Creating a Corporate Culture of Philanthropy

Civic Warriors Podcast Episode 8: Creating a Corporate Culture of Philanthropy

“You have to follow your passion. Follow your relationships.”

In this episode, Bill Hagaman, Managing Partner and CEO of Withum, shares how his philanthropic journey has empowered Withum’s team members to give back to their communities.

Listen in as Withum’s Brad Caruso and Matt Mojica chat with Bill on what fuels his desire to give back and what he’s doing at Withum to create a culture of philanthropy. The conversation also explores why giving to charities is not always about dollars and how board involvement can grow organizations and sharpen leadership skills. From Bill’s perspective, it’s all part of The Withum Way.

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Civic Warriors :
Innovative, dynamic, gritty, determined, warrior.

Hosts:
This podcast is about the innovators, the leaders on the front lines of adversity, the all around good people doing good deeds. They are the civic warriors of the world. Our guests are the leaders in the nonprofit industry affecting change. They try, they fail, they overcome. Through their stories we can join forces to become civic warriors.

Brad:
Hey Warriors welcome to the show. Withum’s Guest of today’s episode of Civic Warriors is our very own managing partner and CEO, Bill Hagaman. We also have a very special guest from our not-for-profit team, Matt Mojica. We are going to cover how Bill and Withum created a culture of corporate philanthropy and how helping charitable organizations isn’t always about giving money. Giving back to the community can come in many forms and it’s about helping others, being a leader and making a difference. Welcome to the show Bill. And let’s get right into it.

Brad:
So thanks for being with us, Bill.

Bill:
Happy to be here.

Brad:
There we go. Um, so I think we want to just start off you know, I’ll give a little bit background. I’ve been here for 14 years. Bill was the initial one that hired me. I still to this day, don’t know why. But I was an intern. And the one thing I always just remember from, just the first couple of years of just, you know, watching a leader, lead you is every morning at 7:30am in the morning, Bill would walk around with his coffee in his hand and would just say hello to every employee no matter what. He was always there. He was always present. And was, just very open to just talking, even though I was just an intern or a staff at that, point of just making you feel, that you were part of something that you were part of something bigger. At that time I believe we were about 300 employees. Now Withum is about 1100 plus employees. Uh, we just moved over to California and have a big presence, in both the not-for-profit space as well as many other industries. And you know, Bill has been the leader that has driven us to there. And with all those responsibilities you know, the one thing that I think we’re all impressed with is that you’re very involved in many different organizations and not just charitable, but many different community based organizations and very active in our communities that we serve in. So, just wanting to share that and you know, kick the ball off. So I guess Bill, what was the first charity you ever served with – go back a little bit.

Bill:
So the, the, the story is I passed the CPA exam in 1980 and back then when you pass CPA exam, we were about 15 people at the time. Fred Withum, who was one of our founders and was managing partner would take you out to lunch. And Fred handed me a check for $500 to congratulate me for passing the CPA exam and now says, what are you gonna do with your time? And, um, recommended that I get involved in the community. So I joined the Toms river JCC and it was a small group of – and JCC stands for Junior Chamber of Commerce – and it was a small group of folks that got together once a month. And you know, we didn’t do a whole lot in the way of charity. It was more of a, you know, guys getting together and you know, talking and going out drinking afterwards. But I learned a lot, really learned a lot about organizational structure, budgeting, um, you know, how to behave in meetings, those types of things. And we did, we did benefit some of the local charities which I can’t recall at the moment. Uh, so there was some cool things to do, but that was my, that was my first.

Matt:
What drew you to that organization originally?

Bill:
Excuse me?

Matt:
What drew you to that organization originally?

Bill:
I was just looking for something local. I was living in Toms river at the time. I was working in Milltown, which is about an hour away. And I was looking for, I was looking for something to do and then you know, where I could, where I could meet some people my own age. And it was mostly folks my own age. So it was, it was good for good for many, many, many years. Today, you know, just to kind of continue on that theme, over the years I’ve been involved with theater organizations. I spent a lot of time with the George Street Playhouse in Downtown New Brunswick. I’m still on that board. I chaired it for six years. Um, I spent some time with the umbrella organization which is the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center. And there we have built a whole new community, a whole new theater there, which has really impacted the community from an economic perspective. Um, and I’ve learned through that that arts can really be an economic driver for any downtown. Um, I’ve also been involved with, treasurer for maybe the last 20 years with the Hyacinth and where it foundation and in Hyacinth, we help folks that are infected or affected by the HIV virus. Um, so there we’re in some really local communities, tough communities like Patterson and Newark and Trenton and helping folks that have the the disease, but also get involved with some controversial things like needle exchange, which has really had a huge impact on that whole community. And currently the one I probably spend the most time with is, uh, the Parker Memorial Home where I’m chairman of the board now. And that’s an organization that works with elderly. One of things I’m really proud of there is we’re trying to spend more time, you know, helping those folks that are in the donut hole. Uh, those folks that make too much to qualify for Medicaid yet they’ll make enough to be able to pay for their own nursing home. Um, and that’s at a nursing home level.

Brad:
I imagine that can be a significant gap, right? From a perspective of how expensive elder care is.

Bill:
That’s correct. I mean, you know, your typical nursing home costs around 10 grand. You know, if you make more than, you know, $2,500 a month, between pension and social security, then you don’t qualify for Medicaid. Um, if you have more than $7,000 of assets, you don’t qualify for Medicaid. Um, so there’s a whole bunch of folks that, you know, make $2,501 and that, that’s about the, number —

Brad:
I mean, if you make, if you make anything over and above social security, I’m sure you’re over the $2,500.

Bill:
It’s hard. Right? And you know, so it is definitely, it definitely has an impact for a lot of people. And you know, many folks are, you know, uh, many folks are needing nursing homes later on in life. I think our average age of someone entering is about 83, 84. Uh, so it’s much older than, than you would expect. And they only stay for about two years. Um, so, uh, but, but you know, to be able to care for those folks at that age, at that time and be able to provide some relief to the families I think is important, especially as our population continues to age and through advances in medical science and that type of thing, continues to be older. So, you know, last longer so to speak. So.

Brad:
And what, drew you to an organization like that?

Bill:
Well, there it was the people, you know, it’s all the relationships. Um, you know, there I knew some folks that were on the board. They were looking for somebody with a different perspective. A lot of those board members are, uh, Johnson and Johnson people, Johnson and Johnson employees. So it had a J&J impact of the organization. And they were looking to get about half, half the board to be non J&J people. So they asked me to be one of those, you know, and I know they liked me enough to ask me to be chair and it’s a substantial group. And I’m really, really proud of some of the changes we’ve made there to kind of be more focused on the elder community more first focused on the diversity and inclusion. Um, so those are the kinds of things that we’re trying to do there.

Brad:
That’s good stuff. Yeah, that’s exciting. So you’re, so right now, you’re actively involved in, sounds like three plus where you’re actively —

Bill:
Probably on four or five boards if you throw in our HLB International, which is, which is a professional organization for our Firm. There I’m on, I’m on the board and I’m on their executive committee and vice chair. So it’s probably five active boards right now. Um, so it takes a little bit of time and effort and you know, I’m more active in some than others. You know, the folks at Hyacinth, for instance, where I’ve been a board member for 20 years, you know, don’t expect me to come to board meetings anymore. I call into finance meetings and I call in to a board meeting from time to time. But you know, I’m generally there kind of in the background. Um, you know, the Parker board and the HLB board, I need to be present at all those meetings. The George Street Playhouse board, which I’m still on, they only call on me as, as needed. So, you know, I try to do what you can, where you can.

Brad:
Yeah. I know in the organization I serve, you know, and many organizations I work with, board recruitment is a very, complex task that, um, you know, I think many organizations are looking, always looking for qualified, both financial individuals like yourself as well as people that just will contribute. And, uh, it’s, I think that’s important for, uh, you know, people listening to this to understand that you have to sometimes offer a little bit of flexibility when you approach people, understand their circumstance, not just say, okay, these are our rules and you have to follow them. You know, you have to be here physically in new Brunswick at 8am every single Thursday. You know, that you may not get the same response as if you say, we want you here at this one meeting and the other three call in, or be here, we’d like you here. But you know, we understand that you are the CEO of a company that employs 1100 employees and you may not always be able to be here physically. So I think it’s a good message. I think it’s good to know that.

Bill:
Yeah I think, you know, from my years in working with boards, I think the issue with recruitment, it seems like it’s a never ending task.

Brad:
Oh yeah, it’s a rolling process.

Bill:
Sometimes you need people that can give money, but most times you need people that can give intellectual capital, you know, and the intellectual capital is just as important. Um, you know, so you try to draw a balance between the two. But you know, the Hyacinth chairman, you know, the Hyacinth president, uh, comes in once a year. The woman that runs it day to day, comes in probably once a year, we spend an hour and a half just talking about the organization and you know, I try to give her mentorship and that type of thing. And I think she finds that valuable because she keeps asking me to stay on the board.

Brad:
Sure.

Bill:
Um, you know, and there, there have been times when we’ve had financial crisis, you know and you got to take a leadership position, so that’s when you got to step up and lean into it. Um, so those are the, you know, you just need to know when you need to step in and you know, when it’s pretty routine, I might take a back seat with some of the organizations that I’m on the board with.

Brad:
Sure. Yeah. I heard one wise person share withe me say, uh, the good quality, of board members, one of the following three work, wealth or wisdom. And you know, some people you want to bring some cash, some people you, you know, you bring that expertise or you bring a talent that uh, may not, may not be there. And some, we need people to help do the work. Whether that’s helping the staff, whether that’s mentoring the staff or whether that’s, um, just, you know, engaging in tasks and missions on the board that we need to accomplish.

Bill:
Yeah, and depending the sophistication of the organization, sometimes, the board members need to stay out of the day to day business, right? You need to be more vision strategy. You know, um, working with the community, being that community liaison. Um, and then of course, helping to raise money, which is, you know, generally, uh, generally a focus of most boards.

Brad:
Yeah. One, one military concept I always hear, whenever I interview anybody that has served in our armed forces, um, they always kind of differentiate tactical versus strategic. Do you feel that, that in your role as a board member, do you feel that there’s some level of tactical that you have to be involved with? Or do you feel the board’s role is more strategic, is heavily weighted towards strategic?

Bill:
So I will tell you in a perfect world it’s vision and strategy. But as in most situations, the perfect world just doesn’t exist. So there are times when you need to dig into tactical, you know, so, you know, you may have, you know, I have a finance background, but you may have an HR background and you may be having HR problems at the organization. So that HR person needs to be, you know, more in touch with the tactics of the organization and making sure that the board is weighing in to kind of get it through whatever it’s temporary crisis is.

Brad:
Sure.

Bill:
And there are some boards that are less sophisticated, or some organizations that are less sophisticated, they just can’t afford the people. So you know, you may need to — my first task at George Street Playhouse was help them set up an accounts payable system. So sometimes you need to get dirty with that stuff, you know. Um, but back then they didn’t have the finance staff to be able to do it themselves. So, you know, it depends on what the organization needs. But I think in a perfect world you want to be strategy, vision and then holding management accountable to execution.

Brad:
Yeah, definitely. No, and I totally, totally, um, I agree with that, but, but also in the, in the, just in the nonprofit world, um, same with, uh, you know, just in a 0% unemployment economy right now, it’s very difficult to, especially in the nonprofit world to keep and retain talent. So I find that board members are becoming more active with, uh, daily, not necessarily daily tasks of necessarily serving the community, but, um, daily tasks of helping in any capacity that the organization may be lacking, whether that’s jumping in to review the books or you know, whatever it might be that your skill is so.

Bill:
Absolutely correct.

Brad:
Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. Definitely good to know. Um, you know, one question I commonly get, uh, and I tried to answer through a survey was why do you donate? So, um, you know, from your perspective, obviously you serve in these organizations, I imagine they, um, for lack of better word hit you up for a board contribution. But you know, other than that, you know, why, do you donate to charity? Like what, do you think if there is a charity out there that said, you know, I want to find new donors, you know, what is it that drives you to say this is a good charity I want to contribute dollars to?

Bill:
So for me, it’s a combination of mission and relationships. Um, as I go back through the years, you know, there are certain organizations I’ve donated to, because I’ve known the board member, so it’s been completely relationship-driven.

Brad:
Sure.

Bill:
And there are certain organizations that, you know, I just believe in, I believe in the mission. Um, clearly the organizations that I give my time to, you have to believe in the mission. Um, and when you look at, you know, organizations that I’m not involved with, and we might give dollars to whether it be, you know, something like Wounded Warriors, or St. Jude’s or things like that. Those things, you know, you kind of just believe in what their, what their overall mission is. Cancer Society is another one, American Cancer Society. So those are the things that, you know, you believe in the mission without having that relationship and to be honest with you you tend to give less dollars to that and more to those that you have relationships with. So I think that is, uh, that’s certainly a lesson for the organizations is, you know, you gotta you got to get folks involved, right? People gotta come out, see it and feel it, and they got to understand what the mission is and really see the community that the dollars are benefiting. Um, and that really is the best way to get that emotional connection with your donor. There are very few organizations that can, you know, run an ad on TV and get a bunch of money. Um, but most of our organizations need to be out there. It’s, you know, it’s hand to hand combat, you know, fundraising.

Brad:
Yeah. So, so, uh, this is for you Matt, so you’re, uh, I don’t know what generation you are, Gen Z?

Matt:
A little bit between millennial, Gen Z — I’m off by a month so.

Brad:
Are you on the positive side or the negative side?

Matt:
Uh, negative side I think.

Brad:
So you know, you know, in your role, why do you donate? Why would you donate to a charity? What do you, what drives you to, and do you feel that donating dollars is more or less relevant than donating time?

Matt:
I think that when I was at school at Stockton, it was, I’d say mostly based off the relationships you make with the people you’re walking around campus and you see a few of your friends tabling for, whether it was Tri Delta fundraising for St. Jude or Kappa Sigma raising money for the Military Heroes campaign or my friend Andrew Lisa raising money for, Philadelphia, for the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. Um, I think it’s mostly based off those relationships. Like you’ll always be walking around and you’ll see a table and you may throw a dollar, but when you know the people and you know that organization, I think that’s when I would personally want to donate the most money. Um, I think one thing a lot of organizations can do that would benefit them the most would be, um, probably just effective event planning, as well. At Stockton some of the best events that they had raised the most money and got people involved. The more creative you are with your event planning and reaching out to the community, I think the more money you’d be able to raise from that.

Brad:
Yeah. And that’s, and that’s just that active engagement, right?

Matt:
Yeah.

Brad:
So I think lot of us want to be, um, want to be involved and we just debunked the whole, you know, fundraising theory that there’s a difference between generations, right. For everyone. I think that concept, you know, there, there is a difference and there’s a lot of studies out there that would suggest that there is. But at the end of the day, I think if there’s any takeaway there’s a, what are you accomplishing and how are you doing it? And, um, and the relationship with those individuals. And that’s in any, I mean, our business, it’s all relationships and it’s all, um, you know, just being there for people. Um, and, and really owning up to what you’re saying you’re doing. I mean, that’s, you know, honesty and integrity is a huge part of it as well. If you say you’re going to do something and you’re taking dollars from somebody, you need to do what you said you were going to do.

Matt:
Just going the extra mile to show I’m willing to table for this. I’m willing to go door to door. I’m willing to put in the extra hours for this cause I think that’s what causes people to really want to donate. Cause if I, if I’m passionate about something and I can make you passionate about it, I think that’s where, um, a lot of organizations can be successful.

Brad:
Oh, okay. That’s an interesting thought. Yeah. Cool. Um, yeah, so switching gears a little bit and just, just thinking about, um, some of the things that we’re doing here. Um, you know, I think one of, one of the cool things I’m seeing a lot of organizations do is they start, um, you know, corporate giving type programs or they start corporate foundations that are, um, heavily supported by their employees or through payroll deductions. Um, I guess, Bill, do you want to talk a little bit about our, our Hardship Fund? And, and kind of why, you know, why we created it and what the genesis behind that was.

Bill:
Yeah. The, um, the hardship fund is something I’m really proud of. Um, in 2012 in the Northeast, we were hit by Hurricane Sandy and we had, um, a few folks that work for us that, um, lost their homes. And you know, because of circumstances with amount of insurance and mortgages and value, they basically were out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars and had no way to rebuild it. So, uh, partners, one of my partners suggested that we set up a fund and that fund has become the Withum employee/staff relief fund. And basically we every year raised through payroll deductions, um, money that the Firm matches. And then we run certain events, you know, our Withum 300. We contribute 50 cents for every mile that people run on behalf of that. We have a PTO program where if you don’t use your PTO or want to roll it over, you can donate it and we’ll put 50 bucks per day in. And, and that is sometimes directed to our staff relief fund. Um, so initially it was used back in 2013 when we had the big fundraiser for it. It was used to really help people get new homes. Uh, the biggest, uh, check we wrote I think was 90,000 bucks. Um, and our partners don’t qualify for it. So strictly staff would, it has morphed into now that it’s been around for six or seven years is an opportunity to help those folks that get themselves into some economic bind through no fault of their own. So we have helped, um, we’ve helped women who are in abusive relationships get themselves out of those abusive relationships. You know, they may have felt they were in that relationship just for economic reasons. We’ve, we’ve given him a tax free grant for that. We’ve, um, seem to have helped a fair amount of folks that have gotten cancer and can’t make ends meet between what disability pays or they have some extraordinary, uh, medical bills. Uh, we had one young lady who had a chronic disease that, um, the recommended medication wasn’t covered by health insurance. So we wound up paying for that. Um, we’ve had unfortunately a few untimely deaths recently and we’ve paid the funeral costs. So those to any kind of tragedy or any kind of economic hardship that our folks have, we have a little process set up for it. Very, very small committee. We don’t make a big deal out of it. We don’t go public with the individual’s name. And, uh, you know, it’s just something that we feel good about at the end of the day that we’re helping the Withum community and helping each other when they fall on hard times.

Brad:
And, and with that, we do that through a payroll deduction to generate funds for that. So the contributions are coming through. Um, you know, some employees, it’s almost like another payroll tax in the sense that you may not even realize that it’s coming out. And if every employee gave a dollar every pay period and you know, biweekly pay periods or bimonthly pay periods, that dollar two bucks a month, 26 bucks a year times 1100 people, it starts adding up significantly if every employee just gives $1. And I think those are, you know, when you started laying out the math on it, you’re like, wow, like, you know, we, and we had, you know, I think our percentage of employees giving is relatively high. It’s a majority of our employees, you know. And yesterday at our state of the Firm, you mentioned, I want that to be 100% of employees and it would be great when we get there and I’m sure we will, um, people see the impact and people see how we’ve helped and you know, especially because it’s so personal. We think about relationships. I mean, we all want to help each other, right? We’re a team and you know, sometimes that little contribution through because you’re going through a hardship goes a very long way. So, you know it’s a great program that was developed and, and it’s really cool to just see how it’s grown because it’s grown. It’s grown since we started it.

Bill:
Oh, it’s definitely grown. It’s grow with, with our Firm and, and, you know, I, I don’t get involved directly with handing out the checks, but the woman, that does, sometimes people are in tears, you know, because they don’t know what, how they’re gonna, you know, put food on the table next week. Um, and they’re dealing with cancer, um, you know, or they have, you know, children that, that are, that are, that have issues because of, uh, you know, relationship they’re in. So those are the kind of things that you just feel great about, you know, and you quietly feel like, you know, we are, we are helping each other out. So, you know, I have a lot of, a lot of empathy for our folks. And it’s one of things I’m probably most proud of that we have done since, um, since I’ve been in charge.

Brad:
Yeah, of course. Yeah. No, great stuff. And I’ve seen it. I’ve seen a few. Um, I’ve worked with a few organizations that have had, um, you know, corporate giving programs, corporate foundations, some of them public charities, some of them, um, private foundations. And, uh, you know, you can see — Matt worked on one with me too — and you can see the impact, you know, auditors just kind of look at numbers. But when we see some of these, you know, hardship funds, you can see the impact it has and you can see, um, some of the difficulties that all of us go, you know, no, no one goes through life unscathed and no good deed goes unpunished. So it’s a good thing that we do that and you know, I’m proud of it. I’m proud to be an employee of somewhere that, that, you know, contributes that way. So it’s a good thing. Um, you know, one of the things — jump in Matt.

Matt:
One thing that stood out to me during my training, was the Empower Donation Program. Um, how did that start off? Um, and I guess talk about a few of the organizations that we’ve given to through the Empower Donation Program.

Bill:
Yeah. So that is fairly recent. Um, so the it genesis was really that you know, probably seven or eight years ago, we would have weekly fundraisers —

Brad:
Jeans day

Bill:
Wear jeans to work and donate five bucks, and we were accumulating money. And we would sponsor different organization kind of every week. Um, and we had a whole process built around that. Um, and much to my chagrin that when we went to, dress for your day where you could wear jeans any day, that it was appropriate, uh, jeans Friday and that $5 contribution went away. As much as we tried to have programs around other different strategies to raise money for the community, it just didn’t happen. Um, so about a year ago, um, our Empower class, which is our entry folks, uh, one of our people came up and said, why don’t we have them come up with one charity for the whole year. Why don’t we have them run fundraisers in each office. It’ll help build leadership skills for them and it’ll help benefit the community. So last year that group picked JDRF. That was the 2018 Empower class. 2019 picked Rebuilding Warriors. Um, and you know, we raised about $16,000 last year. I’ve challenged the new class to raise $20,000 or more. Um, and it’s the local fundraiser. They run local events and they do little things in each office. Um, so don’t raise a ton of money with any one of those. But you hope that it’ll accumulate to a number that will have some level of impact at the same time, building leadership skills, and project management skills for the folks that are running those fundraisers.

Matt:
What kind of fundraisers they run last year?

Bill:
Uh, you’re going to challenge me here! I think in one of the offices, the office you’re sitting in right now, East Brunswick. You had to make a donation and count the jellybeans in a jar.

Matt:
Those are hard. I’ve always been bad at those.

Bill:
Yeah. I didn’t even bother. I just threw 20 bucks in and didn’t put a number down. Um, so, and, and others have, um, they’ve done just a variety of things, you know. I’m struggling here to come up with other ideas, but there was a, there was a few pretty, pretty good ones. Um, and you know, the ones that got more creative wound up raising the most money in terms of offices. So, it was it was actually pretty good. Something that we’re very happy with and proud of.

Brad:
Yeah. No, it’s a good school. It’s cool that we do that. And it also kind of kind of centralizes an effort. And so I think, you know, the jeans days were random. They were smaller impact. We were picking a charity, you know,

Matt:
That was a weekly?

Brad:
Weekly, yeah. And different offices were supporting different things. And I think, I think this like this, this Firm front of let’s pick an organization, let’s work with them. Um, and then, you know, at the end of the year, I mean, that’s a fairly sizable check, but that organization didn’t have the year before, um, that, that we were able to, to contribute to them. So yeah, just thinking about like different programs organizations can do. It’s just another way, you know, get your employees involved in a mission that’s, you know, not too hard to do. And it also gets to get to the younger folks involved in fundraising. Right? And fundraising is an interesting topic that, uh, some of us enjoy, some of us don’t enjoy. Some of us like asking people for money, some of us not so much. But when you’re passionate about the cause, it’s easy to do that. Um, so that’s a cool thing. And uh, who are we supporting this year? What’s the —

Matt:
Rebuilding Warriors?

Brad:
Rebuilding Warriors. Yeah.

Bill:
Yeah. It’s an organization that puts service dogs with, um, army, with vets, veterans that have PTSD. And there’s been a lot of research around how that helps them. Um, it’s a great organization, so I’m actually looking forward to it. Hopefully we’ll raise a fair amount of money for them this year.

Brad:
Yeah. Yeah. I think, there’s no question in my mind that we will.

Matt:
One of the a, for Empower, the veteran came in and he brought in the service dog. So they all got, we all got to meet the service dog, which was really nice.

Brad:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. So if you were, if you were a guy just starting out your career and you said, man, I really, you know, I don’t have a lot of capital, I don’t, you know, I’m just starting out. I’m kind of like, you know, dealing with everything, dealing with — you know, where would you get started, Bill? If you were to start over and you said, man, I want to get involved in a charity. What, what would you do? So once you pass the CPA exam. So none of our employees that think that they’re going to get away without passing that.

Brad:
You better pass that exam Matt! Get over it.

Bill:
I think that what you have to do is follow your passion and, you know, go to an organization where you have friends or that type of thing. Um, you know, there are other organizations that I’ve been involved with over the years Kiwanis club and stuff like that that I joined that are somewhat quasi business related but also, you know, have a charity focus. And I think the more people you network with, the more relationships you build that leads to other organizations that might be a little more sophisticated. Um, but you get involved. I mean, many organizations, you know, American Cancer Society is one I can think of has, you know, little teams that, um, that you can get involved with that aren’t board level, but they’re community level teams. Um, my son is involved with Covenant House, which does a phenomenal job with homeless children. And, uh, you know, did the sleep out overnight in New York city three or four times. And that taught him a tremendous amount about, um, about a. What it’s like to be homeless, um, b., you know, he got his friends together and then they on top of raising money at the, um, at the sleep-outs, they went and they did bar crawls and they did five mile runs and things like that. And you know, so with belt it builds a sense of community for him and, uh, you know, him and I play in their annual golf outing. He brings me to that and I’m really happy to do that and support what I think is a very good organization. So I think you’ve gotta follow your passion. Follow your passion, follow relationships. It’s sometimes very hard to walk into an organization and you don’t know anybody. Um, and I always saw people just go ahead and do it. Right. You know, um, you gotta sometimes get outside your comfort zone and doing that. You’d be surprised how accepting people are, how easy it is to make friends and how much you’re going to get out of it. Um, one of things I’ve always found with organizations is that I’ve always gotten more out of it than I’ve put in. Um, there is a lot I’ve learned about leadership skills, about patients, um, about trying to understand how other people think. You know, you sit around a board room and you have folks that um, don’t have jobs, right? They might don’t have jobs because they’re housewives, they are independently wealthy, you have folks that might be lawyers, you have folks that own their own businesses that are entrepreneurs and what you, you sit around a table and you sit there and you think, wow, these people all think differently and somehow you’re able to draw a conclusion, a consensus around the board, around any individual topic after listening to all sides of the issue, all sides of the problem. So that taught me a tremendous amount relative to leadership, which are probably used on a daily basis here at Withum. So you know, you wind up, if you think about it, the education you get is probably more valuable than um, the, the cost of your time, the benefit of your time and the dollars that you put in.

Brad:
I wholeheartedly agree with that. Yeah. And uh, and if anyone, um, is unsure but has some time just walk down to your local firehouse or EMS station and talk to them every — I know I’m on the fire company and every fire company right now is looking for new young blood to get involved in the firehouse. There is a, a volunteer in gap if you will. Um, and, and you know, you’ll find that it’s a, uh, you know, Bill was mentioning before kind of getting involved with some people that just have a few beers, talk, laugh, and then get their job done. It’s kinda, it’s kinda what it’s like, which is a good thing. But you know, you also get the, I will say, I totally agree with what Bill says about just getting the reward of giving back. You know, I don’t, I contribute to the firehouse. I volunteer my time, you know, we don’t get anything in return except we get fed, which is a great, you know, can’t, can’t discount that. Um, but you know, volunteering and being a first responder is actually a great way to give back and, um, it’s a great way just to get involved if you want to, if you want to actually, you know, tactically do the work and, and experience being a part of a community, um, you know, it’s, it’s a great thing. Plus, you know, you’re, you’re helping your neighbors, you’re helping others and, and uh, and really doing that. So if you’re really unsure, just walk down to your local volunteer fire company and, uh, and ask them, just, just be prepared if you want to go to the Fire Academy, it’s about 250 hours of in-class time and, uh, get ready to study, like the CPA exam. Yeah. Cool. Um, any closing thoughts you want to share? You know, I think, I think a lot of this, I think we talked about kind of leading from the tone from the top, kind of creating a culture of corporate giving. Um, you know, any final thoughts you want to share with us?

Bill:
I think as a, as a business leader, um, there’s a real business case to giving to the community. I think that for us to have healthy communities for which we’re going to draw our team member base is, is very important. And healthy communities have viable not-for-profits, um, that helped those folks that are less fortunate than the rest of us. And, um, being able to make sure that those folks are taken care of. Being able to have a healthy community all around and a balanced community I think is important. And I think that’s at the end of the day, winds up being the business case. And, um, I’m proud of what the Firm has been doing for the community. We’ve been doing it for the entire 45 years so I can’t take credit for it. It’s just part of our ethos that we have. So, um, you know, I would highly encourage all organizations to think community based and, uh, to think about how that can benefit the folks that work them.

Matt:
Great. Thank you.

Brad:
What about you, Matt? Closing thoughts?

Matt:
I’d probably say, um, I think one of the most important things is to find something you’re passionate about. Um, whether you’re a young person starting off, if you’re in college, um, get involved as soon as you can. Uh, something we always talked about in college was student development theory and the more things you get involved with, the more successful you are in college. So find those things you’re passionate about and always try to get back to the community there.

Brad:
Yeah, I agree. And, and you know, working in your community, you work in community, you live in, um, communities that you’re a part of that may be virtual and not necessarily physical. Um, all are good opportunities. Um, and then like I said, if you’re really unsure, um, always get, you know, I’m a big advocate of this and not in a selfish way because you know, we don’t see the benefit of it, but, um, give to your local police, fire, EMS, whatever you can spare. Um, you know, they, they go through and kind of some volunteer at the time. Some are, some obviously are paid, whether it’s fire, police or EMS. And it’s always good to give back to your cause. It, you know, it’s a very thankless job in some regards. You know, our, our police officers in that and, and they do a lot of good for our communities. Uh, they hold your communities together and uh, and all the, all those dollars go to a good cause. So I’m always a big advocate of, of supporting your local community, um, as well as in your work community and supporting those organizations around you. You know, I think in working with Bill for years, just seeing how New Brunswick’s developed over however many years, the last 40 years. You know, J&J came in. You know, Bill came in and redeveloped and New Brunswick, yeah, it’s been a good thing seeing it develop and you know I was on a United flight and, uh, there was a New Brunswick development corporation ad about how New Brunswick — it was a story to tell him about how New Brunswick’s developed over the years — on a United plane, which, you know, however many people travel United. And it was cool to see, it was cool to see, you know, the story they told about how New Brunswick developed and, and uh, you know, I’m excited to be part of a Firm that supported that. You know, we’ve been actively involved in boards, as Bill mentioned, and actively involved in many initiatives in that local community. So, and it, you know, you can feel the impact, um, around you, you can see it around you and it’s, it’s a, it’s an exciting thing. So encourage everybody to, you know, find something they’re passionate about, as Matt said, um, you know, give back and really, really push that. And uh, yeah, let’s, uh, let’s make a better world. So, go team! All right, cool.

Bill:
Thank you.

Brad:
Thank you, Bill.

Bill:
Thank you, Brad.

Brad:
This was a pleasure.

Brad:
Hey warriors. Thanks for tuning in. On the next episode of Civic Warriors, we’ll talk with Kelly Post-Sheedy executive director of the Joseph H. Firth Youth Center in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. She shares insight about being a positive light in the community and more than just a local youth center. Make sure to subscribe to Civic Warriors and thanks for all your support. Have a great day.