Red Apple Education

#EMBA Lesson 6 When approaching wealthy investors ask for what you need up front. Money conversations are easier with the numbers out of the way. Let’s talk about it. We JUST finished our pretend pitch competition in my Rockhurst University Executive MBA class. My group raised 2.5 million (I wish they were real) dollars from 2 venture capitalists. To do it, we had to create a presentation where we gave an overview of our product, shared our numbers and asked for the amount of investment we needed to keep growing. When it was finished, we had our potential funders give us feedback. Every one of them said that we should have asked for the money first which is totally opposite of my every day experience. Listen Friends, I am from the Midwest. I was taught to spend time sitting with someone, getting to know them, showing them I'm not a money grabbing jerk BEFORE asking for anything. In my world, asking was impolite without relationship. With that kind of background, talking about money up front literally never crossed my mind. It felt offensive, but based on the person you are talking to, research supports it. Here is why: 1. Venture Capitalists (think the Sharks on Shark Tank) know within 3-10 minutes if they are going to invest in a company. Our pitch took 20, which means in real life, we would have lost our window of opportunity. 2. A novel idea or approach matters more than the numbers at first. People who are seasoned investors can recognize just by listening if you have a money making opportunity for them. 3. Your asking for money up front allows them to have context for everything else you are sharing. If they know what your number is, they can listen to you and determine if what you are saying is worth what you are asking I have to say here however, NONE of this applies when you are asking for money from nonprofit foundations. Nonprofit foundations it turns out are Southern in their approach as well. They want to get to know the organizations that they fund. Some of them only fund by invitation. I think that with the advent of trust based philanthropy, foundations want to be sure that they are supporting organizations that are actually doing good. The contrast between the two funding approaches is why it is VITAL that nonprofits diversify funding streams. Of course we want to build relationships, show our impact and keep funders coming back. On the other hand, some days we just need a cash infusion so that we can keep building. That may mean approaching a venture capitalist with some aspect of your work that can make money for them while you are out doing all of the good you can. Friend, I don't have all of the answers. I like the fact that this business program meets in person at Rockhurst University because it means that I get to brainstorm with others in person on a regular basis. I need that kind of think tank. Here's to increasing revenue and diversifying funders. I wish you well this week! #MBA #Executive #Leadership

#EMBA Lesson 5 Do you know your ABC's? How much is it costing you to stay in business? Learning this alphabet saves you money. Let's talk about it. Sidney Smith, MBA LOVES to say "Nonprofit is just a tax status NOT a business model." I used to think that putting the numbers first meant putting people last. After learning my ABCs, I know how to better leverage both. Y'all know that I am in the Rockhurst University Executive MBA program which meets in person monthly at THE Rockhurst University here in Kansas City. We were discussing financial statements in our class recently, and I learned my alphabet. ABC stands for Activity Based Costs. When considering your business financials, you have to know your ABCs so that you know how much your business activities are costing you and determine if that cost is increasing profitability, and in my case, also advancing the mission. Here is an example. Red Apple offers mental health support for low income families of color who cannot afford therapy, don't have insurance, or have insurance but no access to an available provider. Last year, we sourced multiple licensed therapists and paid them directly to meet with our families. Parents would reach out to us for therapy support. We assigned a therapist to meet them at a neutral location (maybe a library) at a set day/time for as long as they wanted. Afterward, we would pay the providers a flat rate plus travel. On its face this program was AMAZING. Families were helped and providers were happy. From a business perspective, the ABCs were off. Here is why. Therapy is EXPENSIVE. Even though we had a grant for our work, when we look at the ABCs (Activity Based Cost) our approach was not sustainable. Here is what I could have done differently: 1. Diversified our funders. My mistake with our original model was only approaching nonprofit foundations for money. Now, I share our work and its impact with private business foundations, news outlets KSHB / KMCI / The EW Scripps Company & individual donors too! Having a larger pool of donors means a larger pool of money and larger impact for a longer time. 2. Diversified our therapists. My mistake originally was ONLY using providers who were already running their own practices. Now, I work with individuals at a variety of licensure stages to provide the mental health intervention families need. I also built partnerships so that I wouldn't have to look so hard for therapists. 3. Ask more questions. Last year, Red Apple determined the kind of therapy support that was available to families. That limited us. This year, we had planning conversations with partners first to learn what they needed and used that to design programming. ABCs are tricky in the nonprofit space. I have to balance the money with the mission. It isn't always easy. I'm grateful that Red Apple is still able to provide underserved families with mental health support. I feel like this company and I are growing up together. I couldn't BE more proud of us.

#BusinessSchoolDidNotTeachMe If you aren't healthy your company likely isn't either. A healthy waistline can lead to a healthier bottom line. Let's talk about it. Did you know that the healthier you are as an executive, the more likely you are to make sound decisions? Yeah me either. I told you that I have an executive coach right? He is a little fanatical about personal health. He works out daily and hikes for fun and believes in eating well overall. He has also successfully started and sold his own company while I am still working to get mine to sustainability. I've read in a lot of places that good executives start their day early, in part to exercise. I would not call myself a morning person. I need 32oz of coffee before I can jump into my day in any capacity. Add to that wrangling 2 kids before 8am and exercise is typically the last thing on my mind. Of all of my strategizing to move Red Apple ahead, I never considered deeper investment in my physical health as a way to make money. It turns out I was wrong. Health is literal wealth. The World Economic Forum did a study and found that companies who emphasized executive health and wellness saw more than 100% increase in profitability. Also true? Overall company customer service, production, and decision making improve too! Research proves that tired, dehydrated, under nourished people do not make the best decision makers. Grind culture kills bottom lines. That means that my early morning coffee, mid morning snack, occasional in the car meal and afternoon coffee again approach to getting through the day needed to change. So I am changed it. Fitting in time to workout as a single mom running a business is tough but I am hanging in and taking it one step at a time. These are my current commitments: 1. I go to the YMCA of the USA and I work out at least 3 times a week. I love the Y because they offer childcare in the evening. My toddler is a bright and beautiful handful of energy. Without childcare, I could not work out anywhere other than my living room. 2. I drink at least 1/2 gallon of water daily. I have this water jug with timestamps on it just like a lot of you! It keeps me on track. I am SO inordinately proud when I drink more than one container! 3. I turn my phone off at night. I used to answer the phone after 5pm but now I don't. Whatever conversation or emergency can wait until the next day. I also don't check my email after 5pm (usually). This gives me time with my kids and time to decompress from the day. I am still working on being in bed and asleep by 9pm but progress is a process Friends Ultimately I want to be the best executive that I can be. Eventually I will get to the point where my food is clean and my carbs all come from somewhere other than potato chips. I am not there yet but I am on my way. If you are reading this and need an accountability partner inbox me! We are in this together. #health #executive #business #leadership

#Businessschooldidnotteachme Moving from employee to entrepreneur can be very messy. Finding a coach and a tribe are critical. Let's talk about it. I remember when I quit the last job I ever had. While the move was necessary for my mental health, at the time, it felt both frightening and irresponsible. I had a kid who needed braces and glasses, and a couple of temp clients. I had rent to pay. Still, after being burned out and unable to imagine working for ONE MORE system, I did 2 things that turned out to be really smart decisions on my road to full time entrepreneurship. First, I got an executive coach. If you don't know where to start with #executivecoaching DO NOT worry! SCORE Mentors is a collection of current and former business leaders volunteering their time as business coaches in cities across the country. All you have to do is go to their website, find your city, and select a coach. They can meet with you face to face or online. You match with a mentor and if you don't vibe, you can select another one until you find who works for you. SCORE offers workshops too! SCORE workshops and coaching cover literally everything from business planning to marketing strategy to reviewing your financials. I have had around four SCORE mentors and each one was different. All were helpful. Second, unless you and your significant other or bestie are thugging it out working together day to day on your business, you have to get a group of entrepreneur friends. Here is why it is important. When you are employee, you meet people by bonding at work right? You go to lunch, dislike stupid policies, or celebrate coworkers together. You are on a team. When you become an entrepreneur, you are the team. There are no coworkers. Abruptly removing yourself from a work community can leave a gap. If you don't address it, it can tank you. Working with people can be frustrating no matter the industry. If you don't have a community of entrepreneurs to share your struggles with, you may find yourself venting to a client, and that is not a good place to be. You need people who get it to help you problem solve. None of those conversations can happen with your client, no matter how cool they are. Listen, I find community in a lot of spaces these days. I have my favorite business podcasters, I attend networking events, and I go to brunch...as often as I can lol I don't have all of the answers. I am frustrated about a snag I've hit as I write this and I fully intend to talk to my coach next week. No matter how well you plan, you can't do the work alone friends and it definitely won't be perfect. Here's to us betting on ourselves anyway! #executive. #leadership #leadershipmatters #business #coaching #tribe #mentorship

#EMBA Lesson2: No one is funding you based on your why. Revenue is tied to your WHAT. Let's talk about it. Y'all know that I am in Rockhurst University Executive MBA cohort which meets in person at THE Rockhurst University. I've just started this Executive MBA journey and It has been a game changer for me as a nonprofit leader. Recently, we did this exercise in class where we had to create a fictional business and define WHAT the business did, HOW the business did it, and WHO the business was doing that for. Here is an example for a fake dog treat business. WHAT: We create high quality food so that pets can have a great quality of life HOW: We sell organic dog food WHO IS THIS FOR: Health conscious dog owners that want their pets to live a long and healthy life See what I mean? Where we thought about the WHAT in business class, I have spent literal YEARS as a nonprofit leader focusing on WHY. WHY do we exist? WHY should people get behind our work? The problem is that in focusing on my organizational WHY, I missed opportunities to expand on the opportunities presented by my WHAT. In the above example, the company exists to help pets have a great quality of life. Currently they make and sell dog food, but what is to prevent them from expanding to create high quality cat food?, fish food? high quality food for humans who believe they are pets? Who says all of the food has to be organic in order to be high quality? The exercise taught me that as a nonprofit leader, when I am super clear on (what EXACTLY we do at a high level), how we do it (programs), and who it is for (community impact) I can confidently identify and approach potential new donors because our alignment to their focus areas is clear to me from the first meeting. If I were talking about a nonprofit the above example, any foundation or civic group that cared about pet health, pet lifespan, pet food quality, pet food accessibility in general, equity of quality pet food access, etc would now be on my list to approach. Before this exercise, I would only have looked at organizations who funded dog food production and spent ALL of my new funder Zoom/coffee meeting time talking about how important it is that dogs eat on a regular basis. You may not have needed this insight friends but I did! Here's hoping your strategic plans improve the way mine has. I will report back on how the donor diversification is going lol To be continued... #nonprofit #leadership #mba #executive #leadershipmatters #focus #diversification

#Businessschooldidnotteachme Sometimes you have to just push through. There is nuance between executive and entrepreneur. Let’s talk about it. I’ve been in my Executive MBA program for a few weeks. While I’m STILL new to the official stuff of executive leadership, what I do know is that an executive gets the benefit of being hired to run an organization that already exists. For better or worse, an executive gets a team and policies and infrastructure and KPIs and maybe even a Board of Directors. The relationships may not all be roses but there are people in place with defined roles and responsibilities. An entrepreneur has to build all of that from scratch and the game is not the same. As an entrepreneur, I have to build the business that I want to see impact the world. I don’t get to just walk into it. This means that when I don’t hire well or raise enough or project demand correctly all of those issues come to rest on my doorstep. There are no layers to insulate the impact of my decision making…at least not in the beginning. The risk involved with my business living and dying by the choices I make in real time can feel paralyzing. While there are business school lessons that can assist with my choices, they don’t feel as close to the reality I face as I would like. I’m learning that some of this just has to come through coaching, community, and lived experience. That’s why entrepreneurs need each other. We need to know that the messy middle doesn’t last forever and that there are others who have been this way before and survived. I don’t just mean the mavericks whose families loaned them money to start a business in some California garage and they later went on to greatness. I mean the everyday people who had to bootstrap their dreams and are thriving in a lane they have carved out for themselves. Those warriors are my reminders that I am in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. This week has been wild. I’ve had promising conversations with program partners, learned about possible new revenue streams and was called in to present for a school system I’ve been working for years to get in front of. I’ve also had to step back on some projects I love, delay my teacher programming due to funding, and take apology treats to my youngest daughter’s teacher because I was late picking her up one too many times. It’s the messy middle and I’m pushing through. I tell myself that eventually I will be that executive I read about in class. My full team will be in place with department heads and weekly reports and layers between me and the day in and day out of the work. But today? I’m still here in the middle. I’m growing and that’s enough. #nonprofit #leadership #mba #executive #leadershipmatters

#EMBA Lesson1: Leaders cannot have a divided focus. This first business school lesson has been a difficult one for me. Let's talk about it. In my Executive MBA classes with Rockhurst University we are talking about the components of effective leadership. It turns out qualities like transparency, professional appearance, clear communication, leaning into differences, and tough empathy make the list along with several others. The number one thing though? Focus. You would think that as a nonprofit leader, parent, board member and community volunteer focus comes to me naturally. It doesn't. In fact, my class reading of business thought leaders leaves me with the uncomfortable realization that being committed to so many good things is actually slowing the change I set out to create in my community. I need to pare down. Digesting that truth has been difficult. When you start as an entrepreneur, everyone tells you how important it is to be "visible" and to show up to "all of the things" and make friends by lending a hand so that people know you are reliable and relatable. No one tells you that while those things may make you visible, they don't make you effective. It is time for a shift and the cutting is painful for me. I have to give up some things I really want to do right now so that I can focus on my business. I can't believe it. What I thought made for good business has just been keeping me busy. Drucker writes about how effective executives first ask what needs to be done and then, when considering an answer to that question they also ask is this decision the best thing for the business? I am taking that model of thinking with me as I go into this week. I don't know what I thought business school would be like but this? Is the kind of challenge to my professional practice that I have been waiting for. Stay tuned Friends. I have no idea what comes next. #leadershipmatters #MBA #executive #leaderslead #gradschool #nonprofit #leadership

Here we grow again! Red Apple and I are evolving! SO excited to announce that I am a part of Rockhurst University Executive MBA program c/o 2026?????? I can’t wait to update all of you as I learn to apply business principles to community impact work???? Cheers to being a student again!??

Heads up Friends! We are raising money to pay for therapy for families who can't afford it! Tag someone who needs to know about us! Listen, raising kids is one of the HARDEST things I have ever done. My children have the love and support of a two parent home with well resourced caring adults and I STILL need therapy to figure out how to show up as my best self. We all deserve access to health support whether it is mental or physical. Red Apple EdCo works to close the health care access gap for low income families of color by connecting them with BIPOC/Bilingual mental health support. It has been a GAME CHANGER for many of our families including a grandmother who suddenly had custody of her grandchildren, a mom looking to connect with her teen, and a parent who had lost a child. We can't do this work alone. We need your help paying for the support KC families absolutely deserve. Are you in? Donate at the link below! Friend I will take $5 if you have it! All of it goes towards our vision of creating places where children and families can show up healthy and thrive in safety. ~Kia https://gofund.me/c3d0d297 #mentalhealth #health #BIPOC #Bilingual #healthequity

Investing in the next generation ?? On Saturday we honored three nonprofit organizations who support students in Kansas City as our United Way of Greater Kansas City Waymakers of the Match: The Bridge Leadership Academy, Red Apple Education and The Educator Academy.? ? Bridge Leadership Academy is a community-led empowerment program focused on youth leadership and life skills development, located in Kansas City, Missouri.? ? Red Apple Education works with school systems and communities to help families show up healthy, build positive relationships, and partner in student success.? ? The Educator Academy partners with school systems to recruit, cultivate, support, and retain a network of empowered educators to lead classrooms where all students will have access to a high-quality education.?