Nonprofit Expert Episode 40 – How Mission-Driven Nonprofits Use Data to Support Growth and Stewardship

DonorPerfect

Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect.

Julia Gackenbach

Hello, and welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by Donner Perfect. I’m Julia Gackenbach, and we’re very excited to be joined here with Mark from Youth Mentoring Partnership. Read More

DonorPerfect

Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect.

Julia Gackenbach

Hello, and welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by Donner Perfect. I’m Julia Gackenbach, and we’re very excited to be joined here with Mark from Youth Mentoring Partnership. Thank you so much, Mark, for being here. Would you mind introducing yourself? Sure.

Mark Mintzer

My name is Mark Mintzer, Youth Mentoring Partnership. I’m the CEO and founder. We have been in operation programmatically since two thousand and have experienced some, exciting growth over the past Yeah. Several years in particular.

Julia Gackenbach

So since two thousand, it’s now twenty twenty five. That means you’re coming up on your twenty fifth anniversary.

Mark Mintzer

Yes. So officially, we we started off as a collaboration between, private entity, governmental, and nonprofit. And then after four or five years and some research, we decided to become our standalone nonprofit. So it was really technically two thousand and seven.

Julia Gackenbach

Okay. When you got started, did you think you were going to be doing all of the things of a nonprofit, or what did you think you were going to be doing?

Mark Mintzer

No. Absolutely not. I’m from private industry, so nonprofit was not where I was necessarily looking to head. Mhmm. But once we got involved, once we started seeing the impact with kids, with the community, it just, pretty much took over my life.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. I think that’s how nonprofits work, honestly. Yeah. Well, why don’t you tell me a little bit about what youth mentoring partnership does and how you do affect children’s lives in this area?

Mark Mintzer

Sure. So, really, there’s a lot of issues as we know out there. You know, especially kids living in generational poverty. There’s, educational gaps. There’s food and financial insecurities, all sorts of things that kids without a positive role model in their life can get involved with. You know, drugs, alcohol, teenage pregnancy. A lot of these things can be, really traced back to a a mentoring gap. Sadly, I’ve learned that one in three kids in this country will grow up without one consistent positive adult in their life. Mhmm. That that’s a crazy statistic That’s heartbreaking. In my mind. It it is heartbreaking. So, we exist to help close that mentoring gap and to really place a positive adult in these young kids lives. And we we do a whole bunch of other things around social emotional learning and character building and skill building, but really it comes down to, can we place one positive adult, maybe even more in a child’s life? Because it it is the number one protective factor for so many ills. I mentioned before I’m private industry. But really, like many founders, CEOs, I got involved because of personal experience. I was one of, I was a kid who could have used a program like this, and was fortunate enough to have some positive adults in my my life. But, I’m one of six kids. The youngest, my father, was an alcoholic. Mhmm. We actually lost the house when I was young and, got split up, ended up living with other family members for a time, came back together. I had a sister who was killed at sixteen. Brother was a heroin addict, in and out of prison. I mean, all sorts of things. But I had a couple teachers and coaches, who steered me in some directions. We didn’t call them mentors, but that’s what they were. And I I I any success I have in life, I owe to those men in particular.

Julia Gackenbach

Wow.

Mark Mintzer

My my family, my business, my marriage, these I have their pictures hanging on my wall. I look at them every day and thank them. And so that’s the driving force behind this. So I you know, we’re out to to put consistent positive adults in in kids’ lives because somebody did that for me.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. You’ve seen the impact.

Mark Mintzer

Yeah. I I’m the first in my family go to college. Wow. Yeah. I was on my own financially seventeen, but, you know, not that that’s special. It’s just, you know, I did what I had to do and I was fortunate to have people around me. And so many of the kids that we see that we’re working with, again, they’re fully capable. They have the drive. They have all sorts of talent. They just need somebody in their corner. Right. Just somebody.

Julia Gackenbach

And and you all are offering many options. I mean, we were at a school today and we saw seven coaches in the room. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about what it might look like for a student to interact with your program? What might a day with YMP look like?

Mark Mintzer

So we use fitness and sports as our connector, if you will. It’s just a, you know, it’s a really positive way to connect with kids, especially if they’re into sports. Fitness as we know is just, you know, if if you’ve got anxiety or depression or different issues, movement helps in so many different ways. So that that’s the way we connect with kids. But we do it in many different ways. We start off at a very base level where, fitness and sports camps in the summer. It’s just an informal way to get to know kids because we’re a year round program.

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

And, then the next level, we work sixth through twelfth grade with with kids is and, we insert trauma informed professionally trained mentors. Many are from the communities we serve in the physical education classes. And we work alongside the natural mentor, the teacher. Mhmm. And we bring a curriculum in, and it’s just a way to, know, you go from, maybe twenty five kids in a class, one teacher, all of a sudden you may have three to five coaches in a class. Now you can really start to connect with a with a child. And, you know, we we have our three g curriculum Mhmm. That we we’ve talked about, which is really goal setting and planning skills, the development of grit and resilience, and the practice of gratitude. All three of those things are evidence based, ways to connect, to develop, and to be successful in life. We know successful people, they’ve got goals. They got a plan. They got a plan a, b, and c. Right? Because that’s life. Mhmm. Great and resilience. Can you pick yourself up?

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. And, again, like you said, it was an important thing to teach now so that they have it later in life for their marriages, for their friendships, for their job, all of those things.

Mark Mintzer

Abs absolutely. And many of these kids are are are maybe greedy in certain ways.

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

In in in life and resilient certain ways just because life dictates that for them. But can we make that transference into other aspects of their life?

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

As we said, school, work, relationships. And we know we can. We’re, we’ve had a lot of research done on our programming. Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, University of Pennsylvania, Temple Sports Industry and Research, Center. So again, I mentioned I’m from private industry. Originally, so I’m

Julia Gackenbach

looking for ROI.

Mark Mintzer

I’m looking for ROI, baby. Like, if you’re gonna donate money, our and we’re gonna put time and energy, are we getting the return you’re looking for? And, you know, the the answer is a resounding yes.

Julia Gackenbach

That’s amazing.

Mark Mintzer

So it’s it’s really inspiring the work that our our our coaches do on the front line. Again, not just them from the phys ed standpoint, but we also coach twenty five sports. Wow. And it’s not really if we do we care if you can throw a lacrosse ball Right. Quite frankly or shoot a basketball, But we’re providing safe havens for many of our kids. Mhmm. You know, those couple hours after school where, you know, they can either, you know, be victimized or perpetrate something, this is a a a great time. You develop you know, coaches are more influential, academically than teachers in the teen years and behaviorally than parents. They have enormous influence if they use it.

Julia Gackenbach

Right. Well and you shared a little bit about your story and how mentorship really affected you. Mhmm. Do you have any students that have gone through your program recently that you have a story for or that, you know, you see a big life change for them?

Mark Mintzer

Yeah. No. I I I abs absolutely. I personally still mentor, a couple of our kids, after they graduate high school. And, one of them I I mean, he’s just one of my heroes, frankly. He’s unbelievable story. He’s he’s actually shared a public publicly, so I feel comfortable Mhmm. Sharing it. But young man who, very early on in life was placed in foster care, was sexually abused while he was he was in foster care for ten years or so. And, our foster care leaves a lot to be desired in this country. It’s it’s, once you go into that system, it’s very, very hard to transcend it. He did not know I mean, he was severely neglected. He did not know his ABCs at thirteen years old. Again, if you if you’re that far behind Yeah. The chances of making it up are are slim.

Julia Gackenbach

Right.

Mark Mintzer

He, proud to say, got involved with our programming, some others programming. It was certainly not just us. By the time he graduated high school, he had four, college acceptance letters Wow. And an opportunity to play lacrosse.

Julia Gackenbach

That’s amazing.

Mark Mintzer

Story didn’t stop there because we we thought, wow. Great job.

Julia Gackenbach

You did it.

Mark Mintzer

Yeah. Yeah. He’s our success story. We started try following him a little bit after, and not methodically. It was by chance because our programming ends at twelfth grade. We found out shortly into his fall semester that, because of some family issues, because of some lack of knowledge, he was actually going to school, but he was homeless. He was living in his car. And he had no additional support to help, help him navigate. So, but he wasn’t gonna give up.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. Because he had grit.

Mark Mintzer

Right? He had grit, focus, and and, but that’s unacceptable. Right. So, we were able to get him in emergency housing. We’ve since been working with him. I’m really happy to say that through some planning, we now know that all four years, he has a place to live. Wow. He’s got a, he’s got his tuition taken care of. Last semester, pulled a three seven five. Wow. Yeah.

Julia Gackenbach

Good for him. Well, and, you know, all the things that you just talked about, it’s very interesting how connected what you all are doing is with so many other social issues. You know, you could say, yeah, we go to schools and we help students with fitness, but you talked about foster care, homelessness, you know, getting kids grades up. Like, there are so many other issues that connect to what you all are doing. I bet that is so heavy, but also such an amazing calling for you.

Mark Mintzer

It can be it can be devastating sometimes, and it can be the most exhilarating, best thing that ever happens to you. It’s it it it is, yeah. It’s it’s both. It’s it’s both. And I think anybody who’s, you know, out in the field, has experienced some of these things. And and sometimes you’re so close, you feel like we we had a young man who just everything was on the right track and and really doing well. And he found out his sister was being physically abused and, by boyfriend. And he went to confront the boyfriend, and he brought a gun. And he killed him. And he was our guy who we just we knew was gonna succeed. It’s it’s actually I mean, that is devastating. But both the short stories I just shared, we’re now using those.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah.

Mark Mintzer

Yeah. We’re we’re using them because we we need to do more. We we thought we could just mentor kids up to twelfth grade, get them into college, get them into trade school, and go, great job. Now you’re set. What we’re realizing, is that we’ve got to connect them with, individual mentors to help them navigate. And mentors who have the social capital, who have the network, who have the, experience to help guide them and smooth their path. Because they’re they they often are one little thing, you know, away from it falling apart. Young man always said who who was, confronted the the boyfriend. There’s just something that tells me deep down, if we had had a mentor connected with him, could have it been avoided? Could there been a conversation that said, I understand how angry you are. There’s a different way. Mhmm. And could that conversation change how many lives?

Julia Gackenbach

Right.

Mark Mintzer

So we’re committed at youth mentoring partnership. We we call it the continuum. We are going to might be a smaller percentage of kids, but we are going to provide them with with a mentor in their life Mhmm. To until they get a good paying stable job because that’s what breaks generational poverty. Mhmm. And it solves a lot of issues. Not all the issues, but a lot of issues.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. Well, and honestly, his story is not over. There’s still time for him to be thinking that I’ve got grit, like, I have goals, and he still has an opportunity to kind of have the things that you all taught him

Mark Mintzer

Absolutely.

Julia Gackenbach

In his life. And that’s

Mark Mintzer

really amazing. The positive. Yeah. Right? We gotta keep it positive. We gotta gotta find the hope.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. And, I mean, it’s clear the impact that you all are having on communities and on schools. Also, you have had a huge growth in your fundraising and in your programs. I know you mentioned to me that before COVID, you were maybe a four hundred thousand dollar budget, and now you’re like two million dollars or something. Yeah. You experienced such growth. What do you think why do you think that happened? What made that growth explode?

Mark Mintzer

Well, we always teach our kids about smart goal setting. So we set our smart goals. That’s the first thing that we did.

Julia Gackenbach

Put it into practice. Yes.

Mark Mintzer

A number a number of different things. We know any of this takes time to figure out which what’s the formula. So we think we have a pretty good formula now programmatically that that’s, you know, led to success, which has inspired donors.

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

There’s no doubt from a staffing standpoint, we were able to bring on some some, really important key members of our staff, particularly development director. In addition, Pennsylvania, where we’re located, has a really innovative, tax credit program that allows corporations and individuals

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

To give to a a approved nonprofit and receive a ninety percent tax credit against their tax liability. That was a program we were able to tap into. It’s very limited tax rate, but we were really able to, leverage that, in our fundraising, and and that helped a lot. Also, some grants through Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency have been extremely helpful.

Julia Gackenbach

I love that. The thought of using creative ways to grow your budget as opposed to, you know, drinking from the same well over and over and over and over. What other creative avenues can we find Yeah. Some funding? That’s great.

Mark Mintzer

I think, you know, understanding the other thing is understanding the climate Mhmm. And your messaging. For sure. For because for for, you know, as as we have seen even recently, right, it was, there was a lot of focus on, say, DEI. Mhmm. A lot of funding around there. A lot of focus for a time period around mental health for kids, obviously, with COVID. Now we’re seeing a shift towards more focus on in, education and employment. So our mission hasn’t changed. Our delivery method hasn’t changed. It’s really our messaging around how we affect those various things. So I think that’s something we’ve been aware of, you know, a lot of nonprofits and we made the mistake. Put a ton of time and energy into special events. Mhmm. They can eat up so much of your staff resource. Tell me about it. I spent many hours sitting doing that. Yeah. You’re feeling me on that one. Right? And and where, really, what’s the ROI at the end of the day if you you start subtracting, all of that. So I think, you know, one of the things that I I recommend to to newer non profits or non profits in general for, you know, talking to their CEOs or executive directors. Really think very clearly what it is you want out of a special event. Mhmm. And we we went from some special events that add up all sorts of time and energy with maybe, you know, twenty thousand dollar return, thirty thousand dollar return, which is, you know, awesome Mhmm. To, a very focused special event that now nets, you know, hundred and fifty thousand dollars and takes very little time and effort Mhmm. Relative. So being smart about where you put your time and energy.

Julia Gackenbach

Well and you bring a very interesting perspective because you mentioned you kind of fell into the non profit situation, and so you’re coming with a business mind. And I think a lot of people maybe don’t have that business mind when they’re in non profits. And so this is a helpful reminder to check things like return on investment and to check are you spending your time

Mark Mintzer

Yeah.

Julia Gackenbach

In the donor lanes that you should be spending your time in.

Mark Mintzer

And I don’t know if it’s my business mind or I made most of the mistakes twice. Yeah. Maybe three times. Yeah. So I I don’t know if it’s that I’m not bright or that I’m that smart. I mean, it’s been twenty some years.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah.

Mark Mintzer

But, yeah. No. I I think just being really smart about that. Partnership is also in our name. Mhmm. So we partner. We collaborate a lot Right. With other organizations. And and I think it’s just really healthy thing to do because there are there’s so much redundancy, in the non profit world. There’s also, you can get in your silo Mhmm. So easily. And, you know, there’s, you know, many of us are trying to do the same thing.

Julia Gackenbach

Right.

Mark Mintzer

Help kids. So if you’ve got the formula, hang on.

Julia Gackenbach

I mean, borrow it. Yeah.

Mark Mintzer

If I’ve got it, I’m gonna share I’m gonna share with you. And, I I think that’s also just another reminder for for nonprofits. Make make sure you you pick your head up above the water and take a look around once in a while, and and if you can collaborate. Don’t don’t be afraid to a lot lot a lot of nonprofits are afraid because they think it’s gonna affect their funding. Mhmm. We found the exact opposite. When we collaborate, we actually find that there’s more funding available.

Julia Gackenbach

That’s great.

Mark Mintzer

Yeah.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. Rising tide lifts all boats. Yeah.

Mark Mintzer

I I I get it. If I’m a funder, I’m trying to look at, well, how efficient are you gonna be? Are you, you know, do you play nice in the sandbox? Yeah. Can can, you know, just one on one equal three? Mhmm. So I I I would, you know, I highly recommend that to other nonprofits.

Julia Gackenbach

Great point. I love the idea of the collaboration between nonprofits and kind of sharing the formulas. That’s Yeah. Really helpful. I know you have a lot of plans for the future, especially when it comes to your fundraising operations. So we’ve talked about some ideas when it comes to monthly giving. We’ve talked about some things that you’re doing with your forms. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you’re leveling up some of that fundraising strategy?

Mark Mintzer

Sure.

Julia Gackenbach

I know you have a team, but you fell in again. A lot of our listeners and a lot of people watching this fell into fundraising, and they’ve just kind of been trying to do it, like piece it together

Mark Mintzer

for the last four years. Yeah. Exactly.

Julia Gackenbach

And I think that your, ability to kinda say this this is what we want to do. This is where we’re headed. We have all this stuff going on, but we want to step into this space, and we want to work on this, and we want to grow here is really encouraging to other nonprofits.

Mark Mintzer

And I let me even back it up to the beginning. Alright?

Julia Gackenbach

Do it.

Mark Mintzer

Well, it’s just again, not smartest guy in the room, not the brightest bulb by any stretch of imagination. So I’ve made plenty of mistakes that I’m hoping other people can learn from. We did the typical thing. Right? You know, you get one angel, donor, you know, you start a donor list on work. Right?

Julia Gackenbach

Oh, and

Mark Mintzer

then we sell sheet. Then we upgrade to excel. That was a big upgrade. We went to Excel. First, we went from my mind. Them on your hands. Yeah. We went from my mind into Word then to Excel. You know, we were big league in Excel. You know, and then we’re like, jeez, we we we really as we grow this, we we, you know, need some type of platform

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

To to to organize. This is how we landed on donor perfect because we we also did the, you know, looked at seven different ones. We can’t figure out the language. Who’s doing what? How? So I understand that can be a very overwhelming process. It’s a very necessary process. We jump on DonorPerfect. Right? And and we we started doing a few things, I think, well. Mhmm. You know, we started entering everybody’s names, making sure it profiles, that that type of thing. But really, you know, we didn’t have a dedicated staff person. In fact, we we we still don’t for for DonorPerfect, which is, I think, is one of the next steps. But we were definitely able to use some things with constant contact. So it helped us with our messaging. That that was a a big plus for us. No no doubt, it was also a great check and balance with, QuickBooks.

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

So we we saw a lot of positives, But again, I you know, we’ve we’ve really identified that to to move even to the next level, we we need to take, we need to invest more. Mhmm. We need to take better advantage of of many of the tools that are there.

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

You can’t do it all at once. That’s how you get super overwhelmed, which again, we’ve done.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. I was gonna say, you’re speaking this

Mark Mintzer

way. I mean, it’s just you you you you’re just like, we need to do it all. Yeah. You’re not going to. What we are looking at, again, with with some of the help of the donor perfect staff, we we just did something. We do have a special event which our raffle is part of it. So we have we have a form online. Mhmm. Frankly, it looked like probably a middle schooler designed it because I think maybe I designed it. I I don’t know. But it it it wasn’t the greatest of forms. Mhmm. With the help of the donor perfect staff, and I and I mean, maybe a forty five minute tutorial Mhmm. And then half an hour investment of our time. It’s a form I’m really proud of.

Julia Gackenbach

That’s great.

Mark Mintzer

I feel like we can put this out in front of our high level donors and and and look like a professional organization. It’s got pictures, drop down menus, everything that you would hope for. And I think it gives a a a really good first impression because many of these raffle donors, it’s the first time. Mhmm. So it may be they’ve been introduced to our organization, oh, buy a raffle ticket. Now we get our messaging out. One of the things that we’re looking at, and have set a goal, for is, to develop a monthly giving program.

Julia Gackenbach

Right. You don’t have one

Mark Mintzer

right now? We do not. I well, no. We have two people. One for five dollars. I think the other for twenty five.

Julia Gackenbach

Nice. So

Mark Mintzer

it’s a start. Starting somewhere. It’s a start. But with with that said, we know just from the research and the stats. Right? If you can get people on a monthly giving program, what is it, over the course of their giving, you’ll you’ll receive forty five percent more Mhmm. If if they participate in a program like that. But that’s a big number.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. I’ll take forty five percent more. Right.

Mark Mintzer

This is great. Right. Every day of the week, twice on Sundays. Right? And so looking at that, we’ve identified, like, let’s start small. Mhmm. How do we go about doing this? And again, I think we’ve gotten some very good counsel counsel from DonorPerfect staff. We know, we’re just gonna start with our raffle folks and and our one special event, but we know we have to segment out our donors.

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm. Right?

Mark Mintzer

So if we’ve got the larger donors who are already giving five thousand ten whatever it may be that we the level we determine, well, we don’t necessarily wanna get them on a monthly giving program.

Julia Gackenbach

You don’t wanna ask them. Yeah.

Mark Mintzer

I don’t I don’t need yeah. We don’t want five dollars. Give us we want your fifty thousand. We already five that. Yeah. So we we wanna do a very targeted campaign. And I think, again, looking at how do we segment that out, we’re we’re learning that

Julia Gackenbach

Right.

Mark Mintzer

Through our reports. And then what does a campaign look like for those folks? So we’re looking at, hey, can we get thirty people on our monthly giving program? That’s where we’re starting. Our special event is in April. So by September, you know, hopefully even earlier than that, can we get thirty people? And if we can, then how do we message and steward Right. Those folks? So that’s a very specific goal that we have set.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. And you’re starting somewhere. I mean, I think back to you talked about this form that you updated. That was step one. Step two, you’re gonna work on these thirty monthly givers. Step three, there are so many more possibilities because you have these foundations, which is really important and useful.

Mark Mintzer

And I you know, it’s just what we tell our kids too. Right? Set a specific goal. It should be measurable. We can get a timeline with it. Do you have a plan? Mhmm. Can you adjust with that plan? Do you have a mentor? We do at DP. We have a mentor who tells us how to do it because they know how to do it. And if we can continue to build that and then just take take other goals around some of our larger donors, how are we gonna steward them? Mhmm. And just continue to build build from there. I mean, we started with one child in the program. We now have thirty six hundred.

Julia Gackenbach

Wow.

Mark Mintzer

If you had told me that twenty five years ago, I’m gonna be crazy. Mhmm. Yeah. I tend to think big. So maybe not. But but it seemed very insurmountable when we were at four hundred thousand to say that, hey, within three, four years, you’re gonna be at two million dollars. That would seem like a really big goal and and a reach. So small bites. Right? How do you eat elephant? One bite at a time. So that’s just what we’re looking at with with, you know, some of our giving campaigns.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. That’s great. I have two more questions for you. So the first one would be, if you were sitting down and say I was a potential donor and you had a thirty second elevator pitch for me about what YMP does, what would you say?

Mark Mintzer

I would say we exist to close the mentoring gap. So many of our kids, especially those living in in, you know, generational poverty don’t have a positive adult in their life. So many ills of society can be taken care of by just having one positive adult, and that’s what we do. Yeah. We use sports and fitness, but that’s what we do. We are consistently there for a child and help them navigate. And these kids are worth it. And they have all the potential in the world and they deserve it.

Julia Gackenbach

That was perfect. That was good. You did it in

Mark Mintzer

thirty seconds.

Julia Gackenbach

That was great.

Mark Mintzer

Didn’t Didn’t think I could do that.

Julia Gackenbach

You did it. And then my last question for you is I know that you’re part of this EITC program, which you mentioned earlier. And, it’s part something that DonorPerfect works with you on. Can you tell me a little bit about what you do with the EITC funds? Where does that go? How does it affect your mission?

Mark Mintzer

So really, our our the majority of our cost is for program staff.

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

Is to is to be able to put these angels

Julia Gackenbach

Yep.

Mark Mintzer

If you will, out out on the front lines. Out on the front lines working with kids. So it’s it’s investing in them through fair compensation because they deserve fair compensation and benefits just like anybody in private industry.

Julia Gackenbach

Mhmm.

Mark Mintzer

And training. And and training and mentoring for them. That’s that’s really where that goes. So when we look at right now, we’re at, seven schools. We want to expand to a couple additional schools and, that will take that will take probably a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a school to to fund that. And then the continuum as we’ve talked about, we wanna provide these these kids the opportunity to, again, have a a health healthy, happy, prosperous life. Mhmm. And and to do that, they need, you know, trade school or college education, and they need support to do that. So that’s where our money goes.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah. Well and you all are making such an impact and these students are really I’m sure so grateful for all that you all are doing.

Mark Mintzer

Oh, we’re great. The the giver gets.

Julia Gackenbach

Yeah.

Mark Mintzer

The it’s not why you do, but the giver we get so much more. I I just, you know, I I the stories I hear, the interactions I get to see. I’m I’m the luckiest guy now. I got a I got a bunch of friends retiring. Like, first of all, I have too much energy to retire, clearly. This is me without coffee. Yeah. But, yeah, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Julia Gackenbach

That’s great.

Mark Mintzer

It’s just every every day is is a gift.

Julia Gackenbach

That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. This has been so fulfilling for me just to hear all that you all are doing. And, yeah, we’re we’re really grateful to partner with you all.

Mark Mintzer

Well, thanks for the opportunity, and and you guys have been great to us. Really appreciate it.

Julia Gackenbach

Thank you.

DonorPerfect

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