04.29.23: Budget Meeting & Conference Debrief

Attendance: Heather Frierson, Crystal Breaux, Penny Lanier, Hannah Breaux, Camille Smith

Transcript

Um, there we go. So that now we can officially start our board meeting, uh, so we can have meeting notes. But I do wanna start off now that we've prayed and introduce Camille, the numbers. If you first like, I just wanna offer, like we have some opportunity, like Camille said, but I haven't. What we're doing is, I think we're right where we're supposed to be, but it's gonna require more than just me working.

Um, and that's how I want us to look at this because we've grown so much in the last couple years and we've become dependent on soccer, which has allowed us to do so much more. Camille has really created a budget where we don't depend on soccer because we don't know how long that's gonna last. Um,

We're gonna dive in. And then, and then Camille, if you could share this doc with the team? Yes. Or I can. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'll definitely after we, um, get started, I'd love to. Yeah. So can y'all, can y'all see my Google doc? The 23 budget? Yeah. Okay, good. So, okay, so right now, um, I know we're in May, but I kind of, so really that's where you'll see I kind of bottom our, I loaded down the top, the bottom half of the year, the last seven months.

Um, so we could really hunker down and get some much needed donations. And, um, you know, Heather and I have worked to kind of scrub down some expenses. So here's kind of where we are. I wanna go from top to bottom and, you know, just stop me if you have any, any questions on what you see or if you have any suggestions.

I'm happy to make some, some changes. So in this first, um, this first section from row three to 15 is our income section. And I've really labeled out every single way that we get income from Better Unite all the way down to raffle tickets and um, some ideas for more income. So, um, better unite with, uh, an old platform that we use.

I'm sure you've all have seen it or heard of it, whatever. Um, we're trending that down and trying to move people to Classy. Since we pay for Classy, it's pretty expensive and, um, it has more robust, um, services. Uh, just trying to put all of our donations that we would get through better Unite into Classy.

So that's why you see that it's trending to zero cuz we have just a couple of recurring donors, um, to talk to, reach out to and move them over. So classy, so classy. Um, you'll see it's actually in row 37. Classy costs us $3,500 a year. And so it's, like I said, it's really not a year. Not a year, not a year.

Three years, sorry. It's a three year plan. I'm, excuse me. You're right, Heather. So next year, but we have to pay that. All right. Now we can't, you know, there's no, like, we've already extended the payments. Uh, they allowed us to have kind of a payment plan, but, um, it's, this is it. So 3,800 or $3,500 is due on that.

Um, and we only receive currently about, I think last year, look, last year at Classy we received $4,700 in donations. So we have some opportunity to really grow that, because that's not, I mean, that's, that's a surplus, right? But we wanna really get our bang for our buck on that. So, um, on the spreadsheet, I have us going from 300 to 500 in recurring donations.

And then really kicking off in the third quarter, seven 50 to a thousand, and then in November and December, um, giving days or, um, you know, uh, end of year giving, uh, campaigns, really pushing that because we need that $12,000 that's in November and December to close some gaps in our budget. And in fact, I have another sheet that I'll go over where we talk about getting even more funds because we really need to, um, close, close a budget shortfall.

So the estimate that I've put down for classy is about $17,000. Um, and. I mean, we could spend literally all day on just income. I wanna keep going, but, um, I'll tell you this, when I was looking into this, and I told Heather yesterday, we have 135 donors that haven't donated in the past 12 to 24 months. So that's 135 people that either gave, once, maybe they came to invent, maybe they had a recurring donation and it stopped for whatever reason.

I know the world has changed, I get it. But those are 135 people that we have had contact with that we don't anymore. So that's an opportunity, I think, to not only reach that 17,000, but exceed it. Um, moving on, uh, community engagement. So this is the soccer slash Moody Center money. W I've really undercut this, to be honest.

I think Heather told me that it could be a lot more than this. Um, we were spending last year making about $4,000, if not more. Some months. Yeah. That's me and Hoyt were there. This is why we're cutting it. Me and Hoyt were there. We had a really good stand. We're not there. We don't have that stand. We're sending volunteers and the volunteers aren't consistent.

Yeah. So $19,000 sounds great. Last year, like Heather said, it was um, upwards of 40. Yeah. Like thousand dollars. So, uh, it's a huge cut, but I, I think that, uh, I don't wanna be too optimistic on the community engagement piece of it. Mm-hmm. Um, it's still important. It's very important to our budget, but, um, we've, we've cut it.

This is where I see, cuz right now I should have started with this. I'm sorry. Right now we have a $4,000 hole right now, but I see that hole being made up by this $19,000 number. Getting more than expected in there. I just didn't wanna put that in the budget because I don't want to, I don't, we don't know how it's gonna go.

So that's kinda where my heart is. We do not depend on that anymore. That we are aggressive with our donors, we're aggressive with our membership. Those are the, that building our organization rather than, and soccer is a, is a, a bonus. Yeah, a great bonus. Right. And you'll see as soon as I get through this income section, I'll go a little faster and we'll, you, we'll see where our money is being spent and I think that will also help, um, with some of the targeted income that we're going after.

So, uh, the next couple things are videos, um, income from downloads. So, um, you know, we have D L C, we have some package videos that, um, are in the hopper as well as the conference video. This is probably aggressive. Um, but I think Heather feels that downloadable content is the way to go. And so we've spent the money already to have those, um, things packaged and put into, you know, a downloadable event.

And so just reaching out to people and seeing if they want it, um, that kind of thing. And that's residual income that can come at any time, right? Like, um, but I do think that there's some opportunity there to really market that kind of thing and get people downloading. Cuz right now that that is not a, a big part of our, the way we, we raise funds, um, the next gather her.

Um, so gather her. Well I have a section, I have a program box on, gather her, I'll show you in a minute. But right now we used to get, gather her sponsors pretty consistently. And I think getting back to that is going to be really important to the, uh, you know, the ongoing, um, You know, health of the Gather, her program, uh, it costs, I'll tell you now, so going down here, gather her is about 20, let's see, it's about $20,000 to, um, a year to 20 years ago.

Yeah. It's about, yeah, it's about 20. Um, and that doesn't include, um, you know, any surprises or anything that you have to pay for. Like, you know, that's pretty bare bones budget. And really it's the facilities and the contractor, Tammy, that is, that are consistent expenses that we have to kind of get over.

So with having a sponsor, um, that will help with those things. But right now, gather her is being paid for essentially by the donations and community engagement. We want gather her to be its own source of income that it can pay for itself. And right now it's, it's not doing that. So I think there's a big opportunity there.

I know we just had a conference, um, about $4,300 in conference tickets. The conference costs more than that, um, to put on, uh, if you add up, you know, the $10,000 sponsorship that we received and the conference tickets get about 14. Um, and I know that that's a every year thing, right. Heather, that's something that you wanna put on it.

We, we can talk about it. We haven't said that. This is just something, you know, uh, that Wilco wanted to do with us, which is why they were a big sponsor and, um, it really helped us launch our membership. I feel like it was success, but we can totally debrief that and see what we wanna do. Yeah. Um, speaking of membership, I'm sorry, I kind of glossed over that.

I do have a line for membership income. It's $25. Per person, you know, per month. And the name of, like, I have seen when I, when people, when organizations do really well, and Heather and I were talking about this yesterday, W N P A, which is where I started, they have a big membership program. You have to pay 29 to $39 depending on the level you are.

Membership is is really big. It's a big part of the W N P A budget and when done well and right, it's great and it creates a community. It's, it's done. It's just, it's where we're heading towards. Especially, you know, now that everything is virtual and people wanna online community, they wanna, you know, now they're, I think people are now more going back out.

They wanna get back out. But anyways, it's just a great way to, to foster community. So, um, I do have a line for membership and I think that that's gonna be huge as it as it grows cuz it can pay for some other stuff. Um, okay. And then last couple lines, raffle tickets. It's consistently about two 50 when we hold, gather her, so that helps offset some of the costs.

Um, and then peer to peer through classy. This would be something that's pretty new, um, but something that classy easily does. And it's where, you know, people are able to fundraise on behalf of, created women. So, um, you know, board members or your friends or whoever can have a link and share with their friends and raise money, um, that way.

So we haven't done that yet, but I think there's an opportunity to to do that. So bottom line, um, income we're estimating needs to be at least 69,000 or more, right? Want, want that higher. But, um, this supports all of the programs, all the contractors, everybody. Um, that's what we're aiming for. Did I miss any bucket?

Do you think you're talking to me? Yeah, but I mean, I feel like yesterday when we went over there, over it a little bit, we caught the things that not there. So I feel like. As far as income you mean? Yeah, just is there any income opportunity you got? I don't, no. I think just going back to classy, one of the reasons we switched over and chose it is because there is so much opportunity that Better Unite didn't offer Better, unite was free, which therefore was hard to work with.

And you can ask Camille because she works with so many nonprofits, she hates it. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, I mean I love that they're Austin based and all that stuff, but I really, yeah, I haven't liked it. Yeah. Well, you didn't like it either as a donor you didn't like? No, I don't. I don't like it as a donor. Yeah. It was hard to know.

It was hard. So Classy offers one, it's just user friendly a lot more. It offers so many opportunities for like, that's where we're doing our membership platform. It offers different programs that you can add to Classy, it offers peer to peer. It's, it's so many things I can't even think of. So when you hear that it's $3,500, you think, oh my god, for three years.

Mm-hmm. But if we can't fundraise $3,500 for three years, then that's on us. Right. So, but I'll like to say like, there are so much opportunity for us to do, and y'all know, since the retreat, I'm in a different place. And, um, as far as looking at money and finances and, um, we have to just be aggressive. Not in a mean way, but just aggressive in the sense that's what all nonprofits do.

Mm-hmm. And, um, and I feel like we've lasted 13 years almost on God's grace because we're doing the right thing. We're pro our programs and all that is the right thing. It's, it's this where we, we are now being asked to do better. Yeah. Definitely. Yes, definitely. I think there's just so much that could happen, especially with classy.

I really like it. Do you wanna pause there for any questions so that we don't have level any, any questions on income? The faith and fashion boxes, that's not part of the, the faith and fashion is on llc. Okay. So we do, that's, I knew that I should have said that in the beginning cause I thought about that yesterday.

Um, now it will donate when we have a chant when we need it. Um, cause it's supposed to, right. Sometimes it's zero months. Sometimes I've donated box sales. Okay. Depending on where we are. Um, but no, we can't consider that income.

I have a question on the conference videos. I'm sorry, I think I missed that. What is the price per unit? Okay, so that's what I'd like to talk about. It's actually a good question because we videotaped it, say videotape, but you know what I mean. Record it. And we've been actually already had a couple people ask us, is it recorded so I can download it?

And I feel strongly that digital is where it's going. Even for dlc, instead of offering it just two times a year, I've asked the videographer to package it to where anyone can download it whenever they just won't be matched. So raise the price of DLC when you're matched, but you can download DLC and the homework if you just wanna do it by yourself.

And so then that's how the conference will be. It's a digital download and I feel like, as we say, we equip women, we have to start having more resources that are not face to face, because that's just where we are as a world. And I will continue, COVID is over. People wanna be face to face, but they, they're digital is also.

So it's a huge opportunity. So I, I haven't come up with a number, Hannah, to answer your question. Um, but that's why the number is so low there for digital downloads because we haven't discussed it. So originally, Hannah, I had, um, I had, I did have a number, Heather, cause I came, I don't, I think I had it at 25.

I think we talked about. Okay. That's right. You know what, right. You said that yesterday. But I don't, I think though, to answer Hannah's specific question, this is kind of a combined number. I don't, so not the, this is where the goal of every month we wanna be making some money on either our conference video or videos that we've recorded.

So it's a combination of those things until Heather decides like, it's this price or this price, whatever. Um, it's just the, the amount of. Traction we want with people. We wanna be making at least, you know, a thousand dollars or $900 with those two combined per month on, um, on downloadable content. Got it.

Thank you.

Any other questions before we move on?

Okay. Okay. Um, so op, I have three sections here. Operational expenses, fundraising expenses, and then the programs. So I'll go through each section. Um, first starting with salary and payroll. Uh, so Christie and Kendra, um, are in this line. Um, they're a thousand dollars each per month, so 2000. Um, we think that Christie is going to.

You know, roll off starting in June, um, happen. Can I explain that? Cause that's news to everybody. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. That's okay. She told me since the beginning that she was always looking for a full-time job. I've just always asked her to keep me posted. Mm-hmm. Well, she's been made an offer. Um, she even texted me this morning, uh, and said they sh gave me the offer and it's not what I wanted, but my husband and I are gonna look at it because they really need insur a different insurance.

Cause her husband has a lot of medical bills and the job that he has, it's a physical job. He's a contractor. Long story short, they're trying to get her, her husband different and yeah, so, but why I feel it's a go is because it's a company, that office in Wilco and she has a relationship with them and they were like, oh, Christie, yes.

From ki a creative woman and they recommended her. Mm-hmm. Um, so the stars kind of aligned, but also financially, even though it kills me, uh, to lose her cuz she's. I, I don't know who's gonna do the tech part. Like maybe it's interns that we get this summer. Cause we are, uh, partnered with someone to get five interns this summer.

Um, that they can carry that load for a while. Um, because there's, we are a tech ministry. Yeah. Um, but financially I think the Lord's providing. Um, I wouldn't tell Christie that, but it's, she's, but yeah, that's what's happening. That's all happened. That's, she told me Monday after the conference, I was like, ok.

Gosh. Yeah. Or Tuesday after the conference, she's like, I gotta talk to you. And she goes, I said, you're quitting. Huh? She's like, well,

yeah. So June the 1st of June or? Yeah. Because if she takes it, we're gonna have to pay her a little bit of May not the whole thousand cuz she, she needs to offload some stuff and train and she's, you know, so she'll, it might be really $500 in May if you wanna adjust that. Uh, Christine, so. I don't, I don't know that I understood.

Um, she's still gonna be officed in Wilco for this new position. No, the new job that she, no, the new job being offered, they were a company inside of Wilco. So she built relation, had built relationship with one of the, but she's not gonna be off. Oh. Cuz I was thinking, well, could she like, oh yeah, no, maybe do a couple hours.

We actually moved out two weeks ago and she and I took toward their offices and she told me, she's like, when we returned their office, I was like, oh, I didn't think about Ms. V. She's like, I'm like, so you got the idea from us touring the office. Um, but you know what? I think it's got, even though it, like, I love her.

I think it's God's provision this season. Okay. But we're gonna have to hire someone again. And maybe it's not the same. Right. Maybe it's a young person that is trying to get experience and it's very low cuz she had a ton of experience. Oh, more than we paid her. I, the goal the, uh, was supposed to be 20 hours to 25 a month.

Okay. And her and Kendra both like five hours a week technically. Yeah, they do. So much happening. Kendra was texting me this morning about stuff that she created last night. I'm like, they're both in it and so, yeah. Yeah. They over. They over. Yeah. It is what it is. It's non-profit. They know that's the Right.

Okay. Camille, I made that adjustment, um, while y'all were talking, so, um, anyways, but that's, uh, that's why that number looks like that. Um, the rest of this is kind of, uh, just going through some of the expenses from last year and just putting them over, um, you know, She has a membership to wpa that's $29 a month.

Um, rent that, that was a big deal going from a big office to coworking. So, so I don't know if everybody knows that that happened this week as well. A lot has happened this week since the conference. We've been in conversations with Wilco since the beginning. That office was not being utilized the way it needed to be and the rent was going up in 2000.

And that's all I needed to hear to say like, Hmm, we can't, and there's no office available right now. Uh, and our price range. So I'm on the list. So in order to stay there, it's co-working. So I'm literally moving out this weekend. I've already started packing up cuz we packed up with a couple and I just never unpacked.

Uh, I hate bringing stuff home. They're gonna allow me to keep, gather her stuff there. They love us. I mean, they love us. Like they, they love us. Um, But there's a list for offices. And so I don't just get to move into another one that's smaller and cheaper. Um, but again, no one was using the office except for me and Christie, except for our events.

And then Christie leaves it really it all in the same kind of couple weeks, all these things. Goodness. They're like, okay, just adjust. Huh? Adjust sales really quickly. So did, did you say, did you say what that will cost two 50. Two 50 a month. Yeah. Um, while we're on that, even though this is not on this budget, our friend Sarah Burns also stepped down this week.

Oh my God. She's not leaving. Creative woman. She's been around for 10 years. Yeah. Obviously it's like, Sophie stepped down two a few years ago. Now she's on the board. That's the, that's the analogy I keep giving Sarah, listen, she's not, Sarah's not gonna, I mean, Sarah's not going, they're not going anywhere.

She, she's not going anywhere. No. She's like, we're putting Jackson and childcare and I really need to go back to real estate. I'm like, y'all both at real estate. She might be on the board here soon. Yeah, she's not going anywhere. She's not going anywhere. It's Christie that I'm sad about. Cause she won't be back.

She's not. I know she won't, but that's okay. So all this week, literally since the conference, I got a call from Sarah on Monday. It's like, okay. So then when Christie came in and said, I gotta talk to you, I was like, you're quitting. Like, I just already, I literally called Kendra. I was like, I need you to tell me now.

Like, pull the bandaid off if you're like, God's doing something. Yeah. And she was like, oh no, I'm not

like, I dunno what we do, Tammy too, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Wait, wait. I missed that, Tammy. Huh? What did you say about Tammy? I was like, if Tammy or Kendra left. Oh yeah, no, no. We'd be in a lot of trouble. You know, those are two huge jobs that I can't take on and also be executive director, like, you just can't, well, you've done it before.

I've done it before. We don't, we go nowhere. We literally go nowhere as an organization, so, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that, yeah, that, that rent conversation, like that was a big deal and it saved a a lot of money. Um, okay. I put into the budget and Heather, this, I can't remember if you told me to delete this or not, but I left it like two 50 a month starting in May for Okay.

So Kendra texted me this morning for her monthly recording. She did 180 this month for the conference. So I think that's too high. Okay. Um, and plus I don't let her spend that much on, on Facebook marketing. We usually do 50 to 75, um, a month. Not for gatherer. Like we'll do a little push Oh, just before.

Mm-hmm. So can I just leave it at 200? I would leave it at 50 for the rest because we can manage that because it's social media marketing. I would say we just, and, cause we really only, we pushed really hard for conference for Gether. We do about 50 and we did really big push for giving Tuesday. Actually given two things free cuz Facebook gave us credits.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that, well, that, that also helps the budget. Um, the software. So I did take down, it's, this was at 500, I think 300 is is fair. It might be a little high some month, but it at least gives you a little wiggle room. Um, this is everything it takes, you know, every app or whatever you have to keep running the, the, um, just so you know, there's like 15 tech apps that we use.

Yeah. Okay. Um, web hosting, same, about 25 insurance through The Hartford, about $70 a month. Um, the insurance, everybody doesn't know what that is. We have to have insurance, this type of insurance for us to be a part of. Soccer and moody. Okay. Like they require us to have a certain type of insurance. Um, so that's what that is.

Yeah, and covers us for other things too. They required us like, oh, we probably should have insurance anyways.

I dunno why this is one 50, but this is typically me and QuickBooks 200, uh, like a quarter. And then, yeah, that's, so this is all I know we're missing some people, like Tammy is down here in, in the program expense, but this is typically just, just operating. So all it takes to run created woman as a whole, about $30,000.

So about, um, a little less than half of total, probably Penny can't see very well, so I'm just showing her really. She's all 44. About 44% all wearing glasses. I know. Even though I have glasses, I'm like, and then that's, and, and so if you see me. 60 total of 69. Hold on. She just explained it's 30 of that 69.

Okay. I'm having to log in in two different places. Oh, to see it. Okay, good. Now I don't feel I can share this with you guys too. Um, I should probably should have done that before the meeting. I'm sorry. But I can definitely share it and you guys can go through and you know, I'll see any edits or you ask any questions.

Um, okay. Next section is fundraising. And like I said, really it's only classy. That's really the only expense right now. It's $3,500 about. And then this last section, this is program. So anything that created woman does, I put community engagement in there. And there's some accounting rules as to why I won't bore you with them, but I'm reframing from making it its own program just because, um, we want it to be part of like the existing gatherer.

So I know that you guys know that it's. It's not, but just for budgetary slash IRS purposes, I'm, I'm leaving it here so that it doesn't raise any flags because it's a lot of money. And I think that, I think that calling it community engagement, I think is the right thing to do. And lumping it together with gather her is, is also good.

So is that, let's pause there. Does everybody understand that? Mm-hmm. It's, I don't wanna derail realize, but really it has to do with other business income. The i r s doesn't want you to have a business inside of your, um, your organization. And so technically I don't know how, um, like the check Heather, we need to talk about this cuz like the checks, I don't know, are, is created woman getting like, Oh, oh, she froze the W nine.

For those. We'll have to talk about this, like how, how the organization is reporting that those, those funds to the i r s. Are they saying that this is a donation? Are they saying that this is income said the donation. Okay. Well then maybe I'm worried for, I, I did that for no reason then, so that's good. Um, anyways, so I can break it out for our purposes, but just so we know, gather her is facilities, contractors, supplies, refreshments.

Just, just a side note, so you're even more Okay with that. We have to sign a contract and they ask us, are you sending volunteers or are you paying them? Okay. We have to check that so that they know if it's a true donation. Okay. Great. That's, yeah, that's even better. Okay, good. Um, so gather her is about $20,000 of this, this budget.

The community engagement contractor or contractors, um, is about four $4,050. That's Belinda, the girl that we hired, to just keep up with emails, assigning people to Moody and soccer, making sure there's people there. That in itself took a lot of work. That's what I was doing last year, and if she can just maintain, um, and let's put a pin in that because we'll have to come back and talk about Apple as well.

Okay. So, um, going back to the, uh, ex, um, the income, as you can see, uh, gather her sponsors 4,000. And that doesn't, in raffle tickets of 3000, that doesn't cover all of the gather her expenses. So donations and, um, the community engagement money, really we need that to cover the expense of having gather her.

So I think that's an opportunity, again, to get sponsorships as well as more recurring donations, because that's a core, um, a core program of, of creative women. Um, D L C, so this is really, I, this is still blank. This was blank last year, Heather. I was looking back at the other other budget I did. It's still blanked this year.

And really the only expense is marketing is doing it. I've already paid Noah, the videographer, um, you know, so I'm not sure what else. Is in there other than advertising or until you ramp it up again, or maybe you put it on a platform that costs money, I don't know. So, um, right now all I show is three 50 and then obviously appear with the income.

Um, you know, we've spent a lot of money in the past on, on Noah. Some of his expenses are in 2022, but, um, this would be a, a huge win if we could get those. Yeah. Don't downloads ramped up because we haven't spent that much money in this calendar. Yeah. Calendar year. And then the last section is the conference.

Um, these are the expenses. Uh, it was about 12,600. Um, you know, I know I said I wasn't there, but that's kind of where it landed. And well, we, and we were just, remember we were donated 10,000, we were donated 10,000 sponsor and. Um, with the tickets income was about 14,300, so we made a slight surplus. Um, for, I think in the future, like for this to continue and, and do really well, we wanna aim, I think in the budget that we made initially, Heather, we were aiming for around a 10%, 20% profit.

Um, and we didn't quite get there. So I think, you know, more ticket sales, more whatever, whatever we have to do to kind of ramp that up. Um, you know, but that's, overall I would say at least there was some surplus. Um, but it just wasn't, you know, as much as we, like, even when I did the numbers, we had a hundred, I think 18 or 19 ticket sales, but that was, um, mentors registering for free, that was Texas State or whatever.

We should have made 8,000 and because of discount codes it was 4,300. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. Okay. So all of that to say, Hey, I wanna come back to that. And, and it doesn't have to be today, but I wanna come back to that discount code thing. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Write it down as we write it down. Yeah. So mentors attend. So all of that to say, um, right now with those changes that I've made as we talked, um, our, our shortage is about $2,000.

And so that's still on some pretty aggressive income numbers, especially with, you know, um, ramping up donations and ramping up, uh, you know, uh, gather her sponsors and peer-to-peer. So we're dependent on really hitting those numbers and like I mentioned earlier, well, I don't wanna get too far. Does anybody have any other questions on some of these expenses?

Or did I miss anything that you guys have thought of?

Okay. So if you think of anything, let me know. Um, but really what I wanted to also talk about is, um, you know, in regards to that budget shortfall, uh, just getting, can, can you zoom down a little bit to like hundred 50%? Sure. That better? Okay. So here's just, um, you know, some rough numbers on how to go after some things.

Um, I know we've talked about this before, Heather, about like, if I get some, you know, 10 at this, it's this much money. Five of this. So just thinking for the remainder of the year, we only have seven months left in 2023 to make up this budget shortfall to really push. And so, um, I'm always pushing with everybody that I I work with on accounting-wise is recurring donations.

That is like the bread and butter, right? Because people forget about it. You know, they don't look, they don't know. They just, they get used to it. And then they also, it, it benefits people from a tax perspective because they know at the end of the year how much they've given to their, their charitable organizations.

So I love those events and stuff like that, but it's a reoccurring, it's the recurring, it's like income is coming in. Yes. Mm-hmm. I just really think that that is so important. And so I've just put some quick numbers around how to get, how do, how do we make it up? Quickly for this. Um, and it's as, as easy as I say, easy.

I know it's not, but 10 people at 115, people at 50, you know, 20 people at $25. $25 at, or 25 people at $10. Like literally we could overcome this extremely fast just getting, you know, a mix of donations from each of these levels. And so I know that with classy, um, I know there's some ways to do that, like to, you know, targeted marketing and, you know, um, just the buttons that you even put on your donation page, telling people what a hundred dollars pays for, like those, that type, that type of, um, you know, ask of your donors could really make this $2,000 go to zero very quick and then also lead us to a surplus that will put us in a good position for 2024.

So, um, I, I listed that out just so you could have it wrapped in your brain like, well, what are we really talking about? How much money are we really trying to get? Um, and then I just made some notes here that I wanted to remember to talk to you about. So I mentioned earlier, actually, let me stop there.

Does everybody, does anybody have any questions on this? This part? No. But I wanna come back to talking about marketing to get these donations. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um, okay, so my last little spiel here, I wanted to say, um, I just wanted to make sure, wanted to give you guys this information. I think I told you this earlier.

There's 135 donors and I have that list actually. Um, of people who have not donated in the last two years. We have their email address. We have their name, and we have their last donation. We have their phone number in that list or the phone number. Was it required? Let me see. Uh, it might, hold on. Let me see real quick.

Contacts. Export. Let me pull this over.

Oh my goodness. I have too many screens working. Okay. Like, okay. Can y'all see the spreadsheet? Yeah. So it has su like Susan Lee. Oh no, we don't see that spreadsheet. Uh, oh, shoot. Um, where am I?

Here we go. Okay. Do you see it now? Yes. Yes. Susan Lee. I know this is small. It has, um, Yeah. So if they gave, okay, so to answer your question, Heather, if they gave us their phone number, we have it now. It's a requirement, I think in classy to give your phone number. Yeah. And if we have, and if they gave their address, we have it, but if they didn't, we unfortunately don't, we do have everybody's email though, for sure.

Except, well, I say that and then I pull for sure. I don't, I don't have this lady email. I can get, I have her phone number and email. Okay. So anyways, um, yes. So this, you know, this spreadsheet came directly from Better Unite and it has their last donation, the donation date, et cetera. And so I think we really target, you know, the, the, the bigger donors and even the smaller ones too.

Like every dollar helps. So, um, I think I'll email this to you, Heather. I see a few of them that have moved over to Classy. Yeah. Yeah, that'll be good to see. And some of these people might have been one-timers, you know? Yeah. And maybe there's something weak can wordsmith that. I also think some of 'em might have been at an event like Canton, an event, and we, we imported, well, we still received money from Yeah, yeah.

We received money from 'em. It's on this. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's, that's one thing I wanted to make sure. Um, the other thing, okay, we talked about peer to peer. I think that the power of social media is just really big. You know, people do like birthday fundraisers and, you know, anniversary fundraisers or, you know, in honor of whoever.

That's a really big deal. And so I also put down Facebook fundraisers. Um, I do a Facebook fundraiser every year for my birthday and what today hold, she's doing shame. It's my birthday. But it's, it's the thing about Facebook. The great thing is that there's no fees and, um, no, no problems, right? They take care of their donation receipts.

It's really great. The bad news is it takes a month to receive that money. So it's, that's the annoying right now we're, they're waiting for paperwork from us that we keep sending them and we're in a back and forth conversation with Facebook to even get the last donation we got. I'm not a fan of it, just FYI at all.

Board donation. Sorry. Sit down. Sit down. Have a three year old. Okay, sit down right here. Okay. Um, so board donations, um, we all should be donating members of the board. I estimated, I don't know, I just put down a thousand dollars. I'm not sure I.

Per month. Yes. Sunday. That will be the case. Um, double donation. That's something that we didn't utilize, but we can, the problem is it costs $780. We got rid of it. What she's saying is we got rid of it last year. An app inside Classy that we Yeah. Integrated. Okay. And it was used, two people used it and it was not, and the cost is seven 80.

And so because of it's so expensive. I mean, it's split the past few months, like we start, things started getting tighter around November, December. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The ended and things started happening and so whereas the last two years we were in surplus. Yeah. Like a lot, lot, lot. All that to say, we were like, get rid of the seven 80, get rid of this, get rid of that.

We started getting rid of things that were like, well, it's not working right now. We're just cutting. But in replace of that is Benevity and Benevity would be free and it's corporation matching and that's something that we can do in our sleep. So if you have somebody that works for an organization, Um, that does that, you know, they take it out of their paycheck and then the company matches.

So I worked for u p s or something and I gave $50 up. S would match that $50. So created woman would get a hundred dollars. Um, and it's at no cost to create a woman, so, oops. Did I delete? I did. I did. Yeah. We're already signed up. I think just pushing more people, like some people just don't know. Right.

Pushing more people towards that type of thing. That those are huge wins. So, can I pause there and talk about two of the corporations that we're, since we're talking about Benevity? Yes. Do you mind? I'm gonna be, I'll be right back. I gotta take a pause. Oh yeah. I thought you were gonna say something. Yeah, go ahead.

I'll be right back. I'll, so talking about how the Lord has given us grace over these years, he just keeps like, you know, even though we struggle and there's like, oh, but I wanna give you this. So the, literally the morning I was on the phone with Camille and we were like, Got the email while I was on the phone with Camille about rent going up.

Um, I was like, you know, we have to whatever. Within two hours I was on a Zoom call that I knew was gonna happen. I just didn't know really what was about. We had this guy, Adam, sign up for soccer and uh, was serving and through that or served know who was signed up to serve and was in conversations with Belinda.

And then of course it got passed to me and Christie. So we got on a Zoom call with hi with me Christie, this guy Adam, and this woman named Catherine. They all work at, both work at Apple. Catherine is over partnering with nonprofits. What they want to do and have started the process. We're literally just trying to cross TS is cause there's some red tape things with t a c.

Um, they wanna, they partner with organizations to send. People that work for Apple to nonprofits to serve, and they want us, they want to be our exclusive, sending people to soccer and moody, here's the catch. Mm-hmm. In a good way. Mm-hmm. Because we were like, yes, volunteers. We need, the more people we can get to these events, the more they, and they're like, and also if we send you five people or however many people we send you, we give you $25 per person per hour.

What? And we're like, what? She's like a donation. Yeah. And she was like, me and Chris are like, can we just, she's like, no, you heard me right. That people stop me. She's like, if I send you five people for six hours mm-hmm. You look at $25 per person Per hour. Per. Per hour. Oh. So we're trying to get through this red tape because her benty that she was just talking about, which is how that comes.

Mm-hmm. There's a resell clause. And so they're trying to figure out if selling alcohol or to register is a, is part of that resell clause, even though they're not selling for us. Mm-hmm. So that's a red tape, but they already have people signed up for May and June. Wow. They wanna send people together her and they want Yes.

Volunteers, which means even if they send us three people for gatherer, that's an income for gather her. Yeah. Oh wow. Um, I think we lost Hannah. Did she say bye? She did. It was the chat. Oh, sorry. Um, so there's that. And then just yesterday, Stacy Barbo messaged me and said that she works at Google. She's no longer volunteering for us.

She's like, Hey, we are, try, each team member gets to do something. I supposed to call her this afternoon where we get to do an event with a nonprofit and do a donation. Of course. I wanna do that with you. Let's talk

Camille's Point. There is so much opportunity with corporate, but we have to find those, like those two dropped in our lap. Interesting. Um, I mean, how many other Apple opportunities are there now? We wouldn't wanna, we couldn't partner with another corporate if they wanna be our only corporate for soccer, but there's other opportunities obviously, so, and other companies that are willing to do the matching.

Right. Okay. That's, that's huge for, that's for, that's it could possibly Cause she was like, oh, we send you 20, you could take 20 people. We were like, yes.

Okay. Yeah. One other thing I wanted to mention, Heather, and I'm not sure, sorry, I had to, I wasn't, I'm not sure if you mentioned it while I was gone. Um, Is Kendra Scott. It looks like we had a couple big Kendra Scott events last year. Are we gonna anniversary those? Are we gonna do those again, do you think?

Yeah, so we made about 500 average for both and they're always Christmas and, uh, women's, uh, what's Women's International Women's Day? They did not ask us this year for International Women's Day. Ok. Now there was a transition between the person we worked with to another one, so that was probably what happened.

But they did come to our conference. I doubt we get that big of a kickback because we weren't in store, but for sure we're on the list for Christmas. So yes, long story. Long story short, yes, but not, we didn't have the second event that we normally do in February with them. Okay. I'm gonna write that down just to remember.

I doubt we even get 200 from the event, from the brilliant. Okay. If if they would've stayed longer. I know. I know. They weren't there the whole time. They weren't there. I was gonna buy a couple things and before I knew it, they were gone. And they didn't have a credit card machine. They didn't. No. They had to write down my information at the store.

Yeah. Oh, that's, I'm sure that like a lot of people. Right. I'm good. Well, thank you for donating. You're welcome.

Okay. Does anybody have any questions I can answer on the budget or suggestions? How many are shocked that our budget is this robust and all the things that's going in and out? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not surprised and Heather and I like, this is what I've been wanting to see for years. Yeah. I love this. I love this.

Yeah, it's a lot because it's a lot of little things, you know? I know we've had, I've known and watched, you know, every time I've been in an event, I'm like, I know how much that billboard costs. Like Yeah. What? Like I know all, yeah. So this is, well I just have to skip Camille props. Cause when we started doing this, I think it was like 2018, we, our annual income was $500.

Wow. Like, we did not have the bills. Thank you. And so I was like, but I need to start doing this because once we do have a big budget, I won't be able to do it. Right. And that y'all heard me say, organize it overwhelmed. And that's where it started. I was like, I have to organize it. Overwhelm, even if we're only making 500 and know, I'm sure you remember.

Mm-hmm. Our profit loss was like, oh, you made 500 and you spent three 50. Um, so that's where we've come in just five years. Yeah. Well, I'm happy to share this with you guys if you.

Like send your emails. Um, you can, I'll make you editor of it and you can add whatever you need to. Um, and just let me know if you wanna see anything else or if you have any other questions. I'm happy to answer. I think what we'd like to do, I know for sure, especially this year as we're do working this plan, is if, if it's possible, cause we're only having board meetings quarterly and if we need to bump that up, we can, even if it's just a zoom.

Mm-hmm. Let's have some touch bases with you a couple more times this year, um, of how well it's going, what we're doing. Um, cuz I did Crystal tell Camille that you and Hannah really wanna be a big part of this. Uh, and I'm happy to let it go. Honestly, what the goal is, I need to get 10 people at five. Okay.

I'll do that. Yeah. I'm happy to let this go. I, it's gotten so big, I'm like, I don't wanna do it. I look at the bank all the time guys. All of it. Yeah. All the time. I'm constantly in it. Um, well, I think, yeah. And what. We've said as, as a board, it's very hard for us to help when we don't see the finances. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like swimming in an open ocean, not knowing where we're going. Yeah. I can send you guys the financials every month. I mean, whatever you, whatever cadence you want, I'm happy to send it. Um, and I'll keep this budget updated. Um, so yeah, we can have, I continue the actuals and then changes to the budget and just do it every month, if that's what you like to see.

Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. That's no problem. Cool. No problem at all. So why don't I, um, I'm, I'm also gonna put this list of the donors that we haven't, that haven't, I'm gonna put that in a Google's sheet too, and I'll share that with everybody so you guys can just do whatever you need to do with it. Um, and then Heather, if you wouldn't mind sending me your classy login again.

I tried to do it last night. I had an idea and then I was like, I'm gonna lock her out. I know I am. So, uh, cause I thought I had your password and it just wasn't working. So, um, if you wouldn't mind, send it, sending it to me. I'll make sure that, um, any reports that come outta classy, I'll just add them to our monthly package and you guys can take a look.

So, I know it sounds like we're wrapping up with you and I know it's your birthday, but I would like, before we jump off, um, because you work with so many nonprofits and you've been with W N P A for years, I would like for you to share with us the three best practices nonprofits do with their board and otherwise, um, for fundraising.

Okay. That's a great question. So the most successful people I see, just like Crystal just said, they are regularly reviewing the financials. So we're gonna get there and I take, um, I will be on that, I promise. And if, if I'm not, I know you guys will kick me in the butt to make me. So, um, but that's gonna be very easy to turn on.

Um, we have it and we'll just make sure that it's, we're reviewing it regularly. So definitely regular board meetings where you're reviewing the financials. Um, two, I would say, um, contact with your major donors is key. Um, you know, I can think of a couple people, Heather, like. I don't wanna, I don't, I can't actually, I can't think of her name.

Gonzalez, maybe? Mary Ann. Mary Ellen. Yeah. She, like, she hasn't donated in a while. That's what I mean. Like we, but she did for a long time. I remember her. Yeah. We have to keep up with these donors and that, that honestly is, well, you know what? She became a box subscriber. That's what happened. Okay. So knowing exactly where your, you know what I mean?

What happened to our major donors? What, where are they going through? Did they lose their job? Like those types of touches with your donors go really, really far. And the, the nonprofit that I see that are really successful, um, they are keeping track of, you know, their donors and the people and, and keeping them updated too on what exactly is, is happening.

Yeah. The third. And, and you know, that's not necessarily financial. Well what is financial, but it's more of a people thing, right? It's having the time to do that, which I know can be really hard. Um, and then number three, let, let's say, uh, um, definitely keeping, um, your mission top of mind. What I see happen and I'm really proud of, I'll, I'm gonna give Heather

big props. I'm glad separated right when you gave box. Darn. Am I back? Am I back? You're back. Okay. I'm gonna give Heather props for separating the L l C with the box and from the nonprofit, because what I see a lot of people do is they, they have like mission creep. They think, oh, I can do this and then I can add this, and then I can add this, this, this.

And it just becomes this like unmanageable. You have too many programs that are not c truly connected to your mission. And what I love about Created Women is that you guys have an extremely clear mission. And keeping with that mission is difficult sometimes because Heather is an idea person. You are. I love your ideas, Heather.

They're big and they're wonderful. But for creative women, we have to be kind of specific because the i r s makes us be specific. So anyways, I'm, you know, I think that controlling mission, cre, you guys have done a really good job. You know, when we need to separate, you guys have separated things. I think just keeping, keeping the true focus of what created Missions mission is create, I'm sorry, created Woman's mission is, is, um, that's gonna be key because there's so much that you can do.

Staying focused on what we told the I R s is the purpose of the organization is gonna be important. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I, since we're given props, I wanna give Camille props because she has been my counselor along as, as well as my budget for the past couple years. Because what is different about Camille is that she is numbers and so wise, but she's also, but God.

Mm-hmm. And this is what we were called to, and he has done this. She is not like, it's not working, or this isn't working. Cut this. She's like, let's pray, let's look at this angle. She is faith and works all in one. And I don't think that's a, and I've told you this before, Camille, but I wanna say that in front of the board, that is not normal for budget people.

People that are smart and good with numbers to be like, okay. But this is what, where we're going, the Lord has called us this and this is what is working. So that's proof that God's here. So we've gotta fix this so that we can continue the mission. That's not normal. Um, and I appreciate that in her because I know if I call her and say, we can't do this anymore, she's like, yes we can because of look at A, B, and C.

Hmm. And that's important to have in a numbers person, but they're rock practical. They know the numbers, they know what we need to cut, but they also listen to the Holy Spirit. Yeah. I wanna, I wanna listen to the Holy Spirit cause he's never wrong. Never. Not once. So yeah. Yeah. Any questions before Camille goes, enjoys her birthday?

We'll, we'll stay on the Zoom call for sure. Um, but I wanna make sure we get any questions we have for Camille.

Thank you, Camille. Yeah, of course. I'm happy to be here. Text me or call me Heather, whatever you need. Okay, thank you. Can you give me back hosting duties before you hang up because it'll make us all. I'm gonna do that. Thank you, Camille. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. You know, I'm grateful for another, another year.

Right? Thank you for doing such, doing all of this. I appreciate it. Yes, you got it. They do it. It says, yeah, it says I'm the host. Yep, I'm the host. Okay, we'll enjoy your day. Bye guys. Talk to you later. Bye bye. I'm gonna grab some more coffee too. That's where Penny went. And then we can digest what we just heard and answer.

I can answer whatever questions you guys have.

Okay.

Sophie, you showing today? No event.

Are you back at home? I am. Are your daughters here? Yeah.

Yeah, she's there, but I'm here. I'm at home. Yeah. She, um, I think she's going back. Well I know she's going back to school today. She came in, um, she went there last night to see Hadley's play. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah. So I would've thought she would be gone by now. She said she was leaving early because Thursday was her birthday and she's got some friends coming for her birthday.

But I forget her definition of early and my definition of early are two different things. This is still early for her.

I'm.

Yeah,

I'm grab coffee is coffee. I don't, I just,

what's up? Created woman. Hey mom. What's up? Created woman? Not much. Yeah, I said you told me you were leaving early, but I forgot my definition of early and yours are two different things. Oh no. I was gonna leave at like nine. Cause at one, but then she was not coming till three, so I was like, I'll just leave like 12.

Okay. All right. Well I hope you had a good night's sleep. I did. I felt good. Yeah. Welcome back. So see early. Oh wow. See yeah. You are early. I'm an early bird. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, you're about to get involved in the board meeting or I'm about to go watch. I'm watching a movie, so, okay. All right. Have fun.

Enjoy. Love you. I love you. Bye. Bye.

Ready? Hey, first of all, I think Camille awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Really good. And I feel that's why we're both shocked. We've said that before that we haven't met because one, she's so personable. But she's, you know, we, W N P A is who does all our coaching and all that stuff. Um, anyway, um, so thoughts, I lost my, my fork in there.

Hold on. I gotta get up again.

That a lot to take in. We're probably not gonna talk much else. Take No, it's good direction though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I have some thoughts I would like to share and get input, kinda see if I'm on the right. What are Y's thoughts? So when I think about donors, I think when I think back and Sophie, I know we've been almost the same time through created women, I think we have some opportunity to be more strategic and, um, what we do.

So I'm talking not just as a board member, but someone who's not in Austin and only see created woman from a digital in social media. So we, when we come out on social media, we hear faith and fashion. We hear purpose and we hear leadership now. And I love that we are now getting more specific, I think, I think it's more clear with leadership, leadership, but it's evolved from faith and fashion to now purpose.

And so, to be honest, I don't think the, I don't think the, um, Message of what we're doing strategically has been really clear. Mm-hmm. And so if we're gonna go leadership, leadership, leadership, I think we've got a strategic, and I'm not a marking person, I'm just saying what I'm seeing in what I know people around me, um, are seeing.

I think we gotta focus on we're leadership, especially Heather, as you're talking about, we want to create, we want to increase our digital, um, downloads. Right? Then we've got to, those digital downloads have to be very clear that it's about leadership. It's about leadership. Leadership, leadership. Yeah. So then when that message is clear that when you download all this, the training you're gonna get is leadership, then that helps us know who we need to target more in corporations.

Those corporations that are focused on leadership, and so that right now is diversity. Diversity, diversity is huge in the marketplace, and women are considered a minority. So I'll give you an example. Right now at christus, we have a whole, we've got so many mentorship programs within christus, so many leadership development programs.

However, we now have something that they're trying to launch that is just for the diversity of women. Well, minor, I'm sorry, minorities. Mm. So if you are, if you are of a different race or you are a woman, you get to apply for this. So my point being is not that Christus is gonna partner cuz they have their own, that's just a hot button right now.

It's minorities and leadership. Minorities and leadership. I like it. I think you're right. Cause even, um, well I shared that at the conference, how when we came back 20 20, 20 22, that our focus had shifted. Mm-hmm. And, and a lot of our marketing has shifted to that too. But I think it needs to be even more to your Yeah, it's, yeah.

It's not clear if you're not, if you're just following social media. So I need to take this portion of the video and I'll show Kendra because she's all in the agreement. She's the one that changed our verbiage too. Women in leadership and making it more clear. Um, so it just needs to be a bigger push outside, especially cuz to your point I was already thinking if we're pushing digital download, it can't just be to the people that see us face to face.

Mm-hmm. Um, it has to be, you know, in that whole word equipped, that's the tangible equip empowering. And what I believe we do for empowering is gotta hurt cause it's free and it's like a hey go rah, rah rah, bye-bye. That's empowering. And I've said that for years. We have to have more tangible equipping and pushing our books and our resources.

And I also know that as a community we have to be more face to face on social, um, to talk about leadership. Mm-hmm. And on social Pretty woman is what I mean. Mm-hmm. Um, and not just a post but more video interaction online like Stacy does. She's really good about, Stacy's really good about, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I'm gonna tell you, just going back to the conference, all the feedback we've gotten, it was speed mentorship. Yeah. I gotta get it. It was speed mentorship. Um, that was the win. I'm, and I'm gonna tell you, I'm a leadership coach in a corporate organization and there is a lack of leadership. Yeah. Yep.

They're always, yeah. There's a lack of, you know, I'm still amazed sometimes coaching executives the lack of knowledge that they have in leadership. Yeah. My husband just commented on that this past week. He, uh, was in a meeting with some clients with, um, an energy company in, uh, San Antonio. And the BP came in throwing his weight around and just being crazy.

And Gary, my husband, goes. The lack of leadership at that level mm-hmm. Of these integrations, he said is Yep. I, I see it every, I, you know, I I, I'm sometimes amazed at the level of leadership that's sitting in front of me Yeah. And asking the basic things and not doing the basic things. Um, so it is a huge need.

And then you take, you know, a woman starting a business and I think, you know, that's not my expertise, but there's leader, basic leadership things that they don't, you know, how do you lead people? How do you have conversations? Um, how do you engage a team? Yeah. And so my point is people will buy into that.

People will sponsor that. If that is the language. I don't know that they're gonna, they're gonna buy into sponsoring faith and fashion. Purpose, but they will. Leadership. Yeah, leadership. Yep. I agree. Yeah, that's true.

Didn't wanna everything saying y'all are saying, so I was just trying to hurry.

We wanna talk about the conference. Are we still, I mean that's part of budget, you know? Yeah. The feedback that you got. You said that the speed mentorship was the main thing. Big mentorship, and everyone loves Saan and Stevie. Yeah. They love the dynamic. That's what I've heard about them. They love the dynamic of the two of them together and hearing how they work together.

Mm-hmm.

That's what, what from participants? What did y'all think? Um, I got feedback about the speed mentorship. Um, there's a lot of, we, you were at the table next time, but there was a lot of new people there. Mm-hmm. That just hadn't been a part of it. Yeah. And I think the experience for them, what they communicated was feeling like they had a place where they can like, bounce ideas off of or figure out what, like get some breakthrough on different things.

And that speed mentorship ground really helped with that. Um, and they need more time was like, I needed more time. Five minutes for Yeah. Everybody said just enough to get, like more, but what that tells me is that they all wanted more of that equipping that clipping for me. Yeah. Yeah. Very personal. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, that and then just inspiration to actually do things. Yeah. Um, I know my mom specifically, she came together her too, and she brought a friend of hers that's, um, same kind of empty nester trying to figure out what's next in life for them. And she said that women in that, um, season of life are trying to figure out, you know, what's next?

Yeah. What, what more can I offer? What's right can I do? And I'm like, you guys have so much that you can bring to the table for women that are, you know, yes. Just now getting kids out the door for school and stuff like that. Like, you guys know things and welcoming, welcoming a bad group of women. Like they feel welcome.

I gather her now. That wasn't always the case. I remember women, my mom's age would be like, it's like for 30 year olds. Oh, you're right. The a different vibe. So to hear that now's a different vibe. You're right. Yeah. They feel more at home. And this is where they it well too, because I think, you know, the, our, the empty nest mm-hmm.

Group was represented. I was up there. Crystal was, is host. She mentioned that too. Yeah. And so whenever you represent all the different generations, then it makes them feel it is like they're welcome part. Yeah. And honestly I think just looking back, we've really changed our messaging as far as speakers.

It really was testimonial, which I hated towards the end really. I did, I hated like the last few months where I got gather her. Mm-hmm. Okay. Sounds like we're just having church. Um, we're just, you know what you could get at, which is, I didn't hate it. Like I love hearing people's test. I loved it. No, I'm not talking about Thence.

I'm talking about gather years ago. Oh, you're talking about Gather her. I loved it when it was test, but it was only because what I liked about it, the format that I liked about it is that it was, it seemed like such a good balance and mix faith and fashion. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. So you would bring in, oh, I loved it.

You would bring in, you know, a Yeah. A fashion, a person that had launched their business. Yeah. It was either makeup or jewelry or mm-hmm. Whatever. And they told their story. But then also the, I only went tattoo of em before Covid. Mm-hmm. There was, oh, maybe three. Then you had an inspirational secret. Yeah.

That always good. They were always good. And so I, I liked that mix. Um, and then now bringing leadership into it, you know, it's just a whole new dynamics. Yeah. But I, I think it's good. Like, for instance, Ladon. Yes. You were there. She weaved her testimony into the leadership test. She did very well. That's what I was gonna say.

Why can't she do both? Yeah. That girl, that girl preached and like convicted, but she gave five points of why you were not, not to your purpose. See that's good. And she talked about how the Lord convicted her about not being alike. So yeah. But what I'm saying about testimony was like, well, I could go to sisterhood and hear that same message.

What's different about. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so we really changed of how we're different than your small group, right? Mm-hmm. Fashion of course. But if you don't, if you don't need to go shopping. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to, I say sisterhood cause that's the word we all know, but any church has women's groups, so that's what I mean.

That's where the leadership comes into play. That's right. Cause you have somebody that's on stage that's talking about Yes. You know, doing the leadership aspect, because we all agree. Really a lot of this started was. And the church is changing. Mm-hmm. There wasn't women leaders in the church. A lot of women, there were CEOs, business owners, and then when you go inside the church walls, they were being used.

Right. Right. So that's even how I started. That was part of my conviction here. And you see things like forward and polished. They're like, yeah, because women are leaders outside in the marketplace, but they're not being used inside the church. They're just not even allowed to preach or speak. Um, that's changing a lot, you know?

But, um, that's really what we want to, and I think Ladon brought a lot of, a lot of our speakers brought that. I mean, we, I think we all showed that at the conference too, though. We were all strong leaders in doing things. And that was the whole kickoff ministry in the marketplace. Um, but, uh, no, God called you to do a purpose, but you have to actually walk out these steps correctly and that's where the leadership comes in.

Yeah. And I think we've shown that this year really well on the conference. And Gether to Crystal's point, we need to bring that online. We do. Yeah. That's what we, and that's where we're lacking. Yeah. Especially because, I mean, I was looking at the budget for, um, what is it, you said like $50 a month or something that you spend for the Facebook ads and Yeah.

Um, so for wedding into war, we realized that a lot of the people that came to the conferences last time were from the area and they had seen Facebook posts that we had put out. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, that's so interesting that we, we personally don't have reaches to all these people, but they live here.

They were interested in what we had to offer and they came and made connections from there. And I was thinking for Gavin heard that was something that I didn't even realize. You guys had Facebook posts. I don't see anything up on my thing. Yeah. But, um, I'm not saying that's that's what we need to lean into, but if we're portraying a message, let it be that.

Yeah. Let it be what the community's looking for our marketing ads lead into for because, sorry, I went, I'm going on a kind of a journey. When you said that so far we push instead, I think is what you're saying. Yeah. Our marketing dollars to leadership resources, they find us and if they live here, then they come to mm-hmm.

Community. Mm-hmm. So instead of pushing community event, we push use our marketing dollars for online resources. Right. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. And, and not just because of social outside mark, uh, outside social media, outside Austin area and social media, but being more strategic cuz of the donors.

So as I look at that budget and she's saying this is, you know, we've gotta focus on our donors. We can target better our donors when our message is clear that it's leadership. You see what I mean? Yeah. I'm writing this down cause this is something Kendra needs to know. And, uh, yeah, cuz if, if we're, if our message is purpose, purpose, purpose, that's not gonna align with what we're really the, the donors that we're really wanting.

But if we're being strategic in women in leadership, equipping women in leadership equipping, then that's gonna help us know who, who to target as a donor. Those women who, those, those organizations, those women who are passionate about women in leadership. Yeah. And so also I want us to remember that we launched membership and we've already got five signups without even doing a marketing campaign.

Mm-hmm. So it's, it's a, it's a, we need 160 donors or we need 80 donors. 80. 80 members. Yeah. And so there two are gonna, it's not a either or. But I do wanna recognize that yes, we need donors, which obviously, but there's also good news that we're creating, we've created this resource for donors who really will be members to donate monthly.

Yeah. So technically members are donors in this. Technically members are donors, but they're getting a resource now. Some people are not gonna wanna be a member, they're gonna wanna don donate. Yeah. Yeah. They're just giving. Yeah. Which we have. We have that. Yeah. Um, you know, so I feel like that's a really good, like, okay, because we are offering something membership wise, that's a reoccurring that costs us nothing because we're offering masterclass once a month, a digital download of the book that we already create.

Um, a Facebook community and just those masterclass alone are gonna bring so much wisdom and people pay for that stuff. So, as far as what you're saying, crystal, like what are we offering that's outside of it's membership that we really, I think it's this, we push membership online while us as a team push donors behind from behind, not behind.

From behind as far as conversations. So we can say members, digital downloads, this is what we're offering. Yeah. And I've really understood too lately that, cause I used to shy away, when we talk about what you have members, why do you donors for it, what will we also have operational expenses. That's just, especially as a business owner, people know, like we have operational expenses.

Mm-hmm. And I used to shy away from talking about that. No. Yeah. We just, we just gotta get clear. We just gotta get clear. In that membership? What's your, what you get? Yeah, we've already gotten clear on that. We're, and we gotta, we gotta get the classes like the first class. Um, only cause this came up Thursday.

Uh, and then we're gonna be calling our mentors and you know, you guys, which I know you wanna teach one, you wanna teach one. She's like, no, but like Ladon is offering one. Um, where'd it go? Hers offering to teach us. She's gonna do the July one. She's gonna do our first one. Um,

I'll teach, oh, taking Faith Filled Action to Strategic Success. Um, so those are the type, you know, and Kendra wants to do one on chat, g p T cause that's a big thing. You're saying? Yes. Like it's, I'm still trying to, but business owners need to know and need to be trained on it. I wanna do a budget one. I'm not me.

You do. Somebody's gonna somebody

my in the fall. Okay. Week or, yeah, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday till

summer's gonna be really tricky for me. But yeah. Summer's gonna be tricky for us too. I think we're all. Oh my gosh. September gets here. I remember the first year, I remember the first year that Hadley was kindergarten and so she was off for the summer and I was like, wait, wait, what? Because I was used to going year round childcare three days a week.

I mean, she's, she's home.

Anyway, anyway, we're getting off course and then we're, we're, we're recording so I'll make sure things we all do it. Um, but I hear what you're saying. I think we all do and I agree like we need to, so this needs to be even just take this clip and send it to Kendra, um, cuz she's a genius at strategy and word mapping it and all the things.

But we need to push marketing online about membership. Mm-hmm. And digital downloads and not events. Our emails can be focused towards events and the other, which she does and then offers products. But um, I think that's right. Using our marketing dollars. Consistently monthly to our offer.

So I wanna go back to classy. Mm-hmm. Um, there is a peer to peer, there's something that we we're gonna talk about during, uh, the retreat, but it just, there was so much that convers, it was during my session that we're gonna just, there is a peer to peer and I, I don't think this is the meeting now. I think it needs to be a training and we can touch on it here, uh, a fundraising page.

And that really needs to be consistent with not just the board, but the volunteers. That if you're a volunteer, you're also a fundraiser. Yeah. Just like throughout the year as, yeah. Conversation. I, I feel like there, there is some missed opportunity with training with the volunteers in that area. And I'll give an example.

This is not donated, but, uh, Let's gather her during February. We had a new girl there that I know makes money. She puts like a lot of money. But, um, anyway, it was me, her, and Dee talking and she goes, how do y'all support all this? How do y'all And Dee goes, oh my gosh, we start with the soccer stadium. I was like, okay.

Like you cannot say that first. Oh my gosh. Cause that man goes, oh, they don't need us. Right? I mean, she didn't say that, but I was like, and also it's really our donors and our sponsors that have allowed us to get where we are. Soccer is an extra, and I was like, if a person is asking, how do you do this as a potential donor, you sucker yeah, you're right.

That's training. That's just, it's training. It's, that's what I'm saying. Opportunity. Yeah. And so I don't know if that's our next vision meeting with the team. Happy hour, like we're having a donor. It's not sharing vision and where we're going next, which is always good because I, that's, I believe that's how the, we've been so successful in keeping such a, a strong.

We had a strong team. Yeah. But now, and, and, and, and training volunteers to give that one liner mm-hmm. Elevator space pitch. Oh. You know, we equip women to be leaders in their community. We equip women to be leaders in their organizations. That's just such a, that's such a hot, that is so hot right now. Yeah.

Um, what I've been saying is we equip women leaders in the ministry and marketplace that they can go make an impact in their own community and businesses. We could even shorten that. Yeah. But it's leader, if you, what the hot button right now is marketplace. And so we have to say that word ministry in the marketplace.

That is the biggest thing. Yeah. Because it's allowing, it's also giving permission to people like, oh, I am a ministry at work. Mm-hmm. Right. And what I do matters. Yeah. The majority of the women there don't work in full-time ministry. Mm-hmm. I, I mean, a lot, a lot of they don't did, but a lot of 'em are actually serving on the team that did.

But yeah. Yeah. Most of the women have regular jobs or they have Yes. Leadership that they're doing own work. Yeah. Yeah. That's huge. So, okay, so you're saying to make that something that everybody knows about the fundraising, the peer to peer, and how did Christie made a PDF that I have that we were supposed to go over at the retreat, which good thing we didn't.

Cause it needs to be really focused of step by step, how do you create your fundraising page and how you use it. Um, and it's a beautiful one page website that each person gets. Oh, that's cool. Let look at that. Yeah. It's very easy and it's one of the reasons we love classy and we're not utilizing it.

Mm-hmm. So I think that needs to be a separate training. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, I don't know how to show you that right now. I was trying to think like how I could, I don't, is there a link or something? I'm trying figure, I'm how

she has some stuff.

Oh, that's a video. Don't wanna watch a video. Oh, actually let's watch a video. That actually might be easier. So instead of me trying to explain it,

okay, I'm gonna share a screen and play this video. Cause I think it explains it better if it's, if it's a video that I think it, you know, I'm, I'm pretty sure.

By setting up program designations within your classy account, you can allow your supporters to choose where they'd like to send donations to. Nope. Whether that be a specific program or even a location to create program designations, click into the main settings tab within your account. That's not it.

Let's see. Me searching. Classy for peer to,

yeah, this is it. Am I still sharing? Crystal? Can you see?

Not playing? Is that a video? No.

Here header. Nope.

That's weird. They wouldn't have a video. They show you the steps. Mm-hmm. But they don't show you a video.

Let's just

like other websites, your campaign header appears at the top.

Don't waste time on this, but um, yeah.

Yeah. And then here, Christie's leaving and be like, oh. And she, now I'd have to explain it. I'm like, now she leaves. Now she's, um, but it's really great.

Yeah. Any other thoughts?

I, so one of the things that I feel like we need to do is con as a board mm-hmm. Is we need to contact those 1 35. Okay. Lynn Cherry shared with me a script that she's on a non-profit board for. Another organization. Mm-hmm. And she said as a board, they sat down with this script and called all the people.

And before that, the executive director went through and went, don't call this person or put notes between each person. Mm-hmm. So that we wouldn't cold call. You'd have something like, oh hey Mary Ellen, I see you sit, donate now you're a box subscriber. Thank you so much and da da da. You'd be able to talk.

She said, with that one time of the board getting together and calling for a couple hours, they raised $85,000. Yeah. That, I think that's excellent idea. 85,000. And of course my mind goes, yeah, but you're also helping people with it. I'm like, yeah. So I can't think that way cause I used to do that and I still do it obviously.

I just thought that, um, cause pe you know, we used to get the question all the time, what kind of women do you have abused? Women are like, but now women in leadership is such a strong thing. I think we have an opportunity. Mm-hmm. So I think our next steps are training the team as a board calling, training the, and training the team on peer to peer and, and then what our roles are out in the community.

Yeah. Um, is what our next steps are because I can take what we learned, like what we decided and just give that to Kendra. We'll con be in consistent conversations with Camille, but our action steps as a board is I think setting a date for a call day and setting a date, 14 happy hour to train on peer to peer and really upleveling that.

Okay. Mm-hmm.

Oh, you made a note about gather her sponsors, gather her business sponsors. Oh. I wanted you to speak to that. Like what, as a, cause you've been a sponsor before, like what the give back for you as and was successful. Cause that's where I feel like. I think what, um, Brittany did this last gather her? Mm-hmm.

Which, I don't know, did you ask her to speak for a little bit? So this is what happened. Tell me. Okay. What had happened was she was a sponsor for the conference. Yeah. And she missed, we bumped up the speed mentor, so she missed it. Okay. Um, and she called, she was like, is there any way? She's like, I missed it.

And I She was a big sponsor. Yeah. And she's like, so how can we make that up? I was like, I don't care. Whatever you wanna do, you know? I'm like, I think she was nervous that you even asked me that. I was like, do whatever you want. Like, it's like, let's do it. What do you want? She's like, well, can I speak out, gather her, and then maybe do a podcast?

Because she gave, she did, she gave a lot. And I was like, yeah. So technically she didn't give together her, she gave a lot to, to the conference. And then because, cuz you know what, Shelby was in charge of the sponsors, but she had to leave early cuz everybody was set. And then after lunch I was like, let's go ahead and mentorship.

Well no one told her. Mm. And she was supposed to speak and I was like, oh, it was just early. Yeah.

Um, but so you were saying that was good. Yeah, I think it's good. The concern that, like Nora mentioned, mentioned, you know, not having several real estate brokerages Yeah. Being highlighted. So I, I think as business owners, you, you're careful. Yeah, sure. I'm sure Brittany's looking to see if there's another chiropractor that has, you know, he didn't that.

Yeah. Okay. I do understand that though, with next networking things, you wanna be the only one. Yeah. But we can't I know, do that as far as I gather her community. Yeah. Like it's, that's cuz we're a ministry and so there's so many business. Yeah. So, but I, but I do understand. I'm just saying that's a concern.

That's a concern, um, to. I don't know. I'm a little biased cause I just want people to Sure. To get involved. It's not really about me, but I do think it's good to have, um, relationships. So like I, I would first go to somebody that I know, like there I gather. Heard. Yeah. That is doing something. Everybody that was a sponsor for the conference is from our community, which is awesome.

Yeah. Like, I would prefer to give to somebody or give my business to somebody that I know and that is a woman that's investing in herself and things like that. So I think, um, as a business sponsor and you're, you're highlighting that you're doing something in the community that, that is beneficial to me whether or not I get a client from that one event or not.

That's why I wanted to know like, what are you looking for? The give back. Yeah. I mean because, cause some people ask that now Brittany didn't ask that. She really, but, but again, she's part of our community. Yeah. She just wanted information there. And here's the thing, because it is community. And people know you, people know Britney from get, they're gonna go to you anyway.

Right. Right. And I think that's where I think the seeds get sewn. You know, the seeds get sewn. It's not, I'm not expecting clients to come out from that one event that I talked clients. Absolutely not. You're expecting it though, because you're in community there already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and it gives you a place to, to invest in other people around you, you know?

Yeah. Um, Nora had mentioned, she was like, I don't wanna step on your toes and be like, yeah. You know, you're the one that has relationships there. I'm like, yeah. I mean, there's so many realtors. Yeah.

Something I'm not going there to speak. So, yeah. So like, I wanna go to, oh, I've mentioned to you, I wanna go to Red Bird that's in the square, Georgetown. And I know that she would be a sponsor of the, I know she would. But what I tell her, she gets out. She gets rid of it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well you Or maybe she'll be like, so go.

I just wanna, yeah. Some people just wanna give, but, but if they're from a practice, say not. We do have like social, social media and newsletter. Mm-hmm. That's what it is. And it goes to these people. So you're seen, but it's not promise that you'll get anything because we can't control what people do. Right.

Remember is, and I was, it's just exposure. Basically it's, they're marketing dollars. Yeah. That's what it's like. That's how they have, that's how sponsors have to look at it is, I'm gonna take my marketing dollars and put it into this at the end of day it's a tax. Right. It's so, it's like that's a benefit.

Yeah. On hold its own. Yeah. Um, and then I was thinking maybe. Um, chambers and there's association, business associations in the different, like small areas around mm-hmm. That we might be able to reach out to. I can see if I can get some kind of in, I don't, I know you usually have to be a member. Yeah. Uhhuh, speak to it.

Is that what you're going on? Speak and see if there's businesses that want to be a part Yes. Women and leadership and see if that's, we talked about this, we need to do that. Yeah. Yes. So maybe in this next quarter, that's what Okay. Gonna be Yeah. To, to get it out into the community. Yeah. Chambers and

Crystal. Anyone else need Yeah, I'm just listening now. I feel like I've given my, um, look up here, um, given your major, given your major point. Yeah. And, and I just think things are gonna turn around looking at us all being involved in the budget. Yeah. Um, strategically with that. Um, I do like what you're saying on the training, like we, we've got to give some clear points.

Yeah. Because I think, I think from being in it for so long, I think you've, we have a lot of volunteers who love the faith and fashion, which is great and it's fun, but that's not a message that resonates to people to give. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. And I just wanna go back to the budget again. Like, we've only had a budget for the last three years.

Honestly, when I look back at, so I'm like, I don't know how we paid her. Like how did we have money to pay it? Like I, we had it obviously, but it was so it was, it was a month to month thing. Yeah. Like, I might not employ you next month. We'll see how it goes. Um, but, but Camille was paying you, so we've been working with her for that long.

Um, cause you had to turn your numbers to her, your hours, I mean, you had to turn your hours to Camil. So it was back then, so when I say there's a budget, like we've only had really had a budget the last mm-hmm. For two years. Like, we're like, oh God, I created one for you a few years ago, but it didn't matter.

It's okay. In fact, I think I still have it. Its in a folder I'll send it to and see what we were, what we were doing, um, for the memberships, the g c and all that. Is that, I'm trying to remember, is that a part of it or is that separate entirely? So I'm glad you brought that out. We did. When I say we, it was like me, Kendra, and Christie talking like, you know, this is the day-to-day step you have to talk about.

Um, we created one membership right now to test it. Mm-hmm. And we, the goal is to do levels. Like if y'all remember our last one tier meeting, we looked the W N P A membership. And so that was the goal. But that is really robust to launch. And so what we wanna say with this membership is tell us what you need and then we'll add levels.

And so dlc yes. Will be a part of a level, but for $25 we didn't feel like it was necessary. Yeah. Um, so Master One Masterclass, Facebook community Digital download the devotional. Um, there's something, one more something. And then at their bonus we had to do it a bonus because it's not everybody doesn't live here.

If you happen to come together, her, you'll get a bundle for free. Yeah. But what that enables us to do is to get people that gather her. Cause I told someone that, I gather her and they were like, really? If you, I'm gonna gather her. You get a bundle of, you get a bundle of raffles for free. Okay. Which is $15 already.

Yeah. Yeah. And so the girl that I told that to always buy, always buys a bundles. Oh. Now she might not come every month Yeah. To gather her. But when she does, she always buys a bundles. When I said that, she goes, Really? Oh. Cause you're only spending $10 more Yeah. To get the membership. That's good. And it's reoccurring and you know it's coming and it's, yeah.

So, um, but we made that bonus because otherwise people that didn't live here be like, well I don't get that. I'm like, right. But if you happen to fly in, you'll get it. But it's extra. It's not the, it's not the value of the Yeah. Of it. Yeah. That's a good, that's a good point

here. Let's look at it.

I think my mom signed up for it. She did. I meant to tell you. She did. She's like, that sounds great.

I love this picture, by the way. It's so cute. Someone did that look like a bunch of white girls? I was like, dang it. Where are all of our people that are, I'm like, like,

I will say everybody does look alike in that picture. I

holding down the floor. That's a lot of pretty white girls in that picture. White girls.

Um, oh God. Ok. Here go. So, oh, I hate what it does that, what is that? It's part of the coding. And So Christie's supposed to fix it? No. Okay. Monthly online masterclass. Quarterly devotional. Oh, the tool kit. I knew there was something really big. Mm-hmm. This is something that Kendra's gonna create every month.

And she was like, that's, and she's so crazy. She's like, this is not hard. She's, I just created 'em all at once for six months. I'm like, okay. But it's, I get this through npa. I get tools for the nonprofit e every year, whether, I mean, every month, whether it's social media all the time, uh, tips and tools for fundraising, different things.

Okay. And so that is the big line. Here's your toolkit for business leadership. Wow. Um, yeah.

So the private Facebook group is only for people that have the membership. Yes. Yes. And if y'all noticed, Facebook has those chats now. So we really need to utilize that. Like where you can do like, you know how Messenger mm-hmm. You can, it's kind of that feature within a Facebook group. Okay. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, that's what it's, so you can have a constant conversation instead of like doing a post and waiting for everybody.

Like it's, it's a constant ding. Which is annoying too. Yeah. But it's.

So it does say we're having a conference. It does wait for we not, well we talked, Hey real. Hey, real quick. I'm still here. I'm just getting something to drink and I'm bringing it with me. Yeah, so let's, cause we only have a few, I didn't think we'd even go till 1230 cause I was like, we're just in the budget.

It's a lot to talk about. What do y'all think about conference? I, I liked it. The fashion show. Um. I wish we could do it a little bit. Yeah. It needs to be more nobody knew what the were. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it wasn't any, I think part of the fashion show should be especially, okay, so one thing is a huge pet peeve of mine.

Women in leadership, I know how to dress good. So we need to be showing them this is what I totally, totally, totally, totally, totally agree. Yeah. Agree. And so the show needs to be somebody getting up there and saying, okay, this season, ladies, this is what business, this is what

for July, gather her. Yeah. Yeah. Because I totally, in July, I can't remember. And even like dressing, dunno how to dress for their body type. Yeah. I mean we could really get into stuff really good. Yeah. Heather, you um, had gone in the other room. I don't know if you heard, I was telling them just. I'm still amazed sometimes working with leaders at an executive level how there's such a lack of leadership.

Um, and the dress is a big one too. Yeah. Not at the exec. Not at the executive level, thank goodness, but yes. Yeah, sometimes. Oh, well, I, my husband comes home from these meetings that he goes to and he's like, these men, you know, they're VPs and, and CEOs and that, and they're sloppy. They're sloppy. Yeah.

Leggings. Leggings are not pants. Leggings are not pants. Thank you. That's right. Anyway, yes, there are things that we, I don't want today, but I, it's Saturday. It's Saturday, a long week, and I know fashion isn't a bit like the main focus. I know we're going leadership, but part of leadership it, well, that's one of our principles.

It, yeah, and well, that will never, I would love to be a part of. I would. I like, I'm super passionate, so as really focusing in on. Was it beneficial? What do we like about it? Do we continue to do this? Because three, two flew in, one drove in from Houston and it was a launchpad for new people to come. I feel like, like, and honestly people came in that have never been a part because of Keynote.

Okay. Like they weren't, yeah. Otherwise they would just come together her. Right. So are you asking should we do, what do we think about Yeah, do we do it again? I think we definitely should do it again. I don't think that you can. I think you need to do it a few times before you go. We we're real. This isn't, yeah.

This is in our lane because this is the first time we do it this way. This way we've done Sal Speaks for year, from 2014 to 2019 is different. Um. Mm-hmm. And this is very specifically, and I'm gonna, if Wil says, let's do it again. We haven't done our debrief. Do it again because their reach in the community is, yeah.

Huge. Yeah. That helps a lot. I think that that's great. I think it's a great one. It's a great partnership. Mm-hmm. But we can always tweak content. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. But I'm, I'm, I'm in agreement with her cause it was very fast paced and it was cute to watch and that, but really stuck out because I had two young girls, and I can't remember the name of the girl that sat right across from me.

We had a lunch thing with her blonde curly hair. Oh. Morgan. Morgan. She was sitting across, the two young girls were sitting across from me and they were like, oh, I can't wait for the fashion show. And then there was nothing. And I was, I was like, sorry, I fell. Did you say sorry? No, no. Oh, ok. Totally inside, I'm thinking.

Yeah, that was, that was not a thing. So it wasn't what they were expecting. It wasn't what they expected. No. I mean we, I've seen the fashion shows that we did ATS and it was. It was longer. It was longer. Longer. We didn't put forward much. You introduced the the, we did. And TA Tammy ran it. And that's the way she's always done her fashion shows.

Yeah. And I, I didn't get involved, but I wish, because one of the things I missed is no one knew the Shelby dress was from us. Mm. I didn't know what anything was. You didn't know what anything. An mc Yeah. And we've always had an mc in a description of it, and ladies, this is what you know Yeah. Has happening this season and you know, and you, it doesn't have to be all business.

You can throw in some fun more weekend or whatever. But what would that take though, to relay that thoroughly? It was just a matter of partnering with the right boutiques. Yeah. And you don't wear big statement earrings and big Yeah. You don't over accessorize. Like No, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah. And you wear an, when you wear animal print, You only wear one piece.

You don't go belt, shoes park. You can tell. So next year, can you charge the fashion co-chair the fashion show? Make sure you're, it's just, I literally can sit and people watch them Georgetown Square and go and I'm not the expert on what to wear, but I see every day in corporate America what not to wear.

What to wear. Yes, yes. It's the whole show about, yeah. So I have, I have parents texting. What time did I, fine. They're down there. So otherwise I wouldn't be looking at my phone. But No, you're fine. And doesn't respond even though he's on the group test. That's funny, I think. But yeah, if you're asking us, should we do the conference again?

Conferences? I think we should. Um, I know the goal was 200. How many? Yeah. Um, but I think we built a, um, and we didn't start early now, like. So we had, I think the RSVPs were like one 20 something, but that included 20 mentors, uh, and volunteers. Mm-hmm. So I think without mentors and volunteers, we've had about 80 ish.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I haven't done the hard numbers yet. Yeah. Um, so yeah, some of the mentors, um, I sent an email like, Hey, um, no, just the final details. I was like, you know, you know, we're asking for them to come, right? Mm-hmm. We're asking them. So I said, you don't have to pay, but we need you to register for food.

And you just kinda like, however, if you would like to donate and be a part of that, you can still, I'll give you a $10 off code. Like they gave the CW family. Yep. And I made that specifically like the CW family, like our volunteers. Um, and some of em did, some of 'em didn't, and some bought rifles and I had one mentor ask for a refund of her ticket that bought, that pissed me off.

I was like, what? Why already bought wine? Then I said, yeah. And she's like, oh, another refund. That would be really helpful. I'm like, oh, oh no. Yeah, I was, it took me 24 hours to respond to her. Right. Heather, I missed that. You kind of mumbled a little bit. I You did. What happened? I said I took 24 hours to, one of the mentors already bought a ticket.

When I sent that email to the group of that, she's asked for a refund cuz she didn't have a free code. Oh. You can make a donation. Especially when I to her before, that's all I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that needs to be a wash. That's a tax write off she could have done. Yeah. Yeah. At that point we've done stuff with her before, like, and this might be my anger, and I'm like, I'm done.

Yeah. Like you spent $85. Yeah. Included lunch, which included, yeah, that's actually, yeah, neither does she, just fyi.

And it'd be different if it was something different. Like they, I knew their situation, but I'm like, I've given to Ben, like we're talking nickel and dimes here. So that's why I was like, that's not even, the conference was 500 and they paid 500. I was like, you know what? All then I, yeah. Oh man. Okay. Well next year if we ask mentors, and we, if we do decide to offer free, like you're free for the conference, but we, you have to pay for your food.

Yeah. Something. So it's $20, it's $20 for you. And that covers the cost of your lunch. Even that like, just I agree with that. I agree with that. Yeah. I mean, my gosh, do you want it for what? Any other thoughts? We've had a really good meeting, but I just wanna make sure I don't cut anybody off. No, you have a lot of changes that have the last, what do you need?

I know that's what I also say what I am. Totally. It's happening in a different, like here's the way I've been praying and I think only Penny was there for the retreat when I get gave my whole like, here's what the Lord's convicted me on. And so since then I've really been praying, and Father, you're the source.

What is the resource and how do you want, what do you want me to do and how, what changes? And so when I got understood the office, which was practical, and I didn't even really get sad about it, I would've, six months ago I was like, oh, we're in a coworking space. Like another office can come up. I don't, we don't need whatever.

Um, You know, and then with Sarah, I just, it was, it was all at once. I thought if I knew we were on the right track with membership and where we're going as far as our purpose, I would question. Cause I used to question things like, am I doing something wrong? Are we doing something? You know? Mm-hmm. But I know we're not doing something wrong.

So it's just a season of pivot. Yeah. Um, and I know Sarah's not going away. Christie though. She, and so I'm like, I love her. I know I love her. I her and, but she, cause I was like, but you gonna still come together?

She might for a little while. She might. And I told her, I was like, uh, I'm gonna make Gina or Kendra pick you up cause they all live in huddle. She was like, okay. Yeah. And she does, she loves it. She's like, I love being here. I've learned so much and I've just, you know, she's really coming to, it's, I think it's been beneficial for her.

Yeah. Um, Which happens all the time. You see women come in. That's, um, so yes, it's been a little bit of a, you know, it hasn't been hard. Like, I'm sad. It's just been a lot because it was conference and then Sarah and then Christie, and then office, and then Hadley had her play Wednesday, Thursday, Friday night, and then, so it's just been a lot of, okay, now I'm doing this Uhhuh.

But then after today, well after this weekend, cause I gotta go, I'm either gonna the office today or tomorrow to finish packing up. Mm-hmm. So then, then I'm like, okay, I feel like at least the big things are over and I can, yeah. Yeah. So you're bringing all that stuff here to your house? I'm doing a lot of it.

So I sold the shelves. Mm-hmm. The bar, little white bar Tammy took to her location. Cause I was like, okay. Yeah. I want it back. I get it back. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, Wilco's taking the table like this. Mm-hmm. To put it in a meeting room or when we want it back. Mm-hmm. So that was my biggest thing. That table is nice and I didn't wanna put it here.

Um, and so they said they would put it in a new, in a meeting room, uh, which I'm happy with. Plus it should that we're staying and keeps partnership. Um, and then those black tables that I don't know, that had, that had black table cost, which you didn't say they were black tables. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They're from container store and they can pop off.

I'm bringing those home cause those are good. And then everything else is in drawers. Like all the merchandise, everything has been really well organized. So everything drawers. So gather her stuff is in a tote and they said they would hold it there. Yeah, because one, don't rely on, like, I probably won't be there in May.

We're vacation. Yeah. And there's no reason. And I used to have a lot of stuff we're going, I remember, yeah. But we were setting up everything there were and now they're set up. Now they're doing, and our signage just like, I don't know, even, even what we used to have, what we had these huge tote that we used.

Lot of the signs and sign. I mean like, yeah. So then where are we gonna do the after party? So every, mm-hmm. Um, so two, there's two ideas. Well, one for sure. What I do is I get, we get credits every month to rent for free one of the conference rooms. So always use that for ourselves so that we can sit and get stuff ready.

Like even last Thursday, I'm doing swag bags, like, yeah, we have to rent those rooms every Thursday night. Then for after party, since it's not our office, I dunno if they're gonna allow us to train me. Like finish the, not such a big no was a drink, but that has become part of our party. Red Horn and Crossover.

Say done until 10. Oh cool. So we're just gonna go, everybody's red because everybody's gone pretty by nine. We had a couple. We always have a couple. And we're just gonna say it's over y'all. Do you want us at Red Horn? Yeah. That's a great idea. Yeah. And then you don't have to move your car. Yeah, we can.

Yeah, but you don't have to. Or we can just train everybody to park at Red Horn. Take parking and walk over. Gather. So all walk to Red Horn together, park there. Either way. Here's the thing, I don't want to get in the car, like be like go and go home. I know, like, cause I really love those after parties. Yeah.

But I think this team does too, so I think I'll be okay. It's really good. But Red Horn crossover, you have to drive. But I hear that's it mean it's still in the same parking lot. They have a nice restaurant. Uh, area 10. Yeah. So conference room that we rent for all of our stuff and just set up and whatever, and then after party.

Okay. And I'll buy the first round in nachos or something. Have, oh, did you need to? We've been getting like a food tray and stuff like that for the volunteers, making sure they're fed. Yeah. Um, but this way we just, which we could still and do it in that room, but yeah. Anyway, logistics. But it's, it'll be fine.

Yeah. Well, crystal, any last words before we sign off?

Yeah, she's still there, but she's muted. Yes. Couldn't get to it. My hand wouldn't get to it fast enough. No, this was a, this was a good meeting. Very good. Yeah. And it's interesting and I just wanna say like the past two years we've.

We're, it's been the last six months. We're like, holy crap, what happened? Um, like even her first year Camil was like, that's when she got concerned about the, she's like, I didn't make, she got concerned the IRS stuff. Oh yeah. She's like,

um, and then, but you know, because of the surplus, we were able to hire and move faster and get a space and we've been able to do things. And so that surplus has started diminishing and then it just took a hit in November, December. Yeah. So what's your standup budget is not where we've been for two years, uh, at all.

Otherwise we'd never be where we are right now. Right. Um, so yeah. Mm-hmm. But not so me and last year. And it's just like, yeah. Yeah. All right. So when are we going do the, Yes. So, huh, we need to come up. Yeah. Um, let's, I'll do an email cause I feel like if we get our calendar right now, hams not here. Yeah.

I'll of those like things. Um, so do that and then I need to see when the next happy hour is. Um, cause I don't wanna schedule a new one. I think the next happy hour is like, be July and I think that's fine. Yeah. If we do our part with corporates and really reaching out you and I to maybe Yeah. You and talk about last time community engagement.

That's where you want it. Yeah. And I can meet up with you at the office and we can Yeah. We don't have office cafe at the cafe. Yes. Let's do that. Let's skip something on that. Sure. We just all, as the board meeting proactive. Kendra of course will be proactive with marketing. Um, and then I got peer to peer and it really not Yeah.

Peer to peer and phone calls. She's like, that's it. That's always weird. How much long? I'm excited about the phone calls. Good. I love it. Cause I hate it. I tried a couple and I was like, I've never done this. No, I'm not excited. And I, it's weird. I do it too. It's not, depends on who it's, yeah. Not excited about actually doing the phone calls.

I'm excited about is the results. Yes. Yeah. And that's,

I hated doing it. We're pastoring. Yeah. You know, follow up calls and stuff like that. All right, crystal, thanks for joining us. You wanna see all right. Okay. All right, y'all have a good day. Okay, you too. Bye. Bye.