We want people to think about making a lasting lifetime legacy of giving.
Transcript:
This podcast was transcribed through a third-party application. Please disregard any misrepresentations.
Brad Caruso:
<silence> Welcome to Civic Warriors, brought to you by Withum. On this podcast, we bring the conversation to you, sharing, engaging stories that motivate and build consensus in the nonprofit community. This podcast is about the innovators, the leaders on the front lines of adversity, guiding lights in the nonprofit industry affecting change. And through their stories, we can all join forces to become civic warriors. Hey, warriors. Welcome to today's episode of Civic Warriors, brought to you by Withum. I'm your host, Brad Caruso, leader of Withum's not-for-profit practice. Today's guest is Matthew Nelessen, President and CEO of the Princeton Area Community Foundation. The Community Foundation is a 5 0 1 C3, not-for-profit organization located in Princeton, New Jersey, whose mission is to promote philanthropy through education grantmaking. And by creating a network of donors, advisors, and nonprofit organizations as a community foundation, they help in various ways, including donor-advised funds, community, nonprofit funds, grantmaking, and have various educational programs. They gift out significant dollars to the local community and are a trusted partner, uh, here in New Jersey to many. So with that said, Matthew, welcome to the show.
Mathieu Nelessen:
Hey, thanks so much for having me. Pleasure to be here. Appreciate the, uh, the opportunity to talk about the community foundation a little bit with you.
Brad Caruso:
Love it. Yeah, and this is gonna be, uh, our second episode that we're talking about community foundations, which is awesome. Um, you know, I've, I've had the pleasure of working with many over my career, and I've seen the benefit that they provide and, and, and especially your organization, the benefit that you provide to your local community. And so I really like sharing this information out in the public and making sure people really understand, especially those in the not-for-profit community, kind of the value that the, that the Community Foundation brings. And then what makes you, uh, special and unique, which certainly, certainly you are. So we, you know, really appreciate that, uh, we're gonna learn a little bit more about that today. And, and I'll, I'll just start with maybe share a little bit, Matthew, about how you arrived at the Community Foundation, a little bit about your background and your passion for, uh, for working in this space.
Mathieu Nelessen:
Sure. Thanks so much. And again, I, you know, I really appreciate you shining a light on community foundations, because I think, especially in New Jersey, you know, there's so few as opposed to in states like Indiana, where every county has a community foundation, right? So to unique nonprofit to understand how it works and how it, you know, contributes greatly to the kind of the social fabric of the community. So, a little bit about me. I started actually on the other side of the equation, right? I started as a nonprofit employee working to deliver adapted physical education programming in urban public schools in New Jersey. And I worked for Special Olympics, and I was just so drawn. So I got outta college and I was college, had a, a for-profit career in sales for, you know, I saw, let's say a minute, like six months. And then, and one of my customers was Special Olympics, and I met the CEO in New Jersey, and I was so blown away about, you know, this guy's passion for mission, passion for this community.
Mathieu Nelessen:
Um, so much so, you know, I saw the CEO adopt someone with Down Syndrome. He had three, you know, healthy children of his own. He adopted a child with Down syndrome, and I saw a leader really walk the walk. So I worked for Marc Edenzon was his name, brilliant. CEO one of my mentors today. I think about him often. So Marc, if you're listening, hey, how you doing? Um, down in Florida he is. And, um, so that started the career of kind of a career of service, right? To be in service of others is a really important concept for me personally, for my family. Um, so to think about the work that we do and everything that we contribute is kind of back to the betterment of folks who, um, who need to benefit from it, right? Who have less opportunity, uh, or less chance, or there's more barriers who don't have access or any of those things.
Mathieu Nelessen:
That's been my whole career. So if you go from, uh, a wonderful career at Special Olympics to the American Diabetes Association, to the American Red Cross for 11 years, each one of those stops was all about helping people in need, which I think that's remarkable, right? Um, and you know, I think one of the most important things about, um, my career that I learned early on was that it's all about robust impact driven programming. So when I told you, I started kind of delivering Adaptive DE in schools, I did that for about three years, and then lo and behold, I found myself down in DC because I was called into our national office, and I was sitting next to Eunice Kennedy Shriver , who was the founder of the Special Olympics movement, Sergeant Shriver her husband, Tim Shriver, her son. And I was presenting to kind of the Nike team at Nike Philanthropies around how they were gonna take this model that we built in New Jersey to de-institutionalize children with special needs and give them access to the services underneath the umbrella of Special Olympics.
Mathieu Nelessen:
And that's where you learn like this, the important component of how important delivering and creating robust programming is to really meet the need. And then what I learned in the Nike visit, which I really didn't know what I was doing, I was just talking about a wonderful program they ended up supporting and being kind of the premier underwriter of this program kind of globally. And it showed me that this relationship between funding and programming is so intertwined. So when this opportunity came up with a community foundation, again, not knowing exactly, you know, all of the ins and outs of how Community Foundation worked, I said, what are fantastic opportunity for me to take all that learning about how nonprofits work and operate and bring it all together as a funder, right? And how to bring them all together in terms of seeing where we can find efficiencies as a funder, getting people to collaborate, work together, find efficiencies, scale speed, to answer some of the most pressing problems in our community. And I think that that was the most interesting, um, appealing and humbling part of coming to a community foundation.
Brad Caruso:
I love that. And your experience is, uh, phenomenal because you, you can now can see it from multiple angles. And I think, you know, your connection to it is, is so important to
understanding kind of what you do at the community foundation. That connection is what is what's going to continue to make it better and continue to drive that because, you know, you've seen it and then, and then your, your comment about the partnership aspect of funder and fundee, and you know, how people are concerned with the programmatic. And if you can align on what that programmatic should be and what is the impact that people are looking for, it definitely works for both parties. And I think that's, you know, I commend you on, uh, convincing Nike to, to fund that initiative because you know that, I'm sure that's no easy endeavor. I mean, organizations like that, foundations like that, everybody's reaching out to, everybody's calling, everybody's trying to, you know, get funding and you're saying, no, no, no, like this, this is our plan. This is our program, and this is how it's gonna help. This is how we're gonna work together. And I love that that's the message, that's, it's a very important thing to, for people to, to understand as they're in this world.
Mathieu Nelessen:
A piece of it too, Brad, to your point, is that investment is earned by building good programming. Good programming is built by earning investment. And part of my work at the Red Cross allowed me to see executives who didn't shy away from running the business like a business and nonprofits, and I'm sure with Withum, you appreciate that, right? The more nonprofits can kind of behave like a business and think about margin, and think about things like that, that are really corporate terms for-profit terms. You know, the only difference is that we're reinvesting our margin back into service delivery as opposed to fueling a shareholder, right? That that really is the only distinction, but they all go back to a critical kind of source that drives the business forward. So I think that's another important learning that, that, you know, that, that I know that you all see the value in that, you know, uh, when it comes to your work.
Brad Caruso:
Absolutely. No, we, we certainly do. And, and I think that's, you know, one of the, not to tout our industry, but that's one of the benefits is when you, when you see a lot of environments, you know, you see what's successful and you see what's not successful. And if, if an organization cares too much about their mission and not enough about their infrastructure, you see it, you see some cha real challenges when they care too much about the numbers and less about the impact. You see things fall apart a little bit because, um, they're paying attention. You know, they, they forget the why of what they do. They're, oh, we're gonna make more money. It's like, well, you don't wanna go <laugh>. You don't wanna tell the world, like, Hey, our, our, our sole goal as a nonprofit is to go make more money. That that's not why we're here.
Brad Caruso:
We're here to drive impact now. Making more money is driving better impact. And as long as we marry those two together, and we have a solid, uh, balance, if you will, of both of those, um, you know, knowing our limitations in this industry with, uh, cost and things like that. But, um, yeah, certainly a very important concept that, uh, you know, we certainly value. And, and like that people value that because it's important that you manage your business like it's a business. It's you, you're beholden to the same laws that Microsoft is beholden to except for the SEC, which, you know, different issue <laugh>. But, um, but you still have to run the business in a very similar way. You have to hire employees, you have to have hr, you have to, um, pay for all that infrastructure. You have to have a set of books and records that are auditable. You have to have, you know, complex accounting applied when, you know, complex accounting is not, it's complex. And, you know, it's, it's difficult to, uh, to always, you know, interpret that. And, and so, um, all of those things together, I totally agree with you. So when you look at Princeton Area Community Foundation, and we talk about community foundations just in general, what is important to you as a community foundation? And, you know, on that, on that topic, how do you go about helping various parties in the ecosystem that you serve?
Mathieu Nelessen:
Community foundations are incredibly interesting because there, there are really two major facets, but they're so deeply interconnected ties right? To kind of the earlier piece of our conversation. So at the end of the day, a community foundation serves as this, call it a linchpin. So on a teeter-totter, you have kind of this linchpin that sits right in the middle on scales of justice. You have the same thing, right? A community foundation almost serves in that role, and it balances or can kind of help shape this idea of transforming philanthropy and activating philanthropy to engage in community transformation, right? And in order for the teeter-totter to kind of move up in terms of philanthropy being activated, and then communities being transformed, your sole goal has to be focused on the community and understanding what is the entirety of the ecosystem, how does it harmonize? Um, and how do you play a role in terms of understanding the ecosystem?
Mathieu Nelessen:
And then how can you be deliberate about how you kind of fund and support that ecosystem? Now, the, the two pieces of our organization really are the, uh, I'll call it the outbound side and the inbound side. So on the inbound side of the organization, think about that as philanthropy. So we are philanthropic experts, and our role in our job is to talk to anyone who's interested in philanthropy at any level around a donor advised funder, setting up a fund, or starting to begin to think about their charitable contributions or their family's legacy, or their plan giving or their personal legacy. How do you have a conversation with them to transform that into activation? Meaning funds migrating out into meeting needs and driving great nonprofit work, right? So that one side of the equation is around, uh, tying and creating long lasting deep relationships in an endowed kind of manner, in an endowed structure at a community foundation, which is designed to be here in perpetuity, right?
Mathieu Nelessen:
We want people to think about making a lasting lifetime, lifetime legacy, uh, of giving. So it's about that education and activation of that part of the community. The second part of it is the outbound part. That's all of the grant making. So whether, uh, Brad, you wanted, you and your family wanted to set up a donor advised fund, um, you could set up that fund. And then you come to us and we're also local experts to help you understand, hey, my, my, my family is interested in these five things. What have you got in the community? What's really, what's important right now? What are the policy shifts right now? What are they funding? Who's under pressure? And then we can help to craft your, your, your giving vision, your legacy vision, and then we do the work for you, right? That's the beauty of the community foundation.
Mathieu Nelessen:
You set up a fund with us and you say, alright, Matt, thanks. We've honed in on these organizations now we do the nine 90 review, we do the background financial review on each of these organizations. We make sure they're registered 501c3s. We make sure that they're domestic, kind of like entities. And then we process kind of a CH component of creating kind of the payment and then making sure that we're doing all of our due diligence in terms of getting those organizations paid. So we have about, uh, $275 million in charitable funds, again, on the, on kind of the inbound side and on the outbound side, in 2024, uh, we distributed about $32 million of grants to the nonprofit ecosystem, right? And since we've been here only 35 years, we've put about $241 million out into the nonprofit ecosystem. That's a tremendous amount of support, right?
Mathieu Nelessen:
A tremendous amount of support. Um, so we're really proud of that. We have our own grant mechanism. So we have a number of ways that we kind of craft the outbound work, but it's really around, uh, discretionary grant making. We have a competitive grant making process. We have the process that we administer donor advised funds, um, and then we have some specialty funds, of course, but it's all with the idea of optimizing the amount of support that can go to really great work and, and support the needs that are in our community. And I'll give you kind of a good example. It's a fund that was set up with us many years ago through a donor advised fund. And this individual left a legacy gift with us and what that did, um, as you know, after he passed, essentially, you know, there's a fund that's set up in this individual's name that for, you know, for eternity, as long as we're around, right?
Mathieu Nelessen:
That fund will con-continue to be an important piece of the nonprofit ecosystem in terms of supporting that ecosystem. So it's not just a like one and done holiday time check signing activity, right? This is the lifelong activity of philanthropy. And that's, I think, what we're looking to, to activate, right? That's why I think is really important to me is to manage both sides of that equation really, really well. And to, if you, if you manage both sides of that equation, I think the tide goes up and the overall health of the infrastructure goes up. So there's all kinds of evidence that show where there's a community foundation, there's a clear uptick in philanthropy writ large because of all of the activation that happens and the trust that's built and the, the kind of the collegial partnership that's built between the nonprofit community and the funding community. And I think that that's a testament to Princeton Area Community Foundation and community foundations kind of across the country in terms of the important role that we play.
Brad Caruso:
Oh, without a doubt. And, and you operate as a super connector in a very efficient way because you have the relationships on both sides, and then you have the machine in the middle, which is the way that you have to comply with things. And there's a lot of things, I think a lot of people, um, and, and I always see this with like natural disasters. Everybody wants to give everybody wants, and then that's great. That's what we want from society. But when a natural disaster strikes, did you vet the places the monies are going to? A lot of times the answer to that's no. And then you see scams on tv, you then, you know, are you able to get money to them efficiently? The answer a lot of the times is no, a lot of those organizations actually might not have the, the system set up to be able to accept it right away from 9 million donors.
Brad Caruso:
But, um, where a community foundation comes in, great, especially with that, um, is that aspect and just using that as an odd example, not necessarily that that's an exact example, but, but you operate in that capacity where you say, Hey, you know, we, we know the causes in our local community. We know the people in our local community. We can aggregate those dollars and efficiently get them to the most important causes. And we're gonna work with you, the donor to understand what causes you want to give to. And then we can help guide you, and we're gonna work with the charities so that they can understand, well, what do these donors care about? And then to your point earlier about how you connect the mission and you connect the impact, you, you know, you're, you're playing that role and it doesn't involve any individual going to 50 charities. It involves an individual going to one charity, and then that charity then has a, has the ecosystem around them.
Mathieu Nelessen:
Yeah. You know, I mean, what's nice is that, you know, community foundations so well, the way that you just articulated that, I think makes, makes so much sense. And I think that- that a really salient example of how that works during a compressed time when urgency is there. So natural disasters create this pressure, it's called urgency, right? The need is great immediately, right? That's, that's a Gray Sky event. It's not a Blue Sky event. So during a Gray Sky event, the last one, the last big one we had here was COVID, COVID-19, right? The Pandemic and Princeton Area Community Foundation stepped up to really be a conduit between this entire community that didn't know what to do. I mean, you and I were scrubbing our groceries with Lysol wipes in the first couple weeks. I mean, it was, it was a traumatic experience for everybody, but people didn't know what to do at all.
Mathieu Nelessen:
So it wasn't even like a natural disaster where you kind of have a playbook here. It was, it was, this was brand new. This hadn't happened since the 1920s. So, uh, what ended up happening is we stood ourselves up to say, we will be that vehicle. So we stood up a COVID-19 fund, and we were able to deploy $6.9 million in Mercer County to organizations that did not see a stop, right? So, as an example, Rescue Mission of Trenton or Mercer Street Friends, or TASK or Arm in Arm, those clients kept coming in during COVID because they needed food, they needed critical resources, they needed a place to sleep, a warm, safe, safe place to sleep. So we needed to keep that funding going, you know, while giving them the PPE and the protection to be able to do that in the most safe way possible.
Mathieu Nelessen:
So that was where exactly the way that you just described from a process point of view, that's how it actually, um, was optimized in real time, in a real time setting. And I think Princeton Area Community Foundation, you know, um, did really, really well. And we're thinking about, you know, what to do in this current kind of policy environment. You know, there was some choppy water last week with regards to SNAP cards. Um, and, and you know, what's, what's our role in terms of those immediate new disasters that are popping up that look a little bit, you know, not like a hurricane or a tornado or an earthquake, you know? So it's, we're we're thinking about that all the time. But the way you described it, I think perfect.
Brad Caruso:
Yeah. And, and, and on on that point. I mean, you're a hundred percent right that, that's where my mind was going too with it is it's very hard to be able to fund an emergency while it's like exactly as it's happening. And it's also hard to know when it is happening. But yeah, a lot of us like just woke up and it's like, oh yeah, the government's just not gonna pay, you know, SNAP benefits. They're not gonna reinstate a lot of these programs. A lot of these nonprofits, a lot of people don't see it. Um, 'cause it's not publicized necessarily, but you know, if you are a nonprofit, go try to draw down money from the federal government and they say, we're closed, you can't draw down money. Uh, what do you do? Uh, a lot of these organizations operate on, you know, two months of cash flow and one of those, one of those months comes from the government and <laugh> if, uh, if they don't let you draw down the money, you know, there, there needs to be a mechanism in a very efficient and quick way.
Brad Caruso:
And a nonprofit can't just go out to the public and say, I'm just, I need to raise this money tomorrow. But they pro if you have a relationship with, with you guys and with your organiz- your organization, it, you know, it, it definitely, uh, can aid in in that difficult situation. And, and, and I really like getting that message across to both the nonprofit world as well as the individual funder world. Because like you said, I mean, individual funders, I, I know, you know, some people have always have said to me, I want to, I, this is the cause I like, but I don't know, like, how do I know, like my, my grandma even said it to me. She's like, how do I know what a good charity is? Like, how do I know where to deploy those dollars? Like, here's what I care about, you know, I care about X, Y, and Z.
Brad Caruso:
And to your point, and, and, um, when I'm leading into a question, how do you, how do you go about educating, um, philanthropists? I know one of the things that, that you said you do, and one, you know, you do a lot of education. Um, you know, what, what, what do you help, uh, people trying to give money, you know, what do you help coach them on? What are some of the, some of the common things that come up in your world that, that you're saying, Hey, here, here's some things you should know, uh, from that perspective?
Mathieu Nelessen:
Yeah, I think it's, um, I think for us, because we are a local, we're, we're kind of slightly bound, right? Within kind of the context of Mercer County and New Jersey here. Um, so I think one of our roles is, uh, the main role is really around our local knowledge of nonprofits. So, you know, we make it a best practice that a number of the staff, including many of the senior staff, myself included, are out in the field incredibly often, you know, so as an example, um, I'm one of the only funders who was on a food sustainability leadership call this morning at 9:00 AM right? And I'm invited there because I'm, I'm, I'm, we, uh, me as the CEO of PACF, and the other CEOs of these organizations are viewed as collaborative partners, right? So we have a position in the community as a collaborative partner, and we have a up to the minute understanding.
Mathieu Nelessen:
So, had you and I talked Thursday of last week at 10 o'clock, I would've, I would've painted you a very different landscape in terms of what was happening with regards to food security and staff this week. It's a very different, I mean, it's, it's, it's a, this has been a rollercoaster, an absolute rollercoaster in terms of trying to keep up and mitigate policy and trying to understand kind of where it's headed. So in that regard, it puts a lot of pressure. Um, but it, it forces us to say the more deeply and intimately we understand the community, the better we can train philanthropists to understand kind of like, what are the needs? What are the policy shifts? So we frequently have, um, investment sessions where we're kind of bringing our fund holders together, where we're working on kind of educating them, not just about the investment side, but also about the mission side.
Mathieu Nelessen:
That's something we're gonna look to do a, a lot more kind of moving forward, is how do we, how do we create a tighter kind of connection point between existing fundholders and those who are contemplating how to do it. Kind of like net new. Obviously we have kind of advisors here in-house that can talk to you about all of the, the tax benefits in terms of how you'd start up and why you'd start up. And if you're starting a business or, or thinking about liquidating a business, how setting up a fund could be beneficial. Like all of those advantages obviously, that are for the tax professionals, but a community foundation and a fund and a donor-advised fund can play a role in setting up that structure, which I think is really important. So it's on both sides, again, like everything else on both sides of the equation, right?
Mathieu Nelessen:
So, um, the other, the other thing I think that's important is that we understand not just what the nonprofits are doing, but the needs in the community. So, as an example, you know, we have a partnership with the Trenton Health Team, and they're doing really wonderful in, uh, information gathering and data analytics around, uh, census versus health versus hospital versus care, how that ties to transportation, food insecurity, housing, and making those correlations about what drives, what that helps to inform us. So I can go to a donor event and say, Hey, this is who's working on what, but this is a, this is the bigger picture issue in terms of how it all plays. So it just makes us very educated stewards. And then obviously the connections that we make, I think this is really important, right? So, um, if as you and I get to know each other more and more, I know what you're interested in, I can start to make those real customized connection points, right?
Mathieu Nelessen:
So like we were talking about you and your family, setting up your own philanthropy, um, if your children were, you know, old enough to go out and kind of like volunteer, I'd say to you, Hey, you know, uh, Brad, you know, I know you're interested in food security. Why don't, why don't I bring my crew, you know, my 14-year-old and you come with your crew and your wife, and let's go volunteer at TASK for the afternoon with the CEO. Um, so you, you, you can see how the sausage is made, right? You can see the clients who come in, you can hear the stories, and then you become not only an informed donor, but an a donor that now feels that, that sense of passion, right? And that's what we wanna build, right? We don't wanna just say, give and phone it in. We wanna try to create a connection.
Mathieu Nelessen:
So when you get goosebumps, when you write that check, you know that it feels deeply meaningful. And you know, it's not just going to an administrative black hole to fill a G and A, uh, function, right? That you know it's going to actually support an organization that is handing out a warm meal to someone who otherwise would not get it. And that, to me, is part of our role. The other part is that we have two really wonderful, three wonderful, kind of like specialty funds. I'm gonna focus on two. One is the Fund for Women and Girls, and one is our Next Gen Fund. Conceptually, obviously Next Gen is this up and coming kind of generation, you know, I'll put, just to be gracious, right? I'll put you and I in this category. Um, so it's under 50 group that's coming up. They're mid-career, they're really thriving, right?
Mathieu Nelessen:
That really needs to start thinking about their philanthropic impact. Um, and I think I'm being more generous to, to me versus you, I think you easily meet the mark, I'm right on the edge here. Um, so anyway, um, and then it's The Fund for Women and Girls. And both of these funds, the construct of these funds is that they have and create as a group their own RFPs. So they collaborate and, and talk about what's interesting to them as a group. What do they think the needs are, right? They build their own RFP, then they actually conduct their own review process. They read the applications, they score the applications, they have a deliberation. And then for The Fund for Women and Girls, they actually go and do site visits to the 10 finalists. Then they deliberate again, and then they award grants, some multi-year grants, some single year grants.
Mathieu Nelessen:
So what you're doing there is you're actually actually training people in the sausage making a philanthropy, because then you could turn around and say, I could actually do that at my kitchen table with my kids. I could say, all right, guys, we have $500 to donate to charity, and I have a couple little guys, what do you guys wanna do? And one's in the Girl Scouts, one's in something else, they're gonna have all these neat ideas. And I'm gonna say, well, if you have an idea, we're gonna fund it. And this is what we're gonna, that way you can just start to train. And, and I love that idea here at the Community Foundation that we're really developing this deep understanding of how to be a grant making human being, not in terms of making everybody have an RFP, right? You still wanna just give out, you know, charitable funds. But that idea, that due diligence, that depth of process just makes you connect to the organization, I think a way that is really, really wonderful and powerful.
Brad Caruso:
No, without a doubt. I, I love that. I, I love that example too of, of, uh, you know, telling your kids, Hey, here, here's a couple hundred dollars. You pick a charity and then ask 'em why, you know, why did you pick that charity? And then, and then educate them on, well, you know, here's some things, you know, uh, that you can guide them towards. And, and to your point on really understanding what the charitable organizations do, there is no better way than going and volunteering for the charitable organization to understand what they do. Um, you know, am I charitable endeavor of myself? Yeah. Like I, I am like so invested in it being, I'm a volunteer firefighter, so like, I'm so invested in that. Cause I, I volunteer hundreds of hours and I still donate to the same place that it's like, this makes no sense.
Brad Caruso:
I'm paying them to have me there, you know, to a degree. But, but, but at the end of the day, it's, uh, you know, it, it, you're, when you're, when you're the one doing this stuff, you really understand the mission so much better. And, um, you know, if you show up and, you know, deliver meals at, at an organization or, um, like you said, go to the Trenton area soup kitchen, and it, like, you, you can feel the environment and you understand, you know, what your dollars going towards and, and the benefit it's providing. And you know, you know that it's not just paying out an executive salary to, you know, you, you, you feel the mission. And, and I think that's such an important thing. And the fact that you, as the community foundation, you know, as a partner to all these individuals and charity, like you're, you're, you're doing some of that for them in, in your just day to day. You're, you're out there at these organizations and, um, you know, experiencing that. So I, I love that message that you have as well as kind of some simple advice just on, uh, you know, understand, understand the organizations that you're working with, and you're, you're, you're out there doing that. So I love that.
Mathieu Nelessen:
And there's an importance. So two things. One is the boot drop for my fire, my volunteer fire department in town. I always put cash in. I just so you know, it's a full disclosure, right? I always support our, our, our, our local fire department. Um, but as, as I think about, um, as I think about kind of like the impact in terms of, you know, philanthropy, you know, it's really, I can't like underscore this enough, like getting an individual to experience, uh, kind of the need. So, uh, you know, uh, in my, my two former organizations ago, you know, we did a smoke alarm campaign and to, to go into communities that are, you know, kind of like highly distressed and, and they're, they a trust to permits you because of your organization into their home. And you walk into their private dwelling and you install smoke alarms and you see kind of what's happening, like true boots on the ground.
Mathieu Nelessen:
It, it's, it's, it's, uh, inspiring and deeply concerning and humbling and, um, and saddening and, and, and it just creates this, this sense of purpose that is even more greater. So this idea about, like this connection, I think is incredibly important. And I think the other side of the equation too, on the, on the nonprofit side, and this is probably a little caveat or a little kind of advertisement, is we're able to make all of this possible. So as we have fund holders who entrust us with their philanthropic funds, um, you know, we collect small fees from those funds, uh, from our nonprofit partners as well. But those funds go right back in, uh, like out the door in the competitive grant making process, go right back out the door to us understanding, or right back out the door to kind of creating, uh, nonprofits event events. That really helped to make sure that we're providing service to the nonprofit organizations, uh, or kind of being part of their collaboratives. It, it's all, all of those service fees go right back into kind of making sure that we are here for the nonprofit community and for our fund holders. And that's an important piece that I think sometimes gets buried down in the details when you look at kind of like what we do. And it's, I think it's a really important component of kind of our, uh, our community foundation's value proposition across the board.
Brad Caruso:
No doubt. No doubt. Cool. Um, you know, you mentioned a couple things too. Um, you know, one, one of the things that, that even, even I, I don't know, always think about, but you know, you, you truly are an expert in, in the nonprofit industry of understanding the temperature of what's going on out there. Um, you know, I guess just in, in, in your, you know, let's just say the recent 12 months, you know, what, what, how would you describe kind of the temperature of the nonprofit industry? How has it been affected by all, you know, everything people are reading in the news and, you know, kind of what are you seeing out there just, uh, in, in the current times?
Mathieu Nelessen:
So I'd say, if you're ever thinking about starting a fund to support a nonprofit, now's the time. If you're ever thinking about doubling down on your, on your year end giving, now's the time. So, you know, if you gave a dollar last year, find a way to give to, because these nonprofits continue to rise to the occasion. Uh, right. Last week was a, a, a glaring example of how these nonprofit leaders, staff, volunteers board step up time and time again. When the social network gets called to come into action, they step up and they find a way. So find a way to support them. That'd be my first thing. Um, I'd say what they're dealing with is they're dealing with a, um, a very difficult to forecast policy look forward and funding look forward. Um, and, you know, as you know, as a driver of a vehicle, uh, when it's dense fog or it's really heavy rain, you, you, you, you can't see, you have to slow down.
Mathieu Nelessen:
It's hard to, unless you know the road so well, you know where that little pothole is, it's gonna grab you on that right hand turn. You just don't know here, right? Because you're on some new roads and it's foggy and you can't see. So how do you make the best determination about when you're gonna get to your location, when you should stop, how you can, like, all of those details begin to have clouds of uncertainty around them, and those decisions get much more difficult to make. So then you have to build these mitigation plans. So if this happens, if this bill goes forward, if it doesn't, what does it mean and what should I do? And what does it mean for my budget? And how should I think about budgeting and how should I think about forecasting and savings and borrowing and my assets and my depreciated, like how should I think about all that stuff?
Mathieu Nelessen:
But in addition to the line at the door getting longer and more requests for the service that they're providing, you now have to stack on all of that other stuff to help mitigate, you know, all, all of. So I think that they've been extraordinarily resilient. Um, I think that they've continued to deliver service and they've, they've heated every single call, whether it's childcare or, or the arts or theater or, you know, or afterschool activity, uh, or food or housing or transportation. They've all answered the call. So it's been remarkable. Um, what we've done at PACF is we've done a couple months of like pulse surveys. So we've kind of gone out to the nonprofit sector to say, where have you experienced the service delivery interruption? How has that impacted staff? Are you changing your mission? Do you have funding? Uh, do you have funding, uh, challenges?
Mathieu Nelessen:
Um, and there are organizations here that have upwards of 50% federal funding, right? Um, some in the eighties, that's a huge risk. Uh, right? It wasn't a risk, uh, you know, two years ago, but now it's, it's become all of a sudden a risk. And you can't mitigate that with philanthropy in two years. Philanthropy is a long term kind of, you know, activity that you've gotta kind of chop and build, build out the pantry, right over, over a number of years. So I would say that, um, the feedback from that survey is that there's just this incredible unease, but there's this kind of relentless desire to continue to drive mission. So one of the things that organizations have been thinking about to say, what are the components of our organization that are mission adjacent and not core, and should we put those mission adjacent pieces with organizations who actually do that?
Mathieu Nelessen:
So if you are a, say, American Red Cross, and you're doing a food transportation program, would that be better off with Meals on Wheels? So they can just kind of do what they do really, really well, and you could do what you do really, really well. So there's a piece of that, um, in there. So what we're doing with the feedback is we're gonna start to create some set of tailored workshops, um, around giving folks more clarity in this time that makes it really difficult to have clarity. Um, and that's who we've been focused on. But again, you know, what a, what a what a resilient community. And the last piece I'll say is that we've, we as a community foundation have made a three year investment in a tool called Impala. And Impala is a AI driven tool that allows, um, 990s to be, uh, scrubbed and analyzed in a way that's more powerful than ever has been done in the past.
Mathieu Nelessen:
Meaning that if you're a nonprofit, you can now go specifically into this tool and say, I wanna see every funder who funds anything that has to do with food insecurity in the foundation space. And bang, they'll all pop up from the 990. So it allows them to, as opposed to doing all this hunting and pecking about who does that, they can go directly to the sources craft customized grant proposals, and be much more efficient and effective. And we've been one of the grant funders to make that free for the next three years to the entire New Jersey nonprofit ecosystem. Um, and we're really proud to be an investor in that, along with some of our other kind of wonderful funders here. Kind of like locally, like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Dodge Foundation and the, and the Burke Foundation.
Brad Caruso:
That's phenomenal. Yeah. <laugh>, yeah. People don't realize that, uh, I mean, people in, in our community as well are, are looking for, in the nonprofit world, they're looking for ways to use AI in a, in a very, you know, poignant and effective way. And that, that's a great example of using it ineffective way is, you know, here's my premise and I'm, this is mining the data for me and then, you know, producing a result for me and then advising me on, on, you know, what it is that I'm trying to answer for myself. So that's super cool. And with, with, yeah, there are a lot of organizations that are, you know, federally or state funded that, you know, I think what a lot of the world doesn't realize is, you know, as, as some of this stuff gets just over generalized with federal budgets and stuff, but some of these nonprofits, if the federal government cuts the budget this year and says, oh, we'll, we'll put it back next year, like that nonprofit's not gonna be there anymore.
Brad Caruso:
There's a very strong possibility that nonprofit might not be able to survive that year without that funding. So a lot of these organizations that are heavily dependent upon, you know, government funding, and there's a lot of organizations that are heavily dependent in, in, in a very, you know, in a very correct way. I mean, the, the federal government to some variable degree does have a responsibility to its citizens to help those in need. And this, the mechanism to do that is them, you know, dole out money to the, to nonprofit organizations. Um, but to your point of like, you have to run this like a business, like, yeah, you have to, you have to do risk assessment. Like you have to say, if 50% of my funding is from the federal government, what happens if that goes away? And am I prepared for that? And how do I prepare for the future for that?
Brad Caruso:
That's, that's a big thing that we're running into. 'cause a lot of these organizations never, probably never thought that was gonna happen, or, um, you know, we didn't necessarily predict that all of a sudden the, you know, a new government was gonna come in and they're like, yeah, by the way, we're just gonna cut that program altogether. Like, what, <laugh> what do you mean you're gonna cut that program altogether? What do you mean USAID is gonna go away? You know, like, like those were, those were real discussions that occurred and you had to, you had to think on the fly. So to your point, tribal organizations have a lot on their minds. You have to think about all this policy stuff because it's gonna impact you, and you have to do your risk assessment. You have to think about how you're serving your constituents and making the impact.
Brad Caruso:
You have to think about all your back office stuff and administratively comply with all this stuff. Everything's transparent. So, you know, every nonprofit leader's salary is out there for the public to see. So, you know, I, you know, newsflash, that's not an easy thing to manage where all your employees see your salary as the leader <laugh>, and, you know, all of these things. And, and so it is very difficult to run a, run an organization. Fast forward to 2025. It, you know, there, there are some real challenges because of the curve ball element. You know, you don't know which way it's gonna go. Um, I have a lot of organizations right now that they're, they're, they're, they're nervously waiting for spending bill to pass to see, is our funding allocated in there? Or is it not allocated in there? Is this program gonna exist or is it not? Is it gonna get reduced? Is it gonna get increased? Are we, you know, and, and, um, we're making real time decisions based on real time stuff happening. And that, that's not easy.
Mathieu Nelessen:
Um, it's not easy. And, and I think, you know, the most, the most sobering part of all of that is that behind that, which is, this is you and I talking, right? This is you and I talking virtually, but behind that is that you step away from my office, and if I drive, you know, anywhere I can drive four miles from my office right here in Princeton, and I can go and bump into someone who has extraordinary need. And if that program, and it could be a senior who is, you know, who, who, who's receiving support and funding, it could be, you know, it could be anybody, right? In any of our communities here in Mercer County. So it's not just, you know, uh, where we kind of think about, it's not just Trenton, it's Princeton. I mean, there's need everywhere different, different, different, uh, maybe different scale in terms of volume, but behind everything that you and I are talking about, there's a human being, there's a family, there's a single parent, there's a kid, there's a grandparent that that program is gonna affect someone's life and maybe their trajectory.
Mathieu Nelessen:
But, but at the end of the day, it's gonna affect their life. Whenever that, whenever that policy hits, it's gonna, it's gonna change. I mean, imagine living in a world where you go from in one minute having $20 in your pocket to go feed your family to the next day, having not, and also having to decide whether or not you put gas in your car, pay for a bus ticket, uh, or, you know, do something else. It's an impossible, it's an impossible choice. And that's what's behind what you and I are talking about. These are real faces and real heartbeats and real, you know, real, real members of our community. And that's, that's, to me, that goes back to kind of what you started with, right? Is that that's the north star. I mean, and if that's our north star, like we can all, we can all rally around that point and get behind that north star, right? Let's, we, we, we, we can, we can figure that out. If that's our, if that's our directional heading, let's, let's go and figure that out against that need,
Brad Caruso:
No doubt. Yeah. And you, and you're, and, and you know, a adding a term to what you're talking about is, is impact, right? We're talking about the impact that we make in the charitable world, and that impact is that family at the end of the line there. It's not the nonprofit, it's, it's, it's, it's going through all these processes to help that individual who otherwise wouldn't eat tonight or otherwise, would not have transportation or otherwise, would not have a roof over the head or otherwise, would not have summer to go for an activity or otherwise. Name a million. And one things that all these various charitable organizations are set up to design to do from a purpose perspective. That's the, that is the impact. And, and I think, you know, what always frustrates me, and, and, you know, I don't, I don't get political, but what frustrates me is when people lose sight of that, they, they, it's collateral damage to some of these folks.
Brad Caruso:
And it, you're just like, you're, you're missing the point here. I get it. That like, people are politically charged one way or the other, and they care about causes. But at the end of the day, if you put it in terms of, let me spell it to you differently, the impact of you passing this or not passing this is those thousand people eating or not eating. Now, I'd like you to go back and deliberate and tell me if it's more important that you fund department X, whatever department X is, or that family and, and, and what is the real purpose of the government? I, I, I think everybody, if you put 'em in a room and put blindfolds in everybody and, and covered their voices, so nobody knew what they would say. They'd say, I wanna support the family <laugh>. But, but, but so many people lose sight of that, that like, like them passing this bill or not actually affects that significantly.
Brad Caruso:
And I think, I think that's where people lose sight of it. And it, and it's, I like that we talk about it, and I like that, you know, from the, from the people giving to philanthropy, you know, there's been a lot of negativity towards our industry in the last couple months, and a lot of, Hey, a lot of people don't do good things fine. And I'm sure that exists exists in any industry, but the reality is, if you look at the mission and you look at the impact some of these organizations have, you could tell pretty clearly what organizations have an impact and what don't. Um, so yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. But that it's, it's my frustration of the world, <laugh>,
Mathieu Nelessen:
This is tied to your point, right? Because it's all interconnected, but there, there's also not a debate, but there's schools of thought on the giving side, right? So on the foundation side, on the philanthropic side, that, you know, there should be more, and there's a call for this from the nonprofit sector in some cases, right? That there should be more trust-based philanthropy. Don't give me a whole lot of guardrails, just trust me to go and do what I need with the money, right? So, so unrestricted, just give me cash and, and, and I'll do good work with it. And there's a belief in that. And there's a belief in kind of then the other extreme, right? Which is such a high barrier for these nonprofits to kind of create all of this justification about impact and change and behavior change and root cause change. And, and that is the other extreme, right?
Mathieu Nelessen:
And, and I, I think that those organizations who kind of have those beliefs, there's a place for that because it couldn't be one or the other. And it can't be all in the middle, right? Where it's like the Princeton Area Community Foundation, right? You know, we're trying to support critical needs. We're trying to be responsive to our community, but we're also, you know, really attuned to kind of the, the burden that we're putting on the nonprofit. So yeah, we do wanna track some progress against the goal, but if we're giving to meet an immediate need around, say again, food insecurity or housing or you name the issue, our funding is not kind of looking at solving the root cause issue of homelessness or food insecurity in Mercer County. That's again, I think a role where much bigger dollars come into play, right? Our goal is to say there is a clear rising of need in all of these categories called critical need.
Mathieu Nelessen:
And all we're doing is just trying to meet this community where it is today, right? Um, and I think there's a role for that as well, right? So if you have these folks who are saying, we're gonna create a very, very high bar, a of huge RFP, a lot of metrics that we're really gonna get at root cause of food insecurity or homelessness, excellent. Well, in the meantime, people are starving, so we're gonna feed them. And then in the meantime, there's organizations that will give out capital just to get new ideas started, then to incubate new ideas. And, and there's space for all of those versions and definitions or ranges of impact on our side as well. But I still think it should have the, in my mind, what you're calling, what I'm calling like the end user as well, right? And the end user is who, who has a need today and how can we meet that need while also protecting the back, which means starting to drive down the systemic issues that create the problem in the first place.
Mathieu Nelessen:
And if we can do that, I think that's a nice way, and the ecosystem does work to some degree that way, but there, i, I ha I do hear rumblings of, you know, it can be more of this and less of that and less of this and more of that. I kind of think that it's really healthy. I mean, if we sway in one direction or the other, I think it's gonna become unhealthy in terms of what's actually happening and who's not being addressed or how something is not being addressed. So that's the other side of kind of the point you're talking about, about impact, I think.
Brad Caruso:
Yeah, I agree. I would agree. If you look at the community foundation itself, um, you know, and, and as you define impact, um, any, any stories that you wanna share about either impact that you, the community foundation has made, uh, recently or in the, you know, in the, in the foreseeable past or any impacts of, you know, funding you provided of work that they've done? You know, how do you, how do you draw draw that together through an example?
Mathieu Nelessen:
Yeah, so I'll, I'll give you two good examples. One is, so we've, we've, we've made a really discerned investment in our community impact grants on summer initiatives. So, you know, all of the data will show that summer is a, is a major learning loss opportunity, time, it's an opportunity. Whether that puts strain on families and parents who are working, who have to provide care for their child. So, and transportation is a barrier in some cases. So we've made, you know, a half a million dollars investment in about, I wouldn't say last year was 20 or 21, I might get that number wrong, but in the ballpark of 20 programs that were really providing, uh, care for individuals who had, um, access challenges to good summer programming that really addressed a safe place to, to be, to allow mom, dad, or whomever's at home to work, uh, to provide transportation, to provide healthy food, to provide academic enrichment.
Mathieu Nelessen:
Um, that's something that we think is really important because if you look at Mercer County, right? Our reading literacy and our math proficiency rates are, you know, in the, in the bottom 5% in the state of New Jersey. And, you know, in areas, you know, we're in, in the Princeton area. We're in the Trenton area, right? It shouldn't be that way, right? So we're really thinking about that summer learning loss as an opportunity. And what we're doing is we're working with organizations like the Trenton Health Team to start to quantify, right? So you came to this program seeking academic enrichment as a, um, a, like a, like a prescore, if you will, of the attendees. And the post score, post questionnaire was how many, many of you felt like you actually got academic enrichment in this, in this session? And it was in the nineties, right?
Mathieu Nelessen:
You know, 95 or so percent felt like they really got good academic enrichment. And that, to me, that hits the mark in terms of an investment. And another example I'll give you is much more discreet, but there was a major fire in Trenton about two months ago. This was, you know, half a city block was burned. Uh, a number of families were displaced um, and typically the city will jump in quickly and provide housing, near term housing, and then the nonprofit sector, right? That, that always comes to an end at some point. It comes to an end around the two week mark, and there was a number of families that were still under pressure, and Catholic Charities was the organization who was taking that bill on and, and caring for those families who were in distress. We talked to Catholic Charities really quickly and we said, Hey, what, what are your needs?
Mathieu Nelessen:
And we deployed, you know, uh, you know, $14,000 grant to them to provide another X number of weeks of, of housing to give those families some sustainability, but let them get back to, uh, understanding like, what are, what's, what's the recovery process look like? Um, and it gave Catholic charities that relief because they weren't gonna be able to fundraise for that. They were gonna meet the immediate need of that community, right? And our job as a community foundation is to say, how can we quickly, in that case, look at one of our funds and rapidly deploy and make an immediate impact on a family who otherwise was, it's either city funding was gonna stop a nonprofit takes you on and, and, and takes on water, uh, because of that, because it wasn't budgeted for how do we step in and provide that relief? And those are two really good examples of, of where the community foundation has kind of like, uh, step stepped in and done that. There's two good examples very recently.
Brad Caruso:
I love that. And, and I like that you use the term investment. You know, a lot of people would say, grant, use the term investment. You know, you're, you're reinvesting back in the community. And a lot of folks in this world that I talk to, you know, the, the word community is so important and for you to just articulate the impact that that investment has made, and, you know, different dollar amounts in, in those, in those pictures you described, but it, but it shows you that, you know, it's not just a dollar transferring. It's not just a, you know, hey, we're taking this dollar, we're giving to this organization. Like the true impact of all of this is that you're making an investment in that community. They're part of your community. We're all part of that community. Um, and, and you're, you're reinvesting in it. And, you know, that does go a very long way, even more than you would ever be able to quantify. You quantify some very important things. And there's more of a, there's a tertiary effect to all of this that I believe, um, you know, occurs,
Mathieu Nelessen:
Right? Yeah. And it, and it goes back to, to what we talked about before. It's says, we shouldn't be bashful about using, you know, corporate for-profit terminology, right? So this idea of an investor and investment, you always think about return. Our return is to make sure that the nonprofit community's healthy and that the clients are getting served. That's the return. So it's the, the social capital return, not a financial, you know, uh, return. And, and that I think, is a fantastically beautiful concept.
Brad Caruso:
Someone should write a book on these things. If it's not already done, maybe, you know, maybe that's another way you can, you can enrich PACF with the, or the community foundation with royalties, with, uh, writing a book about, you know, it
Mathieu Nelessen:
Should be called-
Brad Caruso:
About this, this, this. Listen, I'll, I'll write it with you. Yeah. I have to, I have to look at my, my, uh, talk to my legal accounts about independence. But, you know, we'll figure that out, auditor, independent for those out there that are auditors, you know, the, uh, you know, the fun of auditor independence. But, um, awesome. You know, one of the other things, you know, when we talk about impact that I love, and, uh, I don't see every charity in the world doing this, but I love how you're doing it. And I want, I want you just describe kind of, you know, what it means to you. You're showing the impact through social media. I, I see you have LinkedIn posts, you have other posts. Um, I, I concentrate a lot on LinkedIn just in my, my professional world. And I always see the Community Foundation posting pictures of I'm here today, I'm there today, here's what they're doing, here's what they're doing. Here's our, you know, all of these different things. And I love that you do that, you know, why is that important to you? How did you, you know, how are you, how are you going about that strategically? And, you know, what does it mean to you, you know, some of these posts that you're making, because I think it's awesome.
Mathieu Nelessen:
Yeah. I'll first say that our, our, our, our VP of, uh, Communications and Marketing, Michelle Sahn, and, uh, our kind of Manager of Communications and Marketing Ian Salzman are, are, are fantastic. And, and Ian has been leading the charge on our social side. And that, uh, you know, this step up in terms of the quality, uh, and the brand quality of what he's been building for us, I think has been extraordinary, right? So he gets a, a ton of credit for this work. Uh, and the team, you know, under Michelle's leadership gets a ton of credit for saying, Hey, this is a real focus area. So for us, it goes back to how we're structured, right? We, we, we have two primary purposes, and in my regard, kind of the first purpose is to say, if we can be a better storyteller around where we're making an investment or where the need is, or where we've been, or what we're seeing, all of those posts, all that does in the hope that all that does, right?
Mathieu Nelessen:
Is it- it lets people know and understand our connectivity and, and deep understanding of the nonprofit sector, but elevate those nonprofits, right? So everyone who received the Summer Grant from us, everyone who received the Community Impact grant, um, and all those folks that we're visiting with, right? We wanna elevate that brand, right? And because we have a funding followership, right? Ideally, there's that, that there's that connection that starts to become closer and closer with our social media and our branding footprint. And then in the same exact breath, right? This is almost like breathing in and breathing out, right? Um, now the, the other side of the coin is that the more that we can talk about this community and show our level of expertise around this space, the more we can attract, you know, additional conversations with people who are interested in saying, well, how does that work?
Mathieu Nelessen:
How does that work at the Prince Area Community Foundation? And how does the donor-advised fund work? And let me, let me maybe talk to them, uh, about how that works and that, that, that, that's our entire approach. And, and I think part of it is also in my mind of saying, let's arm the team and let's arm the entire community with so much good positive collateral that we can start to, you know, let the good stories rise above kind of all this other churn of, of, of, of, of media pressure that we hear, right? Because all the stories that we're pushing out are good, informative, action-based stories or activities or suggestions or, uh, calls to action. And those are all really good things to focus on in a time when the community need is great, and where people can feel really good about, you know, about flexing their philanthropic muscles. So that, that, that's the approach. And again, I can't give enough credit to Ian and Michelle. They've just been absolute dynamite and the quality of what, what the Princeton Area Community Foundation is putting out into the social space has been, uh, brilliant. So thank you for recognizing that, that that's fantastic.
Brad Caruso:
I'm, I love the positivity. Yeah. No, and especially in the social, the social media world and the news world, and, and the greater degree, uh, you know, everybody can rally around positivity, and the more you see positivity, the more you're gonna be positive. Whereas, you know, most of us open our phone and see the negativity, and that's all it is. And it's all right, I've had enough of this. I don't wanna see that anymore. I wanna see, oh, you know, like you said, like I have this summer education, we have, you have summer education funds that are going to, um, you know, help individuals, you know, bridge the learning gap and, and develop more knowledge when they otherwise wouldn't. It's like, I, I wanna hear that. That's great. Like, there is positive stuff happening in the world, and it's just too often that we don't, we don't, uh, have the pleasure of experiencing that positivity.
Brad Caruso:
Um, you know, that investment that you're making and the fact that you're telling it out there, I love, because, you know, if, if you follow your social media channels and you're a charity out there, you're probably saying, oh, that's what they care about. That, that, that's, those are some of the things that maybe I can incorporate. And it's another learn, it's an indirect learning experience for people is Oh, okay, I, I see that now. And, and I think that's good for, you know, for those out there, you know, find a good social media person up the game and, and, uh, you know, talk positive and, and it will pay dividends in the long run. So,
Mathieu Nelessen:
And it's Brad, it goes back to, I mean, again, you know, this non being apologetic to the nonprofit community about kind of the, for the for-profit side, but it's doubling down on marketing and storytelling doesn't always have immediate return. And the value proposition of how you create the ROI, the return on investment for advertising is always very difficult to get hard numbers on. But I would suggest that everybody should be doubling down on their storytelling now, because it only leads to awareness. And with the competitive landscape and the quick return that people get in terms of instant gratification, now is the time you should be making that investment as a nonprofit leader. And, and man, uh, if, if I could, if I could encourage everybody to do that more, I would
Brad Caruso:
Love it. Good message. So we've been talking a lot about, uh, how you help as a community foundation, how you support the community. Um, how can the public help you, you know, where does the community foundation need help? Or, or if, you know, you had a call to action here, you know, how, how do people get involved? You know, what, what, what, what do you believe that you need as a community foundation to keep doing the great work you're doing?
Mathieu Nelessen:
Yeah, so it's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a little bit of a chicken, chicken or the egg, right? And, and I think in this regard, it's, it's thriving philanthropy equals thriving communities. So we need the thriving philanthropy piece, right? To have the thriving community. So in order to do that, right, it's come visit us, come stop by, come learn about your philanthropy. Come think about your family exercise at your countertop, about how you wanna engage your children and your family. Get involved in the sausage making, right? Have them go and then volunteer at the organization that they gave their 10 bucks to, right? Get involved in your community in that way. And then come talk to us. Come talk to us about how to create kind of a legacy of giving and learn about philanthropy. So the more folks who are out there who are interested in saying, Hey, I, I, I'd love to be more conscientious about my philanthropic impact, as opposed to just signing a check around the holidays, um, and really create kind of a more durable pathway for philanthropy. Come talk to us, right? If you wanna learn about what's happening in the nonprofit sector, come talk to us. So visit us online, give us a call. We are here to help. Um, and like I said, you know, a thriving community foundation means thriving, uh, philanthropy, uh, both on the nonprofit side and in the giving side. So if the community could do anything, uh, right now, it's, you know, um, be charitable. Be charitable this holiday season. And if you want to think about your long-term tax-wise, charitable plans, come, come talk to us.
Brad Caruso:
How can someone find you, Matthew, if they were gonna try to find your website? What's your website?
Mathieu Nelessen:
So if you just go to, uh, if you just do, do, do a search for Princeton Area Community Foundation, and we'll pop right up to the top.
Brad Caruso:
Nice. Love it. It's good. SEO marketing right there. Another, another for-profit, business term. Awesome. Um, you know, appreciate your time today. Um, you know, thank you so much for dedicating the time. This, this was a good learning experience for, for a lot. I think, you know, a lot of our discussion today just centralized around some general, general concepts in, in philanthropy itself, how the community foundation is filling that need in your community. Um, you know, how to think about the impact that you're making. And, you know, this was just a great dialogue. So I really appreciate you spending the time with us today, and people can learn a little bit more about, uh, the community foundation going forward. But thanks so much, Matthew, for, for spending the time with us today.
Mathieu Nelessen:
Brad, honored, honored to be asked and, uh, you know, great hanging out with you for a little bit and talking with you. Uh, obviously you're so knowledgeable in the space and, uh, you provide such a fantastic service, and Withum is such a wonderful partner. You know, we're incredibly appreciative of you and, and everything that you and your team do. So, uh, this is a delight. So I appreciate it. So, so very much.
Brad Caruso:
Yeah. No, awesome. I appreciate those kind words of, uh, sentiment and, uh, yeah. And warriors out there. Thank you for listening. Subscribe and meet us right back here for another episode of Withum Civic Warriors. Bye everybody.
