The Tony Steuer Podcast with Christian LeFer: Philanthropy and Financial Wellness

On the latest episode of The Tony Steuer Podcast, I spoke with Christian LeFer, founder of InstantNonprofit about the importance of philanthropy to financial wellness. 

Christian LeFer is the CEO and founder of InstantNonprofit. Christian’s passion is to help founders stay “on mission” by providing the path to form and grow a nonprofit according to their vision and calling. He’s been interviewed by some of the top business podcasts in the world, is a consultant and trainer for top nonprofit executives, and has raised millions for causes he loves.

In this episode we discussed:

- How philanthropy changes the way we think about money

- Focusing on your mission

- Staying true to your heart

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:00

You're listening to the Tony Stewart podcast, where Tony interviews, financial literacy advocates who are changing the conversation on money. So you can catch up on the latest trends and ideas in the world of financial literacy and education Presented by paperwork. Be prepared for life .

Speaker 2 0:23

Welcome to the Tony Stewart podcast presented by paperwork. I'm pleased to be joined today by Christian Lafa . Christian is the founder of instant nonprofit . Christian is a consultant and trainer for top nonprofit executives and has raised millions for causes. He loves Christian. Welcome to the Tony Stewart podcast.

Speaker 3 0:43

Tony, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 2 0:47

Yeah . I'm excited to have you here and learn , uh , more about your work. So, you know, as we get started, you know, tell us a little bit about what is your origin story? How did you get started in philanthropy?

Speaker 3 0:58

Well, a lot of these things and, and you probably have your own story of going way, way back. Uh, a lot of people's origin stories like mine start at some point in childhood and you don't know, but that's when the seed plant is planted. And , um, you know, when I was eight years old, my, my mom , uh , had taken my little sister who was almost four , uh , had taken her to the doctors and neurologist set her , uh , one day. And, you know, she came home from this appointment and of course they're gone. I don't really know what's where they are . Uh, but , uh, my , my mom and my sister come back and my mom calls me in the house from playing with my friends and riding bikes and says, you know, I wanna explain to you what's going on. And, and , but you know something about your, your little sister and I'm like, what , what, you know, I just wanted to go back out and play. And she, she said, well, you know, Monique, your sister looks a lot like the , all the other kids and she's wonderful and smiles and laughs and plays and everything like all the other kids, but , uh, she's probably not going to develop like the other kids she's special or what we call back then mentally retarded now, developmentally disabled. Um, and all I knew was that my little sister was like one of the best humans I knew, right. She, she played and even today , uh , she's in her forties. And if you throw the back the ball back and forth with my sister for a few minutes, you will have a friend with life. She is the most wonderful human. And she goes around teaching the rest of us, how to be better humans. But she, my mom was right. You know, she never did , um, uh , become fully verbal and, and engaged in the way that most of us do. However , uh, what I experienced of that is growing up around things like special Olympics and meeting all these wonderful, amazing people who wanted to help people like my sister. And , uh, as I grew up through school, I even , I even got , I got in a fight in third grade in the hall school because I was , uh , defending the special kids who were kind of getting teased in the hallway and little did I know this , this has been activated in me and , um, fast forward to about 2010. Um, I , uh , decided to start a nonprofit with a few friends of mine. I said, oh, you know, gimme that application, how hard that be totally separate. And I said, you guys go, you know, raise money, build a website. This will will be awesome. We'll do this. And I became so morally outraged when I saw that not only was the paperwork very confusing, and there were so many different elements and, and pitfalls that you could, you know, cracks, you could fall in, but even when you called the IRS, it wasn't like they were there to help you. They, they said, oh yeah, kind of , don't worry, kid. You know , this is gonna take , uh , year for you to get approved. And I didn't understand why I had this level of moral outrage. I mean, I just was like throwing staplers and I realized it was because I was outraged that you would have to do something this difficult and jump through all these hoops way more than a used card lot or any other LLC or corporate you'd want to start in order to do , to do good for people. And I just thought somebody has to do something about this, and that's kinda how I fell into this business.

Speaker 2 4:09

Well , that's awesome. You know, that is one of the things it , that I've heard. And , you know , I even looked into shortly trying to do a nonprofit myself quite some time ago about financial literacy. And it is definitely one of the hardest things I've ever take a look at. And from talking to people is hearing that same thing that you mentioned is that, you know, it's a , it's a long process and it's not a fun process. So it's great that you're taking that issue on. Um, so, you know, how has that been, you know, simplifying something that so complex. I mean,

Speaker 3 4:46

Yeah, the way that I looked at it was, well, first of all, I had to get my own app . Like so many of us go into a business that we are solving the problem that was once not solved for us. Right. So I was solving my own problem and I was like, well, how this is crazy. I'm not just gonna accept the status quo. What could I do about this? And so I took the number of my agent that they had given me. And , um, and I changed the last couple of numbers, you know, up or down. And I just, I dialed for dollars. I was just a cold calling cowboy, you know, just every phone number that I could, anyone I could get to pick up the phone. If I just changed the last two numbers would probably be an agent at the IRS. And indeed I did few people to pick up the phone and I said, what, what , what makes this so difficult? And, and how , um, what, what , what was , what's the best file you've ever seen? What , why does this get delayed? So, so often, and I curated that into what I call the love letter to a bureaucrat because when we saw for our customers, sometimes what we really need do is solve the problem for somebody else. And like nobody really likes bureau bureaucrats or bureaucracy, or especially the IRS. But what if we cared about that person and kind of showed them love by giving them the, what I call the Goldilocks file, not too much info, not too little watermark, E I N on every page and absolutely , uh, anticipated everything that could be wrong or incorrect or confusing about the file and made it read like a beautiful novel that they just couldn't put down until they punched out the lunch early. So that was the motivation. And then what I did was turn that into a process that we could take online so that we would have what we ended up with, which is our absolutely 100% done for you end to end 5 0 1 [inaudible] [inaudible] nonprofit creation process. And then of course we do maintenance and , and some fundraising training and things on the back end . So you can go from, start to scale, to, you know, sustain and , um, we've used various tools, but the process is the important part. And I learned that the hard way by building some really bad software,

Speaker 2 6:53

No

Speaker 3 6:54

Using that.

Speaker 2 6:57

Yeah . Now I'm gonna make to that , that the process is the important part. And the part that intrigues me is two, two things. One is that you're probably the person who's called the most IRS agents willingly. So that , that might be a good world record right there. Uh , people actually call the IRS , uh , to talk to an agent. And then the second thing is, is , you know, the whole topic of making something that's complex and overwhelming, it's something that's simple because that's something that the whole financial services world gets stuck on. There's so many things that are arguably simple, you know, applying for a mortgage, you know, and you get back that pack of papers. It's ridiculously big and , uh, nobody's gonna come through it. So I'm glad you were able to address that issue. And, you know, I mean, as , as we talk about it, you know, and the importance of this, you know, we were gonna talk a little bit about philanthropy and financial wellness, but can you talk a little bit more you about , you know, applying this , um, practice of making something simple to something as complex as a financial services field, right . You know?

Speaker 3 8:15

Yes. So what of the challenges with the financial services field that might be, might exist us in a way that it doesn't in , in , in this space and allowed me to innovate freely in the process is, is , is the regulations now there are regulations governing nonprofits, but , um, but there are a lot of different ways to go about, you know, gathering the information and, and compiling and providing that information to the, not only the IRS, the state government , I mean, there are probably 26 discrete processes tasks that someone needs to go through in the right order to create a five [inaudible] . And , you know , I know that in the financial services , uh, industry, there's a lot of , uh, regulations and red tape. And then of course, in, in 2008, there were, were even more , uh, where things couldn't be done without the borrowers , uh , permission or whatever on mortgages, various things. So I don't know if that's a difference, but being able to free innovate and go, okay , where does the customer's name appear ? Right. How many different do you have to put that on in a mortgage or in a nonprofit ? We collect it once. So the majority of our customers by far are in and out in about 30 minutes of work in, in its entirety. So we do this for less than a 30 of cost of the attorney on, on the low end, we of course have bigger packages for more robust hands on services, but they all the basis of all of our packages is this done for you 5 0 1 [inaudible] [inaudible] creation process. And you're in and out in 30 minutes. And the only way we could do that was by taking a look at every possible process you'd have to do and front ending our process with that. So we only collect that information in one smooth flow at the beginning of the entire process. And then we can loop back if there are any concerns or questions, get that limited power of attorney, and then absolutely do it for you on the way out. That is what allows us to fulfill our mission as a company, which is not file . It's not just the forms and things. Our mission as a company is to help you focus on your mission by starting a nonprofit , whether that is for a family foundation, so that you can give in a controlled and sensible and strategic manner, or maybe you have a profit, you start alongside of your, for profit business. So you have, you know, Joe's roofing and you have Joe's roofing foundation. And then Joe can put on a suit once in a while, go to the silent auction and put a halo on his company and give away some of that , you know, that beautiful , uh , abundance that he's experienced in the community. Um, and, and sure there's ancillary benefit fit to the, be the business. But that's the real reason we're here is to help people bend the arc of history with their nonprofit and not , uh , get bogged down in that paperwork, which takes away from the kids in Haiti or the neighborhood initiative, or the little league kids from getting their new uniforms.

Speaker 2 11:16

Yeah. That, that , that's wonderful because I , I , I think you nailed it is that's part of the issue with the financial services industry is that the process does take a really long time and there's a lot of forms and things to fill out . So, so I think the principles are, are very relevant to the financial services industry and the lessons that can be learned from what you've put together is based that information instead of requesting it, you know , a couple hundred times, you know, so, so that's great. And then, you know, I think the other thing that's intriguing, and this does get back to, you know , uh , the conversation about philanthropy is, you know, why is philanthropy so important to people in their financial life for their financial wellness?

Speaker 3 12:02

Well, you know, I was watching someone who I was actually watching a hip hop , like a rapper artist . Who's now older, and he was dispensing with some accurate Zen , uh , interpretations, right? Zen , uh, uh, life lessons. And one of the things he said is , uh, you can , uh, it starts with being, it starts with happy, or it starts with being in a place of congruence in your life that the , the , the money comes, but you can , you , you can make money and force it and, and not have it the other way around. And so , um, in when one is planning their financial future, and I think we're seeing this more today than we used to, I used to fly around the United States with a briefcase and a PowerPoint and like an archaic, you know, caveman laptop and give power , power points and raise millions of dollars from complete strangers. I couldn't believe how generous people were. It was wonderful job. And it was when I was very young in the nonprofit world. And those folks I'd be out at a farm implement manufacturer in , in Iowa. And they would be the most wonderful salt of the earth people, but they never had thought about what they would do with their legacy, what they would do in the future to , um, provide for the community after, you know, the, the husband and wife have their nice truck, their , the kids have the college grandkids are taken care of, and then they go, okay, well, what's gee, what's my legacy. I'm doing 20 million a year or 10 million, 1 million a year, whatever, it's, I believe that nowadays people are thinking about how they're going to give back and how they'd like to be part of this cycle of contribution that nonprofits are in our society. They're a huge part of the fabric of our society. I think people are thinking about that much earlier now, which is really exciting. So when you're doing financial literacy and, and financial planning, and just thinking about that, it's wonderful that you can talk to people today and go, it's not just about saving a certain percent and investing, and it's about picturing the kind of future that you'd like to see. And is there one area where you would like to see the future a little different than maybe you experienced it growing up, or you had family or, or friends go through some hardships or PE friends coming back from the military, whatever it is. Um, and if you can put a little bit of energy into that beautiful future, that, that brilliant future you're creating in your mind, in the context of your financial literacy, I think , uh , I might be a little woo woo . But I think that the direction of that abundance is , is gonna be expanded. The, the , the power of that abundance is gonna be expanded because , um, you'll have that beautiful future in your financial plan. When you do put that money aside, or when you do create that plan, it gives you something to really look forward to. Um, there are plenty of tax reasons that people , uh, if you're in a tax bracket, I don't know what the break is, right. 164,000 in change. I think this year, you go from 32 to 38% under the new tax brackets, whatever it is, I'm not, I'm not a tax guy, but someone I did the money, the numbers, and somebody can give away, you know, a few thousand dollars or $5,000 to get into the next lower tax bracket by knocking down that top line of income and save 15, $20,000 in taxes. So there are beautiful incentives because of the tax ability of the donations. And if you, again , you know , you could look at the math and say, this makes sense mathematically, but boy, is it great when somebody says this makes sense from a , a paying it forward perspective, even before they have it.

Speaker 2 15:45

That's great, Anne . I know that's one of the things that you talk about is, you know, paying it forward. Why , why do you feel it is a important for people to pay forward?

Speaker 3 15:55

Again, I, I believe that , um, we run out of reasons to do the things that we do when we hit, as a matter of fact, when we hit our strongest ability to make income, when you're in that forties , your forties, your fifties really start getting into your stride and your in this street. And , um, that's exactly when you can start running out of those , uh, extrinsic reasons, we'll call them right. The house, the vacation, the whatever, right. It's like, okay, you know, they've done these studies. People get comfortable at a certain level of income. And after that, it's it's extras. Yes. It's to have money . Um, but how do you keep that kind of happiness factor growing along with your income? And I think, I believe that having something really positive that you know, that you're contributing to in the world is actually a , a way to keep yourself motivated and aligned with your values in inside your work, inside your income production and your investments and all those things. And so that's, that's one side of it. And the other is people want to do business with people and people want to reward and, and vibe with others who they believe are good people and who they believe are, are, are contributing. So pay it forward has so many good effects , both from the inside , uh, from, from the inside to the, the , the logic of how you're constructing your, your portfolio to , um, really what I call I call the nonprofit , the quantum entity, because you're super positioning yourself. You're , you're projecting yourself into a whole new realm when you connect with people at a heart level. And so you're, if you're out there in the community and they say , what do you do? Well, I have a roofing company, but what I really love is to ha give my guys a half a day off every other Friday. And we go fix the, the roofs of people in, on the other side of town who, who can't afford it, or maybe who are on a fixed income. They they're elderly. And I love to see their faces when we keep, when we stop that leak, you have that conversation instead of the usual I'm Joe, the roofer conversation and watch your life explode with both possibility , uh, business deals and just a genuine connection with people. And don't, we wanna do business with people we connect with at the heart level. That's how it works.

Speaker 2 18:20

Yeah. A hundred percent . I mean, you know, my theme and mission is changing the way people think about money and that's exactly what you're doing is, you know, introducing the world, nonprofit for everybody to, to change the way they think about money. And I think that's so important that people do take the time to incorporate philanthropy into their financial wellness and financial education. So really appreciate you sharing that. So, you know, as we wrap up, you know , um, can you share, what's your number one tip on financial wellness?

Speaker 3 18:56

I would say that my, my number one tip on financial wellness is very congruent with my number one tip on , in , in any endeavor. And especially we're experiencing right now in this, you know, with the , the virus and just some of, of things . I , I don't like to date these conversations, cause this will all be over, but it's really created additional pressure where there already was where people in society are asking themselves, does what I do every day match my values. So when we talk about great resignation or anything else going on culture culture , right now , people have had a minute because of all the shifts and dislocation and the economy and stuff to say is , are my actions every day matching what I really care about. And that's my number one tip for financial literacy is as you go about developing financial literacy and it , and implementing it, having a little, having that little post it up in front of you in , in your mind at least are my, is my financial future matching my values. And how am I keeping that on track is probably the one thing that can keep you heading toward true north. Because other than that, there are books and books in library, as people could read on every tactic and strategy, but you gotta stay true to your heart. You gotta kind of love yourself and consider what you want as far as how can you contribute and give back and create a legacy for yourself and for your friends, family, and children, et cetera .

Speaker 2 20:31

Well, that's great. I , I , I , I think that's so important is you know, that people oftentimes miss that when they think about their money is that , you know, you have to stay true to your values, to what you want to accomplish. Those are just that that's great stuff. Um , and appreciate you sharing that. Um, so Christian, where can people learn more about you in nonprofit ?

Speaker 3 20:52

Well, I made it really easy. Anyone who listens to your podcast podcast and loves financial literacy and, and hops on here can go to instant nonprofit.com/tony Stewart and get , uh , a free bootcamp to camp will show you like everything you need to know before you wanna start a nonprofit . So if you're just placing yourself on that hero's journey of life saying, where am I, that's a great place to start. You can schedule a free strategy session , uh, and, and talk to someone and, and get some better ideas. Or , uh, you can just get started. There is tons of free information available on our site, and you can start with all of it@instantnonprofit.com slash Tony Stewart .

Speaker 2 21:35

Well , that's great. Well, thank you, Christian. And , uh , for everybody watching or listening, I'll be posting links on the website and in the show notes so that you can easily , uh , get to Christian's website and find out more about him. Uh , Christian, thank you again for joining me today.

Speaker 3 21:50

Thanks Tony. I really enjoyed it. And can't wait to chat with you again.

Speaker 2 21:54

Yeah , sounds great. And thank you everyone for , um, joining us on this episode of the Tony Stewart podcast until next time.