people were like, oh, man, that's a that's a terrible story. I'm like, what it is, is it isn't right, because there's so many more people out there that have terrible stories. And it's just it's that they were competing, right? It's that everyone has, everyone has their story of whatever it is, you can never discount a bad day. And I'm not here to say like, Oh, my life was so terrible. And now it's great. And you should do this. Because of this reason. Everyone's got their own struggle. There's no timeline, right? We're not the same age, we haven't had the same experience. There's just no magical way to do this thing. But if you make some good choices, and you do some good things, you can make your life whatever you want it to be. And I think I'm living proof of that.

Keith McKeever 4:16

Oh, absolutely. And knowing your story. It's no wonder you always have a smile on your face. A smile on your face. You're just such a just happy, chill, fun loving guy and it's always a pleasure to talk to you in the water council. So

Travis Johnson 4:32

appreciate that. Thanks a lot. Yeah, well, I

Keith McKeever 4:35

mean, I owe a lot to you. Honestly. I know I've mentioned it before in the water Council in videos, Zoom chats that we do, but I will you will offer the show. I mean, just we have talked so much about podcasts and your advice for doing research on people a pre show interviews and how to set things up. It's it's been so valuable. I can't begin to put it in words. And so I really

Travis Johnson 4:57

yeah, we'll just start right with the commercial go the link below nonprofit Get your copy of The Ultimate podcast guide. So you can feel like he feels right now

Keith McKeever 5:06

that guy is gold. If you are a podcaster, you literally need to go to that website, scroll to the bottom nonprofit, and get a copy seriously. I mean, I feel like I was firing off a little bit farther in the journey for some things. But there was other things that it's just like the light bulb went off. And I'm like, Why didn't I think of doing that. And it's just all right here in the guide. Like, I click the link and go to the website and do the do the thing and set this up, set that up, whatever. It's, it's easy. It's way too easy,

Travis Johnson 5:40

is funny to bring it up. I know, this wasn't the plan to talk about this right away. But like, you got it a bunch of my friends, I've got two people that were counseling is people that have had show is longer than I've had my show, like 100 episodes, 200, I haven't even hit 80 episodes published yet. Like I've had, and two of the guys that we know, I've got way more downloads than they do. And it's it's weird, because like, I didn't expect to have more downloads than them. Like I was a guest on one of their shows before, I really thought about starting a podcast. And I had no idea that things that I was doing and the things I had learned the things I was implementing, were like, doing so well. And they were so well received. And once I put this thing together, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was like, like, hey, check out this guy. Like, tell me what you think. And just, I mean, just we use it, you know, thank you so much for the kind words is that it just, you know, knock your socks off. And that's, it was really cool to think that something I put together? Is is doing that well for you. So appreciate the kind words?

Keith McKeever 6:40

Well, I mean, you don't know what you don't know. And literally as I'm reading through it, and I'm like, Hey, are thinking about doing that? Or some things like okay, maybe that doesn't really apply to me or what I want to do. But it's good to have that information still case I in case the podcast evolves into that point or whatever. Yeah, so it's seriously, anybody who's got a podcast or even a blog, I mean, it would be useful for that, too. If you're trying to put out content on a regular basis on any audio or video format, you need to go check it out. So beyond that, let's let's get back to the office stuff. So what prompted you to get into the whole nonprofit space?

Travis Johnson 7:18

Well, I'll tell you keys, I appreciate the question, you know, where to cover my background I cover to cover my history. And there was always someone, some persons and groups of nonprofits in church willing to help keep us shelter clothes in bed. And when I finally get to that place where it wasn't in scarcity mode, where it was in survival mode, accounts, like well, like I'm in a place now I kind of feel like this is home in Oklahoma City. I'm like, what do people do? Like what else people in the community do? I didn't know? Because I had never been there. Right? Everything I had been doing, dude, you're worried about where your meals are coming from and you're worried about the basics. You're not caring about anyone else? Like, you know, like you don't you don't care what's going on in the political world. You don't care what the politics? Because you could care less because you're hungry? You literally. Yes, you're literally in survival mode, and just Just what can I take care of right now randomly in front of me. And it's weird, because there's almost like, there's no future. You're not worried about next week, you're not worried about next month, you're not planning for college, you're not working on your career, or building relationships. When you move that much. You're like, what do I need to do to get through my morning routine? How can I get to lunch? How can I make it to the end of the school day? How can I make it to bed time? And so you don't pick up on those things? Like, what do people in the community do? Like I know you talked about with your Realtors Association and the fact that you guys put together Kroger gift cards and you help feed the community, which is fantastic. Like that never occurred to me, you know, all my time growing up, I was the recipient, my me and my family were the recipient of all these services. Like it didn't occur to me that there's really like these great people out there, like strategizing and working together and, and raising money and they're dedicated, they really care. They're really passionate about, you know, helping someone like me. And it wasn't until I started be like, hey, like, I guess I was just like, hey, you know, what do people like in the community like really do. And you find out things like they serve on boards, and they go to town hall meetings, and they're in city council, and they serve on nonprofits and they volunteer or their board members. And they help to build buildings or rehabilitate a park and clean up things or take care of the homeless or all of these cool things. And I went to like a networking event, downtown Oklahoma City. It wasn't like some big formal organization was like a fun Lunch Bunch. And I went down there. And I didn't know what to do, right. I just showed up. I wanted to help. What do you do, right? If you don't have any skills, talent ability, you're not prepared. You don't have certifications or degrees. Just show up on time with a great attitude. And that'll take you through most everything. So I showed up down there and met a lady called Miss Patty. She's a Miss Patty. Everyone calls me Miss Patty, like, Okay, Miss panic. And, you know, she was talking about all the great things her daughter had done. She was in something like 40 boards in the community doing all these different crazy things. And I was like, wow, this is so cool. You know, I love to meet her. And it turns out she was raising money for her daughter's Memorial. So we decided right then and there that we were in change our giving structure and the things that we were doing to help her build her memorial. And we get to build a couple years ago, which was really cool to see, like my family's name on a plaque, and a thing that was built and dedicated. Like, I didn't know, that could be me, like I didn't, you know, and if you're listening to this, and you don't know who I am, like, oh, man, this guy's kind of pompous. Like, no, like, I really, I really didn't understand, I really didn't know, you know, that's something that could be done. In my world coming from trailer parks and foster homes. That's not something you envision for your life. And the guy actually went there to meet was sitting across the table the whole time, you know, he knew everyone in the whole place. And he knew who I was because he was expecting to meet me. I didn't know where anybody was. And he introduced himself and we, you know, had a couple coffee meetings, it's a different things. And before I knew it, I was a published author. I went to another meeting that I didn't have any business being at, and someone's like, Oh, hey, Travis, like you're the you're the military, right? You're in the Air Force or something. It was like, Well, I'm in the Navy. And they're like, yeah, what same thing I'm like, Okay. Same thing here. Whatever other

Keith McKeever 11:26

the other branches, it's pretty much you know, like, you get all the toys, you know?

Travis Johnson 11:32

Oh, that's true. That's true. Well, I guess the Space Force get some cool stuff now. Okay. Well, yeah, whatever

Keith McKeever 11:39

they haven't bought yet. They're not basic training it.

Travis Johnson 11:45

We know that's not true. What is still kind of fun to chuckle about. And, like, Oh, my friend Shane is putting it together. This book, this anthologies authored every off every chapter is by a different veteran talking about their experience. And you know, tell whatever story you want to tell. Like, yeah, grab it, grab this email sent, shoot over message, see what you think. And you know, before I walked out of it, bowling alleys was a bowling event with the Chamber of Commerce. I sent this gal an email. And when I got home, she reply, like, yeah, we need 3000 words and actually close to the deadline we needed by the end of the week. And I was like, oh, man, the end of the week? How am I gonna do that? Like, I had no idea how to do that. But what I didn't know is I already knew my story. I had already been doing some things like this. Podcasts weren't really my thing. Back then, you know, a couple of years ago, even though they existed, they just weren't in my sphere. But then that I got up the next morning to two and a half hours, I jammed out my chapter, send it to her exactly 3000 words, because I know how to read directions. And she said, it looks great. And I got published my first book, and I was like, this is really cool. Like, what is this using? Oh, this is our nonprofits code books by bets will help was a first responders heal through sharing their story like this is really cool. Like, what do you need help with? Can I do via volunteer? Do you need donors? Do you need both board members? And she's like, yes, yes. And yes, we need all of those things. So she brought me on as a board member, we helped get this thing going. And we helped 50 veterans and first responders to get published, which was really cool. This is no longer a thing like if you Google Books by bet you maybe find something but the organization's they fund now, but clean creative literary consultants, which is Shanaze business that she has for for writing, coaching and things like that, like they still offer like a veteran's discount. So you can still get those services at something you're interested in. But you it was so cool to, to show up and just be you know, having a good time. And then all of a sudden, I'm a published author, and on the board of a nonprofit just kind of out of nowhere. And that led to being an another nonprofit. We raised half a million bucks. We put on great concerts and had a lot of fun to it. And I got stationed in Bahrain. And I was like, how am I supposed to do all this cool nonprofit stuff, got ya know this and fired up a podcast. And it's just been nothing. But you know, have a great time ever since having great conversations meeting great people like you, Keith and having fun with it. So

Keith McKeever 14:16

yeah, there's always something extra, you can do something different you can do. Life throws, you lemons, you make lemonade. If you can't do the nonprofit stuff, shift, focus and do something else. Yeah, he said something a little bit ago, that just blew my mind, because I never really thought about it like that growing up that you never could envision. At times, you couldn't envision any kind of future you couldn't see anything beyond the meal in front of you, or the next hurdle to get past. Yeah, I've got to admit, I never felt that way. And it's kind of hard to imagine life like that. I've always kind of had these goals and these expectations and I want to do this and I want to do that and I can I can go do that. It's within reach. You just got to Have the right network and right, right this that the other two to make it happen. And that's got to be incredibly scary thing to just your sole focus your sole mission in front of you is fill in your belly. Where are you? Where are you gonna put your head down from sleep tonight? Things like that, like a lot of people that that have got to be in that boat right now.

Travis Johnson 15:21

Well, I mean, think about why you're doing the show, right? You didn't do a real estate show. You're doing the the battle buddy podcast, you're talking about things that really matter, right? There's a lot of people out there. Look at look at what happened during COVID. We had suicide rates, domestic violence rates, all of these things, with huge spikes across the US that no one's really talking about is the it's the big secret behind the behind the curtain, right? No one talks to the man behind the curtain. It's not a hard place to get to a little bit of despair a little bit shake up and routine, a lot of people lose their jobs or their primary source of income. And all of a sudden, the future can look really, really bleak. It can happen in a blink of an eye. And we have, like, the doctor that we go see, we talk about things like Lexapro and ways to, you know, maybe just balanced that out a little bit for yourself. He's like I say I prescribe Lexapro like 1012 times a day, every day, because of just the amount the sheer amount of people that come in there that just aren't feeling the best. And there's nothing wrong with that. But to know that it's so widespread, and it's so prevalent. It's it's a little scary. A and B, it's a little crazy. Because when you when you talk to someone that's in that predicament, this situation, and you talk to them about the future, right, the things that we talk about, you know, in the warrior Council, if you're listening to this, and you're a veteran entrepreneur that you're not worried counsel is 50 bucks a month, and you're just you're just wasting away not getting involved in this thing. I know Stephen Lang would be ecstatic talking about this.

Keith McKeever 16:55

I literally got value. Five minutes I was in there. No, no, yeah, like first five minutes. It was it I

Travis Johnson 17:01

didn't, I didn't get value right away because of what I'm trying to do. And in the niche that I'm in, and I had never really been in business before. So I wasn't sure what to ask or what to pick up on. And it wasn't until this past January, where I wasn't anok. You know what I'm considering hanging this thing up. And this is why. And as soon as I was real with the group, I got all the answers and all the encouragement, I needed to move forward and start making some real cash with this thing. And I had been waiting or hiding or I don't know, whatever it was for a few months in there, because I was looking at canceling that too. But if you're willing to go in and be a little bit open and be a little raw and actually share what's going on and talking about your struggles or what you're trying to do next or what you need to get over that next hurdle. If you can do that. This 50 bucks a month, that's a no brainer, you write it off in your taxes anyway. So who cares? Like is it just too easy, it is too too easy to get in there and get what you need to get the value moving forward. I mean, we met in there. And you already mentioned that I helped you with the podcast and helped you cover things you'd never even thought to consider was setting this thing up. So

Keith McKeever 18:08

maybe business coaching counseling friend network that you could ever possibly have for 50 bucks a month. Yes, amazing. Now for the people that don't know We meet every Thursday morning, huge zoom chat. Everybody in that group is able to

Travis Johnson 18:23

morrow morning Morrow morning. And let's see you at 10 Absolutely. 10. Central. And Central. Yes, good

Keith McKeever 18:32

point. For all those people all over the United States, yeah. Or International. Who knows? Who knows who listens, though? There's just a ton of value. We just go just person by person. And we just talk about what our goals are. What have we achieved in the last week? What are we doing in the next week? What do we need? Because there's so many people in there so many industries, insurance, real estate, nonprofits, real estate, mergers and

Travis Johnson 18:55

acquisitions, you're merging tons and tons of people people with products people with processes people with you know stickers and hats like he had this sign back here this is one of the guys in the tribe do millworks I mean just tons and tons and tons of stuff here

Keith McKeever 19:14

I've got four things on my office right now that were made by somebody at five

Travis Johnson 19:20

five yeah most of my dishes I think they're all in the in the kitchen right now.

Keith McKeever 19:29

They're good. Yeah, I got a hat for mountain up cap company up there that I got in the combat box. So I guess you could use five things there. Yes,

Travis Johnson 19:39

I got I got these from the Cancel for maintenance podcast. So that was on this was great. Hey, oh you saw a little bonuses do I get like a little gift bag for being on your show key.

Keith McKeever 19:51

You know what? will tip the hat but there there could there could be something in the works for my guests. Some special and unique and No little soft, a little something something a little. So there is a little bit early there is something in the works. So perfect. Your this this train back on course here.

Travis Johnson 20:10

So well this is this is great. The rail train. So it's

Keith McKeever 20:17

kind of like,

Travis Johnson 20:18

what are your counsel? Sometimes I think that I own the rights to

Keith McKeever 20:20

this son. Sorry. Yes, No, neither do I. Let's make that legal statement right now. Um, so anybody who's looking to start a nonprofit what's, what's your advice for them to consider before going down that path? Because it may not be for everybody?

Travis Johnson 20:35

Yeah, it's not for everybody, just like, you know, the things I've done in my life are not for everyone that was gonna be like, You know what I could, I could use a few more murder attempts on my life. Right? Not everything is for everybody. And that's okay. You know, I talked to a lot of people, especially in the veteran community, have a big heart and want to help, they want to do good things. And so I like to get people on the right track. And the last piece, I really want to do this cool, who in your area is doing the thing that you want to do? And they're like, Well, what do you mean? I was like, so you have something that you want to do? Like, is someone already doing this something already covering this base? And if they are, great, can you go help them do it, because really, what, what I hear when someone tells me they want to start nonprofit is that they want to make an impact. And then may be starting your own organization, and then might not be because it's a lot easier and a lot quicker. And I'm not trying to deter anyone from starting our own their own show. But if someone's already doing it, and you can show up and help with the fundraising, and do the grunt work, and this and that, like, well, you know, I don't want to help the fundraising, do the grunt work then. But you want to start your whole own organization that does just that you want to do all of it yourself? Well, I just really want to deliver the program. Cool. Can you go someplace like United Way or Another organization and build a program off of what they're doing, and just deliver services and that you mess around with that admin work and that fundraising stuff and all that other stuff that you're not interested in, find the thing that you really want to do. Some people are super organized, and they love weird things like governance and compliance. And that's what they like to do. So they go around and do those things that a lot of people would like to be in the limelight. They want to be the guy on stage, doing whatever, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But we need people to do admin work and cool stuff like that too. Many people just want to be around people doing good things. They might be a good volunteer coordinator or be a volunteer, you know, just in general. So I gotta warn you, I gotta warn your guests right now. My wife just pull into the driveway. So my puppy alarms might start going off. Yeah, okay. Oh, yeah. super serious. Yeah, vicious, right until that door opens. And then, mom, yay. Let's see how that goes. People just scurried out of here without barking. So they're being trained? I don't know.

But my Euclidean Yeah, you want to see what that looks like? And they also want to see, you know, who's going to be on your board and how you're going to raise funds? Right? So you have to build your team? Who do I want it? Who do I know? In the way I evaluate someone that I attend my network? Or maybe someone just kind of fringe of my network? Three things time, talent, and treasure? Do you have the time, talent and treasure to help us with what we're doing? And some people will have two of the three, two of the three Perfect, great. Moreover, great board members, they've got time and talent, talent, treasure, treasure and time. Fantastic. But if you talk to someone, they're like, oh, and ask them something like, do you have 10 hours a week to donate to this, to get into this? And if they cringe and move? That's fine. Maybe they make a great volunteer. Maybe they can make some connections for you open doors, but they might not make a good board member just yet. And there's nothing wrong with it. Are you gonna use them? 10 hours a week? Probably not. But if 10 hours, which isn't a lot of time, they kind of cringe yet. Maybe there's another place for them, right? You want to build your team. Let's strategize. You want to see what is needed in your community. Maybe you have a heart for veterans, maybe you have a heart for kids aging out of the foster care system, stuff like that. I got a great interview with Candace liangzhu out of foster 360. This is a program built under the United Way, Mesa Arizona, right. So she didn't build her own thing. Thing, her own program. She built the program underneath her way. And she went and surveyed the area. She said, I have a huge heart for his aging of the foster care system. Let me see what's out here in the mesa, Phoenix, Tempe area and see what we've got. So she went out, she did a survey, he figured out what was gonna what you found was, there was tons of organizations dedicated to helping children aging out of the foster care system. And she's like, wow, this is really cool. I'd love to still help you. What are the gaps, what's be missed, even though we have all of these organizations, what's being missed? So she found that a lot of these kids were getting treated like they were still in foster care, meaning they were just getting bounced around instead of from home to home. They're getting bounced around from organization to organization. So what foster three six they did is they created a mentorship navigator program that's going to pair up like it was me and you, Keith, like, hey, Keith, it's me and you and I'm going to take you around to the all these organizations. And I'll be with you the whole way to get the help that you need, specifically, and I'll be your your point, man and your Obi Wan and lead you through the swamp here, what do you think? You know, so she found us she found a way to make it work, she created an organization underneath the United Way. So she didn't have to start her own organization from scratch, she found out what the community really needed in the area that she cared about. And now he's able to deliver services rather quickly, rather, directly and make a huge impact. What I see a lot of times in the veteran world is we have kind of, it seems like, and this isn't right for everyone. I'm not describing everyone in the veteran space here. But we've got 53,000 veteran nonprofits out there 50,000. So someone, somewhere is doing something that you care about. So you don't necessarily have to start your own organization, I understand. If there is still a need that you might need to start one. But it seems like they've got this super Superman complex where they have to be the one to save everybody. And every dollar they raise, they sneak has to go to programs, they can't put anything in there to sustain themselves, their family, that organization. And they give themselves no breaks and no pay. And then also forget everything they learned in the military. Everything you learn the military's 85 to 95% training, you have to learn how to do the thing you're wanting to do. They have no time dedicated to learning, no budget for training, they don't even listen to something like a free podcast, like I don't know, the nonprofit architect podcast, oh,

yeah, where they can go and we give them the actionable steps how to do whatever the thing is, how to put an event together, how to find a board, how to do governance, how to do all these great stuff. And they're not even listening to something like a free podcast that can teach them how to do the things that they don't get know how to do. And so if that is who you are, it might not be the best idea to start a nonprofit, because you're going to get in there. And you're going to dedicate your time energy effort to it and all your money. And you'll find that because there was no structure behind it, you don't have a lot of support, then you're not getting a lot of funds coming in. And you just are there wanting to help people and no one's supporting you. Because there's nothing backing you up. And you're wondering, and you get so frustrated. You know, I just helped a friend of mine close up shop here in the last couple of weeks, the and he went on to still do an advocacy work, still doing good things, right and helping people that he wanted to help. But he had to close the doors of his nonprofit because it just wasn't structured. And they didn't have the support. They needed to continue operation, which hurts, but he's still getting to help people. So understanding what it is that you want to do, figuring out what the needs are of the community that you're trying to serve. getting a team together, figure out how you're going to do the fundraising, and then what programs are really going to make an impact is where you need to start. And the actual steps of starting are easy. You incorporate. You file for a tax EIN, you form a board and send in bylaws. And then they approve it or they don't approve it through the IRS and you get your 503 c status. Like it's not hard. It's a little complicated, right? It's not really that hard to do.

Keith McKeever 28:24

We some legwork into it though. There's

Travis Johnson 28:25

a there's a little legwork and some boring paperwork. And you get your paperwork back. You're like I'm a 501 C three, you're like now why, like grant money just just fall from the ceiling for you. You then have to go convince everyone around you that you're worthy of them giving their dollar to, right. It's like business where you're like, hey, I gave you 10 bucks. You give me this t shirt. Cool, cool. It's like, hey, I really like to give that guy over there a t shirt. But I need your money to do it. What do you say? Like Well, I guess maybe. Which which thanks. And it's a lot of reason that a lot of nonprofits are struggling. They're going with the 4050 year old mentality of how they're going to raise money and deliver services and programs. And they haven't had in a long time. And if you want it differently, if you find you're running a nonprofit and you're struggling with your fundraising, that's not my thing. Right? The people in my world, they get monthly support. They build a monthly donor base. They create partnerships that put pocket money in their pockets each and every month. So you can stop spending so much time asking for money and more time delivering programs.

Keith McKeever 29:39

It's a grind to go ask for money. But candy I will say to your point Earth is so much easier. Like if I created my own nonprofit and you already had an established one. I could help you raise $500 way faster, way more efficiently than I could myself starting from the beginning. And those people who are starting up an office Prophet, congratulations. Once all the paperwork is done, you've just gotten through the easy part. The fumble and

Travis Johnson 30:06

then hard. It is hard. And a lot of people don't know this is that just because they're the founder, they don't own the nonprofit. As soon as it's done, the founder only matters for the moment of creation. And then the board is responsible for to the community and the IRS for the execution of the mission. If they said, We don't like you anymore, they can vote you off the island, immediately, and there's nothing you can do about it. So even though you're the founder, it may not be your baby for too long, depending on what kind of person you are. It's not like you can build it up and then sell it. That's not how this works. It's not it's not that type of business is a nonprofit business instead of a for profit business. So some people are surprised to find that out too. But you've done the the you've done the work, you've gone through, you found all those things, you file your paperwork, great, good audio, I want to be there to support you, either through my services, my my coaching, or consulting or even in my free group, or with the podcast, teaching you how to do things. Because I really want to make sure that once you get this thing rolling, that you're able to deliver services that you want to because the the person you might help might have been the ME 30 years ago, that needed that help. That's why I'm really doing this. That's why I'm really in this. And I have, I have some naysayers out there. So I know I must be doing a good job, when people you know, are willing to give their opinions to be like, I can't believe you encourage people to not start nonprofits. It's not that I'm discouraging them from starting nonprofits. I'm encouraging them to take a look at what they're getting into. And to make sure that they understand you're going in with their eyes open to make sure they're starting in the right place. You my friend, Candace, if she would have started a nonprofit dedicated to foster children, aging other system. In Mesa, Arizona, she might have had some success, and she might have had a lot of struggles, because she would have started without finding out what the real need was in the area. And what she did when she went out and canvass the area, she ended up talking to everyone else that was helping the same population as her. And because of the way she set it up, she's not competing with these people, because she's working together with all of them to make a difference.

Keith McKeever 32:25

Yeah, there's a there's a lot of gaps and a lot of those things. And there's, I think there's a lot of opportunities. If you just look, it's just like starting a regular business, you need to do your market research,

Travis Johnson 32:34

you need to see what's real business,

Keith McKeever 32:35

you need to have a unique product. And you need to have somebody to purchase that product or service. And so you got your you got to do your research and see, is this viable? If not, you're just going through all this extra work for nothing?

Travis Johnson 32:48

It well yeah, it can be. And like the thing about like, let's let's take a look at two different nonprofits right now. Let's take a look at someone that's feeding the homeless, and someone is taking out veterans on camping excursions. Now, there's nothing wrong. And there's nothing more right or better about either one of those things. But it is really easy for me as a donor to say, I give you 100 bucks you feed 30 people. Easy day, right? I can make that connection all day long. That makes sense. Without a doubt I can quantify that in my mind. Go for it go feed 30 people, your veteran organization say hey, you give me a bunch of money. I'm gonna take these guys out camping. Give me 100 bucks, and you're like, Wait, what is my 100 bucks go to. And I'm not saying this to discourage people, but is much harder sell to show the impact that you're having. It's something like taking a group of people on an excursion, especially veterans, because people don't want to say they're in any kind of program. My my buddy that we just closed down down shop with here a couple of weeks ago. I was like, Why is there no success stories, testimonials, impact stories on your page? Why don't I hear anything about these people that you're helping? And he's like, Well, you know, they kind of embarrassed or they didn't want their stuff publicized and like, you don't have to? And he's like, Well, what do you mean, you could say that we have a Marine Corps veteran on his way through this journey. Here's, you know, here's maybe something about him or maybe nothing about him. Maybe it's just a Marine Corps veteran, you know, your money has helped support him in history. Thank you so much for your donations. And then later if they want to come back and tell their story. Great. We have had some of his folks on the podcast and if you go through there, you're going to find who they are. And it's going to be wonderful, but they're not willing to ask for testimonials or impact stories. Well, if you've ever been to a fundraiser if you ever heard a nonprofit founder talk, no one cares about your mission more than you do. know one person. They care about the impact you're having. You've got a nonprofit great, so does a 1.8 million other entities in America that are nonprofit super What do you do with your nonprofit? And you get to the impact piece. And as you were talking about you your uniqueness, your niche you what makes you different, that unique selling point, or a unique service that you're providing? What does that thing you makes you different? Oh, well, we feed the homeless, but we do it with clown costumes on. Oh, that's interesting why that would be interesting. You put lasagna in their belly, you put a smile on their face, who else could say they're doing it? Whatever the thing is. I know, there's, there's a story about Keith, and we're here today. But but you can you can do that. Right? You can say that. But if you can't say what it is that you're doing, what services you're providing, and how you're different? Or why we should give money to you, as opposed to this other organization over here, then you've got nothing. You literally have nothing because you can't articulate what it is you do, why you do it, what kind of impact you're making, or why you're different than anybody else. So why would you what what prompted you to start your organization? Oh, well, I care about this group of people, so to millions of other people. That doesn't tell me why I should give you money. And those people that are like, well, you know, we're gonna get grants right away, you're not, because grants are given to people that are making an impact that have a plan for the future that are articulating what it is that they're going to do, and why they're the best persons to deliver that for you. If you can't articulate that, you also will get awarded grants. So you're not getting donations and you're not getting grants. Well, then what are you doing? You're paying a lot of stuff out of pocket, which a lot of people do, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But it leads to the question of sustainability. So if you're doing all these things, you're pouring your heart energy, Soul effort, everything into this, but there's no payoff for you. And I'm not saying you know, you have to get paid good money to do good things, right. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, it becomes you just get wore out. I was helping a young lady help feed the homeless here in Oklahoma City. And I was like, What's your plan if you get sick? She's like, what you mean? Like you're out for five days? What's your plan to feed continue feeding the homeless people? Oh, well, there isn't a plan.

Okay, so we need to make a plan. Oh, yeah. She said, Well, I'm not really comfortable having other people feed them. I was like, Okay, well isn't about you? Or is it about feeding them? And she's like, What do you mean? Is it about you insert your name. And you being the one that does this, or is about the organization that you run, making this stuff happen? Because there's going to be a time where you're not going to be able to do this, you're going to get a different job, you're going to go to college, you're going to whatever the thing is, you're going to get sick or injured or something else happens, and it's not going to be you feeding, then what are you going to do? Same thing to my veterans out there. If it's not you taking them on the hunting trip, the fishing trip, the excursion, the hockey game, the whatever the thing is, who else is doing it? Well, I don't really know my boards not really active, they're not really helping a lot. Did you get them to sign up and say they're gonna dedicate 10 hours a week? Well, no, they're just kind of my buddies. Okay.

Keith McKeever 38:05

So you just need to be off the board.

Travis Johnson 38:08

Absolutely. Right. That's my unpopular opinion, maybe? Well, it's my unpopular opinion, too, right. So we get in these situations where people are starting up nonprofit organizations, which again, I think is wonderful and fantastic. But they've done it without the strategic vision or plan. They've done it without really team that's there to back them up. And they're not really sure how to do this stuff. So they have this thing and they're trying to make it work, but they're doing it all on their own. And I asked him frequently, I was like, you ever played football or sports or anything grown up like, oh, yeah, you know, I played football. Cool. How many people were on the field? Oh, you got 2211 on both sides. Oh, you mean, so it's not one against 11? Oh, that would never work as like, Did you hear what you just said? They're doing an old

Keith McKeever 38:53

situation. I mean, Patrick mahomes versus the NFL. You know, a good point. Yeah. I'm a Broncos fan. So again, you have a good point there. I'll give you that.

Travis Johnson 39:05

Right, you got Yeah, Tom Brady that one this year, and he pulled the team together. He's a reason they brought in Gronk. He's a reason they brought him Leonard Fournette. And he's the reason that brought the team at Tom Brady didn't win the Superbowl throw. It's all team is the team succeed or fail as a team. That's why being a solo entrepreneur is so tough. Being a veteran solo entrepreneur is tougher. Being a solo person to run a nonprofit organization is impossibly tough. Because even if you can convince people to give money, and even if you can put some smiles on our faces, food and bellies help veterans with PTSD. Did you file your 990 on time? Are you getting penalized for each and every day? That is like, Oh, you didn't have a board meeting this year? We're gonna revoke your 501 C three status because you didn't do anything for compliance. He was compliant. What's compliance? I don't have time for that. I don't have time to learn about I don't want that for you, I want you to be able to easily crush each and every one of your goals in the nonprofit space to easily take out hundreds and hundreds of vets on excursions, camping trips, fishing trips, hunting trips, go out and shoot the tommy gun at the gun range, whatever the thing is. But you're going to have to take some time on the back end, to develop some of these things to come up with some plans to create a strategic plan is going to help you get grant money to build relationships and partnerships, to get to a place where you can pay yourself. So you're not worried about supporting your family while trying to support all these other people. And that's where someone like me as a consultant comes in, and you're going to Fun fact, we're going to ask to be paid for our work upfront.

Keith McKeever 40:43

Nobody should work for free. Oh,

Travis Johnson 40:46

once you work for free. I'm not the the nonprofit, consultant, volunteer, nonprofit architect, and architects get paid. A lot of joking out there last night, I want you to go pursue your dream, pursue your vision in the way that makes the most sense. Sometimes that's volunteering, helping someone else. And sometimes start your own stuff. If you start your own stuff, we want to help you do it right from the start, get all the paperwork done correctly, and build your team around you. So you can go out there and crush it. That's what we do at the nonprofit architect,

Keith McKeever 41:19

you definitely have to build a team, you're not going to do it yourself. Even if you were to succeed, and all the paperwork and all all the boring stuff. And do all of yourself and do all the fundraising yourself, your growth is going to be kept. You only have some time in your day. Yeah, you need

Travis Johnson 41:37

only so much time in your day, you can't scale like that without some kind of systems in place. Vas policies and procedures, things that are running automatically. You just can't do it. That's just not how life works. Just how it is. And everyone that says I can do it on my own. Really? Did you grow your own cotton? Did you run through cotton? did? Did you weave your own shirt that you're wearing to just sew it up together? Oh, did you manufacturers, you know, and I say that, you know, kind of facetiously and kind of be a pain about it. But look, no, no one's in this together. I didn't make it through my childhood alone. I made it through with tons of encouragement with my my faith in Christ with joining the Navy with meeting my wife and we're celebrating 20 years here and a couple of months, which is just phenomenal. 20 year actual married. Oh, fish CL anniversary. Thanks. You know, I didn't do this on my own. You know, I didn't learn how to be a good person growing up. I learned how to take care of me and take care of my immediate needs now and when they need to happen immediately. You know, the Navy gave me a lot of structure. The Jesus wept away my son and my wife thinks I look cute, apparently. I don't know. I don't know what she sees me. But, you know, I had to learn how to be a man in there and take care of my family take care of other things. Things I've never been exposed to I take care of a budget. How do I take her miles old? How do I be good dad? i Good. Good spouse. You know, that's not things I learned growing up. And it's not any dig on anyone in my life during that time period. But you have to learn who the heck er be okay with yourself and move forward. That doesn't happen overnight.

Keith McKeever 43:09

Oh, no, it takes everybody Different. Different amount of time in life. Some people figure it out early. Some people figure it out a little too late in life. But yeah, you just you got to have a team because you just don't go through anything alone. There's always somebody there. And as yes, you don't want to my podcast here. So let other specifically tonight, let nonprofits know that they're not alone. There's resources out there, where they can learn and they can go get the help or, or pay somebody to come in and help them get over whatever the hurdle is, because they all have hurdles. And raising paperwork is connection. It's everything.

Travis Johnson 43:43

It's everything. I've got a group of mentors, I've got people that are my peer level that I call every week, I got, you know, two people I talk to within the last two days and talk about stuff that I'm struggling with and where I'm moving forward and what this looks like. And then I've got the word of counsel that we do Thursday mornings, we're meeting Keith go in the back room, we talk about how great it is to be in podcasts and all that fun stuff. And you know what that looks like moving forward. You get time for the family, you get time for everything else, but you have to work on developing those knowledge, skills, abilities, relationships, the people who knows that thing that I need to learn, or who can direct me to the resource that I need to be successful. Because you might have the power within you, but you want to have to know how and that's okay. There's tons of resources out there. If you're a veteran in need, and you're listening to this, and you're like, that's great, Travis but we're services in my area, go to after action network.org And there's a huge list of resources in every area across the US. The team there and after Action Network put together a fantastic list of all vendor resources in the whole stinking country. Go looking at your area. Go look it up. Go volunteer Go help someone with a fundraiser. See how hard it is? See if you want that to be your full time gig. Maybe you do it. And you're like, you know what, this ain't for me. Congrats on not wasting 600 bucks filing for your 501 C three. Congrats on wasting hours and hours of time chasing dollars to try to help your cause, you know, right up front, it's not for you. Maybe you go and do it. I mean, I love putting together events. Well, there you go. Now you found something you're interested in, you can help with? Oh, yeah, I had a friend of mine sent me he's like, You know what? Go out and raise 20 grand, and then give it give it away to an organization? And see how you like that. And someone's like, what do you what do you mean? Well, that's what you're gonna be doing your organization, you could be raising 20 grand to then spend it on other people. When you just go either shot, go try to put together a fundraiser, and know that every bit of the proceeds are not going to you or anyone in your organization, but they're going to some other organization. And just to see what it's like you are run for office, go help a politician campaign. See what that looks like. See, if you're up for that. You might define really quick that you are or are not ready for that. I thought, you know, because I wanted to help. I wanted to be a helper. At one time I thought about the medical field, nursing something like something you have to help people I found out, I reminded myself that I have aversion to many smells. And let me tell you that other people's bodily fluids are not something I want to be around. Ever. I decided real quick if you sign up for nursing school, that I knew that I was not going to be the guy changing bedpans. Wiping butts, being around someone else's blood blood has a smell. That's not for me, as well. A lot of blood, the side of bless the side of blood, yet someone's someone's energy like oh, hey, some of my friend got a car wreck, check out this picture. I'm not interested, as that may have that bad guy. Everyone has their thing they think is cool or not cool. I know where I stand on that. And I'm so glad I didn't donate a single dime to an institution for me to learn about anything with nursing or to be a doctor because I found it right quick. That was it for me. And that's just how it goes sometimes.

Keith McKeever 47:13

Absolutely. That's a I guess I'm thinking about blood. Yeah, no, I know what I'm alone on that. Segue. Yeah, I don't know you. I

Travis Johnson 47:23

know you haven't done many chairs. Well, that's not a good segue. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 47:29

Yeah, not not good at all. I just, you know, through all that, I just think how grateful I am sometimes to be involved with some of the organizations I am as a volunteer, just the leadership and, and delegation of tasks. I know it's not easy. You mentioned the the Parkers foundation given back to food pantries, I'm also heavily involved in the greater periodically Senate that's to DC. And I have a huge passion for helping with that have been helping, I don't know, five, six years, something like that to lose track time. Even that is hard to raise funds for sometimes. Yeah, and a lot of people know about the Honor Flight organization. And while we don't find a lot of World War Two guys anymore, that that can go are old enough. And unfortunately, hopefully crossing our fingers, we'll be able to make some more flights happen later this year. It's hard to go to places like set up a tent and just ask people for money for this mission. Even, you know, you put the bucket out, you ask for it, you sell a couple of things that you might sell some things some people are pretty cool with the mission. But you have to have the right message to when you're talking to those people. And some people, I have heard other volunteers not knock them. But there's, you know, they're volunteers that show up to three times a year and we're super grateful for they're showing up at those events and selling T shirts and tickets or whatever. But I've been fortunate enough to go I think six times to DC on the flight as a bus Captain actually see everything in action. And when I can articulate that to somebody and say, Hey, we're sending vets to DC. These were two vets this might be the very last trip of their life. This is their last trip. And they're good to go with their other their battle buddies, and have a good day and food and see these memorials built in their honor they've never seen before. And we take Korean vets for the Forgotten War. We take them and they get to go see their beautiful Memorial, which I think is actually probably one of the most beautiful ones in DC, Vietnam wall I, every time I've been there's there's always a guy crying. It's a super emotional, and it's chance for the Vietnam guys to really heal. And when I can articulate that to somebody, the pocketbook tends to open. They can see it like there's an impact. So you have to show the impact either through stories, or statistics or video. You have to show it in some way. If you're not showing the impact is going to happen that pocketbooks not gonna open up. She's not you know, and hopefully across it cross fingers Most organizations out there doing the right thing and actually trying to better something or fix a problem, but you have to articulate it. If you don't have numbers to back it up, or a story or something. It's hard to do. But in some organizations, you got to get creative to make that happen. You just want to get press first, get the news and talk to you sometimes, yeah,

Travis Johnson 50:19

you have to evoke emotion. You know, we talk about helping honor our veterans and take them on these flights, which evokes a certain kind of emotion of a real deep pride and reverence for what they do. You have organizations like Black Lives Matter, do that do not use pride reverence as a primary fundraising tool. People are getting out of out of hate and anger and wanting to make something right, they're doing it because they have a visceral reaction, then you have people that are serving our pet population, and you're rescuing animals, and you have a whole different emotion to invoke on. Right. So really, you don't have to, but I want people to give out the goodness of their hearts. You know, depending on what it is, I don't care if they're happy or angry when they give. But you have to get in emotion. You have to have that story. impact them. You know, facts tell stories sell. And you have to have the stories, the impact stories there and get people emotionally involved, to want to back your organization in some form or fashion. And whether that's monetarily whether that's giving you their time, talent or treasure, or whatever that might look like you have to tell the story. In order to make them move.

Keith McKeever 51:33

You got to dig deep, you got to reach in there and get the heart because I like to pick on McDonald's Ronald McDonald House, we know they do good things. But you go through McDonald's and you pay with cash and you got the little thing there how I mean, are you likely to drop it in there you're not or somebody asks you to round up for a tip like there's no tugging on the heartstrings, you know, in the back of your mind, that the organization through whatever restaurant whatever is doing good things, you know, they do you've heard about it. But if they're not talking about the heartstrings at that moment, they're they're not reaching, we're not reaching far enough. And I will, I will flat out miss sometimes I dropped some coins in there sometimes I don't know, if they were talking at my heartstrings, if the person in the window said, Hey, this really helps people have had friends and family who have gone through this program and changed their lives. Oh, okay. I'll drop my 25 cents in there. You know, I'll make my little

Travis Johnson 52:22

this one of those things. Right. The other the other way to do it is to have some kind of benefit for the donor. Right, so Folds of Honor Foundation, they'll have auctions where they auction off like a, you know, a day golfing trip with John Daly. You know, how much would you pay to support a great organization and also have the great benefit of golfing with a world class golfer? Right? How would How would an organization or a business that is interested in and putting some bucks back in right you know, they know you, they support you, they don't have the funds to help you. But if you can create a partnership like with our friend, your lead better at Ember pay, and change of your credit card processing for guaranteed flat rate that already beats, Stripe, PayPal, and square, to put more money back into your business in your pocket to help your family. And then from the backend from the credit card processing side, they get a cut of that money directly to an organization with each and every transaction. Now you're helping the organization, the veteran business and you're helping whatever business wanted to change over their credit card processing. So everybody wins. There's a tangible benefit to the donor. And they get to put a nice big plaque out or something on their website says, Hey, with each and every purchase, whether you dollar up or not. We're supporting this cause. Well, we did this with the shine Foundation. We partnered with a junior college in Oklahoma City. And I don't know if you know this, but there is tons of money and tons of transactions, everything in the food court, everything in the student union, everything at the library in the bookstore, you know, a huge line of 1000 kids each old $2,000 worth of books each and every semester coming through line. Oh every foot every football ticket sale every hot dog sold at the grandstand. Right every portion of every transaction, we use that one partnership to solidify what we were doing with the fundraising. We didn't have any more fundraisers, we only had fundraisers. You can partner with an auto mechanic at a dealership, the first year, even the smallest dealership, they're pumping through a million dollars worth of transactions a year. And you get a portion of each and every transaction that's going to help support you it's going to put more money in their pocket help build their business, right? It's going to put money directly into you. When you get five 610 of these partnerships. All of a sudden you're not chasing dollars all over the place. You're not calling people begging to tell them about your story. You walk in and say hey, if I could save you a couple of bucks on each and every transaction and support a nonprofit the same time would you be interested? Of course are interested Why wouldn't they be?

Keith McKeever 55:01

Of course? So how does somebody? How does somebody flip that script and go from little tiny events? $100? Here $50 There 500 here to solidifying those connections in the community and getting those corporate donors, what some of you have, that's ways to go about doing that.

Travis Johnson 55:22

There's tons of ways I don't know how long our show is, are we? Are we done here in four minutes? Oh, no,

Keith McKeever 55:27

no, we enjoy an hour, hour and a half. We'll just keep going. As long as it's valuable. That's, that's all I care about.

Travis Johnson 55:34

Oh, well, our good friend, Stephen Cohen has the greatest networking method at all. You take a big map out, you draw a big circle around your place, and you go door to door and if that's not, you know, available in your area that you're getting in organizations, and you're hopping on their zoom meetings, as many as you get to. And you say, Yeah, Hi, I'm Travis from the nonprofit architect podcast, you know how most nonprofits spend all their time chasing donations each and every month, or signature program is going to help you say no to more work, and yes, to more money, would you be interested? Or you go around and say, Hey, I'm Keith, I have a real estate agent here. And where are you at? Peoria? Illinois? Yep. Yeah, yeah, I'm new to the area, or I'm getting my business going. And you know, I just don't know my neighbors and And shame on me. Tell me about who you are what you do, you do this thing called the Meet The Neighbors campaign. And you don't ask for anything. When you're going on meeting people, you're not asking for anything other than where you could help and impact them. And if you're brand new to business, or brand new to the area, you might not have any answers for him. But that me meet person number five, or person number 10, a person number 20, you're going to be able to answer those questions back at person one, two, or three. And all of a sudden, you're the person that cares, you're the person that's trying to help them provide value without expectation, which is something that we teach in the warrior Council, something I live my life by, all of a sudden, everyone knows who you are, they're talking about you. And there's gonna come a time where like, hey, you know what, I didn't know if you knew about this. But you know, we're actually working on this big project, like we have the nonprofit architect, ultimate podcasts guy, and I think they would help solve your problem. Is that something you'd be interested in? Oh, I just been waiting for the chance to get a hold of you. So I can find a way to pay you back? Absolutely. I'm in Give me this podcast guy. Oh, it's only 27 bucks. How great is that? I know, I'm kind of talking about my stuff. It's a little funny, but no pies in to it all. It all ties in, right? When you walk around, and you actually care about the other people around you. Nobody cares anymore. Go walk around and go walk around the city, how you see these views on the internet, like the rare person that cares or like, Oh, that's so nice, someone cares? Well, you missed the 1000 people that pass that person by not caring, whatever their situation is. So if you're the person that cares, you're the rarity, you're the commodity. And eventually, I think is Ziglar said, if you get help enough, people get what they want, you're gonna get end up getting everything that you want.

Keith McKeever 58:01

That's a great way of looking at everything, just provide as much value as you have. If you can't, then you know, I may not be able to provide that much value to nine people or 99 out of 100. But my hit that 100 person where I could, I could or you could or anybody could you got to fix their problem? Yeah, if you can fix their problem, then maybe they can fix yours? Or maybe they know somebody who can, you know, make connections work? So?

Travis Johnson 58:28

Absolutely. Well, like if you come into your hometown, most towns tell you where you can find all the people in town that care about anything. You know, I'm talking about Keith

Keith McKeever 58:40

talking about Chamber of Commerce, and

Travis Johnson 58:43

they've got a sign that says we've got a chamber of commerce, we've got a rotary club, we've got a Lions Club, we've got a Masonic Lodge, they tell you, all the great organizations that cared enough to put their emblem on a sign, and you can go meet those people and find out what they need. And then you can, oh, well, you run a nonprofit organization or like, Oh, you're new, we'd love to have you come talk over lunch and tell everyone about your stuff. Well, now you have a roomful of people. Most of them are business owners, right? And if you're talking about giving them value, and changing their credit card processor to help them, and you and the process are all on the same swoop. Now you have a captive audience. You know, I'm not just here to talk about my nonprofit today. I'm here to talk about how you put money back in your pocket, and it's not going to cost you anything. Would you like to save money on each and every transaction? What do you think? And you get some, get some people moving in their chairs, because they don't believe you. Because there's so many other crappy people out there that have said the same thing that we're full of garbage that they're trying to sift through and understand what the heck and how can possibly be like when I talk about my services or what I do. The immediate response is BS, because I don't do it the way that everyone else does it and they don't understand how that can work. Look at all the people who've been doing the same thing for last 5040 3020 years, then COVID happened. And they couldn't do their annual gala. They couldn't do their car wash or their bake sale or whatever their thing was. And a lot of organizations stopped asking for money, like somehow, their mission, no longer manner mattered during a pandemic. And they thought it was insensitive,

Keith McKeever 1:00:25

they'll find ways to, to fundraise, you know, the mission can continue.

Travis Johnson 1:00:29

But here's the deal. There's a lot of people that were that are impacted negatively, there were, there were millions of people that were impacted negatively, and you're not going to get their donations, you're not you're going to lose the $500 and down donations. But the people that it didn't affect the people that understand these are hard times the people that have money, you're going to start increasing those 1000 5000 10,000 $50,000 donations, because they understand that times are tough. And they have the means and able to help a little bit more. So you might have lost 10 donors costing you five grand, but you picked up three, that all donated five grand apiece, because you kept on asking and you read invigorated the importance of the mission of what you're doing, you found a way to switch to an online event, you find a way to do something differently. And word of the year, Pivot.

Pivot, right, I

just picked a Ross, you're trying to move the couch up the stairs, look at it. That's all I picture. And then when that word comes up, but people found a way to do differently, this is the time to do something different. This is the time to reach out like to someone like myself and be like, You know what, what I'm doing just isn't working. And although I really don't understand what it is that you do, and how you're going to do it differently. I'm interested in learning. Because here's the deal. You know, I interview people, I talked to five or six nonprofits each and every day, which is helped me just build the experience that I need to help you and look at something a little bit differently. How many, you know, move 50 times? How do people that you know, are right or you, you learn to look at things so differently, which people generally have a visceral reaction up front, they get that kind of like, I don't understand feeling, because it's so easy to do things the way you've always done them. Who ain't broke, don't fix it. What kind of lazy language is that? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm not saying that was broke. But we could try something a little bit differently. And we can try something that might work. I get to interview Brady Josephson next after and they do a lot of research stroking nonprofits that they found was that the vast vast majority don't ever think a donor for the donation, vast majority. They also found that people are the most likely to become monthly recurring donors within the first two weeks of first contact. Well, if you have an event, and you don't send them anything till a month later, you've already passed that window of asking them for a monthly recurring donation. I don't want your $10,000 donation, I don't, I want you in at 1000 bucks a month. Because if you could easily donate 10, grand, even easier for you is to put a grand a month on autopilot and never check it again. If you're on there for a year, I've already made two grand more than I did before. And I didn't have to ask you each and every month for that donation. It's coming in automatically.

Keith McKeever 1:03:21

You don't have to ask the next year either. Or it's just it's just

Travis Johnson 1:03:25

you update them and say, hey, thanks so much for your recurring donation. Here's we've been doing behind the scenes. I know COVID means we can't hang out in some places. We're in the middle of country so it's wide open right pra is open.

Keith McKeever 1:03:36

Ah, yeah, certain things are. Yeah,

Travis Johnson 1:03:40

I mean, Oklahoma City, it's been open for months, I can do literally anything here. Even go to a thunder game when the snowstorm is going on apparently, because they saw power. You decide how you feel with whatever. But

Keith McKeever 1:03:56

I'm not much of a basketball fan. But hey,

Travis Johnson 1:03:59

I'm short, wide and stocky, like basketball is not my thing. But it's fun to have somebody to go to. But you know, they're not gonna be able to see you. So you're going to have some other form of communication because you're not getting together in person and getting them find different ways to get them involved. We had gal Angie Francesco from the Squam lakes Association. That's where they filmed On Golden Pond. I'm pretty sure I've been wrong before. Maybe it's a different movie. But they, they had all of the different volunteers and staff do a little different Facebook lives every day, showing different things that were going on still at the lake that were COVID safe and doing different stuff. And like the public access local news in the area picked up their story and give them free promo because there was nothing else to talk about. It wasn't crazy. It wasn't high production value, but now they had basically a syndicated show on late night in a hurry because literally nothing has happened. Well, that was just a huge draw from people area. You know, we had our friend, Nick Valentine that runs phantom operation fan support and clean I got a CBS low media action there. And they got like $200,000, they came in off that one media parents. It was there's ways there's wasted as a way, but like they run, they charge people to be a part of the food pantry. 20 bucks a month. So everyone in the line, they're not feeling shame that they're there. They're there knowing that they're supporting the person in front of them, and the person for them and supporting them and their person, you know, supporting the people behind them. It's a place to come and gather and be proud of what you're building together. Because just having a nonprofit doesn't mean you're not charging people. Just having a nonprofit doesn't mean there's no money involved. Just having a nonprofit doesn't mean you can't get paid as the CEO, the executive director of the founder.

Keith McKeever 1:05:47

Yeah, he does is kind of crazy. You know, $20, you get to go there. But the other donations come in and help support the overall mission. So you're still getting way more value than the 20 that you're putting in? Absolutely. It's a huge help there. I mean, what he's, his operation is huge.

Travis Johnson 1:06:04

It's I don't know where my interview with him has come out yet. Maybe it's coming out a couple of weeks ago, I had them all stacked up. Yesterday, like, when is this thing coming? I'm looking through my list. I'm like, August, it's coming out in August, I had that many in that. I had that many in the bag ready to go. Which was nice. Because saying that I just got done working on my master's degree. But I turned to my thesis yesterday. We'll see how it comes out. I've never failed a paper yet. But you know, who knows? But you're I, I'm sure I will be. But like, the only reason I was able to do that keep the podcast going is because I had all those interviews done ahead of time. I know we're doing a live show here. Which makes it kind of hard to get ahead if something

Keith McKeever 1:06:49

I'm actually booked because my shows over two every other week on Wednesday. I'm actually booked up into the middle of June.

Travis Johnson 1:06:58

Right, but those recorded just in case to cancel out your mind.

Keith McKeever 1:07:03

I've got to pre recorded. There you go three, actually three now. So six weeks, six weeks. I will give a teaser. Here's a special there's a special pre recorded release coming out next week because we

Travis Johnson 1:07:15

oh, yeah, you'd be 29 again. Oh, yeah.

Keith McKeever 1:07:22

I was counting 30 I mean,

Travis Johnson 1:07:24

whatever. My wife and I turned 40 this year. Don't

Keith McKeever 1:07:32

we? 30. Right.

Travis Johnson 1:07:34

Like anyone that is going to ascribe some kind of imaginary constraints to their life or some kind of shame to their life, because they haven't figured something out by 25 or 30 or 35. Or whatever their imaginary number is, like, take a break. Like Martha Stewart didn't get big till into our 40s Sam Walton for warmer Walmart didn't put that together till those 40s Colonel Sanders didn't figure out KFC tell us in his 60s, you got time like slow down like oh, yeah, there's you don't have to have it figured it out by Monday. Well, Zuckerberg at Facebook figured out his early 20s

Keith McKeever 1:08:07

He got lucky and found it found something in college.

Travis Johnson 1:08:11

But so what like that's this Yeah, thing to do with your path. Anytime you compare, you lose. Because you're not comparing yourself this. You're watching like Maury and watch people on daytime

Keith McKeever 1:08:23

talk show, comparing themselves to what's going on on Maury.

Travis Johnson 1:08:27

Well, people do people watch this, because it makes them feel a little bit better. Their lives are not as crappy as what's going on on TV.

Keith McKeever 1:08:33

It's good point. Good point. Yeah. Those people are going through some pretty crazy situations on some of those talk shows.

Travis Johnson 1:08:39

I just don't I don't know. He reminded up my childhood. So I don't watch that stuff. Yeah, I don't

Keith McKeever 1:08:44

blame you. at all, is some of those just like, man, it's hard to wrap my head around what's going on here? So the question here for you. How do you think nonprofits can better engage volunteers? Because I know sometimes it's really hard to get volunteers to keep coming back or maybe come back and do a little bit more the next time and extra hours here a couple extra hours there? How should how can they really engage your volunteers?

Travis Johnson 1:09:12

Well, there's a lot of things you can do. And the first thing you can do is you can operate with a little bit of gratitude. The volunteers show up to do whatever needs to be done with really no payout, really no benefit other than our know that help with the mission forward. And I've seen it time and again where the staff the executive director and the founder is kind of nasty tone. So just treat them like regular human beings like you would you know, talk about your family, your brother, your sister, your your good friends like it like, you know, hey, I really appreciate you coming out today. That really means a lot to me. Oh, you have an idea, something we could do. I'd love to hear it and then actually listen, just listening will get you a long way in this world. actually listening and caring. Oh my goodness. Can you imagine how our world would change that we actually listened

Keith McKeever 1:10:01

and cared. It would be vastly different. that's for darn sure. That's a good, yeah, really take an active interest in listening and engaging in that conversation instead of just dismissing

Travis Johnson 1:10:12

them. Yeah, like what I am still active duty Navy, you know, I talked to, you know, the people that that work for me. Like, I've like, someone asked me once, I'm one of the like, the fellow junior officers like, why are you so engaged with with them? And like, why wouldn't I be? Like, do they not matter? You not care? Like, like, well, you're retiring soon, like, you know, what's the big deal? Like, why are you so invested in like, look, I'm here to help. Right? talking to these people, I'm going to find out what gets their motor running. Maybe it's the maybe it's the Navy, maybe it's not maybe something else. But my goal is to help them get to their goals, right? So I listened and I care. And I give guides or show opportunities where I can say, Well, hey, have you looked into this program? This is one right up your alley, this might be the thing that you were looking for. And I had no idea. I talked to all these people. And none of them have ever suggested that thing. That's so cool. Like, yeah, like, let me know what help you need doing this thing. I'm a big fan of talking to people in the military about whatever they're doing. Because you should be given something to the military, you should be given something for your career, you know, to help your family out. And you should be doing something for you every day. And if you're doing that you're learning the skills you need. You're getting the education and the experience you need to do whatever it is if you're in a car wreck tomorrow, or God forbid something terrible happens while you're deployed, you know, the military is done with you. And if you never take the time to develop your education, skills, certifications, your network of people that you know that care about you, even if it's professionally or somewhere in the future, you haven't done the time to do that you find yourself in a terrible spot. I've been in the Navy for 20 years, I did financial planning for like 15 of those have been doing nonprofit work for four or five years. And we're in the podcast for not even two years yet. And I'm still active duty people, like how do you have the time, why don't get home and then just, you know, drink beer till I go to bed and wake up the next day and do it again. I don't just drive through the weekend hating my life and then partying on the weekends, because that's what's available to me. Like it takes time to do and develop these things. I'm not better than anyone else is trying to figure it out. And there's definitely people that are way ahead of me in some areas. But like you have to be able to have these things. So when you get out for whatever that is either you're choosing not you're choosing or something you know awful that you have something to do you get to design what you want your life to look like. But not if you don't take the steps needed to develop the skills ability education network that you need to succeed.

Keith McKeever 1:12:43

I think I speak for all all of us who are were enlisted. We love officers like you, Travis. Were all the other the officers that kind of give you a little bit of grief about that?

Travis Johnson 1:12:57

Well, some of them don't have prior enlisted experience. Well, most don't what you're concerned about your career and your qualifications you need and you don't know, right? It's a whole other group of people that you know nothing about unless you take the time to talk to them. So would you stay around and hang around talk with the guys in the shop? Or would you leave with your buddies and go, you know, peel off early, go golfing, or go grab a beer or something I don't know, right. And I'm not speaking on behalf or singling anybody out. And there's nothing wrong with what they're doing. But they might not know how to best impact their lives of people around them. And I wasn't listed for 12 years. So I knew what that looked like I didn't know, the officers around me for most of my career, there was a couple, right. And those really stood out to me. And that's that helped me kind of mold. You know, the officer that I wanted to be and how I wanted to interact with people and and care about them and their careers and our families. It makes a difference. It makes a huge difference. Because I'm different. I joined when I joined in 2000. And it was still the screaming Navy, right where you didn't talk to anyone. Like instead of like, Hey, could you go take care of that jet? They're like, hey, go there. Why you went watch you like, why are we why are we yelling? Is there like, you're hearing God? Do you not know how to be a leader? Like why are you screaming at me? This done? It didn't make sense to me. And you know, some people are like, Oh, whatever knows the kinder, gentler elicits app like look, more and more. Listen, people have degrees, they have families, they're not coming in at 17 where they had the choice of jail or the military. They're coming in because they care because they're capable. They want to help and they're not idiots. They can do anything you need done. And depending on what era is what generations we're talking about, they can do better than you can like, they really can't I'm like I have this thing is kicking my butt how I do this. Oh, sir. I know retirements coming out but if you just do this, and you know you love them have their fun or whatever. But like seriously, like there's so many capable people out there and this is the same with the nonprofit world to write that, that volunteer that you're treating like crap. They might be there volunteering, because they're interested in your organization. And they are a multi million dollar media company. But you treat like them like crap, because you're like, Oh, they're just a volunteer. What did you just do? You completely sever their relationship and someone that was going to come in and possibly revolutionize what you're doing. And you have no idea what kind of knowledge skills abilities they have outside of them wearing a volunteer t shirt for the weekend, you know, we think about and treat them like dirt, for no reason. Same thing in the military. Like I'm a three lieutenant in the Navy, right? People that don't know me or know who I am or my background. And depending on the lighting, there's good lighting because I you know, look terrible, terribly old. I've got a you know, full head of hair, not picking on Keith at all, but these luscious locks. These luscious locks made me look young. So I was sitting down in the at shop, the technician shop. And my buddy that I had come up in the Navy with he was the chief in that office now. And I'm within it. And I go in for the lunch. And you know, some of the young bucks have enlisted guys are kind of give me a hard time about oh, you know, you don't know anything about the Navy. You're brand new. And I'm like, Oh, come on, let this guy talk. Like I will let this guy say whatever you want us to say. And he started run his mouth a little bit. And my friend, my chief buddy in the back hurt. He jumped out the room. He's like this, sir. How's everything going on here? As I guess going great. Did you? Did you want me to handle this? And he's like, no, no, sir. No, I got this Take care. And I left. And right when the door shut. I heard my friend, you know, kind of kind of going ape on him a little bit. And he told me like, I can't believe I was talking to you that way. And this man like, like, No, we're I've got the best follow up for tomorrow. So he said in there and I go back in. And the same young guy was in there. He's like, sir, I'm so sorry. I can't believe he said those things to you. Had I known about your experience. I'm like, Oh, so it's okay to just treat other junior officers like dirt then? For no reason. And he's, uh he had no idea what to say. And I was just kind of mess with them a little bit. But you know, you don't know what people's background is. You don't know where people come from. And someone like me, and unassuming, average looking white guy, you have no idea the things I've been to if unless, you know, you see me military uniform as a lt doesn't look too terribly old. You have no idea. The knowledge and experience that I have. And I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about anybody. We've got. We've had people that were working for me, young enlisted people coming up when I was already commissioned. She joined the Navy after already having a master's in forensic psychology.

Keith McKeever 1:17:49

Like, this isn't just a logical career move. But

Travis Johnson 1:17:53

hey, everyone's got everyone's got their reasons for doing what they do. Right? A young air crewmen and she came in there, just crushed everything, everything you did crush, you went from an e4 to achieve and a seven for those of you know, Navy types, e4 to senior listed, and like your six or seven year mark, just crushing life very professional, leadership oriented, takes care of everything wonderful person. But you can't just look at their rank. You can't just look at their volunteer shirt. You can't just look at the new guy in the office and a sign. They don't know nothing sticker to them. Yeah, hey, what do you think about doing this for the run off for this event right here? Oh, what do you know? Well, actually, I've been a civil engineer for 10 years. And this is my bag. And that's exactly what I do. You just treated them. Like they don't matter for no reason. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 1:18:49

Variances or they can they can end up well. In many cases, your volunteers are your donors as well. They may not be the big donors, but every $20 helps. We say it in our flight. We go to events, we wait we raised 25 bucks. We're happy because it's 25 bucks. We didn't have we started a couple hours before that. And it all adds up. So absolutely alienate experience connections, fundraising. And people who have those connections are a broad audience. They're gonna say I got your shit don't go volunteer.

Travis Johnson 1:19:19

You're just you're just you're just telling them exactly how you deserve to be treated. So different than going into screaming at the waiter at the at the restaurant. It's no different than a that stuff.

Keith McKeever 1:19:31

Yeah, isn't what they say. You catch more flies with honey.

Travis Johnson 1:19:35

So what do you do? You also catch? You also catch bigger waistbands with honey

Keith McKeever 1:19:41

as Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Travis Johnson 1:19:46

Didn't poo get stuck like in the rabbit hole like oh,

Keith McKeever 1:19:51

so he was always having some issues. You wouldn't have seen those for a while when kids are a little too old now.

Travis Johnson 1:19:58

Oh, you're never too old. For Waynesville,

Keith McKeever 1:20:01

yeah. I don't know about that. It's not it's not gonna it's not the top of my movie watching film watching lists. Let's put it that way.

Travis Johnson 1:20:09

What is it? Your film watching list? You? You're a Marvel guy.

Keith McKeever 1:20:15

Actually, ironically, growing up, I was not a superhero guy at all. I did. I did not care about superhero films at all until I had kids. And they started getting into it. And yeah, I'll watch about anything anything Marvel.

Travis Johnson 1:20:28

My son does not give a rip. Either. My kids care at all about superheroes. I mean, variety.

Keith McKeever 1:20:34

My kids care about that. They care about anything. That's superhero. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, right now they're in the ninjas. My oldest ones.

Travis Johnson 1:20:42

You remember lose those like the three ninja movies like in the 90s? And you're like, Oh, yeah. Well, no, no, no. There were the three. No, that kid like the name of the movie is like the three ninjas? Know, maybe, maybe I guess the name of the movie wrong. But you're like thinking, you go back and watch some of these movies like from the 90s You're watching like, like, I liked that movie. Or like, Oh, this is awful.

Keith McKeever 1:21:07

I got when I was in the Air Force. He was one of our NCOs. And he was like, huge into like, Kung Fu. And I'm just like, Dude, I can't sit there. Watch it, man. The lips aren't synced up. The moves are terrible. There's like no special effects. Yeah, it's like, it's like, and he's like, Bob, that's what makes it great. And I'm like, Hey, to each his own. I don't watch it. I was watching the show the other day. I can't remember it was and it was supposed to be something really good. And I was like, Man, the acting is terrible in this. And it was it was military film. So I'm sure you just like me. Yeah, you spot those inconsistencies? Like that's not the right uniform for the period. They use those weapons. They didn't have any cogs on those in Vietnam. They my wife loves,

Travis Johnson 1:21:51

loves watching military movies. Oh,

Keith McKeever 1:21:55

I, I get so mad. I turn this movie off in like 20 minutes. Like, I can't watch this. My wife's like, well, it didn't seem that bad. And I'm like, they had a 50 year old man act like a man in Vietnam. So out of place, you should have recast that to somebody else is terrible. But anyway, going on moving forever. So this one might be one of the subsequent ones that stop you. Is there any nonprofits out there that you're seeing that are that have a ton of potential but just haven't achieved that. That notoriety that level that they really need to that that potential that they could be?

Travis Johnson 1:22:37

There's tons. And the reason I say that as I talk to you about two of those day that have the potential, but they've got no team, no support, and no time, no plan, no budget, no nothing. They have a big heart. And that's it. They don't know how to run nonprofit. They don't know how to run a business. And they don't know why they don't have any help. I talked to the this and this is the reason I want people to do all the pre work to see what's going on in their community. Because they just said I'm starting this thing and I'm going in some of those workout. But the vast majority of those don't, because they have never created the plan. The system got the knowledge of you don't have the budget Fine. Listen to the nonprofit architect Podcast. I'm everywhere. I'm the first 33 volts in Google nonprofit architect Podcast. I'm on there. Okay. Get the free information. You don't like my podcast you like the way I do it? Fine. Go to my website. There's a little tab that says the nonprofit podcast network, we get six shows up there six different nonprofit podcasts. Listen to my buddy Patrick Kirby or Jamila camp, let them let them speak into your life about what it is you want to do find someone that you can watch. There's a reason there's more one more than one late night host. You know, you might like one and might not like the other and that's fine. I'm not everyone's cup of tea. Yeah,

Keith McKeever 1:24:01

I was always a little guy. Not a not a letterman guy. Yeah, I

Travis Johnson 1:24:04

was always I was a little was with the chin. I don't get it. They're like the cars now. But everyone's got their thing. And that's fine. You all listen to me. Fine. Listen to somebody, figure out who is your person. Listen to that person, take advice and start taking action. Because it doesn't matter how many podcasts you listen to how many audio books you're reading, how many courses you take at the university if you never take action. Yeah, Travis, I know you said I need to cultivate these donors and and do something like or actually as credit card processing. So I can get monthly recurring donations, but I feel weird doing it. Great. If it doesn't nothing, that you know what you want to do what you need to do to make something move for you, and you don't do it. Might as well not ever learn in the first place. Oh, I know how to read but I don't spend any of my time reading. I don't like downloading 30 years of expert knowledge, you know, over a weekend and learn how to do something Like Palestine, juniors raise your game and learn how to lead. I don't have time for that. Well, you might as well not know how to read. What's the what's the advantage of having the skill? If you don't really like, well, like, I don't read as much as I should. But I do listen to a ton of audiobooks. But that's great, right? I listened to 60 audio books in 2019 60 books, just nuts. But if I never took actually that stuff, I might as well read nothing because it didn't matter that I knew how to be a better leader. If I didn't go be a better leader. Doesn't matter if I know what to do with the gym. If I don't ever go to the gym, it doesn't matter that know how to eat right? If I never get the things I need to eat, it doesn't matter if I know how to treat my family, right? If I treat him like trash, it doesn't matter that I know I shouldn't go out gambling, if I know you, whatever your thing is, it doesn't matter what you know, it matters what you do. I learned in the cartoon growing up that knowing is only half the battle.

Keith McKeever 1:25:54

I've drawn a blank What cartoon that is

Travis Johnson 1:25:56

GI Joe GI Joe. Knowing

Keith McKeever 1:26:01

I knew it, I'll top my head. But I'm just this man, I've heard that like, oh,

Travis Johnson 1:26:09

it's half the battle. The other half is violence. If you're in battle, or the other half is action. If you're not in battle, you have to take action. Don't mix those up. Don't Don't mix those up. Yeah, don't do violence if you're not in battle. But if you don't take action, it doesn't matter what it is you do. There's someone in our group that we know that we might see tomorrow, that knows all the things they need to do, but are not taking action. And they're stuck. And they don't know why. And the answer is they're not taking action. But the people that are out there, if you listen to any of the Guru's right, Tony Robbins is like massive action. The only way this works is with massive action, you have to actually do the thing. Right? I cared about the community. I wanted to do something good. But if I didn't show up to that meeting, if I didn't take any action, it didn't matter that I knew I wanted to help the community. Right? Oh, I want to start a podcast. Great start a podcast? Well, not really. It doesn't matter that you want to start a podcast if you never start a podcast. Well, I'm not sure what to do. Well, I've got a great podcast for you. But figure out your learn as you go, you're going to start some of this stuff. The same with a nonprofit stuff like Travis, you gave me scared about all the things you say you have to do. I just want your eyes open when you're walking into because there's a ton to do. But knowing there's a ton to do and you still want to start start ask the question, asked me find someone else in the network, ask them what it is to do, how to start and how to get moving. That's fine. Get going. And you can learn as you go and that's fine, too. Oh, I want to go to college, but I can't afford it. Yes. There's a dozen free schools in America. You can join the military. They'll pay for it. Your low income family all the Ivy League schools will cover your tuition free. They don't need your stinking money anyway. We'll

Keith McKeever 1:27:57

give you a loan.

Travis Johnson 1:27:59

Yeah, no even without loans, even without loans. Oh yeah, totally ROTC scholarships. There's $400 million unused scholarship money every year in America. Well, Travis, I just don't qualify for scholarships. Really? Have you downloaded an app like scaly Fastweb or scholarship done net and put in your demographics and see how many scholarships you qualify for? Because of the 36 year old white guy a couple of years ago, I qualified for 88 scholarships as a random white dude. Put your demographic see what you can apply for this stuff. See what's out there. Get a job at Lowe's, Home Depot, Boeing, Lockheed, any of the HVAC company, Starbucks, McDonald's, or any other employer like the military, that pays for college for you. They pay for college. Go into these universities, ask them about their unpublished scholarships they have available and find it out. We had a gal here that I came up with a friend of mine, and they care about putting head of family single moms for college, she had a full ride to Oklahoma City University. They paid for everything for EMT, she says I want to be a paramedic, they paid for all that too. And if she wants to come back and do nursing school, they'll pay for that too. But it never would have happened. Lissy asked the question. Oh, you don't understand Travis. I work 60 hours a week I got a 45 minute commute. I just don't have time to do anything. Great. Put on a podcast put on a YouTube, download audio books. Get one of those free library apps that you can check out audiobooks for free, or search the audio book on YouTube will let them talk you through it for free and listen to it during your commute to and from work. Well I mean, I can't I can't do that I you know, I get I get my workout in. Cool. Turn off that crappy music to refer crappy music from 20 years ago that no one really cares about doesn't an answer life and put an audio book instead. And learn the skills that you need to take the action needed to take everything that comes up in someone's life. Right every obstacle goal is either a detour is something that's going to deter you, or that's the next challenge that you need to conquer in order to get ahead in life. You decide how you look at it, you decide, you decide, I decided, you can decide, You know what I'm gonna take on that mountain, I'm gonna do one step at a time. I can't climb out Mount Everest in a day, but you know, I can do, I can get to that next base camp. And I can get to that next base camp. And over time, you're eventually going to crush that mountain. One step at a time,

Keith McKeever 1:30:32

almost over time, you'll walk a mile without taking the first step. And it's hard, it's hard to get first step like I'll even say, like this podcast, I was so nervous to start,

Travis Johnson 1:30:41

because I were so nervous. I was incredibly nervous.

Keith McKeever 1:30:45

Because like, what if this, how do I do this? How do I do that, because I really didn't know much of anything and beginning to see so much growth. You just got to take that first step. And realize, if you're gonna do something creative, like a podcast, I don't even know where I learned this. But I had heard it somewhere. Maybe it was on another podcast because I would do same thing, call it from anywhere I was going, it could have been anywhere I was going, I was listening to a podcast, if I was sitting, driving to an appointment. If I knew his half an hour, I was putting on a half hour podcast or an hour podcast, I'll listen to half of it there half an all the way back, whatever. Or if I was sitting at the junior college when I was taking classes there before I went to University of Illinois Springfield, where I'm at now, I was spending so much time in the health lab and I'd be studying on stuff I'll just be kind of listen, or in between class 15 minutes before class, because you know, if you're not 15 minutes, early or late, right. And so I'd be sitting there and outside that classroom 15 minutes before throwing an earbud in sit there and listen. And I didn't realize until this last year, how much time I was used using to listen to podcasts, how much everyone listened to in the last couple years,

Travis Johnson 1:31:58

his chores around the house is walking through the grocery store, you like if you're at the age, what music you like growing up is now the grocery store, you don't need to hear that music again, put in a podcast, wait at the doctor's office, your whatever you're doing running errands around town, working out, net, no extra time, things that you're doing, basically, on autopilot where you could be investing in the greatest place for you in the best that always is gonna pay off. And that's investing in that person you see in the mirror every day.

Keith McKeever 1:32:26

It's even listening to audio books and stuff. I'll give a plug to Stephen and Layne their book, The humble alpha, I don't read that much. You said earlier, you know, you could read more. I'm the same way. I'm not the kind of person that likes to kind of sit there and just read a book, I'll prefer to listen to it like a half an hour, or I'm just kind of messing around on the computer little play. And so it took me I think three days, something like that, in the evenings when there wasn't stuff that needed a lot of attention. I would just kind of sit here and just listen and even say something in the workout. So one day, hey, we'd love to be on your podcast. And I was like, hey, it's great guys. But I honestly want to listen to it a second time. I need to digest that material and figure out an action plan that I've got to take on that. So that I can really formulate the right questions. And really no one understand or else the questions I asked her the direction I goes, it's not going to be that valuable. Right, you know, because there's so much so much to it. There's so

Travis Johnson 1:33:19

much to it with the beautiful thing about podcasts. If you really if you go back and listen to this show, are you thinking about it? Keith didn't do a lot of work in this thing. This interview right here, he asked a couple of questions. He put it on me the guest to come up with all the content, which is beautiful, right? If you're in the business, if you run a nonprofit, if you are a consultant or whatever, and you're not hosting your own show, I think you're doing it wrong. Because hosting a show like this. Now Keith can go to something like headliner, and he can take every question and answer. He can take a little great quote in here. You can take a little audio clip, where I go on a diatribe. I like to talk for 15 minutes, right, he can take that. And now he doesn't have to create content throughout the week. He can take a little chunk of all of this, these interviews he does. And he can put it out Monday morning, Tuesday morning, he's got all this content created, he just has to cut it up. In a program like headliner that's free. There's a paid version, right? But you can get by with a free version for a really long time. And if you host your stuff on Libsyn, liberated syndication, libsyn.com you can use their free headliner down there, you pulled the episode you published you take it, you cut it out, boom, you posted an ABS on the post on social media. So you don't have to figure out we're gonna post we're going to come up with Monday, I didn't really plan on my stuff. If you've got an episode that's coming up, you can put out previews and little snippets, little clips to help people get interested in what it is you're gonna go yeah,

Keith McKeever 1:34:38

there's a lot of different things you can do in your writing. So there's not a whole lot of work, you know, for people who, you know, might be interested in being on the show. I am always looking for guests. Like I said earlier, it's kind of till June, but you know, I do a pre show interview. You know, sometimes it's half an hour, sometimes it's an hour. I had somebody we talked for two hours, but it was just you know, casual calm. Just to get to know the person to kind of formulate some questions, right, because I want it to be valuable, and have information that veterans or military members can use and create an actionable plan and go do something right. Or else, it's just us talking. And there's not any content or value there. Right. So get a formulation, good questions. That's really it, formulate the questions come up with a title, little bit of creative stuff behind the scenes. And very, basically, that's all really all you got to do a little bit of research on the person come up with a website, a little bit of story. And

Travis Johnson 1:35:36

if you're doing a live like this, you're sending other people like, oh, I don't know how to edit, I don't know how to do the backend stuff. Pull the Bill O'Reilly you know, screw, we're doing it live, do the show live. Go back, download the clip, cut out the pieces for yourself. You don't spend any time editing the show and making the sound all right. And getting all that backend stuff. If you've got the right equipment, the right headset, mic and mixer, you're gonna sound great, you know, sound professional. And that's all that really matters. Get your message out there, get your voice heard, I heard somewhere, maybe the Bible that face comes by listening, right? Everything you do something like this with a show with a podcast builds your credibility, get your message out there. You can do this on Anchor comm or anchor.fm. Or wherever it is for free. If you've got a smartphone, you have all the stuff you need. Get your show out there. Don't know what to say. Do an interview show ask a couple of questions. The guests come up with all the information. And you look like a genius for having them on. Wow. Well. Travis was a great guest.

Keith McKeever 1:36:39

You said I look like I look like a genius. I hope. three witnesses.

Travis Johnson 1:36:45

You look like a genius. All right, we're ending it right here, Travis, a genius where that shows up, you can go.

Keith McKeever 1:36:51

We know some people that are in our network that have some podcasts, and they just go completely unscripted. And under some people who are obviously just super hyper scripted, I've got, you know, I kind of formulate about six to nine questions. And I kind of stack them in of, you know, importance of how I want them to come out, make sure we hit certain points. Now I've got the three questions at the end, I always ask everybody. And then other than that, it's just tell you tell us a little bit of your story. In the beginning that's really about it, all I got to do is hit a few buttons in here and it makes it happen. It's live contents going out there. I do take take the audio and the video. And I'll listen the audio and if it's good something you know, maybe make some tweaks and I'll cut the audio off the video and then replace it and then you know re upload or something like that or posted somewhere else. But it's not that much. It's it's a little bit of time a little bit of effort. Did you have to learn a little bit of audio recording. Thanks to Joel Stewart for giving us some tips on on all that. You know what if you don't know anything about audio, and you have to dive into something like Audacity, which is free. It's a little bit of a learning curve. Once you figure it out, you just start rolling with it just like anything in life. Once you start mastering something, you got it. So that's a that's a really good the podcast thing because I was asked you how you think nonprofits can use podcasts, or new platforms like clubhouse, which is all audio based to build a following. Connect with potential guests and things like that.

Travis Johnson 1:38:19

If you're if you're a nonprofit, you've already established you've been out there you already have an audience, you every people following you on social media, and they want to connect with you think about the podcasts that you listen to or the authors that you read or audio books you do or whoever's on TV or you want to connect with the person that's on stage that has a message that has a show that has or whatever, right? So you have that ability to connect with people, every person that I bring in and I interview, I get a little bit smarter. See what some people don't understand is I like I've got Steve Sims come on the show author, bluefish and great guy. He's got the speakeasy mindset puts on World Class events, I get to ask Steve, without paying him any money. I'm not buying his master course I'm not getting into, like I get to ask him whatever I want. So every person that I interview, I get smarter. I learn how to do things like networking, like through Steam, and I get to learn how to contact celebrities like my guest, Vincent James, I get to learn about the stats behind nonprofits with Britney Josephson. And, and and so every person I talked to in the nonprofit world, I find out where their pain points are, where I can help what I can learn or develop to do something better. Every person I bring on the show, I learned a little bit more something special about nonprofits, or business or consultants or how to do better, right and building my own personal knowledge. And then everyone I bring on, I get a whole access to their audience. So everyone that they're going to go out and share with like, Keith, yesterday when our show is live or last live right now. You know, I'm going to get a YouTube link or whatever, I'm going to share that all my stuff. So now, I've you know, being the guest I've said hey, here's another show I've been checking what I have to say you know, like he's battle buddy podcast, and then everyone that's in my network now. gets the chance to see me talk again about the stuff that I talked about in also, they just went, he's got a good show, maybe we check Keith out, I heard that guy's a genius, right? You have access to all this other times, it's like three times not in the bad way. I'm like a good job genius. I don't like that at all. But you can access to networks, right? You get to learn people, all of a sudden you have this, this thing in the digital space. Well, now you've got a way to sell ads. Now you've got a way to you have a digital thing that you own, right? Whether it's a magazine, a blog, a blog, or a podcast, where you now have a digital dealer, real estate that people can get in on, you're building an audience in a Facebook group or a LinkedIn group, or wherever you have your groups at, are you going on clubhouse? And you know what, I can be a part of this, or I know that I have something that I'm building for the whatever, you know, how do you monetize this thing? Like I've got a podcast guy that you should really get a hold of, for $27. I might have mentioned it, right. That's a way for me to help monetize a way to help increase my credibility. And she keys already say great words about it. It's another way for me to bring in the money. Like one of the biggest things I think nonprofits are leaving on the table is they don't have swag, right? They don't have things like this great mug from Ginger and David, it really designs, things like that. There's a night. Well, I was just I was just listening to the audiobook tribes. I think it's by Seth Godin. And he was talking about this, you know, the music industry. The record labels were just terrible to all the bands and stuff coming out because they owned the whole supply chain, for lack of better words, and all the recording and all the things for artists to make money. So they were, you know, really operating as indentured servants to these record labels, because there was no way for them to monetize on our own. And then they started getting into ticket sales, and they started getting into swag sales. And they got into merchandise sales, they were actually able to take off and do good things and nonprofits go, well, we can't make money selling merchandise and like really, the NFL up until 2015 was a nonprofit. And they made billions every year selling you stupid jerseys, bumper stickers, baby bibs and all this other crap. And you had no problem buying this stuff for them. Don't you want your fans to have a way to show their support for you? Yeah, they're like, oh, that cost money. And then you go well, that with ginger and David, it really designs. They, it doesn't cost you any money upfront to do this stuff. Selling is not an evil word. It's not a bad thing. Everything that you own in your life, someone sold it to you, and you don't hold a grudge against them. So why would you hold anyone hold a grudge against you for showing off the great stuff you have. You're leaving money on the table by not having a product by not having a program and having a service by not having swag that you can.

Keith McKeever 1:42:46

And it's advertising their podcast, your nonprofit, what you do every time they take a drink, or they're walking into the store with a T shirt on or a mask or sunglasses or whatever, like

Travis Johnson 1:42:57

you can pick out this great sign by Jeff rally in Kadena mount works. Yeah, super fun stuff like that. I love this site. So cool. But like I need one of those now shoot. Yeah, yeah. Well, you can and Jeff right, it'll be glad to hook you obviously at this cool plasma laser cutter that is up. And I've got lights on my thing. That I haven't figured out how to show up really well on camera yet, but like when the camera's not on, is really cool looking. But you know, all these things are available. And if you don't know what's available, and you haven't seen and you haven't asked the question, you're just hurting you. These answers are out. There's people that are out there that will encourage you guide you mentor you, lead you teach you how to do the things you need to do to make your life better design what you want your life to look like, figure out what it takes to get there. And then go do it.

Keith McKeever 1:43:46

You're really live, you're live your life by design, you got to have that vision. Absolutely. Massive Action, live your life by design and grab the bull by the horns. Or if I don't know people really doing that. I wouldn't advise actually doing that. Maybe I should make a legal disclaimer.

Travis Johnson 1:44:04

Well, I like to buy a ticket to go watch someone else grab the bull by the horns because then I'm not in danger. And they are

Keith McKeever 1:44:11

Yeah, that's it. I wouldn't be too bad. I would you know, I mean to do that. I not I grew up in the country. I would not grab the bull by the horns.

Travis Johnson 1:44:22

Well, we're coming up on we're kind of on like an hour 45 here, and you haven't asked me your same three questions you asked everybody else apparently exactly what I was gonna get into. Yeah, yes, taco. You gotta go. I guess I get dinner. Yeah, you want me to get big bang theory to watch those masters. Now I can

Keith McKeever 1:44:39

take it I catch up on all that Netflix, all that Netflix. So, first question, what advice would you give to somebody looking to get out of the military? Now? I know maybe an interesting question because you're my first active duty person on the show.

Travis Johnson 1:44:52

Well, that and we already talked about it. Right? We already talked about doing something for the military, something for your professional career and something for yourself. Get out there, figure out what you want to do. Figure out what ski skills you need to learn in order to get to do that, and start developing those things. Like I paid for someone to build my website. And then I had another question. And eventually, I was like, I cannot wait on these people. To figure some of this stuff out. I watched a couple of YouTube videos, I messed it up once completely, I had my guy go and fix it. And then all the stuff I've added since then, I've learned how to do in my own. Right, I am now able to go confidently ish to my back into my website and put some cool things on there. I imported we talked about the nonprofit Podcast Network on my page. Um, a couple of connections and a couple of questions later, I found the plugin I needed I put that in. I watched a couple of videos. I sent it out, did it take a while? Yeah, it took a little bit. But you know, after three days, I had that thing up and running. And it didn't look half bad. Those of my web developer friends out there like they're all sigh all web developers are snobs and someone like, Travis, this looks like garbage. You've been doing it for 20 years, man, I've been doing this thing for like six weeks. random person like it doesn't look awful. But learn what you have to do if you can afford a podcast editing team. And that's something I want to get into. There's a course on Udemy for like $11 that walks you through how to do the thing. Spend the $11 Learn how to do that thing. What I'll know how to do networking or marketing or monetization, I don't have templates relative well, then you buy my guide for $27 nonprofit architect.org. Check the banner below. Do the thing. Figure out what it is you want to do what you need to get there and then go do it. You're like, well, I don't really know who to ask. Go on Facebook. Who do I know that knows how to do this cool thing to think about?

Keith McKeever 1:46:47

This. We're really happy to give recommendations to people like us on Facebook.

Travis Johnson 1:46:51

Yes, they are. Hey, check out my buddy. You want to get to the real estate game. Oh, heavy talk to Keith, you haven't talked to Keith and let me connect you. Here's a warm connection. Keith, help my buddy. Here's looking to get in the real estate game. That's it. Be a good pal. Be a good battle buddy. make that recommendation. Build your small businesses. Every pet spayed or neutered. connect with people. My God. Networking is like a dirty word. For enlisted people that I knew I felt the same way coming through the ranks coming out of the trailer park and like networking. It's like some dirty word. It's just people that want to do good things around other people that want to do good things. And if you say, hey, who does this thing. They're like, Oh, I know the guy. I know the person. I know the gal over here that takes care of this. That's all networking is. That's it. And if you go in and you provide value, like we talked about networking earlier, that everyone wants to recommend you to everybody else. If you go into networking, and you say what can you do for me? No one's gonna recommend you to anybody. That's just how it is. Get The Skills, get the network, if you need a piece of paper on your wall that says you know how to do stuff, get that thing to

Keith McKeever 1:48:04

great advice. Now, just as interesting as the first question is with you being active duty, what's your advice to somebody who is looking to make the military career looking to join,

Travis Johnson 1:48:15

really understand what it is that you want? Like, one of the reasons I joined the military is, you know, with my criminal record my grades and my family connections, I didn't have a lot of options. And I wanted to have something that had the opportunities I needed because, you know, coming out of school in the 90s in a small town where you know, your family name was like a cuss word. There wasn't a lot of opportunities. So I got into something that had the opportunities. It has unlimited potential for growth it has. It has money for college. I've got a paid for bachelor's and now paid for Masters thanks to the military, it was free 99 which is consequently my favorite price. It's hard to pass up. But figure out what kind of career you might be interested in. You're like, oh, military, and you immediately picture something like a full metal jacket. Or you picture something like Apocalypse Now. This isn't what the military is anymore. If you want to go play soldier you can you can join the army, the Marine Corps, you can be run if you're looking to get into some kind of 10s I've been an aviation my whole career. I worked on the ejection seats for a few years. I got into bigger airliners. And now I fly for a living. You can do that. Go get a ROTC scholarship, go to college, let them pay for your college upfront, and then go to pilot school. Alright, go to Pensacola. hang out for a couple of years. Get your Pilot Wings and then let them pay you to fly all over the world. Why not? Oh SpaceForce Oh, we want to be a drone pilot. I know drone pilots right now in the Air Force are getting a $250,000 signing bonus. It's 100% Oh 123 and four and 95% 205 You're guaranteed then you're guaranteed to make oh five and retire Was it Lieutenant Colonel? If you want to, and you get to be a drone, a drone pilot, you're in the cutting edge of technology. Well, so I want to say it's $450,000 bonus to be a jet pilot in the Air, a fighter pilot in the Air Force right now. If I didn't have a criminal record, I'd be in the Air Force. That's just how it is.

Yeah, that's big money.

You want to do something, a skill that's transferable, go get into the intelligence world. Go do one, two, or then get hired on the DEA or the FBI, or the DEA or any of the other three letter agencies out there, that you go work in an office and you're never really in harm's way. There's, there's tons of ways to do this thing. I've been I've spent my 20, almost 21 years in the Navy. I spent 21 days at sea. And that's just how it worked out for me. You get on an airplane that's too big for the ship. You don't go to this ship very often. Yeah,

Keith McKeever 1:50:57

that sounds like a win win. Yeah, I Yeah. Ship life does not seem like something that would have appealed to me. Yes, for sure.

Travis Johnson 1:51:06

You know, there's a lot of people that love it. I had a family early. Alright, if you are unencumbered by those things, go get on a ship. Right. There's nothing going on at home. If you do if you've done it, right. Like your bills aren't automatic, you've got no problems. You've got no girlfriend and no dog. Like you're on your own little world. The only thing that exists is that ship, there's no other problems out there. Family member gets sick or something crazy like that. But all of a sudden you haven't spent money in and, you know, six weeks. Yeah. And you go pull it to Dubai. Guess what? You're gonna have a good time.

Keith McKeever 1:51:40

You will and I was stationed in Japan and Thomas ships would come into Acoustica we, we avoided certain parts of Tokyo. Let's put it that way. We knew where the Navy guys were gonna be. Oh, yeah, absolutely. worse and worse, and they were gonna stir up some shit. I'll be honest, I mean, so a lot of US Air Force guys would be like overseas gonna hang out closer to base, because we know there's couple ships that came in. And we just don't want to get involved in any of that crap.

Travis Johnson 1:52:04

Enjoy the opportunity, set yourself up for your career. Don't say things like, I don't want to get promoted, you know, whatever, you know, promote me and then I'll figure out how to do the job. Once I get paid

Keith McKeever 1:52:16

more. Like goes they're gonna prepare you for that. Yeah, you're going to be prepared. You're gonna You're never gonna feel prepared. You're never gonna talk employer and you don't have some of the skills, right?

Travis Johnson 1:52:26

Yeah, you got some you got some skills?

Keith McKeever 1:52:31

If you have a good team around you, and you have good leadership, you're fine. They're not going to let you fail. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I will say it's a big F.

Travis Johnson 1:52:40

I mean, you do the what people would like people in the civilian world have different people in the military world is I can go in and I can break a $10 million apart. Latest order a new one, and no big deal. Might be a big deal. But no one's getting fired. It's like they're sending me home. Right? There's billions of dollars treating me they're not sending me home. Right. So yeah, you know, if you're young, like I went, I went from graduate high school 17 To have no real future. And a year later, I'm on an aircraft carrier launching FAA teams off the John C Stennis. You know, you're on a multi billion dollar aircraft carrier launching million dollar airplanes. I think baby horn flight $44 million airplanes that you're in charge of. Like where do you do that in the civilian world? Like you don't you just don't do that. It's not a thing. And now I fly. I fly on. Let's see. See how we do this here. I fly that bad boy that e6 B mercury, which is like almost a half a billion dollar nuclear command control aircraft. You know, what did you do? What did you get to do is your office look like?

Keith McKeever 1:53:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you got to you got to play with cooler stuff. I was security forces. So we just had to carry a gun and sit there and watch it make sure somebody didn't do something stupid.

Travis Johnson 1:53:54

Okay, if I can recommend anything, I recommend you do not be security forces. You know, get the row on the cruiser and have fun with guns. You just don't you're standing at the gates or the turnstile or whatever you're standing guard. That is your entire life. Don't do security forces. Because if anyone

Keith McKeever 1:54:13

that he can ruin a million dollar Park and not get in trouble. I've seen people lose their entire careers over back in a police car or police truck into an aircraft. It was

one strip club

I have seen people get booted out of security forces for doing some things on flight lines. Yeah, they were last time we were last stop, you know is good and bad. Just everything but you are the last stop. Even in tech schools, people get recycled from other jobs that couldn't hack those jobs. Where do they put them before they kick them out security versus security forces if nothing else, give them a gun lumsdaine at a gate checking ID. You could you could train. If you are if you

Travis Johnson 1:54:57

are security forces if you're listening to this, you're like oh man Next up, just don't be a jerk. Like, yeah, yeah, don't be don't be a jerk standing at the No one. No one cares that you're a jerk still be jerk. Yeah. All right. Last question. Here we

Keith McKeever 1:55:11

go. This is your opportunity to give a shout out to any organizations that you want to that you think are doing a good job and in the veteran space, other than the 40 we just mentioned. Yeah, other than the 45 aren't mentioned or if you just want to mention

Travis Johnson 1:55:25

what we're talking about. We talked about Jeff Riley and incognito metal metal works we're talking about David ginger and really designed step is we talked about the warrior Council, which is a Facebook group 49 bucks a month great people in their geniuses like Keith as four times. You've got access to people that have million dollar empires that are every level of business that are talking, learning, divulging the secrets of the trade, behind the scenes and some of our closest, you know, business friends and contacts in there. That'll help you with with doing anything. You've got people like Nick Valentine, that's got like seven business operational fans support we mentioned Joel Stewart, at the veteran franchise initiative. You want to know about franchises. You got to get in there. Talk to Joel, you've got New Yorker with the more umbrella and a more umbrella TV so you got a TV show now. That's great. You've got access to lawyers like Andy Nelson, help you get your stuff trademark. You've got great tax people. I know we're in tax season. You got Brandon Cox, you get people to do construction like Melinda and finger and you've got wonderful people like Tammy Moses helping the hoarding solution out there. She's got her own podcast, and he always got our own podcast. I got a podcast, you get a podcast,

Keith McKeever 1:56:34

a podcast, the South gossip guys got. Yeah, he's

Travis Johnson 1:56:38

got a podcast. He's got everyone's got the guy. He goes. It's great stuff. With this sweet leather, work on hats. Get your logo on a hat, check out the with southpaws Tales from the barstool or something like that. Yeah, he's got a great shout out on Facebook. He's like, check out this expert, this amazing thing, and we will spend zero time talking about any of this professional. He is so great. You got it. There's so many people, right. There's

Keith McKeever 1:57:07

a guy I didn't eat coffee. Give us a shout out man. Oh, yeah, yeah, this was a coffee.

Travis Johnson 1:57:17

See? It kills me because I'm not a coffee guy. I never have coffee. For me. Coffee is icky. But I still love my Jose and third day coffees again, I guess he roasted with mesquite, which I guess is some kind of fanciness I know it's mosquitoes. But coffee is kind of icky. But if you like icky coffee

in this, I don't know. I'm not trying to. As I'm saying I'm like, and this really sounds Yeah.

Keith McKeever 1:57:43

But it's really good coffee, actually, I said last night for the first time. And I was really really surprised because I was like, Oh man, musky coffee, like, you know, but it was it was really good. It's bacon and eggs in the morning. I'm

Travis Johnson 1:57:57

telling you. I'm a hot chocolate guy. I drink hot chocolate water or bourbon. That's me. That's what I drank. We were like, Oh, you don't like coffee? Like there's a chance this is bourbon. Like what kind of chance they don't smell it like you don't smell it. You'll know. You're smelling alone. There's so many great people. And again, if you're getting an organization like the warrior Council, or you're in a rotary club, lions, masons, whatever you do, those people and they're care about the community, they're in business, they want to do good things. Those are the people that you want to be around doing good stuff.

Keith McKeever 1:58:32

Absolutely. Well, that's all I have for questions. Travis, I really do appreciate you coming on here. i There's a ton of knowledge not from not only for nonprofits, but for business people as well. I think there's a lot of nuggets of information they can pull out here and there. Your Guide is great for anybody who's got a podcast wants to grow it or looking to create one. So I really appreciate you being here. And to go ahead and finish off with my last little message that I play here the video Alright, that's it for today's episode. Thanks, folks for tuning in. And take a listen to what we got. What we had in store for you today. Appreciate you tuning in. Real quick before we leave, don't forget to go check out battle buddy podcast.net. That's our website trying to constantly provide as much content and valuable stuff there as possible, from financial things to VA to just other resources that that can provide. So go there check it out. If you have any ideas reach out to us for other things we can add to the to the website. And don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, you know, go follow us on all those platforms so we can help get the message out. As you know, the goal here this podcast is to help people whether that's to you know, help people get a needle out of their arms to get themselves clean and back onto productive path or or take the gun out of somebody's mouth, you know, and help them deal with those demons and go on to live a better life. or get somebody on a path to financial freedom or just bettering their life it is all right. The goal is to help our fellow vets and that's something we should all be striving for. So help me get the message out be my be my battle buddies and go do that for me. Last thing I've got here is, is for those who might be at their, at the end of their their rope, and it feel like there may not be another option other than to become a statistic today. And all I got to say to you is don't I want to be your battle buddy. You got tons of other battle buddies out there. You know we love and appreciate you. We do not want to lose another brother sister today. So down at the bottom of the screen if you're watching, I've got the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. That number is 1-800-273-8255 So make that phone call or contact a VA contact your pastor. I don't care. Whoever that person or entity needs to be for you. Make that phone call. So you can be here with us tomorrow.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai