Host: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Go Beyond Fundraising podcast. Today, I’m thrilled to be sitting down with two gentlemen who have experience leading in both nonprofit and for-profit spaces. We live in a time of exponential change in the world, so we’ll be discussing how nonprofits can build a sustainable future with an entrepreneurial mindset to adapt and flex as these changes continue to accelerate alongside technology, social change, and how we exchange information. 

Joining us for this conversation is Tom Ulbrich. Tom, welcome to the show! Please introduce yourself. 

Tom Ulbrich: Thank you for having me. I’m Tom Ulbrich, President and CEO of Goodwill of Western New York.  

Host: Our Chief Strategy Officer, Trent Ricker, is also joining me today. Trent, if this is someone’s first time listening, please share a little about your background and your passion for this topic. 

Trent Ricker: Thanks, Leah. It’s always great to join you. As Chief Strategy Officer of Allegiance Group + Pursuant, I’ve served the nonprofit space for over 15 years in the services side and technology before that. But I also grew up in a family business, so I come from a lineage of entrepreneurs.  

I’ve always been fascinated by the arc from for-profit to nonprofit and the spirit of entrepreneurship. At the University of Colorado, I majored in entrepreneurship and small business management, which was pretty rare back then. Today, it’s a bit more embraced. I love the spirit Tom’s bringing to Goodwill of Western New York, and we’ve had some rich discussions about it. So, I’m looking forward to a robust conversation about that today.  

Tom, tell us about your background prior to this gig and what attracted you to Goodwill. In my experience with nonprofit organizations, there are lifers who care about a cause and are interested in social work or social impact. And then, whether through joining a board or a career arc, some folks spend a lot of years in the for-profit space and then have an opportunity to make a social impact. Sometimes, that can be a rocky transition, and some can get a little shell-shocked when they go to the other side.  

I’d love for you to tell your story and explain what led you to your current gig.  

Tom Ulbrich: Sure, I’d love to share, and I’ll try to do it as succinctly as possible. I started my career in a family business. My first degree was in landscape design and ornamental horticulture. My dad was a forester and had a garden center, and I came into the business and built a large landscaping and commercial services company. I was there for the better part of 20 years, raising my family.  

Once my kids were in college, I decided to go back to school and get my MBA. I love lobbying for small businesses and was doing a lot of work with the National Federation of Independent Businesses. I had this great idea: to run for office, become a Congressperson, and give back to the community. That didn’t go as planned — I lost my local election. But at the time, the University of Buffalo was discussing an opportunity to run its Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.  

In addition to the garden center business, I’d started an eCommerce company, so I had two businesses going. I kept them, went to the University of Buffalo, and was there for 12 years working on entrepreneurship. I taught entrepreneurship, was a faculty member, and worked with many small businesses. Later in my career at the university, I had a dual appointment. I was an Assistant Dean at the School of Management and the School of Social Work, working on social innovation. 

My work focused on how for-profits could pay more attention to the world’s social needs and how nonprofits could become less dependent on grants. This led to outreach from a recruiter, who asked if I would be interested in coming to Goodwill of Western New York. I said no many times, wondering if I wanted to do retail — that’s what I thought of the business. I didn’t recognize the excellent workforce development work we do. Finally, I sat down with the board and decided to give it a shot. They challenged the entrepreneur in me, saying, “You do all this in academia; why don’t you come out in the real world and show us that it can really be done?” That’s how I ended up at Goodwill. 

I walked in on May 1, 2020, to an operation shutdown. Three out of 240 employees were working. That was my welcome to Goodwill, but I absolutely love working here and with this team. I also love this intersection of the for-profit and nonprofit sectors.  

Trent Ricker: That’s fascinating. What a time to start.  

Any business can go through a renaissance of an entrepreneurial mindset. We’ve seen many companies reinvent themselves and require entrepreneurship. I’d love to discuss what you deem the general characteristics of an entrepreneur. I come from three generations, and I’ve lived it in my household, but I’m curious about some of the traits you see there.  

Tom Ulbrich: One of the main characteristics of successful entrepreneurs is that they’re opportunity seekers. They’re always looking out in the market and at other people’s needs. One thing I believe people get wrong about entrepreneurs is that they think they’re greedy, selfish pigs. The truth is if you’re not looking out in the market and seeing what people need — if there’s not a paying customer — you can build whatever you want. So, being very outward-looking and market-focused is critical. 

One of the most dangerous things for any business and many nonprofits are those six words you should never say because they will take a company down: “We’ve always done it this way.” An entrepreneur is the opposite of that at some level. To be successful, you must be very market-focused. You must also be decent with finance. 

Ultimately, it’s about leading people. In its early stages, entrepreneurship means being comfortable with the chaos of starting something new, finding funders and team members, and building a product or service. However, as it matures, it becomes about leading. 

Host: I also think there’s an element of being tolerant of risk, and I bring that up because many people in the nonprofit space are risk-averse. I don’t know that we can talk about entrepreneurship without the question of risk tolerance being part of the conversation. 

Tom Ulbrich: That’s a great point. I didn’t bring up risk because I believe the best entrepreneurs in the world aren’t risk-takers; they’re risk mitigators. Much of the world sees entrepreneurs as gamblers — you’re going to go to the casino and throw it all on black. The fact is the best entrepreneurs in the world can look at a situation, analyze it, look at the probabilities, and tip them in their favor.  

The best ones won’t go until it’s past the point, so you’re right about risk. But to me, being an excellent risk mitigator is the key to success. 

Trent Ricker: When I think about some successful entrepreneurs touted in our society, passionate leadership means a lot. They’re deeply passionate about a business or mission, which drives this hard work to persevere through challenges. You talked about resilience — you took this job in the teeth of COVID-19. We in the nonprofit space, who weathered those storms together, talk about the ability to bounce back from setbacks, learn from mistakes, and continue to move forward. This perseverance and adaptability are necessary for an entrepreneurial mindset.  

The entrepreneurial mindset galvanizes starting a movement. Sometimes, entrepreneurs in the for-profit space struggle to move from that passionate, entrepreneurial component to the sustainability that’s required. They’re not always great implementers. I’ve seen folks who can start businesses but don’t know how to build them.  

For many presidents and CEOs at nonprofit organizations, it depends on where they are in their arc. Do they need more of a fundraiser evangelist? That’s a sales-type CEO. Sometimes, they need an operational-type CEO. Perhaps a medical professional ascends to the presidency of a disease and disorder organization. They’re not a salesperson but more of a mission-oriented individual — the servant mindset.  

Again, the characteristics of an entrepreneur are usually in that first phase, which triggers a question from our earlier conversation. There’s a parallel in entrepreneurship in the for-profit business, where you might seek friends and family money, then move to venture capital, private equity, investment banking, IPO — whatever might move you forward as you continue to transfer hands in the private equity world. Tom, how would you characterize that parallel in the nonprofit space? I see some there with friends and family, and I have some thoughts related to venture capital, but the funding aspect of supporting what you’re doing is also an important part of a nonprofit.  

Tom Ulbrich: I want to jump back to your last point quickly. You made some excellent points about an entrepreneur needing to be a visionary. But also, the start-up entrepreneur — a person like me who likes to build things — must understand their skill set. Often, it’s creating the vision and holding that vision up constantly. However, you must surround yourself with the taskmasters — the people who can operationalize your vision. I’ll raise my hand. It’s the people around me who make this work. I can sit here all day and spitball ideas, but it’s surrounding yourself with great operational people.  

To answer your question, yes — it’s similar, and it’s different. At Goodwill, we’re fortunate in that we have retail stores. Our goal is to maximize our retail store’s profits to self-fund 90% of all our activity by 2030 — our overhead activity, workforce activity, everything. We’re fortunate that we can do that. My job, as I see it, is to get us there — to build the infrastructure, maximize our territory through best practices, and build a lean-type business model. But to get there, we’re also building our workforce development program. We’ve had to do some venture capital, which in this world are grants.  

New York state and U.S. federal grants have been very supportive of our plan to build out our workforce development. We’ve raised $7.5 million that we’ll be spending over the next three years, which is a bridge to our self-funding. I think of it as venture capital — people sometimes chuckle when I talk about it that way, but they also like it because you don’t have your hand out constantly asking for more and more.  

We’re saying, “Help us grow. We’re growing in a way that will enable us to support ourselves, and your investment will go on into perpetuity. The work you’re investing in will continue with our funds.” That’s how I think about it — as venture capital. 

Trent Ricker: Let’s say you have the passion and vision to start a new nonprofit, and you need to raise some capital. The measurement of your return on investment (ROI) is different. We know seed capital, venture capital, all the way up through private equity, has an ROI and a time horizon. And when we think about nonprofits, we think about social impact or return on impact.  

On that continuum, what you might submit for a government grant or to a potential major donor for a sustainable program is like a good business plan. How were you tasked with that, and what are your observations for the entrepreneurial world and the nonprofit space? How might we move from that early capital to enterprise capital — the social impact value? 

Tom Ulbrich: They’re dissimilar but also very similar at the same time. In a social enterprise, we measure impact as value. In our case, it’s putting people who traditionally have been unemployed or underemployed in jobs, but we’re not just measuring a job. We’re measuring jobs that can mean the difference of a million-plus dollars to this person’s career and their family because we’re training people for jobs in advanced manufacturing and technology.  

Those are things you promise up front in a grant. You must think about the expectations — how we’ll get people there. In our work, we’re dealing with people who have many barriers and challenges because they’ve been chronically underemployed. We ensure that investment from the federal and state governments and private funding by offering three years of wraparound services and career coaching to anybody who comes to our programs. We’re with them no matter where they go. We’re the safe voice to help you. If you have a challenge, you’re thinking about changing jobs, you need to update your resume, or you have a hiccup in employment, Goodwill is there to support you. 

The difference is that with private equity, they want a 40x return on their investment in about seven years. The bigger difference comes back to the organization’s lead entrepreneur or CEO. As you alluded to, on the private equity side, not everybody has the capability to get them to the finish line. Often, the founder will get bought out or find themselves in a different position to grow the company quickly as it starts to scale.  

Again, you could align that with what we do here. I always tell our team that we’re a $22 million startup. Yes, we have revenue, but we’re still in the startup phase. We’re starting to move to the management phase of the business now. In the next three, four, or five years, the next CEO will build more structure and management as the growth phase starts to slow down and the sustainability phase starts to build out. 

Trent Ricker: That triggered a thought that I’d love to explore. We work with many organizations to refine their case for support. That’s something we know well in the nonprofit space. You’re articulating your value proposition — why someone should support your organization. I’ll challenge our listeners: if you’re applying for a grant, consider your case for impact and how it differentiates from your case for support. That’s the output of the impact you’re having on mission recipients.  

Tom, you did a nice job articulating how Goodwill does this in career transitioning. The average person doesn’t think about that; the average constituent who brings a bag of clothes to donate doesn’t fully understand the ecosystem you just shared. They think they’re donating clothes to a nice retail store, which can raise money by selling my clothes to other people, and that’s great. But this other undergirding aspect of impact is much more important for you.  

The case for impact or case for support might vary depending on the constituent audience supporting you, whether through a government grant, a gift-in-kind, a sustainable monthly gift, a mid-level gift, or a state gift. What are your thoughts on support for an organization versus support for the case for impact it’s making on its mission recipients?  

Tom Ulbrich: In the end, one of the challenges in the social sector is how to make programs sustainable. My interest in this concept of the entrepreneurial nonprofit is that we’re going through a period of funding, which will end in the next 18 to 24 months, that people have never seen before through the Build Back Better Framework and all the other money that was invested. Much of that went into the nonprofit world. That will dry up, and we’ll be back to normal.  

So, there’s always the question of how to make something sustainable long-term. The challenge for us as leaders in the social sector is to ensure that we don’t promise people things and begin to build something only to have to yank it back when a grant ends. That does so much damage, and it’s an unfortunate cycle — especially in the workforce development field.  

In fact, when recruiting individuals, one of our challenges is a history of distrust with the communities we serve. People went through the program, got a piece of paper, did all the work, and were promised a job, but there was no job at the end because the workforce development program didn’t have employers at the table. When you talk about the impact of what we do, we must have employers at the table helping us create the program because these are the employers who have the jobs.  

To your point about thinking about sustainability from day one, you must be building it in. Also, make sure you’re not overpromising what you can actually do. Figure out how you can show proof of concept and scale from there. 

Trent Ricker: I like that. That makes a lot of sense. 

Host: Tom, I love that you shared about Goodwill of Western New York’s plan to become 90% self-funded by 2030. I’m curious to know more about the details of that plan. What challenges are you facing, and what encouraging signs are you seeing as you approach that milestone?  

Tom Ulbrich: Sure, I’m excited to share that. I’ll start with the encouraging signs. We’ve tripled our retail business over the last three and a half years. That’s incredible. We’ve also increased the business’s profitability to the point that we’re now netting about a 20% profit from our retail stores. So, as we approach $30 million, we’ll have about $6 million a year put back into our community. 

There must be a unique balance within the social sector or nonprofit world. Yes, we want to run a great business, but we’re also serving people. It’s making sure we find the balance in that. I approach this with our team by talking about different mindsets.  

We talk about a growth mindset — making sure we’re looking at whether there’s a better way to do this. Another focus is trying to build technology into our business. We’ve tripled our business, but we’ve cut 15 employees. So, we’ve helped triple our business by using technology but with fewer people. It’s not that we don’t want to hire people; we want to be as productive as possible. That’s another part of the mindset.  

We’re also on a path to zero waste and focusing on circularity and sustainability. As you can imagine, people donate great things. But one person’s treasure might be another person’s garbage, so we have a lot of waste. We’re trying to get to zero waste by repurposing much of our product. 

The final thing is just running a great business, which sounds funny within a nonprofit. I probably shouldn’t keep using the word “profit,” but we have a profitability mindset in the stores. How do we focus on profitability?  

Profitability shouldn’t be a negative word. It’s a positive word because the better we do, the better our employees can do, and the more people we can serve. Sometimes, in the social sector, there’s a need to be a bit of a martyr. I don’t believe that. I believe the more profitable we can be with our stores, the more we can invest in our people here at Goodwill, and the more great work we can do in the community. 

Trent Ricker: That’s fascinating. It’s a misnomer for those who come from the for-profit because we’re called nonprofits. To your point, that’s not fair because we know successful nonprofit organizations create a positive margin that then creates cash reserves to reinvest in expanding programs. But the “p” word is a nasty word in the nonprofit space, and it shouldn’t be. “We’re a nonprofit. We’re not supposed to make a profit. We should be deploying all our resources to help as many people as possible.” 

If you’re trying to develop a 20% margin, that’s a measurable metric that allows you to do things like reinvestment. Our listeners have come from the for-profit space and are now serving nonprofits, and then we have lifers in the nonprofit space who sometimes struggle with the connection. You might have board members who come from the commercial space in corporate America and are used to imposing some accountability and governance. They bring an aspect that nonprofits should strive for a healthy margin and determine how that margin contributes to our sustainability, which comes full circle to how you’re doing things at Goodwill of Western New York.  

Tom Ulbrich: I know I’m using the wrong language. I do it deliberately to make people sit up and pay attention. Yes, nonprofits have a mission, but the best businesses in the world have a strong purpose, too. They may not call it a mission, but they have a strong purpose.  

Really, the difference between a nonprofit and a for-profit is the tax status. We’re a nonprofit, but we still have to run a good business to be successful, invest in capital expenditures, attract and retain great talent, and build stores people want to shop in. All those things require that investment or margin from the organization.  

And again, many listeners might think, “Well, not every nonprofit has what Goodwill has to work with,” and that’s true. But many nonprofits are looking for ways to generate revenue. They’re starting to think about creative ways to generate revenue. 

Trent Ricker: Let’s talk a bit about organizations that don’t have the customer or commerce flow you might have at a museum, hospital, or educational institution. There are many in the nonprofit space. Our watchdog organizations do an important service, but they can also do a bit of a disservice because there’s always one financial supporter who wants to hear what percentage of the dollar they give goes to mission delivery. That’s a bit of a head fake.  

A well-run nonprofit organization should say this portion’s going to mission delivery, and this portion’s going to sustainability, reinvestment, or expansion into programs, so you don’t keep going back to donors for every dollar. It’s a marketing nuance. To be honest, it’s successful when you can say a higher percentage of your dollar — some organizations will say 100% — goes to serve. And that’s true because they’re doing things like raising money from corporations or grants to fund the operational elements of sustainability. Again, it’s a marketing nuance. I want our listening audience to understand the difference between a for-profit and a nonprofit is the tax status. 

In the nonprofit space, we need to run our organizations effectively and with margin to stay in business and make a social impact, which comes back to sustainability. And back to what we were discussing at the beginning, a good entrepreneur who goes to a business school to understand that aspect is quite versatile in all business disciplines. At CU, I got to dabble in finance, marketing, operations, everything. I took a lot of 301 classes that made me a versatile leader. In the nonprofit space, a good leader appreciates and understands all those aspects of running a nonprofit organization.  

Tom Ulbrich: Yes. You bring up a good point about organizations like museums, hospitals, and others that fill the nonprofit or, more broadly, social sector. It’s different for everyone, but we all have to think about just starting a nonprofit. Many people start nonprofits because they see a need. They have a huge heart, but they don’t think about what it costs to run a business. Everything you said is super important — you’re still running a business when you get down the road.  

Trent Ricker: That’s right. Starting a nonprofit is like starting a business. There are startup costs that aren’t impact-oriented. You need to buy a computer. You may need office space to hang your shingle out. There are startup costs involved in that.  

Let’s come back to the characteristics of an entrepreneur because I’d like to get your take on the resourcefulness necessary for the mindset of running a nonprofit and how that correlates to what successful entrepreneurs seem to do quite well: be resourceful. Did you take some of that from your for-profit experience into nonprofit leadership? 

Tom Ulbrich: Definitely. I would say I bring nontraditional resourcefulness. Many nonprofit leaders must be resourceful just to survive, but their resourcefulness is often in seeking out the next check or donation. When I say nontraditional resourcefulness, we’re always thinking about how we could do things differently that would be sustainable long-term.  

Again, I understand that we’re in a unique position compared to many others, but my goal is to get off grants as quickly as possible because they involve a lot of paperwork. There’s also a lot of data analysis and extra work involved. Anyone listening knows that. So, I would say nontraditional resourcefulness is how we look at things.  

Host: I’d love to piggyback on something you both shared. It ties in with this idea of innovation. Especially in the startup environment, there’s a certain amount of acceptance that there will be investment in research and development (R&D) that may never see a return. It’s experimental, it’s research, but it’s meant to push the technology — and, hopefully, the startup’s entire sector — forward. 

In many nonprofits, there’s no tolerance or acceptance of investment in something that may not play out. So, when we think about investing in technology or R&D within the nonprofit space, do either of you have any immediate thoughts about this? Or have you experienced some of the hand-wringing that happens with nonprofits and boards over this topic and how it’s navigated? 

Tom Ulbrich: That’s a great question because it made me think of something else that’s a challenge in many nonprofits: the concept of investment and future return versus the needs of the moment. For example, my board has been incredibly supportive of the way we are scaling quickly. When I got to Goodwill, I decided to go back and do some deep research with the University of Buffalo on our economy in Western New York post-COVID-19. We invest close to a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in research with the university and other organizations to stay in front of what’s happening next.  

Because of that research, we were one of the first organizations to talk about what would be different after COVID-19, which attracted funding and interest from the state and federal government because we put that in our application. We continue to invest there as well as in technology.  

We recently upgraded all the software in our stores. It was over a half-a-million-dollar investment to be able to track our production in the backroom and serialize every piece of clothing from the moment it comes through the door to the moment it goes through the register. We know who touched it and where it was. It’s all about becoming more efficient. 

So, yes, it’s a great point. Many nonprofits either don’t have the money for investment or are uncomfortable with it because they’re looking for a more immediate return. But we’re getting a return two or three years later from the research work we’re investing in.  

Trent Ricker: There’s also a mentality of scarcity in the nonprofit space — that every dollar needs to be reinvested in the current problem. This concept of R&D to improve your product in the nonprofit space is a bit foreign because of the scarcity mindset, and that’s a miss. This is where boards need to lead the way more in preaching sustainability.  

If you think about the fundraising and funding components, the difference between an entrepreneur and a nonprofit leader is that entrepreneurs will seek investment, and they’re charged to manage cash flow to fuel growth. If they’re a smart entrepreneur, they don’t want to raise much more capital because they want to preserve their equity as they drive enterprise value.  

We don’t have that same metric for the for-profit space. The shareholder, as we know it, doesn’t exist. So, the value of the enterprise — the nonprofit — may grow, but there’s not an exit market for it. You have to shift. You’re engaging in fundraising efforts, seeking funding, grants, and donations to fund your programs, but you’re doing it differently.  

Tom, you’re right about nonprofits — and larger legacy nonprofits like what you described for Goodwill — and the investments in technology to better manage resources, inventory, and efficiencies for your employees. On the one hand, it might take less human capital to drive that. Physically going to take inventory at a Goodwill store is very different than having a technology-driven inventory management system. But those types of things can increase our social impact, and that comes back to margin. Boards must preach margin.  

I’ve served on a couple of nonprofit boards. I’ve gotten a taste of the other side, and I’ve had mixed feelings about that satisfaction. Having worked with so many nonprofits, I don’t love the governance and condescending attitude board members can sometimes take with the quaint little nonprofit. “You just need to do X, Y, and Z.”  

So many nonprofits work hard, but they are often hand-to-mouth. Sometimes, they need that gift to meet payroll. If they were thinking more like businesses and the board was helping them think about driving a margin, cash flow sustainability, or your charge of 90%, that’s a metric you must march to daily. It must be cast down to your leadership team. 

Tom Ulbrich: It’s unheard of, and it’s a B hack. It drives people toward a vision.  

Another challenge I see with nonprofits goes back to profitability. If we take that word off the table, just business best practices are scary. When I spoke about growing the company without adding staff, some listeners probably thought that was horrible and that I should have added more staff. But the reality is that there often isn’t good accountability in nonprofits with staff. I’ve seen situations where the organization will accept that people aren’t as productive or don’t need to work as hard because they’ve gone into the nonprofit world. Again, that’s a huge miss. 

Say you don’t have the best talent. If you bring in good talent but surround them with lesser talent, you’ll lose good talent. “A” players can go wherever they want, and they will end up back in the for-profit world. So, I’m always thinking about building our team. 

We call it a culture of accountability, and then, in parenthesis and bold letters, “with constant coaching.” Not accountability to be punitive and throw people out the door. People know they’ll be held accountable. We’re clear about the goals and glad to provide constant coaching. If you’re willing to develop, we’ll keep you and continue to develop you. It’s not a cutthroat business where we’ll toss you out the door, but that bleeds over a bit — that we can’t hold our people accountable. 

Trent Ricker: That’s fascinating. You triggered a thought as we close our conversation. When you think about people who are entrepreneurs or attracted to early-stage startups, they’ll tend to work for lesser salary and stock options to bet on the equity of that value increasing over time. One of the most compelling draws to the nonprofit space is that some people are willing to work for potentially less salary. However, their equity component is feeling that they’re impacting society. To your point, it’s up to us as leaders to expand that impact.  

If somebody feels that the sacrifice of giving up stock options might lead to an IPO, that’s a different wealth. There are people in our space who gain that wealth by helping others. That salary is making a reasonable living and taking care of their family and needs, but the impact is the equity they get to take with them through their lifetime and beyond.  

Whether you’re a leader, a member of a team or nonprofit organization, or serving on a board, we should remember the equity component we owe our team members and, to your point, the mission recipients. Those are the folks coming through Goodwill who need to learn those essential skills — to equip themselves to be highly employable. Investing in R&D and the technologies to make them more impactful and sustaining when you set them free works for all of us. That’s the social impact we’re looking for.  

Tom Ulbrich: I like to remind people that you can do well financially for your people and the organization and do good at the same time. They don’t need to be separate. The more “doing” we can do, the more societal impact can happen. I’ve never heard it put the way you did, but you’re right. That’s part of someone’s compensation.  

Trent Ricker: I have a lot of respect and admiration for you. I’ve always felt that I would contribute to the business world and, someday, give back by teaching. Obviously, that’s what you did. An extension of that is to serve as a volunteer or board member or join a nonprofit. In doing so, you’re giving up equity options for social impact equity — the return on your work.  

In closing, Leah and I often talk about how our listeners can apply some of the things we’ve discussed. I charge our listeners to embrace an entrepreneurial spirit in their nonprofit organizations. Be that visionary, that beacon of resilience, and work with your board on this margin.  

Tom, I’d also like to hear your closing thoughts. One of my key takeaways from what you said is the keyword of profitability. The “p” word might not be comfortable for nonprofits, but we have to drive for sustainability and margin. Sustainability comes through margin.  

What closing thoughts do you have for our listeners? 

Tom Ulbrich: Words matter, especially for the people here. We have to be careful about profitability in business. We must instill those principles without scaring people. 

In closing, there’s an incredible opportunity for people to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset. We live in a world of exponential change; you must embrace that mindset of innovation and adaptability. You nailed it when you said the one thing a company or organization needs to be successful and have staying power is adaptability. You must do these things, or you’re going to die. That’s harsh, but we’ll likely start seeing a weeding out of organizations that don’t figure this out. As we said in the beginning, the speed of technology is exponential, which means we don’t know what our businesses will be like three, four, or five years from now.  

I encourage everybody to embrace the thought process, at least. Adapt it to whatever is right for your organization, but don’t be afraid to lean into the fact that, ultimately, we’re still running a business. How do you run a great business? Attract great people, retain talent, and do awesome work in the community.  

Back to the concept of your capital being the social capital you give back — I’ve never been happier at work than building what we’re building to give back to the community right outside our doors. I encourage everybody to lean in. Leading a nonprofit is a great opportunity.  

Trent Ricker: That’s amazing. I love hearing that. I hope that gives some hope to our listeners. Also, remember that at the end of the day, we work to make the world a better place. Thank you, Tom, for your service in doing so.