Calvin Higgins: And welcome back to Choice Men everybody. And I am realizing now that I have the can opening sound in preview and not live so nobody heard that. So let me give you the can open again. Oh yeah, that's perfect. Anyways, thank you guys for tuning in to episode 55. Sam, how you doing? I'm doing good. Good. Doing fantastic. Just about the same as I was during the episode we just filmed. However, the weather is different. It is now sunny and beautiful outside. Yes, pretty spectacular. Nice blue skies. It's a great day to be alive. Travis Tritt. Love that game. So we are, we're back with another episode and this episode is going to be another debrief episode but about the fundraising fees. Now part of the problem with this is that this is coming out on a Wednesday and this was last week but it was also yesterday so think about that. And it really shouldn't be, we'd love to have released this one today but we had another episode we needed to re-record and to be able to re-post and... The whole thing just doesn't work. I had a kid, pretty nonchalant about that, just whatever. Shameless plug. Yeah, shameless plug, had a baby. Shout out to Dallas Ray, I love you little girl. And so we're here. We're gonna talk about it. Now, quick disclaimer. Maybe Sam wants to make the disclaimer himself, so you go ahead, you make the disclaimer. There is no opening Bible verse for this episode. I'll try to find one. We could use the same one as last time actually, you know what? Sure, 1 Corinthians 10, 31. Yeah. So whatever you do, do to the glory of God. Yeah. Now, that was not the disclaimer I was thinking Sam was going to make. I think the disclaimer I was thinking was that Sam was only there for how many minutes? Maybe 10. Maybe 10. Were you there till the end? No. Okay. No. Yeah. He dropped in. I happened to be there the whole evening. I did not actually get to hear everything. I was doing some work for the event, which I'm sure we'll cover. But that's the big disclaimer is that I was there. He's more than kind of, but then he might have comments to make based off of the crap that I say. So, let's get into it. Yeah, okay. So first off, off the bat, how'd you think the overall thing went of the night? Yeah, overall thing I think went great. ⁓ There were some changes this year. changes were, we only had high school students there. ⁓ So Opus Dei is the only group that performed. and they also served the meal or helped plate food or whatever. So there were no young kids there. which that was a long discussion about if that was gonna happen or not. I was a part of a couple of those discussions, not fully, like I was not a decision-making person, but I gave my input on that and I think that went great. Actually, I think the people that normally have to be serving, like serving by helping the little kids and stuff like that. They were able to be fully there, focused on the event, and most of those are our teachers, are our people, and it's really good to get them an event, a night where they can actually just fully partake in what we're doing. And not worry about the young kids. Right, and I think that that, ⁓ I think that was great. And yeah, did we miss the little kids? Sure, and also, this is the thing, you don't actually need everybody at every event. Right. And it is... You know, there's things like, how do we showcase our students? Well, the thing is, we have an information night and also we still want to showcase a little bit of what people are getting at the school at the fundraising feast. But it's different. It's a different event. And I think we did it differently this year and I thought it was good. Jim Martin ⁓ announced his, well, my dad announced for Jim his retirement. He is resigning from the school board, not because he ⁓ was asked to. but because he needs to. So Jim has had some health problems and he is, it is in order for his elder duties, you know, think that's part of it is that he wants to be able to be fully focused on those kinds of things. It's good, it's a good break for his brain because he was running a lot of the numbers and his brain is really tired. And so he wants to be able to connect with people more on a personal level, but he's not going to be on the school board anymore. And he was honored last night, lots of clapping, lots of cheering, and the board gave him a big gift. So ⁓ that was great. And Carl Day-Armond, who's a school parent, he is going to be the new school board member. And so he spoke last night. So my dad talked for about five minutes, and it was just about gym, and did not go back up on stage. My dad has talked every year, literally every year. And so that's a change of pace. That's different. And I think... ⁓ Carl actually is really funny. He was making some comments about reddit tournament people who have spoken there and he was like, and another Higgins and another Higgins. He's like, what is the deal with all these Higgins? And that is, it is funny. Like we have ended up in a lot of those positions and also like if you hate us for that, then get on their level, chill the heck out and also like relax. Like, you're gonna be okay. And also, yeah, my dad doesn't wanna be talking as much either. it was so funny, as Carl was saying, he was like, yeah, I mean, I was at the board meeting, he's like, I didn't have any voting power, which is funny, he was making some really good jokes to get anybody, he was like, I didn't have any voting power, we were at the meeting, and they asked me, you know, if I, they were talking about like, who's gonna talk at the thing? And they were like, hey, what if this guy talks? And he was like, ⁓ what? Is this like a hazing ritual or something? Because he was not expecting that he was going to be able to get up and talk in front of people. But he did a great job. It was really good. It was good to see a different perspective because again, he is not a founder. All the board members, including Jim, were founders. And so he is joining a board that is built up of founders. So that is a big step for the school because it's a very different ⁓ That's the first of its kind. So that is, that's really cool. Well, it's good to have, cause the Dairamans came in later. So it's good to have a person even who's outside the community, now in the community, but was outside the community, at least our community, and is now like still excited and like has his own ideas of how he can help and how he can improve things and even just running, helping run the board and all that. So yeah. Yeah. it's, it's exactly, it's a different perspective. ⁓ and there's a little more energy behind it because the founders are tired because the founders, lots of them are also elders or deacons at the church. Right. And so I'm doing a lot of stuff and also they're still excited about it. Like, it's not, you know, Jim is not excited that he needs to be done and the board is not excited that he needs to be done. And also the board is totally excited to help Jim do the thing that's gonna help his health, right? And so there are, it's like totally a loss and also totally a gain that we have changed the board up. Totally a loss of Jim and totally a gain. of Mr. Dayarman. So that's fantastic. And he was like, you can tell he was stoked about it. he doesn't always, Mr. Dayarman kind of gives the same vibe about everything, but you can still kind of tell when he's a little more excited about something. He was definitely excited last night. So that was, that was good. Like I shook his hand. said, Hey, congratulations. This was really cool. And he was like, yeah, you know, so was, that was cool. If you guys have never had the chance to meet Carl Dayarman, you should totally. take that chance at some point because he's a fun dude. Yeah, he's great. ⁓ So again, that's a big step for the school. ⁓ Again, so first non-founder board member. this was our first. So the other thing is, Karl was actually not the first choice to speak at the event. Jonathan had tried to get in contact with ⁓ an administrator at another school in Eastern Washington. I'm not actually sure if we're allowed to say who that is, but that's cool. We have been connected to for a couple different things and that guy was just unavailable. So Carl was the second choice, but Carl did a great job and I actually think it was great that we had him speak instead of having another person, but we were trying to do some different stuff this year. Now, the one thing, so I think again, overall they did great. Opus Dei sang good, but... and Anna Olson did a good job speaking, but the main point was not, which I kind of liked. In years past, it's kind of felt like the main point was to show the students. And I think that the main point of the fundraising feast, which is the thing that we're talking about, is the people. But it's also the people's money that is, and you can't actually get away from that. Right. It's a fundraising It's a fundraising feast. can't be shy about the people. And we're not shy about the fact that it is that we are asking for money, but we are. We do a lot of, which I think is fine, we do a lot of, again, this is all about the people. The people are the thing that makes the school. But you know what is making the fact that we have people work is the fact that we can pay those people. But we need to be making more money to be able to do those other things. So we had a specific thing which was scholarships, to be able to help families who can't afford the school at the full cost. Okay, great. But, and again, our goal was 100K. So I had been at some conversations with Jonathan kind of about, what do I, what did I think about the fundraiser phase? Like what could we do? Not a debrief, but a pre-brief about what are some things we could offer? And I still have my biggest sticking point currently. I think this is a thing that I might think differently about than other people. It is good to know as a person that's going to school how far your dollar goes at school. But what I think people need to know is how far your dollar is going to go in three years. Five years, 10 years, and 13 years. And 13 years specifically is from K to 12. Because it's great that we're making 100K a night. And I don't actually know how much we raised last night. I'm sure that will be announced soon. ⁓ but There is really no... We've basically been at 100, like tried to be around 100, and we've gone a little over, got a little below before, but like we're generally at about 100 almost every year we've had this. But the school, we're trying to grow the school, meaning we actually need to grow the fundraising that we're making. So just as an example, they're not a cult. Everybody calm down. Logos School in Moscow, Idaho. They do a fundraising auction. then now, the thing is, obviously, chronologically, they've just been around longer. So they've got some more people, they've got some more dollars. But they also have some more established businesses there who know, and this is part of the thing that we're working on at this school, is trying to figure out, okay, where are these people that have to give money? Like, their businesses have to give money, but they're looking for good place to put it. Well, you gotta get in the door with those people, so you need somebody to able to do that. Patron. Yeah, I mean, you need a PR person for the school, essentially. And so, I mean, this is part of what I've been working on at the school, like, while I've been there. I'm not getting paid right now, but I am working on trying to make that position with the school of a development director, where they bring in more dollars, whether that's for more students who are paying more tuition, or it's from bigger donors, or even helping the donors that are already giving us money. finding out what they're unsure about, because people don't give money when they're unsure. So what are you unsure about? What would you want to see to give more money to? And then also finding very specific things to ask people to give money towards. So like having a gym grant. So the money that goes into this gym fund is only used on the gym fund, but then you go find a business, you're like, hey, would you give $5,000 this year to just fund our gym equipment and stuff like that? rather than, would you give us five grand? Right. You know, because that, and this is the thing, this is why we ask for specific things at the fundraising feast, because people like to know, you know, where the money's going and that's good. Right. But I want people to know in five years, here's what your five grand tonight looks like in five years. Here's what that investment gets you at the school. And this is the thing, we don't have those numbers. We don't actually have those numbers. We need to have those numbers. In 13 years, Here's how much we want you to be giving in the next five years. So then you get it in the mindset of people where it's not, ⁓ it's the fundraising fees next week. How much money can we give, Five grand, okay, great. I want it to be where you in the whole year, you've had this as a budget line item, and let's say you get a raise and you could throw another 5K on there because you are like, well, I need to put this money into the generosity, who do want to give this to? Instead of it being like the afterthought, it's very much a forethought of, can we give this money into the school fund? So then it's like maybe instead of five, you give 10. So if we have everybody on X percentage increase per year of giving, if we started this year raising 100, in five years, we should be raising 330 or whatever the percentage works out to where each giving unit, so like each couple basically, Your percentage increase, if you give a thousand this year, in three years we'd like you to give, we'd like you to be able, as you're working hard, because this is the thing, we want people who are working in the community to be able to give back. So you're working really hard, you're getting raises, we want that also to potentially be able to be reflected in your giving. If you're so inclined. But then that's the goal is like, hey, if we're trying to raise, if we're trying to, so here's the thing. Harvard, just as this is like the ridiculous example, Harvard has an endowment of $56.9 billion. It kicks off $2.3 billion a year in interest. Okay, that's absurd. We don't need $56.9 billion. We don't even need a $100 million endowment. Probably between $15 to $30 million of an endowment for the school would be fantastic. Now, an endowment is made up of grants, and you can have grants for various numbers of things. So, you could have... So, like for Harvard, they could have a $2 billion grant for their athletics, right? And then any money is probably bigger than that, but like let's say it's $2 billion. You can only then spend $2 billion because you can only spend from that endowment on that thing. You can't pull from the science one and put that also into the athletics because you're then kind of stealing from those people because that's not what they signed up for. Because mean, Harvard is backed by both the government and billionaires and millionaires who are donating lots of money per year to them because also it's a tax write-off for them. those really, and this is the thing, we're trying to get As we want people to continue growing their businesses and working really hard, as you're making more money, we're also actually, that is a help to them. If you can write that off as a tax write-off, if your tax write-off could be bigger, well, we'd love to help you with that. And that sounds cheap, but like, well, how else do you make more money? How else does the school bring more money? Well, you need people to be making more money. So we are supporting the people who are trying to make more money and We want them to be able to give back more. So again, if we landed at a 15 to 30 million, even 5 million, like if we just could get to 5 million, but then it's like, when can we get to $5 million of an endowment? This means we need this percentage increase over the next 10 years worth of giving at the fundraising feast. But people need to see those numbers so they can start planning. In 10 years, I need to be able to give 10 grand at the fundraising feast. I'm only giving 500. I got some work to do. If you start getting people to buy in like that into the long term, okay, they're trying to get to like a $5 million little nugget here. What can I add to that? And at what percentage do I need to be growing my giving over the next couple of years? That's what we need to be able to give people. It's great to know how far your dollar is gonna go the next year, but we're planning on having the event again next year and the year after that. So like we need you to know. in the future also what we're kind of hoping for. We really shouldn't be hoping for 100K a year. We should be hoping for 200K in three years and then 500K in five years, right? That growth and then being able to kick interest off of that. then it really is, it's a funny system, but we, I think the night is great and totally not pointed enough towards the future. You're gonna, if you have a kindergartner right now, again, this is like that percentage thing. Okay, in 13 years when your kid is graduating, here's how much money the school would like to have in this thing. So over your 13 years, you gotta be giving this much more. So giving some people some graphs and some charts to look at that, but like, this is part of the thing, like knowing your tools. So like, when I can get that data and I can run that through an AI who is trained on the financial things, it can give me some pretty good, like I've already done this, I gave it some vague scenarios and then said, okay, show me different percentage increases of people's giving and what that gets us in 13 years. And show them to me side by side. That would take me to do that all time. Well, my AI, it can do that really quickly. ⁓ And it can give me very, very minute iterations and little details about what that looks like. So anyways, it's a cool, It's a cool night. I think it's good. And there's talk, there's a lot of talk, there's always talk every year about, you know, should we do an auction? Should we do, should we change, should we change it up? And we changed it up this year. We changed up the venue. We had it at the Mule Palace. This is where me and Basie got married. It's a great place. I think it's a better place to have it than the farm. I do. The building acoustics are a little better. I mean, the farm also is very pretty, but like. What's ironic is the venue where you actually have people in is, I think, the ugliest part of the farm, like in general, of the land, because you can't really see it. You see the parking lot. When it gets dark and you can't see out the open spot, anyway. Yeah. And if you're not down there, then you can't see out into the grassy stuff. You have to go walk around. At the Mule Palace, as long as you can see out the door, you can see a bunch of kind of the little valley area. It's really pretty. Would you have it there again? Or would you have it somewhere else? Yeah, I'd have it there again. I think... The property is laid out pretty well for a lot of things. The only... So the thing that I actually really did work on this year was valet parking. So we wanted to see if we could have valet parking. And we did. Was that the only thing you were in charge of the whole night? That was the only thing I was in charge of, yeah. I think we had 16 cars that trusted us enough to valet park them. Part of the problem is, I already have ideas of how to make it way better. It didn't work very well. And part of the thing is, at the beginning of the day, before everybody's getting there, all the people who are hosting tables, which I think is fine, I it's great that we have other people host tables rather than they're all set exactly the same, when you have people hosting tables, you have people who need to drop stuff off. And when you have people that need to drop stuff off, they all pull up right to the door. But the problem is, then you do have some people who are showing up a little early, who if we could have the valet parking for them, that'd be great. But you actually need them to pull right up next to the door. but I need all the people who are hosting their tables who are running behind to get their cars out of the way, but they still have stuff in their cars. So the ideal property, and we've talked about this in terms of my ideas. ⁓ The ideal property, you have two entrances. You have an entrance for basically delivery vehicles, which is, and if you're hosting an event like this, this would be those people who are hosting tables and cooking and doing things like that. And this is the, you have a chef's kitchen. The chef's kitchen usually on like a nicer house is connected to a different part of the property that your guests don't ever go to because it's behind your house or it's to the side of your house and it's blocked off with hedges and you can't see it and there's a big door that all those people can go through that your guests don't go through. And then you have the front driveway where everybody else comes through. That is ideal. Now, we're not quite there yet. And also, This is my first time ever trying to run a valet parking thing. I already have things that I know we can do better next year, but it's tricky at that property. And I forgot, we had had that field cut double deep for our wedding. So we had double parked cars at our wedding. Oh yeah. Because I was like, man, this is filling up really fast. What is going on? And we only had like 185 people there, so was probably give or take. you know, a hundred-ish cars, maybe a little more, ⁓ a little more, a little less, give or take, about a hundred. I was like, what is going on? We have like 400 people at our wedding. How is this possible? Because we double parked the cars. Wet weather will suck up the grass. Yeah. Not gonna be able to do double deep. No, because, yeah, it was, so that's fine, but. couldn't really see how many cars that was when I was out there looking at where we're gonna park people. So there was just, there are some challenges, but I think we could get away with some things next year if we tried a couple different things with the parking. So my gears are already turning for next year about how we could do valet parking and do it better and have a little bit of better system. Cause like I was doing raffle tickets that I had actually just drawn numbers on. So it'd be easier to see than like having to read the last little numbers on whatever. So I just drew numbers on there. And I 16 people, wasn't really hard to forget whose keys they were. Pretty unique. And- Volkswagens and all on a walk-in scene. Yeah. mean, we all have Toyota Siennas, but there is the question of like- what is easier for the keys. Is there a system that's better? Of course there's a system that's better somewhere. I made that board last, like the night before, in my parents' garage. I'm putting the pegboard on, making the stuff. The zip ties for hooks, by the way, that worked really well and that was way cheaper than having metal hooks, Okay, everybody, sorry about that. had a technical difficulty, phone died. We're gonna try to go quickly here because we're dealing with very little percentage right now. So we're just gonna pick up where we think we kind of left off. So Sam has another question. Yeah, so I mean, you kind of touched on a little bit. So you were in charge of a valid part game. You thought it went well, but you have ideas for how it could be improved. That's great. ⁓ kind of like how did, how did it kind of, how did you feel it all went with participation of people with participation of the guys that were helping you do the parking? Yeah. It was awesome. had alumni men who were very excited to help with the valet parking. That was fantastic. ⁓ I mean, I think some of the problems with valet parking is they thought it was more fun than like. We're actually trying to do this. And part of the problem is the system wasn't good enough, for them to really know what needed to happen. So that's okay. There's things we could change for next year for that, but they did a great job. They had good attitudes. So they were pleasant. I liked seeing the secondary kids helping with the serving. They looked like they were having good attitudes. They were doing good. So yeah, I it great. I guess we touched a little bit on this question as well, but like what was beneficial for- the parents or the adults that were there. Yeah, at least you caught because you weren't there for all of the speeches or anything. But yeah, I mean, I think it was beneficial for them to see one Carl talk as a new board member. think that is beneficial to see like, ⁓ right. Things can change things. Things can be different. Because if you're a person who's like, I don't like that we have the same people doing all the same stuff. Well, bam, there you go. New person. Right. Do new stuff. And so I think that's like kind of revitalizing. little bit of fresh air. You know, I think for the, think the best thing for like our people is that they didn't have to help with anything. Basically we have people who are cooking, who are always like Mike Moore always is helping with cooking. Um, and like, you know, Emerson and Mr. Giddings, like they, they were cooking steaks. So it's like, you have to have some people who can't, you know, participate all the time, but, um, for the most part, not having all of our teachers have to help wrangle kids is great. So I think that. think overall the night was probably refreshing for a lot of people. What was beneficial for the students particularly? Yeah, I think... ⁓ think it might be the same every year for them. I don't actually know, like, Basin says it's one of her favorite nights of the year. I, as a student, when I was speaking, like, when I got to speak, it was great. I am now looking at it way more like, I mean, it is fun, it's a fun night to be with everybody. And yeah, it's more exciting than the information night. When you're somewhere else, it's fine. You're having dinner. But it's not really like... I think it's hard for students to kind of get behind it, like, this is a great night, because they don't really get to listen to everything. I think if students got to listen to that, they might even start thinking like, ooh, I want to be able to give money to that. So like, I was just doing that, I like, I'm peeking in, here's some things. And I got to hear debrief conversations about it at my house. So I've had a little bit of a running start into feeling like I wanted to participate and give. get towards it, yeah, I mean, I don't know how many kids are like, can't believe we got to be there tonight. That was awesome. I a lot of them are like, whoa, we got to be there. So I'm not sure how impactful it is for the students. think. some of that could be their fault. But I think for the information, I think for fundraising feast, if you're a student, you really have to work to get something out of it. I think if you're a parent or a teacher, you don't. I mean, my perspective from nights that I've actually been a student at the fundraising feast, for me was, at least most beneficial was kind of the, I mean, you're there. Not because you're getting something out of it, but we missed you. mean, yeah, okay. That's right. Because I was in secondary, it was a time of, okay, you are serving people. Yeah, that's actually true. I do think that is valuable. I do think the kids like that. I do think it's good to learn how to serve the people and do that. Well, that's true. I always found it funny. Like all the guys, our years of secondary were plate servers. So the women would put the food on the plate and we would be the ones go bring out the tables. Yeah. And I would like every time we were going out, we're just like, right. Let's go, let's do this boys, we are elite. We got this. I mean, most of the time I think it was working out decently, but obviously you're students, you're not gonna be refined restaurant servers. There's always that spot in the boys' mind if you're taking it seriously as a student thinking like, yeah, I could be a restaurant server. I got the professionalism to do this. Yeah, it's good. It's good hospitality practice for students. ⁓ What was your favorite part of the night? What is kind funny is I think the end of the night when it actually really wasn't raining when people were getting there, the people who got valet parking really appreciated it at the end of the night. It was dumping. It was actually hard to drive ⁓ around because it was really dark out there. ⁓ It was dumping. And we had our guys running around getting people's cars. That was kind of fun to be like, people didn't get valet parking. Probably wish I got my light parking now. So that was kind of fun. But I think my favorite part was that Carl got to talk and he did a really good job. ⁓ And he seems really excited about it. I mean, he was saying that that's the easiest yes he thinks he's ever made in his life, was saying yes to being on school board. That's awesome. Not his marriage. Well, he didn't say yes. He asked her, hopefully. ⁓ yeah. I mean, you do say I do. That is true. But you kind of already said the yes. It's a yes. Yeah. You like mentally prepared for that yes a lot. You've said that yes in various ways before. would you marry me is you also saying yes. Hopefully you don't get there and be like, do I? I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, good for him. That is the easiest yes. Yeah. Yeah. Any parting shots? Or wrapping them, I guess. ⁓ Yeah, keep thinking about how you can grow your finances in order to help other people financially. Meaning, and like in this instance, how to help school. So if you can keep trying to save money to be able to give more and more each year, that'd be awesome. So keep doing that. Heart of generosity. Yeah. Fantastic. So I dad advice ⁓ is Sam give me some dad advice man please I need it. instill in your kids a heart of generosity not a heart of... well I mean because there is a way they receive generously in a sense but it's much different. Yeah. And it's mostly just trying to stay not selfish with an understanding that people who are giving you gifts are for the most part like excited to bless you and are like happy to give you this gift, whether it's like birthday gift or just some random gift that they're like, well, this would make his day. But instill in your heart, your kid's heart, and maybe even in your own heart, just to help your kid along with a heart of generosity and of giving. It shouldn't be too hard, because I know you're a guy who likes to give. Yeah. I'll get right on that. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Thank you. You're a dad of us. Guys, this guy's ready to be a dad, but also... not ready to be a dad in other ways. there you go. That's that. Well, if you did it again so the like it's right falls on youtube falls to follow my face book page and it does not like the best place we need to get a a figure it out some point but thank you guys very much and ⁓ kitchen at seven choice man sign-off