How I Built My Small Business

Christopher Helfrich - How EAT.LEARN.PLAY. is Changing Lives in Oakland

• Season 2 • Episode 9

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Today’s episode is part of Podcasthon, a global effort bringing thousands of podcasts together to raise awareness for charitable causes.

My guest today is Christopher Helfrich, President and CEO of Eat. Learn. Play., the foundation he co-founded with Stephen and Ayesha Curry to tackle childhood hunger, early literacy, and active lifestyles for kids in Oakland.

Since launching in 2019, Eat. Learn. Play. has raised and invested over $32 million—directly impacting underserved children and families. Under Christopher’s leadership, the foundation has grown into a force for change, helping Oakland kids get the nutrition, education, and movement they need to thrive.

Before this, Christopher led the Starlight Children’s Foundation and served as Head of the Nothing But Nets campaign for the UN Foundation, working to combat malaria globally.

And in 2024, he and Stephen Curry landed on the cover of Inc. Magazine for their work in fostering equity, access, and opportunity for all.

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Website: https://www.annemcginty.com/

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to a special episode of how I Built my Small Business. I'm Anne McGinty, and today's episode is part of Podcastthon, a global effort bringing thousands of podcasts together to raise awareness for charitable causes. My guest today is Christopher Helfrich, president and CEO of Eat Learn Play, the foundation he co-founded with Stephan and Aisha Curry to tackle childhood hunger, early literacy and active lifestyles for kids in Oakland. Since launching in 2019, eat Learn Play has raised and invested over $32 million, directly impacting underserved children and families. Under Christopher's leadership, the foundation has grown into a force for change, helping Oakland kids get the nutrition, education and movement they need to thrive. Before this, christopher led the Starlight Children's Foundation and served as head of the Nothing but Nets campaign for the UN Foundation, working to combat malaria globally. And in 2024, he and Stephen Curry and some of the team landed on the cover of Inc Magazine for their work in fostering equity, access and opportunity for all. Check out the link in the show notes to learn more about Eat Learn Play. Let's get started, chris. Thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker 2:

And I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

So can we start out with you just telling us a little bit about you, Like who are you and when and why did you decide to dedicate your life and career to doing good?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's. I mean, listen, it's a, it's a big question, you know, and I think it was probably more of a gradual thing. And then you know a big aha moment. But you know, probably like a lot of people, it was sort of coming of age. You know, the light bulb goes on during college right, where you start to be a little bit more aware of the world around you, some of the inequalities that exist in our world. And for me it was a time where I sort of, yeah, opened my eyes a little bit and became probably a more empathetic person. And through that process early on in my career, I did just sort of realize pretty quickly that feeling good about what I did, you know, day to day, was more important to me than the dollar amount on my paycheck Not that that wasn't important, but it wasn't as much of a motivator. So I'd say that's part of it.

Speaker 2:

But there's a big part of it too that comes from family.

Speaker 2:

Right, I'm from a pretty big family that got much bigger.

Speaker 2:

When I was in high school and into college I grew up the third of four boys and then, when I was a late teenager, my parents, over the course of several years, adopted three more kids, like you know, bring them in equally into the family in a beautiful way, kids from really tough situations, right.

Speaker 2:

And I saw my parents sort of move heaven and earth Right To make things as great as possible for these kids, to put them through school and to truly make them, you know, equal parts of the family right, and to see how that extended my dad's career, I'm sure by many years and, you know, just caused my mom to take on an unbelievable workload. But they did it so lovingly and pretty much effortlessly that you know I don't think I even knew at the time just how inspired I was by that. But as I look back now it was clearly like a seminal gesture or whatever from them that just made me admire them even more and it made me want to probably be more like them, more like my mom. Even though I've been able to chart my own career, which is very different from anybody's in my family, I do like to think that my mom and my dad and their selflessness took hold a little bit in me like and their selflessness took hold a little bit in me.

Speaker 1:

That is incredibly generous and I don't think that I knew that it's. It's so selfless and it's also really beautiful that you're able to be that inspired by your parents while they're still here, Because my dad passed a few years ago and I'm inspired to live in his legacy, but it's just a little bit unfortunate that it took him passing for me to see it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just a little bit unfortunate that it took him passing for me to see it. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So that is amazing. So when you graduated from college and between then and now, what was your experience before co-founding? Eat, Learn, Play.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean it wasn't a winding path, but I think, like most of us, it took us a little while to find our footing right. I cut my teeth in a couple of different ways. Right Like fundraising and partnerships has always sort of been at or near the center of a lot of my roles. I realized early on, like my first role was at my alma mater, trinity University in San Antonio, texas. I had worked like in the in the fledgling college radio station, like as a summer job between my junior and senior year, at a time when the radio station had a mixed format and no real audience. But they're like all right, you want to come sell some sponsorship time and underwriting time on public radio, have at it. And I spent the summer not knowing any better and did I ended up raising I don't know if it was tens of thousands of dollars or whatever. It didn't feel amazing to me. But what I didn't know is nobody had ever sold anything because there was no audience to speak of. And so early on in my senior year, the university president made a decision to actually turn the station, which had, you know, powerful signal, into one of like America's only jazz radio stations, not smooth jazz, soft jazz, like real jazz. And you know the university like asked me would you, would you be interested in coming? And like co running the station, like we're going to hire a music person to do all that side, but there is a mandate from the college to become self-sufficient within, you know, within two or three years. That's what I was tasked with. So, like my early entrepreneurial roots actually, you know they go back 20 years now with that, with that opportunity, and that was successful.

Speaker 2:

And then I kept climbing a little bit up the fundraising path and the truth is, as I continued sort of opening my eyes to the world, I found myself you know this is like early mid 2000s just sort of caring more and more and maybe being a little bit more and more frustrated about the world around me. Right, and just wanting to do more, to sort of be in the thick of things, like trying to make things better. There's like not one particular cause that I'm particularly passionate about, like it has to be cancer, it has to be climate change, it's like there's a lot that needs help in the world and if I can use some of my talents and my energy to to to improve something, then you know it's time well spent and so sort of cut my path, fundraising and building partnerships. And then a big break came in 2011 when an organization that I supported this you know at the time big global grassroots anti-malaria campaign nothing but nets I got tapped to run that initiative through the UN foundation. And so then, all of a sudden, it's like leaping over from from fundraising to, you know, you're doing fundraising, advocacy, leading the organization, and I did that for like five and a half years and that was one of the best times of my life, just trying to figure out how can you be creative and effective enough to like rally hundreds of thousands of Americans to care about a disease that's, you know, impacting kids halfway around the world, but definitely not in America any longer. And I was really able to, like you know, looking back, like flex my muscles in terms of building partnerships and being creative and trying to figure out how to rally people around a vision. It was something I was effective at, but definitely the best move that I made like the luckiest thing that's maybe happened is we were partners with the NBA cares right, nothing but nets or a basketball term, but like Dikembe Mutombo, who just passed but is like a living legend from DR Congo. He had retired and he had been like the spokesperson for malaria in the NBA. But we were, like we were without a player, and if you don't have a player in a partnership with the NBA, like you're not going to be able to move too many hearts and minds. Teams aren't rolling out the red carpet and throwing money at you just because NBA care says that they like you. And, at the same time, like I realized we needed to get a player on board. But it's 2011. So we weren't going to get Kobe Bryant or LeBron James at this point in their careers to like to care about malaria.

Speaker 2:

But I'm a sports fan. I've got siblings who went to Davidson College, where Stefan went, and so I pursued this like oft injured, you know this guy with a bum ankle, second year player on the lowly Golden State Warriors, to be like our big malaria ambassador, thinking if this guy can ever get healthy, like he might have a bright future in the league. And so I approached Steph in 2011 about, you know, doing this, and he said yes, like he was excited about it, and so he became an unbelievable ambassador for the cause and for the next five years we worked together. This guy took a week out of his summer in 2013 as he was really ascending into becoming a superstar to spend time in refugee camps with me on the border of the Congo, and you really get to know somebody on experiences like that. But to see the grace and the generosity and just how he carries himself and is present for other people, even in places like refugee camps, it was amazing to witness, right.

Speaker 2:

Anyways, I led that campaign for years, connecting with Stefan and getting to know Aisha, and that journey was huge. I was in the right place at the right time. In part because of that, nothing but Nets experience that when Aisha and Stefan got serious about starting a foundation, like six years ago, that brought their philanthropic interests together Like I was the person that they called to like help them. Just sort of imagine, brainstorm, think through like what could this be? What kind of impact could we have?

Speaker 1:

Wow, and I love the connecting of the dots there because it all makes sense in retrospect. But it also does feel like maybe you were meant to meet him, maybe this was all meant to happen. So it sounds like you connected over nothing but nets. You kind of built a friendship and a relationship. So when did Eat, learn, play come into the picture?

Speaker 2:

We launched in July of 2019, you know, right before the pandemic but for like this, you know, seven, eight months before that, I was sort of grinding away with the curries at my side but by myself, like the only staff member of this thing, trying to put together the pieces of what it could be. You're in the Bay Area, so you'll appreciate this. It's no accident that it was in late 2018 that they started getting serious about this. Right, the Warriors they were in their final year playing in Oakland, which had become the Currys', adopted hometown, hometown and, like in a community that had really wrapped their arms around the Curry's and as the Curry's became a family. You know it's the place that they loved and it's also a place where there's a lot of of of hardship currently and a lot of struggle, and so part of the reason around the timing of Eat, learn, play was to make sure that Oakland and this generation of Oakland kids is looked after right as the Warriors pack up and move across the bridge to San Francisco. And so that's the timing of it all, and you know, beyond that, they're saying like, listen, we want to focus on Oakland and do everything we can for kids in this community. There was a couple other things I think are worth mentioning that they felt really strongly about in terms of drawing the parameters of what we were going to build together.

Speaker 2:

The second thing besides Oakland was these issue areas right, like Aisha has been for a long time, way before he learned play, like a passionate crusader against childhood hunger, like doing a lot of work with no Kid Hungry, and she knows the statistics nationally and locally and like for her it was a non-negotiable you know we're going to. We need to make sure Oakland kids are fed Steph. Like you know we're gonna. We need to make sure Oakland kids are fed Steph. Like you know, he attributes so much of the awesome person that he is today to his experience playing sports and being active. Right, whether it's like individual sports, like golf or team sports, like you know baseball and basketball, you know just who he is. He attributes to to playing. So for him, like the play pillar was sort of like yep, that's my stake in the.

Speaker 2:

And then education was the area where they both felt strongly but also were smart enough and, I think, humble enough to realize like okay, we don't know in this sort of very vast education space where we can have the greatest impact. And so we sort of dabbled in a couple of different areas in education. But that's that's, anne, where eat, learn, play came from. And like when I was trying to figure it out on the board with with a dear friend of Stefan's, like what do we call this thing? There's all these issues. There was like this eureka moment was like, oh, I think we've got it Eat, learn, play.

Speaker 2:

And then the third thing they care about when we were building this was the name.

Speaker 2:

One of their lawyers had registered the foundation before I started, knowing that this was coming down the pike.

Speaker 2:

They had registered it with the IRS as a Stephan and Aisha Curry Family Foundation and when we were sort of sitting around the dinner table like imagining what this could be, it was Aisha who was like I don't want to do anything publicly until we get this name changed. Right, the Curry Family Foundation doesn't say anything about the impact that we want to have, right, it makes it about us, and that's the opposite of why they started this thing. And Stefan sort of chimed in from across the table. He's like yeah, this is about impact, not about legacy, and that's sort of been a mantra that we've carried with us now for the last, you know five and a half, six years. But that's how Eat Learn Play came to be and, like, those were the initial big sort of parameters from the Currys as we were building this thing, like okay, like let's see what we can do. But these are the things that. These are among the things we feel really, really strongly about.

Speaker 1:

What an incredible North Star to like to take out the ego part and to take out the name, the recognition, and just focus on what the cause is really trying to address. And I recently learned how many kids really depend on the food at school if it's for free in order to eat or they may just go hungry. And then, with the play you were mentioning, we all see the benefit of team sports or sports in general for what it can do for one's self-confidence and skill building and then the learning obviously. Yeah, I don't know what the state is of the schools in Oakland, but I imagine that it's pretty imbalanced when you look at the Bay Area overall.

Speaker 2:

It's such an important point that you make right and in where they should be, and it's not what kids deserve. Right, like our whole attitude in this is Oakland kids deserve the very best and what role can we play in very tangible ways to do it. But, like, the truth is is that 39% of Oakland students right now are living in food insecure households. Right, schools are the places where you know over half of Oakland students, like 17, 18,000 kids get two or three meals a day. Our learn pillar has evolved into a very, very deep focus on early literacy because it's amazing, but you can basically draw a straight line between a kid's ability to read well at the end of third grade and their success in school and in life. It's how dire that is. Third grade reading level is a huge predictor of graduation rates, of career success and also and it's kind of messed up, but it's one of the key data points that prison systems use in our US as a way of predicting inmate populations. So I say that and then I'll tell you that in Oakland, when we got started with this initiative, 85% of children of color in Oakland schools were reading behind grade level by the end of the third grade 40% of students, of children of color, were two or three or more grade levels behind in third grade, and so that's the imperative we have to change that.

Speaker 2:

And then, when you talk about play, yeah, I mean, what we came to realize is at schools can be hubs for a lot of things, but especially youth sports. Right, like, every child should be able to experience the joys and the benefits of youth sports. Right, like, every child should be able to experience the joys and the benefits of youth sports. And schools should be that place where kids should have access to high quality youth sports. But budget cuts happen. Participation in Oakland and around the country is like falling precipitously when we know that kids who are engaged in these sort of healthy behaviors end up being, you know, like for the most part, more successful in life. And so, and eat, learn, play like it's. We're playful at our nature and I think that's part of our secret sauce, but the issues are serious.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's. It's just inequalities that are I mean you. You spread that out over the future and it is feeling hugely imbalanced. When you were mentioning how you learned the fundraising and the partnerships, going back to your radio days at college, what can you tell us about what it's like fundraising and the best way to get people's support for your mission?

Speaker 2:

You know, I'm probably not the most traditional like by the book fundraiser. Right, like, or even like the nonprofit sector, I'm not spending a lot of time going to conferences or like, oh, this is how it's done. It's like we try to run Eat, learn, play and like a business. I think for me, probably three of the biggest things I think have driven a lot of my fundraising and partnership building success like. One is passion. Right, like you know, I am super passionate, and maybe you're hearing it in my voice, but I'm super passionate about what I get to do. Like I feel lucky and have an ability, I think, or I hope, to be able to get others excited about becoming a part of this. Right, like eat, learn, play it's not about me. Like this thing is open and if you want to come and grab part of it and be part of it, like great, and I will do what I can to get you excited about that.

Speaker 2:

The second thing is I think I have a really good or unusual imagination. Right, like, I've got a lot of areas where I'm not as strong, like detail orientation or always being able to stay on task, like whatever, but like I think I have a unique imagination to be able to take an issue like malaria and go. You know what? We should bring Stephen Curry over to refugee camps and we should lead this campaign that raises money and being able to like connect the dots and bring a network together to help us towards that goal. And so I do think for me, like having that imagination has been a key ingredient. And then the third thing is, just like it's hustle right, there's no substitute for hard work, right? In the last six years of my life, you know, has proven that again and again to me. But it's like you got to work hard if you want it right. But those are some of the key pieces.

Speaker 1:

When you mentioned that you run this nonprofit kind of like a business, it was really making me curious to know a little bit more about that side of the nonprofit. Like I have no idea what it takes monetarily to get a nonprofit up and off the ground. Are there any thoughts that you can share with us? For anyone listening in who is curious maybe they want to start something like this on their own at some point, like how much does it realistically take?

Speaker 2:

I mean, there's different levels of this stuff, right, and we've already, in our first five and a half six years, I've gone through many life cycles.

Speaker 2:

I think it's a matter of what your vision is and what you want to do right.

Speaker 2:

For us with Eat, learn, play, one of the things that I think sets us apart, or that I'm proud of, is we have this imagination that's buoyed right, that's strengthened by the Curry's voice in their platforms and their networks, like.

Speaker 2:

We are very unique in that way, but it's it's understanding, like what's the issue that we're trying to help solve and the attitude that we have, and part of how I think we think about it like a business is just who are the kids that we're trying to reach and what will it take for us to get the job done and for us to do all the work that we want to do is like 20, 30, 40, $50 million a year for a long time, and so we've got a top notch finance team, we've got a board, we've got our budget is down to a T.

Speaker 2:

We're audited every year, but the mandate that we have internally is like is to grow and to do everything we can for these kids that we're trying to sort of set big goals that are a reach but that are achievable, and then figure out how to get that work done to the point now where, five and a half years in, we're now like raising and deploying like 20, $25 million a year back into the local community. It's what the kids need, like it's what the market is requiring, and so we're doing everything we can to get that done. It's not, hey, let's try to host a fundraiser, raise a million dollars this year and give it away and we'll feel good about ourselves. It's.

Speaker 1:

It's really driven by the need that's out there and trying to do everything we can to play the biggest role we can. So take us back to that dinner table. You were sitting down with the Currys and you had decided to start this and you changed the name. So everybody was happy with moving forward. What were the next steps Like? How do you proceed from that point to bring your now idea to fruition?

Speaker 2:

It's a good question, right. They gave me a lot of autonomy right To fill in the blanks besides those three things that they felt strongly about. But, like going back to those early days, it was me alone, a lot of days in an empty office and in my house, just sort of trying to put these pieces together. A big part of it was getting to know the community and also building a network with, you know, within sort of the Curry spheres, right, which, which has a lot of power again, beginning to get people excited about the potential of this thing and how they could be involved, like that was. That was a key part of it. And then every week, every two weeks, every three weeks, we were back around that dinner table and you know, like here's the paper, here's the current plan, like let's react and the Curry's sort of picking it apart. Yes, no, you know asking great questions. I mean, looking back, it was sort of beautiful how it was put together. But also, looking back, I can't believe all that I didn't know and how naive I was to launch this thing as, like, the only staff person knowing where we've gone. It's like I can't believe I did that and I'm not sure that I could do it again. What I didn't know is actually really helpful. Like I can't believe I was sleeping at night back then, but it was. It was great and so it was.

Speaker 2:

It was a lot of back and forth, it was a lot of networking and beginning to build partnerships and finding those people at, at, at community organizations or you know, or or potential funders who could even though it was just a single piece of paper, just me talking to them, like you could see that they were grabbing on and willing to like, take that leap with us to say, all right, you might not have $500,000 to give us right now, but you know, we're, we'll be alongside you and and hopefully we can get there. So there was a lot of that. There was something else around that dinner table as we were getting into those conversations of, okay, like, how are we going to make this thing sustainable and successful long term? And there's this issue of, like the Curry's are wealthy. Right, like Stefan's contract is out there, it's public, so I'm not breaking any secrets, but the idea is, like, how can we make sure that that is an impediment to people getting involved?

Speaker 2:

Right, like the Curry's could have created this as a private foundation and self-funded it, but there would be a cap in terms of how much we could do. And what we realized, you know pretty quickly, is they're magnetic, right, like they have all of these fans and followers. They're incredible, like beloved people, and so people want to be a part of what they do. And so they promised, you know, on one of those dinner table conversations, and they agreed, to fully fund, forever, all of the administrative and fundraising overhead costs for the foundation, so that every dollar that comes in can go directly back out into into the programs and the partnerships that we're supporting. And all of a sudden, there was this moment of like. You know we can answer that potential objective, you know we're trying to build this thing, so like it'd be hard for someone who cared about these issues to say no.

Speaker 1:

So there's a couple of things that you've just said that I really would love to know more about. The first one is just you mentioned how much you didn't know at the very beginning and how surprised you were that you were able to actually get to this point. What are you talking about? So? What did you not know? Can you be more specific?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I mean, the earliest investment we ever made was in underwriting like summer camp costs for like a thousand Oakland kids so that they could have someplace in the summer to go and eat, learn and play in a safe environment. And we launched in July, right in the height of summer camp. And so we decided it was a kind of clever idea, but we decided to throw a carnival, basically at Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland to launch Eat Learn Play and let's bring in over 1,000 campers from across 20 parks and rec sites around the city to help us kick off Eat Learn Play. And we did right and it was amazing. Yeah, it was just like it still is like one of the best days that he or in play has had.

Speaker 2:

But I'm not an event planner. I already admitted like eight minutes ago that I'm not very detail oriented. But here I was like the only like real employee of this organization that was hosting an event for over a thousand kids. That was like big on the media because you're, you're, you're with the Bay area's power couple and like there was that like big on the media because you're with the Bay Area's power couple and we were naive and that was a strength of ours at the time. But what was behind that was the people that I had been talking to and the Curry's network that loves them. It was really the power of partnerships and that's still at the heart of Eat, learn, play today. So it's going out to all of the Curry's brand partners and all of the Oakland sports teams who were still in Oakland at the time and just saying, hey, we're doing this and we would love for you to be a part of it. Right, and it was going to like parks and rec and saying, hey, do you have any event planners who could like, who could pitch in and and sort of help with this?

Speaker 2:

And what happened was like this, this just unbelievable event where we just basically had, you know, we had the chases and rackettons and Golden State Warriors and Oakland Roots and Under Armour, like everybody's hosting, like an activity station, and the kids are just cycling through in one direction. The Currys are cycling through in another direction and we had a photographer and a videographer follow them and so we could sort of repay all these partners by like you know what, we'll get some photos of Steph engaging, you know, in your fun activity station with these kids and and it worked right. It just like really worked. And you know, yes, I was a staff of one when we hosted that event and we pulled it off, but really there was like 200 people there right alongside us, like willing us to success in a beautiful way.

Speaker 2:

But as I try to recount that story to our team now at Eat, learn, play and now we're like 20 people strong. They know me and they know the things that I'm not good at, they kind of look at me like how the hell did this happen? Like I barely believe that you could pull this off. Health, rich.

Speaker 1:

I am amazed. I have the hardest time even just planning a kid's birthday party. So I can't imagine an event for a thousand people in a public space, with permits and all the gazillion things that you must have had to have done. That's incredible.

Speaker 2:

You permits and all the gazillion things that you must have had to have done. That's incredible. You surround yourself with people who know what they're doing and you treat them well and you make them feel a part of it and they are like they are a part of it and I think that authentic connection, that that you can help people make with, with what you're doing, and again we have the curry. So it's it's, it's it's easier than if you're starting from scratch without them Like that's definitely the secret sauce.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. I mean you've got the Curry's, but you also have so much passion. It's very clear you are driven by your heart and I think that anybody that you partner with is going to be able to see that. So the other question that I had was you said the Curry's have committed to funding the overhead costs of the nonprofit. Can you give us an idea of what that means annually for them?

Speaker 2:

It's not insignificant at all and it grows every year, right To their credit.

Speaker 2:

I talk about how we have about a 20 person team right now, right Over the first couple of years, and this was something that I actually felt was maybe going to keep us from growing and reaching our full potential, because bringing on new fundraisers building out like a best in class finance and operations team, like it costs a lot of money and those funds come directly from their pockets.

Speaker 2:

And so I sort of you know brought it up a little sheepishly with the Currys, with their financial advisor who sits on our board, and like it was Steph who, like, shook his head. He's like, no, like we want you to grow this thing as big as you can to have the impact that we want to have. Like we have your back right. The commitment that they make annually is, is, is a very, very big one, but again, to have that almost a mandate from them of like, don't be worried about us. Like you be responsible with the funds. But what we want and the reason we created this thing in the first place was was to impact this generation of Oakland kids, and we don't want to put limits on that.

Speaker 1:

So generous it's, it makes it so sustainable to just remove that one weight from the foundation's needs to make sure that it can continue for perpetuity. That is incredible. So it's been, you said, six years now.

Speaker 2:

So we launched in July of 2019. So we've officially been on the map publicly for five and a half years and again, I started seven, eight months before that. So that's where you're getting the weird timeline for me, but it's been six years for me.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so in those six years, what has been the hardest part of getting this to where it is today?

Speaker 2:

It's a great question, I think. I think the changing of the life cycles has been hard for me, right, like I've. I've been lucky to lead organizations that have that have been successful, but I've been lucky to lead organizations that have been successful, but I've never built an organization and taken it to where it is now, right, and it's that acknowledgement again of, like you know, you have to open your eyes and accept that you don't know what you don't know, and going from a startup into adolescence and now adolescence into whatever this next phase is, it's been rife with challenges, right, like you know, when we were young, right when we were early on, we had three, four or five staff members and we could move really fast, right, and we could respond to challenges and everybody was sort of in the loop and you felt like everybody knew what was going on and was rowing in the same direction. You get to 1215 staff members and now, all of a sudden, things can't happen as fast, right, and you begin to have those internal communication challenges and the culture of the organization starts to change a little bit. And so, making sure you have the tools and the support for me, like the executive coaching, to help me be the best leader I can for an organization at that level and even though we in some ways can't move as fast as we used to, what growing has done like the depth of our work, right, like the true impact of our work is like has multiplied like 5x, 10x, 20x over the last couple of years as we've grown.

Speaker 2:

But it's been, it's been really hard, right, and I have not naturally been as positioned for that, like you can probably hear it in my voice. Like you know, I definitely bring an entrepreneurial spirit to eat, learn, play. But as we get to the point now where we have a community that's really relying on us and we've got a base of, you know, probably a thousand supporters and a lot like dozens of like really committed partners, like it takes more than entrepreneurial spirit to move this thing. And so it's like how do we, how do we build this team with great people who are way better at their jobs than I am, and how can, how can I get out of the way when necessary and just empower them to do their thing? It hasn't always been easy, definitely been challenges at point, but it's helped get us where we are today.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like you're learning on the go a little bit, but the good thing is that there are other nonprofits out there who've been through the same pain points and I'm sure would offer mentorship to help you get through it. It pain points and I'm sure would offer mentorship to help you get through it. It sounds like you would never let this fail, like this is your mission, this is your heart and everything. So, to spin it a little bit, what, in the last six years, have been the most memorable days? Like when you look back and you snapshot a picture in your mind of days when you feel like the nonprofit has made some significant impact or forward momentum. Like what would they be?

Speaker 2:

That's such a good question. I'll start with our eat pillar, because that's really where we started. Like, the first couple of years of Eat Learn Play, we were pretty much exclusively focused on on on hunger in Oakland. I talk about how we launched in July of 2019. We had just hired our second and third employees in November of 2019, like just hired our second and third employees in November of 2019, like, and had them onboarded right before COVID hit Right and Aisha had posed in a board meeting, like in January of 2020, like there's this thing going on and I'm a little worried about it.

Speaker 2:

Like she was very early on in it and so it was in our heads, but there was this aha moment I had like, as it was like beginning to creep closer of oh my gosh. Like yeah, it looks like schools might close indefinitely, right, and if I've learned anything over the last year, it's that students again rely on schools for their for for two or three meals every day, and so if school is closed indefinitely, like, how do we make sure that Oakland kids don't miss a meal, right? So like, here we are, three people like planting a flag, not knowing what we were doing, but we had no kid hungry and we had the local food bank and we had the school district and we just like put out a call to action on how do we make sure the community stays fed during this and obviously COVID became so much worse and it lasted so much longer than we could have imagined. But in that first year of COVID we ended up helping to distribute 26 million meals out into Oakland through the school, through the food bank. But our biggest partnership was with World Central Kitchen, jose Andres, who they're doing amazing work in LA right now. But it was in Oakland where we co-piloted this idea of what if we employed local restaurants to be preparing meals for hungry kids and families in the community. Restaurants had all been closed down, these small businesses, because of COVID. And like we ended up with this basic model of paying local restaurants $10 for every meal that they prepared and delivered during the pandemic. And like we ended up employing 130 Oakland restaurants and doing like I don't know if it was a million and a half or 2 million restaurant meals back out into the community during that time. So like to see what we could do, like that was those were early days and that's where we got a lot of our momentum. It's also, anne, where I think we realized that we are at our best when we meet people with where they are, with what they need, and do so in really dignified, joyful ways. These are not turkey sandwiches wrapped in cellophane. It's like let's give Oakland kids and Oakland families the best. That's a big one.

Speaker 2:

A couple of years ago we went through like a long strategic planning process and this was pushed on me by our COO and the board and it was the best thing that Eat Learn Play has ever done. You know, we had to take like a long look after three years like where are we having the greatest impact? You know, where could we be better? We've done so much listening to voices in the community to figure out where we can be at our best. You know, what came out of that was meeting kids where they are, meeting them with dignity and meeting them with joy in a city that currently lacks a lot of joy. And at the same time, I came upon this body of research from a partner organization that does a lot of philanthropic impact, investing, and what they found was, you know, for organizations our size and our age, but the greatest ROI were not the organizations that tried to start something from scratch, and they weren't the organizations that were trying to like bite off these issues around the edges. Like, the organizations that they had in their portfolio who made the most impact were the ones that, like, identified the distribution channel that serve their constituency, and those organizations were laser focused on making that distribution channel, that system, better.

Speaker 2:

And there was a total light bulb moment for us of public schools. Right, like, public schools are where 35,000 kids in Oakland go every day to eat, learn and play, and, like we talked about a half hour ago, like, with outcomes that aren't nearly good enough. And so, over the last couple of years, we've been on this amazing journey to transform the school experience for a generation of kids. So, like, everything we're doing is rooted in how do we make this experience of being a public school student in Oakland better? Right, we're investing five $6 million a year now, after a lot of listening and research on literacy tutoring. Right, like, tutoring works. And when your kids struggle in school when my kids struggle in school, like I know we move heaven and earth to like give them the support they need. Our attitude is, like these Oakland kids, they deserve the exact same thing, and so this is one of those ways that we're trying to will our way to ensuring that every child in Oakland who's behind grade level in reading has one on one high dosage professional tutoring throughout the year.

Speaker 2:

We have just remodeled our 17th schoolyard tutoring throughout the year. We have just remodeled our 17th schoolyard, so we are like transforming campuses in the flatlands of Oakland at elementary schools, like taking these facilities that like sadly look a little bit more like prison yards than schoolyards, and we're using our imagination to like, dream up and dreaming up with the kids. But like, what would your dream play space look like? And these are like seven figure capital projects now where we're creating these dream schoolyards for kids to be able to, to play and learn and grow and like, and it's, it's, it's awesome and we have thousands of volunteers that now are engaged in this effort. But like that aha moment, I think, when we pivoted as an organization and, like you know, planted our flag, it wasn't an easy decision or a sexy decision to like to invest heavily in transforming the public school experience. That's a gratifying moment. That is 100% been a turning point in terms of getting Eat, learn, play more focused and taking our impact to the next level.

Speaker 1:

It really sounds like your impact is noticeable instantly too. I mean not just by the volunteers, but by the kids you get to see your work.

Speaker 2:

A hundred percent and I've barely touched on you know a lot of the work we're doing. But you're right, Like the money that we're donating to just just FYI and for your audience, like we are not making big investments in the school district directly, we're playing this sort of convening point guard role, almost of like connecting all of these community experts and leaders in these organizations to like collectively wrap our arms around these kids where they are, and it's been a winning formula so far.

Speaker 1:

What an incredible mission to be a part of, and I was wondering for any listeners who may want to start their own nonprofit one day what advice could you give to them?

Speaker 2:

One is listen right At every turn, at Eat, learn, play. When we've paused and listened to our partners and the community that we're trying to serve, like it has sent us into the right direction. Right, like you know, my instincts are to move fast, but there's a lot of wisdom gained. But from listening to what the community needs. You know one of our partners who I mentioned a couple of minutes ago no Kid Hungry, their founder, billy Shore. He has an expression, he has a book like add passion and stir right. Listen to the community's needs and then add your passion. And I think good things happen when you put those two things together.

Speaker 1:

I've got one last question, which is just if you could go back and have a conversation with yourself when you were in your early 20s and it doesn't have to be anything related to what we've discussed, but what life wisdom would you give yourself?

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, probably that it's all going to work out if you work hard. You know my journey has not been without stress and it's and it's not been without anxiety and a lot of self-doubt. You know like and we could do a whole nother podcast on that you know like I've been really hard on myself over the last 20 years and it worked out. And part of it, ann, is, I think, probably leaning into those things that make me different or make me unique and being comfortable and sort of upfront with those vulnerabilities, versus trying to project in your early twenties, your early thirties, whatever, that you've got it all figured out or that you're totally in control. It's like for me it's a constant lesson in reminding myself that I'm not in control and to try to drive good things from that. But yeah, in my early 20s especially, it was like gripping on tight and trying to like will myself to success. And you know I don't think that that was a main ingredient in my success. Like that human aspect, the recognizing your weaknesses and accounting for it, has definitely been something that's helped.

Speaker 2:

And I do want to say one other thing, in part because you are friends and a former classmate of my wife, kate, what I probably would also tell myself in the early twenties is, like Mary Kate, when I look back at my success and our success, like who you choose to be around is such a key part right, and like the success that I've had like doesn't happen without like having just the most badass partner right, and so I think that might actually be the number one sort of like secret behind any impact I've been able to create, and I hope you know I'd be somewhere on the top 10 of her list in terms of what's you know sort of empowered her great career. But I do want to call that out because you know behind the scenes for sure. But who you're with right Like in my case my wife is. She gets a lot of credit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, supportive people. It's important to have them around you. Well, crick, thank you so much for coming on the show and taking some time to chat today.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for the time and the opportunity and congratulations on on everything you have going on.

Speaker 1:

Today's key takeaways. Building partnerships is about relationships, not transactions. Cultivate genuine long-term partnerships by aligning with people who share your values and mission. Approach collaborations with a mindset of mutual benefit rather than short-term gain, whether it's fundraising, marketing or community engagement. Creativity opens doors. So if you're stuck, ask yourself or pick the brain of a creative friend how can I do this differently? If you want to learn how to actually think outside the box, I have an upcoming episode with Duncan Wardle, disney's former head of creativity and innovation, dropping April 1st. So follow the show so you don't miss it.

Speaker 1:

Millions of kids in the US face hunger daily. Whether you volunteer, donate or advocate for better policies, small actions stack up to massive impact. So consider what's one thing you can do this week or month to contribute. Being active is essential for mental and physical health, so prioritize movement, play and sports to build confidence, discipline and well-being. Passion fuels persistence, imagination sparks innovation and hard work brings the results.

Speaker 1:

If you want to make real impact, listen first. Spend time in the community, ask questions and let their voices guide your impact. Don't let a lack of experience stop you, because you can use it to your advantage. You're forced to ask great questions, experiment and find new solutions. Expect trade-offs when scaling. If you're a solo operator, progress is slow but flexible. With a small team three to four people momentum accelerates and as you scale, internal challenges appear, communication culture shifts and decision-making slows. Plan for each stage and adjust your leadership strategies accordingly.

Speaker 1:

The best leaders acknowledge gaps in their knowledge and seek executive coaching, mentors or advisors to navigate challenges at higher levels. And great leadership is knowing when to step back If you've hired the right people. Your job isn't to micromanage. It's to set the vision, remove roadblocks and trust your team to deliver. Authenticity is your greatest asset. People don't connect with perfection. They connect with real Lean into your quirks, vulnerabilities and differences, because that's what makes you memorable. The right people will challenge, inspire and support you, but you have to invest in those relationships. First Give before you ask, and surround yourself with people who challenge you to grow, support your vision, share your values and push you towards excellence. That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.

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Anne McGinty

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