Rayce Rollins finally got a chance to do a deep dive into the Black Lives Matter Federal Tax Return, FORM 990, for the year ended 06/30/2021. Based on his review, he doesn't think BLM warrants an episode on American Greed for blatant corruption, but mistakes were made due to a lack of governance and systems. Here are a few takeaways that could help other nonprofits avoid financial scrutiny.

1) BLM had only one voting board member. This was the root of the problem -BLM was void of accountability, governance, and structure simply because there was no functioning board in place.

2) BLM received $80 Million in grants and contributions with only 2 employees (one of whom received a 140K severance package and didn't work at all). How do you run a foundation at this level with no board, no board meetings, 1 active staff member, and 49K volunteers?

3) BLM donated $26 Million (approximately 30% of contribution revenue to grassroots organizations). The best practice here is to have a grant process in place and a way to measure outcomes. Grantees have to be vetted.

4) Shalomyah Bowers was a non-voting board member and the largest independent contractor at $2.1 Million. BLM paid Patrisse Cullors' brother $800K for security services and 940K to a company owned by her son's father. All of these transactions are inappropriate. The best practice is to use RFPs for contracts that exceed a certain threshold to ensure transparency.

5) The most questionable transaction is documented on Schedule R, which is the $6 million real estate purchase in LA. Traditionally, real estate is a wonderful investment for non-profits because they don't have to pay transfer taxes or real estate taxes. Universities and churches are some of the largest land owners in the world. The problem here is that BLM purchased a residence (a mansion in LA) instead of a commercial property that could be used to run operations. The easy fix here is to divest the mansion, and buy a real creator studio / co-working space/office space, etc.

Welcome to the Rayce Rollins Show, where the CEO of Financial GPS unpacks business trends and analyzes other CEOs' decisions and what's happening in their business. CEO of Financial GPS goes through a hot business topic: work from home/remote work. Rayce examines both Elon Musk & Brian Chesky's thoughts on this heated subject matter.

Episode 3: Catalyst by Financial GPS

Welcome to Books and Ideas for Entrepreneurs, a show where we talk through the theory so that you can put it into practice on your journey to building a better business. On today's show we're going to discuss  Jonah Berger's book, Contagious, a study on why certain thing catch on, get shared, and spread in viral fashion.  Professor Berger gives us a 6 Step Framework to help us make our ideas and messages shareable and in my humble opinion this book  is a modern marketing masterpiece. It won the 2014 Leonard L. Berry Marketing Book of the Year Award from the American Marketing Association. In my days as a faculty professor at Temple University, Contagious was a frequent book on the required reading list for my students.

Jonah Berger is a  marketing professor at the Wharton Business School, who studies how social influence shapes the decisions we make. In Contagious, he gives us an acronym called STEPPS.

This Is Marketing by Seth Godin

Marketing is a generous act to help people solve a problem, their problem. On this episode, we highlight and discuss the important concepts and mind shifting strategies that Seth provides in the book. Here are a few of the highlights:

5 Step Marketing Plan:

1) Create something that matters, with a story that’s worth being told for people who want to talk about it

2) Design and build it in such a way to benefit a few people who really care about it

3) Tell a story that fits with your internal narrative and the dreams of your group, your minimum viable audience

4)Spread the word

5) Be present, consistently  and generously, for years and years to lead and realize the change that your want to see in the world

The Simple Marketing Promise

My product is for people who believe _______________

I will focus on people who want ______________

I promise that engaging with what I make will help you get  ______________

The X and Y axis for Product Positioning

Why Nobody Needs Your Product

Definition of culture: people like us do this, but we don't that

In our second episode of the Data Strategy Podcast, we present to you, Ellen Thompson! She gives us all the answers to marketing attributions, explaining the simplest and moving towards the more sophisticated models, and how Jess Analytics comes into play. We even throw in theories like ad fraud and how to limit it. And of course, trends in technology.

In this, our inaugural episode, we sat down with Bruce Marable, co-founder and CEO of Employee Cycle, to talk about the 7 Pillars of HR Analytics. Employee Cycle is an HR Analytics dashboard for SMEs. We asked Bruce how CHROs should be thinking about HR Data for Retention, Recruitment, Performance, Engagement, Development, Capacity, and Compensation & Incentives.

Your company's "people data" is just as important as its customer data. Bruce explains why on the very first episode of the Data Strategy Podcast.