Superpowers for Good: Empowering Changemakers for Social Impact via Regulated Investment Crowdfunding from the SuperCrowd.

I’m not a financial advisor; nothing I write in Superpowers for Good should be considered investment advice. You should seek appropriate counsel before making investment decisions.

Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.

When you purchase an item, launch a crowdfunding campaign or invest after clicking a link here, we may earn a commission. It’s an easy way to support our work.

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

Karl: I sometimes say that I'm a puzzle solver. I have the ability to connect the dots.

Karl Dakin, the capital coach, helps small businesses raise capital–or even figure out how to get where they’re going without it. A big fan of regulated investment crowdfunding, he led an effort to pass enabling legislation in Colorado. Then, he helped to launch a crowdfunding portal to take advantage of the rules.

Investment crowdfunding has topped $2 billion cumulatively since it started but still represents a small part of the economy. When issuers and investors finish the courtship, the space could explode to multiples of this scale. Karl thinks he’s figured out how that could happen. Keep reading!

Seeing the vital role small businesses play in the local economy, he works with a wide range of companies.

I work with all kinds of companies and all kinds of industries. Some people think I'm confused because of the diversity of things I work with. 

Right now, I'm working on a dinosaur theme park. I'm working with an international lottery gaming company. I'm working with a company that's using topical CBD products to reduce pain and inflammation. I'm also helping with the local crowdfunding platform that is working to set up a farm-to-table group of supporters for any small business that's looking for microfinancing here within the state of Colorado.

He’s also helping an LGBTQ woman-owned manufacturer of vegan protein bars raise capital. Greens Gone Wild, led by Laura Harris, is raising capital via Crowd Sprout, a crowdfunding portal operating under the Colorado State exemption. The campaign is open only to Colorado investors.

I love this one. It hits so many notes for me. It’s a small business that is scalable. A woman leads it. A member of the LGBTQ community leads it. It is vegan. The layers of impact inspire me. This is a moment when I wish I lived in Colorado so I could invest.

Karl uses that offering as an example of what he suggests all consumer products companies should do with their campaigns. He explains the example:

With Greens Gone Wild, if you make a $100 investment, you're also going to get $50 of free product. They'll ship to your door product, just like if you had ordered it on their online website–$50 value. Then we also give a $100 discount on future purchases. So, you get 20% off the list price on buying these products.

The company also agrees to donate $25 per investor to a local nonprofit.

The investor gets $150 in rewards–plus the satisfaction of enabling $25 of charitable giving. The company presumably has a good margin on the products, so it doesn’t cost $50 to offer the $50 perk. The discounts are valuable to the consumer but still allow the company to make a narrow profit. The investors become long-term, repeat customers.

Then, the investor gets equity, too. For small investors, the rewards essentially remove the risk. The company gets repeat customers with a permanent connection–ownership–to the business. Problem solved!

That, Karl believes, is the key that will unlock crowdfunding success for small businesses.

He reached this conclusion using his superpower, I’ll call problem-solving.

AI Episode Summary

1. Devin introduces Karl Dakin, founder and CEO of Dakin Capital, who shares Devin's passion for investment crowdfunding.

2. Karl Dakin's company, Dakin Capital, is a consultancy firm that assists small businesses in obtaining the necessary capital for starting or growing their ventures.

3. Karl positions himself as a "capital coach," aiding businesses in designing capital campaigns, preparing to receive capital, and, in some cases, managing the entire campaign on behalf of the company.

4. Karl believes that small businesses are vital in bringing innovation to the market, contributing to global impact by improving the quality of life through their products and services.

5. He works with a diverse range of companies across different industries, such as a dinosaur theme park, an international lottery gaming company, a CBD product company, and a crowdfunding platform focused on microfinancing in Colorado.

6. One of Karl's current projects involves working with Greens Gone Wild, a company producing vegan protein food bars, to help them navigate crowdfunding to reach a broader base of investors.

7. Karl emphasizes targeting campaigns not just at wealthy individuals but also at customers and future patrons, integrating immediate value for investors through product discounts and immediate gratification.

8. For the Greens Gone Wild crowdfunding campaign, with a $100 investment, investors receive $50 of product, $100 of future purchase discounts, and a $25 product donation to a local charity, creating a package with a retail value of $275.

9. Karl believes in the potential of equity crowdfunding to allow non-wealthy individuals to invest and build wealth while supporting small business growth and innovation.

10. Karl encourages reaching out to him through LinkedIn, where he recently started a daily newsletter called Instant Funding, his website Dakin Capital, and other platforms like SuperCrowd, expressing his dedication to helping small businesses raise capital.

Share this post to start a discussion on X, LinkedIn or Facebook about adding rewards to investment crowdfunding campaigns.

How to Develop Problem-Solving As a Superpower

“People would say is I see dots that no one else sees,” Karl says of his problem-solving superpower. Like solving a puzzle, he connects the dots between disparate data points to draw fresh conclusions to test new solutions.

Following the passage of the JOBS Act in 2012, Karl began working on implementing crowdfunding in Colorado. So, he’s been thinking about optimizing fundraising for a decade, along the way, helping companies do it. 

He loves that under the new rules, “investments are not limited to wealthy people.” But, he sees a need to think differently about bringing in small, novice investors. He framed the question as, “How do you get a non-wealthy person to be able to make an investment where they can benefit enough that it makes sense to them at their income level, where they're at in their life?”

His conclusion is to incorporate substantial consumer rewards, reflecting a genuine innovation in crowdfunding. He developed that strategy using his ability to solve problems.

Karl offers some tips for strengthening your ability to solve problems.

First, he suggests shaking off the fear by embracing the idea that much of what you try will fail–on your way to ultimate success. 

Second, he offers that it is important not to lock your focus on what has been done in the past. Start with a “blank canvas,” focusing on what you want to accomplish rather than how you’ll get there.

That kind of thinking, he says, allows you to conclude that you may be able to borrow or rent something rather than raise capital to buy it. You get where you’re going without some of the cost and stress.

By following Karl’s example and advice, you can strengthen your ability to solve problems. With practice, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

Karl Dakin (he/him):

Founder / Owner, Dakin Capital LLC

About Dakin Capital LLC: A specialty consulting compan…

I’m not a financial advisor; nothing I write in Superpowers for Good should be considered investment advice. You should seek appropriate counsel before making investment decisions.

Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.

When you purchase an item, launch a crowdfunding campaign or invest after clicking a link here, we may earn a commission. It’s an easy way to support our work.

Devin: What is your superpower?

Paul: My favorite superpower, my favorite personal talent or strength, is what Don Clifton and the Clifton Strengthsfinder would call ideation.

Paul Allen, serial entrepreneur and founder of Ancestry.com, is building on his history managing massive databases to develop a proprietary ethical AI model he’s deploying in several fields, beginning with Citizen Portal. The new company monitors public governmental meetings, from school boards to the Supreme Court. (Full disclosure: I’m a crowdfunding investor in Citizin Portal.)

Soar is a parent company Paul founded to develop the proprietary AI engine that underlies Citizen Portal and other companies in the works. 

“Our vision for PURE AI is an acronym for personalized–you ought to be able to control the AI and design it according to your needs–uplifting–it ought to be wonderful to interact with and joyful to use–and then responsible and ethical,” Paul says. “A lot of companies talk about responsible AI and ethical AI, but we like the personalized and uplifting as well.”

Paul shares the vision for Citizen Portal:

The vision of Citizen Portal is to use AI to empower citizens to become informed and engaged about every issue they care about at the local, state, and federal level. If you think about the difficulty of being a citizen right now–do we trust our leaders? Do we know what's going on? Are we happy with the $34 trillion debt? I mean, there are lots of issues that make you feel like the country is not going in the right direction.

Paul notes that part of the lack of trust is the rapid decline in local journalism over the past 20 years or so. Two or three decades ago, local papers had reporters at virtually every public meeting. That is no longer true. Citizen Portal can monitor all public meetings that are accessible digitally–which is a vast majority today.

Citizen Portal is now conducting a crowdfunding raise under Regulation Crowdfunding via StartEngine.

Paul shares his thoughts about crowdfunding:

I literally love the American Jobs Act from 2012–finally, the SEC in 2016 launched the rules for crowdfunding. But I love the idea that average people can invest in a startup company that has a lot of promise, and obviously, billions of dollars have now been raised across the industry.

Paul will deliver a keynote address in the opening session of SuperCrowd24 on April 17. 

To learn more about the offering, visit startengine.com/citizenportal.

Paul has built Soar to take advantage of his superpower, ideation, enabling him to apply the core technology across a broad suite of applications.

AI Episode Summary

1. Paul Allen, the founder of Ancestry.com, is introduced as a "rock star entrepreneur" and is currently working on a new venture called Citizen Portal.

2. Citizen Portal is an AI-driven platform designed to empower citizens to become informed and engaged on issues at the local, state, and federal levels, addressing the decline of traditional media coverage.

3. The platform has imported and transcribed 600-700,000 hours of public meetings, making the content searchable and accessible to citizens.

4. Paul's vision is to fill the void left by the diminishing newspaper industry by giving citizens firsthand access to government proceedings and facilitating a new generation of informed citizens.

5. The ethical AI model used at Soar, called PURE AI, focuses on creating AI that is Personalized, Uplifting, Responsible, and Ethical.

6. Paul plans to launch around 15 corporations in the next 2-3 years, including Faith Portal AI for religious content, Learning Portal, and Workplace AI Portal, aimed at improving human capability and decision-making.

7. Family and Friend Portals are also in the pipeline to help enhance relationships, countering the rise in loneliness, stress, and isolation exacerbated by platforms like Facebook.

8. Citizen Portal is currently running a crowdfunding campaign on StartEngine to further develop the platform and strengthen democracy.

9. The platform aims to create a personal voter scorecard by indexing content from elected officials and opposition candidates, providing personalized, issue-based insights for voters.

10. Paul attributes his success as an entrepreneur to his superpower of "ideation," the ability to come up with new ideas, which he pairs with executing strengths and building teams to bring ideas to reality.

How to Develop Ideation As a Superpower

Paul is a primary reason we call the show and the newsletter “Superpowers for Good.” An expert in personal strength development, Paul and I–friends for decades–met for lunch four or five years ago, and he explained how he appreciated the superpowers questions I asked guests. That ultimately led to writing the book, Superpowers for Good, and the show's rebranding.

Paul shared his struggle with his ideation superpower in the early days of the World Wide Web: 

I had what I called dotcom syndrome. That is, for any word in the English language, I would just close my eyes and put a .com on it, and boom, a business model would pop into my head. Here's what the product or service could be. 

I bought a high-speed satellite dish in 1995 in Provo, Utah. I was probably the first person [there] to have high-speed internet. I would stay up till 2 or 3 in the morning studying thousands of other dot coms to find out their marketing strategy, their product strategy, what niches they were in, and how were they getting funded. I had a folio knowledge base with over 3,000 copy-and-paste things about what I discovered about internet companies.

Paul advises changemakers: “Don't take advice from other people unless that advice lets you play to your strengths.”

By following Paul’s example, you can strengthen your ideation ability. With practice, you, too, could make it a superpower that would enable you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that, as Paul suggests, research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

Paul Allen (he/him):

CEO & Board Member, Citizen Portal

About Citizen Portal: Citizen Portal is a non-partisan, AI-powered platform with $426,200 in pre-seed funding and a seasoned leadership team aiming to revolutionize civic engagement, revive government transparency, and transform American democracy. Citizen Portal is on a mission to transform democracy with an AI-powered approach. We are reshaping civic engagement and education by providing Americans with up-to-date, accurate, newsworthy information straight from the source. Citizen Portal utilizes AI to index, transcribe, and summarize meetings and hearings at all levels of government. By providing access to video recordings of school boards, local, state, and federal meetings, Citizen Portal helps to empower citizens, journalists, and advocates to know what is being said by their elected officials and done in their government.

Website: citizenportal.ai

X/Twitter Handle: @CitizenPortalAi

Company Facebook Page: fb.com/profile.php?id=100093227401453

Other URL: startengine.com/citizenportal

Biographical Information: Paul Allen is a visionary tech entrepreneur and evangelist driven by a desire to help individuals live their best lives. Paul has founded eight companies. He calls himself a “platform entrepreneur” since his products are usually built on top of the latest tech platform or wave, such as CD-ROM, the World Wide Web, mp3 audio, or Facebook. For the past several years, Paul’s focus has been using machine learning and artificial intelligence to help individuals and organizations reach their full potential.In 1990, Paul founded Infobases, whose mission was to digitize and publish the world’s most important books on CD ROM with a full-text search engine. This endeavor led directly to Ancestry.com—Paul’s best-known company—which sought to gather and publish the world’s genealogy records, family trees, and memories on the internet to enable everyone to discover their heritage. Over 100 million people have learned about their family history at Ancestry.com.Paul’s teams have a history of building viral products. MyFamily.com (1998) attracted millions of users and, for a time, was the fastest-growing online community on the web, as well as the top photo-sharing site in 2000 and 2001. Paul’s We’re Related app on Facebook (2007-2010) gained more than 120 million users in two and a half years. From 2012 to 2017, Paul worked with Gallup to promote the StrengthsFinder assessment (now called CliftonStrengths) from the Washington, DC headquarters. As the “Global Strengths Evangelist,” Paul helped increase online purchases of the assessment and supported a global community of strengths coaches. Today, more than 30 million people have taken the CliftonStrengths assessment. Paul’s most recent creation is Soar.com, a company whose mission—once again—is to uplift humanity. Paul is a strong advocate for using AI in positive ways, specifically to enable individuals to become the best version of themselves. When excellent training is paired with AI-generated feedback on actual performance, leaders, managers, founders, and individual contributors can achieve excellence faster than ever before. Soar is an AI Studio that will form more than fifteen separate corporations to bring PURE AI (Personalized Uplifting Responsible Ethical AI) to many fields, including education, faith, government, health, finance, medicine, law, family history, and the workplace. Eventually, Soar will enable people to build and customize their own AI assistant (think of Jarvis from Iron Man or Janet from The Good Place) to help them learn, grow, make better decisions, and maximize their time on Earth. Paul’s influence extends beyond entrepreneurship. He’s a sought-after keynote speaker and workshop facilitator, teaching the importance of family stories and personal strengths in shaping one’s identity. A lifelong learner, Paul has amassed a vast library of thousands of books. In fact, Paul’s dedication to learning extends to his teaching roles in Internet Marketing and Entrepreneurship at Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University. He’s received numerous accolades, including Ernst & Young Utah Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000 and MarketingSherpa National Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008. Paul is a fellow of the Utah Genealogical Association and was named a Cyber Pioneer in 2010 by the Cyber Law Section of the Utah State Bar. In 2016, he was the honored alumnus of the BYU Humanities College, having graduated in 1990 with a BA in Russian. Most recently, Paul has been featured on The Pulse of AI, The Briefing with Steve Scully, The Business of Learning, and The Adventures in Machine Learning podcasts.Paul and his wife, Christy, reside in Missouri. They have eight adult children and five grandchildren.

X/Twitter Handle: @paulballen

Personal Facebook Profile: fb.com/paulallen

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/paulballen/

Instagram Handle: @paulallendc

Upcoming SuperCrowd Event Calendar

If a location is not noted, the events below are virtual.

* Impact Cherub Club Meeting hosted by The Super Crowd, Inc., a public benefit corporation, on February 20, 2024, at 1:00 PM Eastern. Each month, the Club meets to review new offerings for investment consideration and to conduct due diligence on previously screened deals. Everyone is welcome to join the free events.

* SuperCrowdHour February with the CfPA Executive Committee: This free event on February 21, 2024, at 1:00 PM Eastern, features President Brian Christie, Vice President Jenny Kassan, Secretary Brian Belley and Chair Scott McIntyre. Learn how you can join and make a difference. Earn rewards!

* SuperCrowdBaltimore, March 21, 2024. This in-person event at the B&O Rail Museum features some of Baltimore’s prominent citizens and community leaders. Save 30 percent with the discount code “SuperCrowd.”

* SuperCrowd24, April 17-18: This two-day virtual event is our biggest event of the year. Don’t miss it. Save 50 percent with the discount code “SuperCrowd.” Paul Allen will deliver a keynote address in the opening general session.

* SuperCrowdChicago, June 12, 2024. Save the date! More information is coming soon!

SuperCrowd Community Event Calendar

If a location is not noted, the events below are virtual.

* Successful Funding with Karl Dakin, Tuesdays at 10:00 AM ET 

* Leveraging Donor-Advised Funds for Climate Investing, Raise Green, February 15 at 11 AM ET

* Neighborhood Economics, February 26-28 in San Antonio, Texas

* Crowdfunding Professional Association Webinar Series - March 13, 2:00 PM ET

* Investment Crowdfunding Demystified, Crowdfund Better, March 26 at 2:00 PM ET

If you would like to submit an event for inclusion on our community calendar, click here.

Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.

When you purchase an item, launch a crowdfunding campaign or invest after clicking a link here, we may earn a commission. It’s an easy way to support our work.

Devin: Rosa Lee, what do you see as your superpower?

Rosa Lee: Growing up in the church, I just kind of saw through a bunch of the crap, if you will, about what people thought church was about and saw I had a clear vision of that. What my faith needed to be about was figuring out what Jesus would do and doing it.

Devin: What's your superpower, Leroy?

Leroy: I've been a person who can look out and do something and bring people together to do something scary.

Rosa Lee Harden and her husband and business partner, Kevin Doyle Jones, founded Neighborhood Economics as a community-focused version of the highly successful SoCap event series they created.

“Back in 2008, my husband, Kevin Jones, and a bunch of us started this organization called SoCap,” Rosa Lee said. “We decided after about a decade that we wanted to go more downstream, if you will, and start working with economics in a way that could change neighborhoods for good.”

The next Neighborhood Economics event is in San Antonio, Texas, on February 26 - 28, 2024. The event will feature about 70 speakers in 42 sessions over the three days.

Leroy Barber, the executive director of Neighborhood Economics, joined us for this conversation. He says the enterprise brings together the world of impact investing and social entrepreneurship with his traditional focus on community development and church work. 

The connection to faith is more overt than implied, as it was at SoCap, recognizing faith leaders' and organizations' roles in repairing local economies. 

“We are mostly Christians in our organization, but we believe that faith writ large, not just Christianity, is the glue that holds the moral compass of the economy together,” Rosa Lee said. “It's important for people of faith to be in conversation with the economy.”

A vital element of the event is bringing about a dozen foundations together to talk about patient capital's role in local community investing.

Rosa Lee and Leroy both bring their superpowers to work. Rosa Lee’s early conviction to do what Jesus would and Leroy’s ability to get people together to complete scary community projects enable them to impact communities through their events.

AI Episode Summary

1. Devin Thorpe introduces Rosa Lee Harden, founder of Neighborhood Economics, and her colleague Leroy Barber as his guests on the "Superpowers for Good" show.

2. Rosa Lee talks about starting SoCap in 2008, focusing on global impact investing, and later creating Neighborhood Economics with a more local approach to building economic justice in neighborhoods through ideas and community collaboration.

3. Neighborhood Economics hosts events that bring together around 300 people to discuss actionable ways of making positive changes in local communities with input from national experts.

4. Leroy Barber joined the initiative after being invited to SoCap, realizing the potential connections between social entrepreneurship, impact investing, and local community development.

5. Rosa Lee highlights the purpose of Neighborhood Economics as a platform for facilitating discussions that SoCap couldn't cater to, such as impact investing for specific local contexts, and emphasizes the role of faith as a moral compass in economy-related conversations.

6. Leroy explains the importance of the faith community as a mobilizer for local economic efforts, fostering a merge between the financial world and faith-directed community action.

7. Rosa Lee shares details about an upcoming event in San Antonio, Texas, providing a platform for discussing various topics like reversing redlining, equitable homeownership, and employee-owned business models, alongside sessions about the role of faith in economic justice.

8. Rosa Lee considers one of her superpowers to be her ability to see through superficial religious motivations and focus on living out her faith through actions that reflect a divine dream for the world, as well as her exceptional capability to organize large events without stress.

9. Leroy identifies his superpower as the ability to bring people together to undertake challenging and transformative community work, fostering relationships and building unlikely alliances.

10. Rosa Lee invites viewers to the Neighborhood Economics event and provides contact information for both her and Leroy—Rosa Lee at [email protected] and Leroy at [email protected]—for anyone interested in connecting or learning more about their work.

To help others learn about Neighborhood Economics, share this post.

How to Develop Doing As Jesus Would As a Superpower

SoCap is the living manifestation of the power of Rosa Lee’s influence. Her faith led her to keep the balance at the events on impact, so the focus didn’t shift entirely to making money.

“The idea that was emerging in the early 2000s, that you could invest for profit in mission-based businesses, that businesses should have a mission and that they should be doing good, and that you could follow your money through that path has proved to be true,” she says. In those early days of SoCap, her influence helped to maintain the balance.

By following Rosa Lee’s example, you can increase your ability to apply principles of your faith in contexts outside of worship services. With practice, this could become a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

How to Develop Completing Scary Community Projects As a Superpower

Leroy explains his superpower:

My superpower is to convince people on the margins in local neighborhoods who've been underneath it for so long and are not resourced that this is possible. [Impact investors and social entrepreneurs] exist, and you can come meet them. We're going to pull all of y'all together, right? And something powerful can and will keep happening. I love the idea of that because people don't believe that that's there. My superpower is convincing people it's there.

By following Leroy’s example, you can make bringing people together to tackle scary problems something that you can do, too. With practice, you can make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

About Neighborhood Economics: Neighborhood Economics convenes, recruits, and connects people repairing local economies. Our convenings gather local leaders, impact investors, catalytic foundations, minority entrepreneurs, and people of faith who want to build a more just economy.

Website:

https://neighborhoodeconomics.org

X/Twitter Handle: @neighborecon

Company Facebook Page: fb.com/neighborhoodeconomics/

Other URL: https://neighborhoodeconomics.org/san-antonio/

Rosa Lee Harden (she/her):

Executive Producer, Neighborhood Economics

Biographical Information: The Rev. Canon Rosa Lee Harden is a self-described serial entrepreneur. Her vocational life has included being publisher of weekly newspapers, trade journals, a business journal and CEO of a ‘Silicon Valley’ start-up. She was ordained as an Episcopal Priest in 2000 and served as Vicar of Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in San Francisco for ten years. She also served as the Canon for Money and Meaning at All Soul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Asheville, NC. In 2003, she developed ‘via media,’ a video curriculum about basic theology for the Episcopal church, developed at a time when the church was under great stress. Purchased by more than 1000 churches, it brought healing and connection across the denomination. In 2008, she and her husband, Kevin Jones, launched…

Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.

When you purchase an item, launch a crowdfunding campaign or invest after clicking a link here, we may earn a commission. It’s an easy way to support our work.

Devin: What is your superpower?

Dana: I asked some of my team yesterday on a call what they thought my superpower was. Since this is a family show, I'm going to self-edit here and say that they said, “If we had to describe Dana Spain's superpower, it’s that she gets stuff done.”

Dana Spain is a second-generation business leader and real estate developer who turned her attention to supporting veterans. She founded the nonprofit Veterans Villages to house unsheltered and impoverished veterans.

She shared the founding story and the vision with us:

Veterans Village came out of a very simple problem; the problem that I saw when I was running a small but very mighty homeless shelter for female veterans is that when they put in all the work and did all kinds of enrichment programs–mind, body, spirit started to make great positive steps in their lives–government agencies were putting them in abject squalor when they were applying for independent housing. 

I just couldn't believe the scattered sites and the drug activity and crime-ridden areas that our ladies were being put into, especially when there was an affordable housing crisis all across the country. But these are people who have fought for our freedoms, and they're being discarded as if they're second-class citizens–if citizens at all. 

So, I was very frustrated and finally had enough. I went to my dad, who was alive at the time, Bernard Spain. He was an army vet. And over cocktails–where we always did our best business meetings–I said, “Dad, I'm just so frustrated. We work hard, the ladies work hard, they're veterans. Yet we're throwing them away and then wondering why the cycle of homelessness and bad decisions continues.”

He looked me square in the eye, Devin, and he said, “You build buildings for a living. Why don't we build a building that is respectful, safe, affordable housing for our veterans and show the government how it's done?”

So Veterans Villages was born. The first Veterans Village is called the Bernard Spain campus as a legacy to my dad because he was the force behind the idea of let's not talk about it, let's be about it. Let's build brand new construction, just like my market-rate apartments, and make it solely for our veterans who are coming out of transitional housing or addiction recovery programs or trauma centers, and have it be a place where our veterans can live together in a community, hence the village concept.

If they are having a bad day, if they feel like they're going to make bad decisions, they have 46 other apartments to go to to knock on the door and say, “I could use a cup of coffee or a shoulder or an ear,” or “Let's watch a ball game together.” It stabilizes a foundation for them to thrive so the cycle does not repeat itself.

That lesson from her father, the sense of urgency to be about something rather than talking about something, became Dana’s superpower.

AI Episode Summary

1. Devin introduces the show "Superpowers for Good" with the guest Dana Spain, founder of Veterans Village, which is aimed at supporting veterans through housing and community.

2. Veterans Village was born out of Dana's experience running a homeless shelter for female veterans, where she saw a need for better housing solutions after transitional programs.

3. Dana’s father, an army veteran, proposed building a respectful, safe and affordable housing project for veterans, which led to the founding of the first Veterans Village, named the Bernard Spain campus.

4. The project was funded privately through corporate and foundation donations, grants, and traditional financing without relying on government funding or tax credits.

5. Key supporters of Veterans Villages included Saint-Gobain's Certainteed, Dow Tile, Amira Vets, Quatro Capital, and First Citizens Community Bank.

6. Dana's professional background includes a career as a developer after working in various fields, such as translation for a French bank, retail with Hallmark stores, publishing, and commercial real estate.

7. Transitioning to veteran-focused charity work, Dana identified a lack of safe housing for female veterans, particularly those suffering from military sexual trauma.

8. Dana describes her leadership style as direct and results-oriented, with a propensity to surround herself with expert teams and adapt plans as needed.

9. A past accomplishment highlighted by Dana was the successful fundraising campaign for the Philadelphia Police Foundation to reintroduce the mounted police, a project initially deemed too expensive.

10. Dana invites listeners to visit VeteransVillages.org to learn how to get involved with the initiative, highlighting the variety of ways support is welcomed, including donations and volunteering.

You can support veterans simply by sharing this post to increase awareness.

How to Develop Getting Stuff Done As a Superpower

Dana describes her superpower this way:

I see a problem. Instead of the problem being the obstacle, the problem becomes the challenge to find a solution. So, in all of my endeavors, whether on the for-profit or nonprofit side, I look at the problem, the issue, and how we resolve that issue. How am I going to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty to be the first one on the front lines to address the issue?

She adds:

I'm not much of a business plan kind of gal because I feel that it puts you in this box of, “Okay, well, here's my business plan that's going to happen in six months, 12 months, 18 months, three years. So, I have to stick to that because that's the plan. 

I'm more of a back-of-a-cocktail-napkin kind of gal that every six months, I have to say, “Okay, well, that didn't work. Let's scratch that off. Let's let's go over here. Let's go over there.” Especially, I would say, in our charity endeavors, it's very organic. You have to be able to reposition on the fly.

She shared an anecdote that typifies the way she gets stuff done. While serving on the Philadelphia Police Foundation, the police commissioner, Charles Ramsey, asked for help bringing back the mounted police.

One board member spoke up to suggest that the challenge was somewhere between silly and impossible, “We’re never going to get that done.” 

Dana says the doers on the board simply said, “Watch us.” Creating a fundraising infrastructure that had never existed in the past and hosting events that had no precedent, they raised the money and brought back the mounted police. They still ride in Philadelphia.

By following Dana’s advice and example, you can make getting stuff done a personal strength. With practice, it could become your superpower, enabling you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

Dana Spain (she/her):

President, Veterans Villages

About Veterans Villages: Veterans VIllages is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing safe and affordable housing for America’s veterans facing conditions of abject poverty and, in many cases, housing insecurity. Our replicable modular construction model ensures that we can expand our reach and impact and create Veterans Villages nationwide. 

Website: veteransvillages.org

X/Twitter: @veterans_v

Company Facebook Page: fb.com/vbcgivingfoundation

Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/veteransvillages/

Instagram Handle: @veterans_villages

Biographical Information: Dana Spain is the founder and president of Veterans Villages. A serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, Veterans Villages is Spain's third nonprofit following the creation of HAVEN Women in…

Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.

When you purchase an item, launch a crowdfunding campaign or invest after clicking a link here, we may earn a commission. It’s an easy way to support our work.

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

Richard: If you asked the people around me, my superpower is, at its core, my competitiveness.

Prominent money manager Richard H. Lawrence’s new book Carbon Done Correctly officially comes out today. The book features the history of his clean cookstove project, which started in Honduras in the late 1990s.

Working with his daughter and a local team, they launched the project after volunteering for several years in the area following the devastating hurricane. While volunteering, they were perplexed by the number of people needing treatment for breathing problems. His daughter was the one who determined that the problem was cookstoves that vented smoke in the homes.

Working with locals, they designed, built and installed 29 stoves. Struggling to fund further development of the project, Richard stumbled upon the growing voluntary carbon credit market. He learned that he could generate cash there to fund the project. Four years later, they successfully qualified for Gold Standard certification, enabling the sale of carbon credits.

Today, Richard’s Proyecto Mirador has sold 310,000 stoves in Honduras and Guatemala with help from carbon credits.

Carbon credits have become controversial in recent years. Seen favorably as a potential solution to climate change early on, some climate activists have become skeptical.

“There's blame on both sides, I think,” Richard says, reacting to the critics. “Over the last ten years, 12 years, a lot of new methodologies were developed, and those methodologies were not strong enough. That resulted in an overcrediting of emission savings. Quite rightly, those developers are subjected to criticism.”

“On the other side of the coin, the critics tend to throw the baby out with the bath water,” he says. “So, they'll find a cookstove project that they believe has over credited, and then they'll pass that all cookstoves over credited.”

The truth is that many good carbon projects both reduce carbon emissions and improve lives with better health and economic well-being.

Richard credits his superpower, a competitive nature, with driving his impact.

AI Episode Summary

1. **Introduction**: Devin Thorpe introduces Richard Lawrence as the guest on the "Superpowers for Good" show. Richard is an author, philanthropist, fund manager, nonprofit founder, and the writer of the newly published book Carbon Done Correctly.

2. **Carbon Done Correctly**: The book tells the story of Richard's life over the last 20 years, focusing on his efforts in environmental and social work, particularly highlighting a transformative experience during a medical mission in Honduras.

3. **Family Trip to Honduras**: Richard's initial involvement in social work began as a concern for his children growing up in a hedonistic society, leading to a family trip to Honduras to participate in medical missions, which revealed health issues linked to inadequate cookstoves.

4. **Discovery of Health Issues and Cookstove Solution**: During the Honduras mission, they observed a pattern of respiratory illnesses in women and children, which Richard's daughter linked to smoke from indoor cookstoves. This became the impetus for Richard's work in designing and implementing better cookstoves.

5. **Funding Stove Projects**: Richard learned about the carbon market and its potential to raise funds through gold-standard-certified carbon credits. Realizing the power of this mechanism, he decided to use it to finance the building of improved cookstoves.

6. **Challenges in Cookstove Implementation**: Acquiring gold standard certification and selling carbon credits took four years. To ensure the initiative's success, the project emphasized holistic improvements in stove design, education, supervision, and monitoring.

7. **Cookstove Project Expansion**: The cookstove project expanded significantly, leading to the construction of over 310,000 stoves in Honduras and Guatemala, employing 250 people, and proving the efficacy of using carbon markets for funding.

8. **Response to Carbon Credit Criticism**: Richard acknowledges criticism of carbon credits, admitting some issues relate to flaws in methodology and over-crediting. He emphasizes the ongoing work to improve standards and ensure carbon credits effectively contribute to fighting climate change.

9. **Social Justice Aspect of Carbon Credits**: Devin mentions, and Richard agrees, that carbon credits represent a means to transfer capital from wealthier nations to places with less capital where climate mitigation strategies can be implemented more cost-effectively.

10. **Superpower – Competitiveness**: When asked about his superpower, Richard cites his competitiveness and determination as critical to his success. He shares a story where this trait helped solve a significant problem in the cookstove initiative, leading to a simple but impactful innovation. Richard also advises us to keep moving forward, not dwelling on mistakes and emphasizes the importance of teamwork.

If you believe that climate solutions that serve people deserve more attention, please share.

How to Develop Competitiveness As a Superpower

Richard shares a story to illustrate how his competitive nature enabled impact. Many cookstove projects struggle with adoption and utilization. Installing a stove the family doesn’t use doesn’t help.

In the early days, when Richard visited the project in Honduras, he too often found problems like that. In the field with the project COO, Professor Elder Mendoza, the two were angry about the adoption problems.

Elder identified the problem–a simple maintenance issue prevented the stoves from working correctly. The solution was a $1 wand they called a “cinco” that the residents could use to keep the stoves operating perfectly. Now, 300,000 stoves later, the solution has proved its worth.

Richard suggests a philosophy to develop and strengthen your competitiveness. “Just don’t give up.” 

“Keep looking forward,” he adds. “Don’t look back; don’t waste time on your mistakes. Just keep moving forward.”

By following Richard’s example and counsel, you can strengthen your competitiveness. With practice, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

Richard H. Lawrence, Jr.  (he/him):

Climate Activist and Author of Carbon Done Correctly: A Model for Climate Mitigation from the Global South to Wall Street 

Website: CarbonDoneCorrectly.com

Biographical Information: Richard H. Lawrence, Jr., is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Overlook Investments Group, which he established in 1991. Overlook is an independent fund management company that invests in a concentrated portfolio of public equities throughout Asia, excluding Japan.Richard is a director and co-founder of several non-profit organizations with specific focus on climate change mitigation. In 2004, Richard and his wife, Dee, founded Proyecto Mirador Foundation, a non-profit that has built over 330,000 fuel-efficient stoves in rural communities across Honduras and Guatemala. In 2016, the Lawrences founded Cool Effect, a non-profit online platform that enables individuals and Fortune 500 companies to offset their carbon emissions through the purchase of carbon credits from high-integrity carbon reduction projects worldwide. In 2017, they established High Tide Foundation, a non-profit organization involved in climate change mitigation.Richard is Chairman of the non-profit Carbon Mapper…

Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.

When you purchase an item, launch a crowdfunding campaign or invest after clicking a link here, we may earn a commission. It’s an easy way to support our work.

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

Dom: I think my superpower is empathy.

Dom Kelly is the CEO and founder of New Disabled South, a nonprofit organization that supports disabled people and fights for their rights. Disabled by cerebral palsy, Dom leads from a position of personal experience, empowering him to be effective.

While the organization doesn’t have a policy to only hire people with disabilities, by making the workplace attractive to them, he’s built a team comprising people with that lived experience and perspective.

Dom shared some of the tactics used to create an appealing workplace. They include unlimited PTO. “We have it unlimited for a reason. If people need to take care of themselves, they take care of themselves.”

“We have a very progressive parental leave policy,” he says. New Disabled South offers “a year of parental leave– that's six months fully paid, full time off, and six months part-time hours fully paid.”

In addition, the organization offers a robust insurance package that includes life, vision, dental, and health. “Also, we're a remote organization; we support our employees, making sure they have a comfortable place to work,” Dom says.

A final aspect of the hiring practice is a four-day, 32-hour work week that allows people time to rest and enjoy life as well as work.

This broad, employee-friendly policy grew out of Dom’s superpower: empathy.

AI Episode Summary

1. Dom Kelly is the founder, CEO, and president of New Disabled South, a nonprofit with an affiliated 501(c)(4), that focuses on advocacy and support for disabled individuals in the South.

2. New Disabled South is unique in focusing on disability issues from a regional perspective in the South, addressing common challenges that disabled individuals face in the area.

3. Some of the challenges specific to the South include barriers to voting access, non-expanded Medicaid, long waiting times for home care waivers, higher poverty rates, inaccessible transportation, and housing crises.

4. Dom mentions that leaders lacking empathy can negatively impact both their leadership and their organization.

5. New Disabled South's employment practices are designed to create an inclusive and supportive environment and include benefits like a four-day workweek and fully paid unlimited time off, among others.

6. The organization’s workplace policies prioritize empathy and support for employees' overall well-being and life experiences.

7. Dom believes that his superpower is empathy, which has been shaped by personal experiences, such as the loss of his brother when they were children.

8. He shares a story where displaying empathy during a difficult time at his job led to him doubling down on his commitment to help refugees, which reaffirmed his values and eventually brought him on the path to his current work.

9. Dom advises that developing empathy starts with genuinely listening to others without interjecting, allowing for perspectives and experiences to be shared openly.

10. Dom can be reached and supported through New Disabled South’s website (newdisabledsouth.org), with direct donation links available, and he is also on LinkedIn and social media under the handle (at)the_tattooedjew.

If you think employers can do better at including disabled people in hiring, please share.

How to Develop Empathy As a Superpower

Dom began to appreciate empathy when his fraternal triplet brother passed away when they were six. It helped him to better understand the human connections between people.

“I have seen a lack of empathy take down leaders and organizations,” Dom says. “It is something I just go back to often and remind myself to use my empathy as a strength.”

Dom shared a story of a time when feeling and manifesting empathy was a challenge but also particularly important, and he could lean on this strength to help a friend.

I was in a job that I was feeling frustrated with. It wasn't a good fit. The boss that I had didn't have a whole lot of empathy. He said some things to me–my wife and I were doing some work at the border at the time to help refugees, doing some organizing. 

At the time, he said something like, “I wish you cared as much about my business as you do about refugees at the border.” It was frustrating because I felt I was working hard. At the same time, it highlighted some misalignment for me.

So, I share that because I was feeling frustrated, I was feeling afraid I was going to lose my job, or I was going to quit my job.

At the time, we had a couple of friends who came to live with us as refugees from Honduras. When I got home that day, one of them had found out he had got a bad diagnosis and shared it with us. I got to put my stuff aside, be there for him and his partner, and be supportive and listen. It affirmed my commitment to that work. 

What wound up happening was I lost that job, and it wound up being the best thing that ever happened to me because I wouldn't be down this path that I'm on now. But my ability to put that aside and be there for someone who needed it put it into focus and put things into perspective and made me realign with my values and what was important to me. I showed up in that moment for someone who needed me.

Dom offers a few tips for developing your empathy.

“Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth,” he says. “Empathy is just sitting and listening to another person, not having to speak, not having to interject unless it's needed or asked for.”

By following Dom’s example and advice, you can strengthen your empathy. With practice, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

Dom Kelly (he/him):

Co-Founder, President and CEO, New Disabled South

About New Disabled South: New Disabled South is the first and only regional disability organization in the United States, fighting for liberation, justice, and rights for all disabled people in the South. We are a political home for all disabled people in 14 states across the US South. We are winning policy and narrative change for disabled people through organizing, advocacy, education, and research. New Disabled South exists to win rights, justice, liberation, and material improvements by and for disabled people across the US South. We are working to ensure there is a cost to ableism. We do this by exposing and holding accountable ableist actors in government, business, media, politics, and everywhere – to ensure we achieve transformative change for disabled people in our lifetimes. We also strive to be the go-to resource hub to understand disabled people in the US South – shedding light on where disability justice and rights stand and where they could and should be. Our mission is to improve the lives of disabled people and cultivate strong disability rights and disability justice frameworks in the South, working toward a vision of a South where all disabled people experience liberation and justice in our lifetimes.

Website: newdisabledsouth.org

X/Twitter Handle: @DisabledSouth

Company Facebook Page: fb.com/NewDisabledSouth/

Instagram Handle: @newdisabledsouth

Biographical Information: Dom Kelly is the Co-Founder, President & CEO of New Disabled South, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and New Disabled South Rising, its 501(c)(4) arm. He previously served as both the Georgia Fundraising Director and the Senior Advisor for Disability for Stacey Abrams’ campaign for governor of Georgia. Prior to that, he was Senior F…

I’m not a financial advisor; nothing I write in Superpowers for Good should be considered investment advice. You should seek appropriate counsel before making investment decisions.

Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.

When you purchase an item, launch a crowdfunding campaign or invest after clicking a link here, we may earn a commission. It’s an easy way to support our work.

Devin: What is your superpower?

Shubber: What I think I'm particularly good at is identifying the right problem to solve.

Shubber Ali’s story is fascinating on several levels. He volunteered himself into a great job. Perhaps I should have him back just to drill down more on that brilliant career maneuver. We focused our discussion on how he identified a critical gap in the work of a national nonprofit and helped it close the gap with a for-profit solution.

After becoming a donor and a big fan of the work of the National Wildlife Federation, Shubber helped guide them to design a business line that initially operated within the nonprofit–selling the local plants the organization had long coached people to buy.

Shubber had figured out that the big box retailers with garden centers were selling invasive species–often exclusively–in their stores. Given the massive number of people shopping at those stores, this is a big problem. It proved difficult for him to get the native plants he wanted in his yard.

He approached the National Wildlife Federation with an offer of pro-bono consulting with this offer “We need to solve the problem of supply; we need to make it easy for people to get these plants so they can put them in their yards and help restore habitat one yard at a time.”

After the successful launch of the product line inside the nonprofit, the opportunity began to grow. He shares the story:

Long story short, I went to them again last year and said, this is a fantastic business opportunity, but it's not going to thrive inside of a not-for-profit because you're not designed to run a business. 

They agreed and said, “We'll spin it out as a for-profit company [that they are the majority shareholder of], and then we could bring in outside investors,” but on the condition that I would come in and be the CEO.

So, I absolutely jumped at the chance. This is the combination of doing good and doing what I love doing–building companies.

Today, you can visit Garden for Wildlife at GardenForWildlife.com to find and order native plants for your zip code. This customized finder works for just about everyone east of the Rocky Mountains. 

Shubber learned some of what guided his yard plantings and business strategy from Doug Tallamy’s book Nature's Best Hope. In this book, he learned the vital role native plants play in the ecosystem. He explains:

Native plants are actually the food source for the caterpillars of many of the pollinators, the butterflies and moths, etc.

Those caterpillars are the food source for the songbirds. So, as the book laid out very clearly, by wiping out all the beautiful native flowers and plants that are out there, we have systematically destroyed not only the pollinators but over 3 billion pairs of nesting songbirds, which is why you just don't see as many these days.

Sure, you see sparrows and crows and things like that–and pigeons, of course, in every city, but all the beautiful birds that we're used to, cardinals, wrens, blue jays, chickadees–all sorts of things. They've all basically really diminished in terms of population.

Recently, Garden for Wildlife launched a regulated investment crowdfunding campaign, allowing anyone to invest in the company. The National Wildlife Federation invested additional funds and remains the largest shareholder, but now everyone can participate.

Living in Suburban Maryland, Shubber will speak at SuperCrowdBaltimore on March 21, 2024. Superpowers for Good readers can save 30 percent with the discount code “SuperCrowd” right now. Register today.

Throughout his career, Shubber has been honing a vital skill that enables his success. He’s good at identifying the problem that needs to be solved.

AI Episode Summary

1. Shubber Ali is the CEO of Garden for Wildlife, which aims to educate people about native habitat protection and provides access to native plants for gardens, with a history extending from a program started by the National Wildlife Federation.

2. The initial focus of the program has been to protect species like the monarch butterfly and pollinators, creating certified wildlife habitats mainly in people’s yards and schools.

3. After moving from California to Maryland, Shubber transformed his lawn into a habitat for birds and pollinators by planting native species, inspired by Doug Tallamy’s book Nature's Best Hope, which emphasizes the importance of native plants for local ecosystems.

4. Shubber identified a core problem in the marketplace: the lack of supply of native plants, as most big box stores sell invasive species, harming local ecosystems.

5. Seeing an opportunity to address the problem, Shubber pitched a business plan to the National Wildlife Federation to create Garden for Wildlife, a company that would directly ship native plants to customers' doorsteps.

6. After a successful launch inside the National Wildlife Federation, Shubber proposed spinning Garden for Wildlife out as a separate company, with the Federation as the majority shareholder, employees as stakeholders, and bringing in outside investors.

7. They launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise additional working capital to scale operations, like building more greenhouses, offering different tiers of investment for shares in the company.

8. Garden for Wildlife's website features a native plant finder database, allowing customers to easily find plants that are native to their zip code, aiding in efficient and eco-friendly gardening.

9. Shubber touched on the connection between Garden for Wildlife’s mission and climate change at COP28, discussing how planting native species with deep root systems can help biodiversity, water absorption, and carbon sequestration.

10. Shubber invites interested parties to visit Invest.GardenforWildlife.com to read more about and participate in the investment offering, and he recommends reading Doug Tallamy’s book for a deeper understanding of the importance of supporting native plants for environmental health.

If you think the world needs more native plants and deeper carbon sequestration, please share this episode.

How to Develop Seeing the Problem to Solve As a Superpower

Throughout his career, Shubber has been using and refining his ability to find the right problem that needs to be solved. It is becoming a signature strength. He’s long used a quote that has sometimes been mistakenly attributed to Einstein, “If you have an hour to solve a problem, spend 55 minutes defining it and five minutes solving it.”

His work at Garden for Wildlife is an excellent example of using this skill effectively. He shares the story to illustrate the superpower:

Garden for Wildlife is a result of understanding the right problem to solve. It wasn't enough to educate people about native plants because, frankly, they've been doing it for almost 50 years, and yet it's only getting worse. 

It's supply. It was a lack of supply and then awareness to the people who needed to know about it. 

I was that customer. I gladly shopped at places and bought all the wrong stuff because I didn't know what the right stuff was, and then it wasn't available once I did figure it out. So that's an example of saying, okay, what do we have to solve for? It's an arc of awareness, education, access.

By following Shubber’s example, you can improve your ability to define the problem you need to solve before you try to solve it. With practice, you can make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the wor…

I’m not a financial advisor; nothing I write in Superpowers for Good should be considered investment advice. You should seek appropriate counsel before making investment decisions.

Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

Catherine: When you see the film–I do have a part where it's explained that I'm connecting everybody in the film, and that's something that people seem to tell me is my superpower.

Filmmaker Catherine Gray joined me for a conversation about the challenges women face in raising venture capital and the documentary she made to accelerate solutions.

The problem begins with awareness; she says, “Most people I have come to find not only are shocked that we get only 2 percent of venture capital, but most people don't even know what venture capital is.”

Show Her the Money, her film (you can see a trailer in the episode), focuses on three groups of women: 

* Women venture capitalists

* Women who fund the VCs

* Women founders who receive and deploy the capital

Of the first group, a rising generation of women venture capitalists, she says, “These women are complete rock stars–like nobody even knows about them. They are the unsung heroes of this whole story.”

She notes that without the first and second groups, the women founders “would not be getting funding at all.”

She’s using the film to help accelerate capital formation for women. “We're taking the film on a 50-city tour around the country and around the globe to educate people about what venture capital is and why I would want to be a part of it as either an investor or as an entrepreneur looking for funding.”

Throughout her career, Catherine has deployed what has become her superpower: connecting with people. It is, she notes, an essential part of raising capital.

AI Episode Summary

1. Catherine Gray is a film producer and advocate for funding women who aims to raise awareness about the lack of venture capital received by women, which is only 2 percent.

2. Her film, Show Her the Money, which she discusses with host Devin Thorpe, intends to educate people about venture capital, its importance, and why investing in it or obtaining funding from it is significant.

3. The film highlights three sectors of women: women starting their own venture capital funds, women investing in these funds, and women entrepreneurs who receive funding from these female-founded funds.

4. Catherine emphasizes the critical role women play in venture capital and innovation, as funding disparities can potentially impede technological advancements and opportunities for women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community.

5. She launched a 50-city tour around the country and the globe to showcase the film and inform the public about what venture capital is and the importance of having a diverse range of people involved in it.

6. Catherine points toward a need for more women and underrepresented groups to be at the decision-making table in venture capital to ensure a future that includes their needs, ideas, and solutions.

7. The film also explores the expected rise in investable assets controlled by women, reaching $30 trillion by the end of the decade, and the potential impact these investments could have.

8. Catherine identifies her superpower as connecting people, something she finds joy in and considers the key to successful fundraising and fulfilling one's purpose.

9. She encourages a positive perspective on fundraising and believes it should be seen as an adventure rather than a drudgery, focusing on building relationships and connecting with like-minded individuals.

10. Catherine Gray can be reached on LinkedIn and through her company, She Angel Investors; her film's website is showherthemoneymovie.com, where viewers can find screening schedules and hosting information. She also hosts a podcast called Invest in Her, focused on connecting female founders and funders.

If you believe women should have greater access to venture capital, please share this post.

How to Develop Connecting with People As a Superpower

Catherine shared some examples of connecting with people to illustrate her superpower: 

I helped somebody get some funding for a groundbreaking retail company that's very niche. Helping people connect to funding is always very exciting. Certainly, I have connected people to women-founded funds that they've invested in. 

This is something I do on a daily basis. So it could be as minute as finding somebody good to be on someone's board. I just recommended somebody to be on somebody's podcast, and they're over the moon because they're always looking for great guests. 

So, it's something that comes naturally to me. I just meet somebody, and I think, “Oh, you have to meet this person.” And it's just kind of fun to connect them. So many good things have come out of that.

She also shared some thoughts about how to develop the ability to connect with people. It starts by “just being your authentic self, recognizing your purpose and then being vigilant about connecting with other like-minded people who feel the same way.”

By following Catherine’s example and counsel, you can strengthen your ability to connect with people. With practice, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

Catherine Gray (she/her):

CEO She Angel Investors, Producer Show Her The Money movie, She Angel Investors

About She Angel Investors: She Angel Investors provides resources to connect women founders and funders, including keynotes, events, ecourses, the Invest Her Podcast and the Show Her The Money movie.

Website: www.showherthemoneymovie.com

X/Twitter Handle: @sheangelsinvest

Company Facebook Page: fb.com/sheangelinvestors

Other URL: www.SheANGELinvestors.com

Biographical Information: Catherine  Gray is the producer of the groundbreaking new documentary “Show Her The Money”- featuring rock-star female investors who invest in diverse women entrepreneurs with innovations that will change the world. Gray is doing a 50-city grassroots tour of the film to encourage more women to invest in female-founded funds to move the needle on women getting less than 2% of venture capital.She is also an author, TEDx speaker, podcast host, founder of She Angel Investors and co-founder of the nonprofit She Angels Foundation. Catherine also hosts and produces the popular podcast series Invest in Her, distributed on Apple, Spotify, IHeart Radio and wherever you listen to podcasts. Ms. Gray has produced, co-produced and directed several documentaries, including I Can’t Marry You, with Ellen DeGeneres’ mom, Betty, as narrator for PBS, Millionaires True Stories and several LGBTQ films for LOGO. She also helped start a gay cable network and produced a series called Way-Off Broadway with trailblazing entertainers and recording artists. Currently, she is co-producing Millenials Are Killing Musicals, with plans to go to Broadway. This female-driven show focuses on motherhood and the impact of social media. The team behind it is 80% women- and the show and music were created by a woman- Nico Juber.Personal Facebook Profile: fb.com/catherinegray1

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/catherinelgray/

Instagram Handle: @showherthemoney

Upcoming SuperCrowd Event Calendar

* SuperCrowdHour February with the CfPA Executive Committee

* SuperCrowdBaltimore, March 21, 2024

* SuperCrowd24, April 17-18

I’m not a financial advisor; nothing I write in Superpowers for Good should be considered investment advice. You should seek appropriate counsel before making investment decisions.

Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

Russell: The ability to handle complexity, I would say, truly is my superpower.

Russell Fugett, a prominent Baltimorean, joined me to discuss his work supporting diverse founders, especially in his hometown. He alerted me to some news I’d missed: the White House recently named Baltimore one of 31 regional tech hubs around the country.

Russell brings his Equity Endowment to that table. He’s building a nonprofit foundation that is raising capital in a university-like endowment. The fund will invest the capital in diverse fund managers investing in diverse founders and communities like Baltimore. The Equity Endowment will then make grants to programmatic nonprofits that support diverse founders. Thus, the plan is to have two significant and parallel paths to impact for the same communities.

The Economic Development Administration shared this description of the Baltimore Hub:

The Baltimore Tech Hub, led by the Greater Baltimore Committee, aims to develop innovative predictive healthcare technologies by applying artificial intelligence to biotechnologies. Leveraging regional research universities and institutions, research and development expertise, and existing capital investments, this Tech Hub’s equitable technology model, or “equi-tech,” will develop predictive healthcare technologies that can support clinical decision-making, bioethics, personalized medicine, new biologics, and therapeutics. The Baltimore Tech Hub seeks to catalyze commercialization of predictive healthcare technologies, improving equitable care delivery and national health outcomes.

Russell celebrated the focus on “equi-tech.” 

He is eager to work with the National Urban League in deploying the capital from the Equity Endowment. He shared his experience connecting with the president, Marc H. Morial. 

Russell is the nephew of one of Baltimore’s most prominent names, the late Reginald F. Lewis, “who was able to secure $1 billion from Mr. Michael Milken in 1987 to acquire Beatrice Foods,” he says.

“No one's been able to do a deal quite like that to this day, Russell says. “The biggest key was access to capital. He had someone who was able to back him to do that leveraged buyout to complete that global acquisition.”

Today, the data yields a simple conclusion. Black founders face challenges in capital markets that white entrepreneurs do not. Russell’s Equity Endowment dual grant and investment program will attack this problem from two angles: grants and investments.

Russell will speak at SuperCrowdBaltimore on March 21, 2024, at the B&O Rail Museum. Of the event, he said:

Thank you and your team for coming to Baltimore. It's a very exciting time here. We were just designated one of the 31 tech hubs by the White House. We’re trying to be the hub of “equi-tech.” So, coming at this time to Baltimore in 2024–we couldn't be more excited to have you here. It's going to be a robust day of dialog and networking.

Doing business over decades, Russell has developed a superpower he’s using to build Equity Endowment: the ability to handle complexity.

AI Episode Summary

1. Devin Thorpe introduces Russell Fugett, the CEO and founder of Equity Endowment, highlighting Russell's commitment to community building and social justice.

2. Russell explains that Equity Endowment, founded in 2023, aims to close the racial wealth gap by operating at the intersection of finance and philanthropy, using a two-pronged investment and grant strategy.

3. The organization’s strategy includes creating an endowment fund to invest with minority fund managers and then using the proceeds to grant to non-profits focusing on entrepreneurial development and small business enablement.

4. Equity Endowment has a partnership with the Urban League in Baltimore, being one of their first grant recipients.

5. The current focus of Equity Endowment is to generate public support and funding, primarily through tax-deductible donations. Russell also notes future plans for a for-profit arm that could generate investment returns and fuel their charitable work.

6. Russell shares his family’s entrepreneurial history, including his late uncle, Reginald F. Lewis, who was instrumental in a billion-dollar deal acquiring Beatrice Foods in 1987 through complicated international transactions.

7. When asked about his superpower, Russell identifies his ability to handle complexity in both business endeavors and interpersonal relationships, leveraging emotional intelligence and understanding of diverse viewpoints.

8. Russell recounts challenging scenarios, such as negotiating to acquire an American division of a Japanese company, where his superpower was essential.

9. Emphasizing the need for emotional and spiritual fortitude in tackling complexity, Russell highlights the importance of faith, family support, and practicing core values such as love and generosity in achieving goals.

10. To learn more about Equity Endowment or connect with Russell Fugett, he directs listeners to visit the organization's website (equityendowment.org), subscribe to their newsletter, and follow their social media platforms, including Instagram and YouTube, where they post weekly updates and other content.

If you think more people should learn about Equity Endowment and the exciting things happening in Baltimore, please share!

How to Develop the Ability to Handle Complexity As a Superpower

Russell reveals the optimism that underlies his complexity-handling superpower, saying, “A lot of people believe in a zero-sum game, that if somebody else gets something, that means somebody else has to lose something. I want to state very clearly that I reject that notion. I believe there's there's enough here for everyone.”

He offers some ideas to help you build your ability to handle complexity. 

First, he highlights the importance of developing emotional intelligence. He says you need the “emotional capacity, emotional discipline, emotional intelligence” to exhibit self-control. 

Second, he acknowledges the role of faith in developing that emotional maturity. “I'm empowered by my faith, by my Christian faith in Jesus Christ. That motivates me and inspires me. It's certainly been a faith journey throughout my life. I would certainly encourage everyone, if it's not Christian faith, to have some kind of spiritual practice as well.”

Third, he points to family support. Acknowledging the value of his connection to his uncle Reginald F. Lewis, he doesn’t stop there. “I'm inspired by my family. I have a loving family, a particularly loving wife, and two loving daughters. That buoys me and gives me the ability to be able to be in challenging situations and not take it personally and always keep the goal in mind.”

Fourth, he notes the importance of having a foundation. In a negotiation, for instance, you’ll want to find fundamental points of agreement so that when disagreements arise, you can return to the foundation and work to resolve the details. 

By following Russell’s example and advice, you can make the ability to handle complexity a skill. With practice, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

Russell Fugett (he/him):

Founder & Executive Director, Equity Endowment

About Equity Endowment:

Website: www.equityendowment.org

Instagram Handle: @equityendowment 

Biographical Information: Russell (he/him) is a bridge builder who excels at building consensus and …

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Devin: What is your superpower?

Cheri: I think my superpower is just compassion.

Integrity Global Partners CEO Cheri Sugal joined me to talk about the remarkable work she’s doing in some of the world’s lower-income countries to protect nature, support local people, improve health and fight climate change–all at once. Remarkably, ordinary investors can now participate with the potential for profit via Raise Green.

The fundamental model is for investors to buy carbon credits in the voluntary markets, providing capital for projects that reduce carbon emissions. Cheri’s work focuses on protecting nature, typically forests, from deforestation. The effort also drives economic benefits in the local community and often health benefits.

One project serves as a compelling example. The company helps people with portable cookstoves so owners cook outside and later store the stove inside. The stoves significantly reduce the wood needed to cook, reducing deforestation. Cooking outside improves the health of those cooking and those who live in the home, especially for women and children.

Furthermore, by reducing the time women spend looking for fuel wood, they benefit economically. Of course, reducing the use of firewood reduces deforestation, both protecting nature and fighting climate change.

This work isn’t marginal in the fight against climate change. “About a third of the problem of climate change can be solved with nature-based solutions,” Cheri says. “There is no path to 1.5 degrees [the goal set in Paris in 2015] if we don't invest in nature-based solutions–if we don't protect and restore forests.”

Unlike other forms of localized pollution, carbon is a global problem. “A ton of carbon emitted out of a smokestack somewhere in the global North has the same impact on the climate as a ton of carbon coming out of a forest that has been cut down.”

It is presently cheaper to protect forests than to eliminate all smokestacks. While we must do both as quickly as possible, by deploying capital to the projects with the greatest impact per dollar first, we get closer to our global carbon emissions goals faster.

Cheri says, “When that sort of marginal abatement cost is so high that they can do so a lot cheaper by investing in projects that reduce and remove carbon from the atmosphere in the global South, it just makes a lot more sense.”

Simply put, she says, “The solutions in the global South are more cost-effective.”

Critically, the technology for tracking the effectiveness of projects like the cookstoves has improved. Market participants don’t rely on estimates or projections. 

“We have the technology now to measure and monitor changes in forest degradation over time in a way that we couldn't before,” Cheri says. “We can do that from space, and we can do it at a much higher level of accuracy than we could in the past.”

Cheri approaches her work with her superpower, compassion, keeping her focused on the people she serves.

AI Episode Summary

1. Devin Thorpe, the host of the "Superpowers for Good" show, introduces his guest Cheri Sugal, CEO and founder of Integrity Global Partners.

2. Cheri discusses Integrity Global Partners' crowdfunding efforts on Raise Green for a large-scale landscape restoration project in Malawi aimed at aiding over 100,000 households and restoring natural ecosystems.

3. The project in Malawi includes agricultural land management and the distribution of cookstoves to local communities to reduce deforestation and carbon emissions as well as improve health and economic well-being.

4. The cookstoves provided are mobile, allowing for outdoor cooking, which has significant health benefits as it minimizes smoke inhalation in enclosed spaces.

5. The goal of Integrity Global Partners is to address the shortfall in funding for nature-based solutions and facilitate the flow of capital from developed countries to projects in the Global South through carbon markets and offsets.

6. Cheri stresses the importance of carbon markets, noting that investments in nature-based solutions in the Global South are cost-effective and essential for meeting climate goals.

7. Technological advancements have improved the accuracy and transparency of monitoring and measuring the impact of nature-based projects, resolving many past criticisms of carbon markets.

8. Cheri's superpower is compassion, which has been cultivated through her experiences working with remote communities worldwide, listening to their needs, and finding solutions that improve their livelihoods while addressing the nexus between climate change, poverty, and biodiversity loss.

9. Cheri emphasizes the importance of translating complex financial and carbon markets into terms that indigenous people and local communities can understand, fostering informed participation from these communities.

10. The interview concludes with Cheri providing information on how to find and support their crowdfunding initiative on the Raise Green website or through the Integrity Global Partners website.

If you feel that Cheri’s work deserves more attention, please share this post!

How to Develop Compassion As a Superpower

Cheri explained how she uses compassion as a superpower:

I've worked in more than 65 countries in really remote areas. I have interacted with people in the most remote parts of this planet–indigenous folks, local communities, women. 

I have a deep sense of compassion for the challenges that people face just surviving. For me, that's what motivates me is to find solutions that enable us to solve this nexus between climate change, poverty and biodiversity loss. 

We can do that by putting people at the center of that, by improving their lives, giving them a place in these solutions, partnering with them, making them part of the solution and improving their livelihoods. We solve so many problems that way.

She shared an example of how she has used compassion to customize a solution to a problem.

A lot of development work in the past has been about thinking about what people need and then bringing that to them. What I try to do is go and listen–really listen to what they need. 

In this last trip that you, you saw on the footage, that was us listening to those communities and hearing them. Some of the things we found out that they needed were different than what we could have imagined. 

They told us they needed distributed water. So, we're looking for solutions for that. 

Part of our crowdfund raise is to think about how we hear what they need and bring that into the project rather than taking what we think they need and providing that. I think an important part of this work is listening carefully.

Building on the idea of listening as a central part of using and building compassion, Cheri offered some advice, “We need to remember that we are all humans living on this earth.”

She concludes with this reminder, “Everyone so true deserves to have the same chance in life.”

By following Cheri’s example and advice, you can build your compassion. With practice, you may develop it into a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

Cheri Sugal (she/her):

Chief Executive Officer, Integrity Global Partners 

About Integrity Global Partners: Integrity is a global development company helping to scale carbon and environmental markets by connecting capital to high-integri…