The Business of Giving

Kevin Krall 0:00
You're listening to special programming sponsored by the cars marketing Chamber of Commerce. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more, the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Speaker 1 0:25
What's wrong with the world Maamar people live in live the whole world. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the business of giving podcast. This show is sponsored by the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce and my name is guide Austin, I am the Executive Director of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. The mission of our organization is to ignite opportunities between businesses and nonprofits for the purpose of benefiting our members and the communities we serve. The vision of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce is a world where social responsibility is the new bottom line, and the values that we represent as a chamber our integrity, unity, community engagement and professionalism. And I just, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to present this show. The cause marketing Chamber of Commerce is an organization that we've been developing since about 2015. And we started out with an event that we host every six months called businesses with heart. It is an event that was originally designed to bring nonprofit organizations and businesses together. And it continues to be an event that we host on a regular basis that does that, as we were hosting these events that featured a nonprofit organization and strove to or were dry. The whole focus of the event was to make businesses more successful until I show businesses how aligning with nonprofit organizations is something that could help to strengthen their own businesses, how they could leverage relationships that they created with nonprofits that they believed in, in order to make their businesses stand out from the rest. There are a lot of people out there who will willingly do business with you, because they know that you are the type of business that contributes to your community. And in doing that being a business that truly contributes to the community and supports worthy nonprofit organizations, you can increase your bottom line, and that's what our mission was when we started that event back in 2015. And continues to be our our mission as we develop this concept that we started in 2019, called the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. And so the reason why we decided to convert to the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce to bring that on as another element of this was, for about four years, we would host these events on a regular basis, everyone would get really excited about learning things about cause marketing, we would have speakers there who were professionals, or who represented nonprofit organizations, everyone would get together, they would network, they'd have a great time we would eat and just have a great experience learning more about cause marketing. And then we would get together and hosting another event. After doing this for a few years, we decided that there could be a greater level of education, and that we could serve the community at a higher level by actually creating an organization that could be a resource for traditional businesses and nonprofit organizations on a more regular basis. And that's when we unofficially launched the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce in 2019. And began to build a regular platform to act as a resource for nonprofit organizations and businesses. We actually have started to develop programs and events that brought nonprofits and businesses together, we continue to facilitate those types of events and programs. And over the last couple of years, since we've really gotten more focused on creating this, this cause marketing Chamber of Commerce platform, by the way, we got our official 501 C six status as a chamber of commerce last summer, about a year and now actually having our nonprofit status. But we've had the opportunity to represent many, many nonprofit organizations and to connect them with a host of businesses. And I wanted to read to you all some of the nonprofits that we have worked with over the last seven years. It's just been an incredible experience for us to learn about. pillars of the community like some of these nonprofits and all of these nonprofit organizations are I think that accentuating how important nonprofit organ organizations are to the community is something that it's very important that we do it and it's an element of of marketing that is vastly overlooked because again, there are so many great nonprofit organizations out there who are providing valuable services that help a lot of people in our community. Let me give you a list of some of the nonprofits that we've worked with hearts alive village, casa, US vets cupcake girls, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, three square, bunker labs, teachers to you foundation serving hope LV Nova mu, true beginnings Lions Club, St. Teens United Way lit LV opportunity village, a greater hope Las Vegas prison family Alliance, new beginnings support services, Hoving, home, Lion habitat ranch Down Syndrome organization of Southern Nevada trauma intervention program. So those are nonprofits that we have already worked with, either through events that we've hosted or through actual give back events where we go out into the community as a chamber to support these worthy nonprofit organizations. Through these associations, we've brought in greater publicity to all these nonprofits. And that's a another aspect of that's really important in the things that we do as a cause marketing chamber is that we highlight the things that these nonprofit organizations do the services that they provide. And I know for a lot of the smaller, lesser known nonprofit organizations, it can be very challenging to get publicity for it you're doing. We've got huge nonprofits that everyone knows about such as United Way, which is one of the nonprofits that's on our list. And there are so many others, they're very, very well known. Ronald McDonald House is another example of a huge nonprofit organization that gets a lot of publicity. For those nonprofits publicity is not an issue. And fundraising is not nearly as much of an issue as some of the smaller nonprofit organizations, again, who are really out here in the community providing valuable services, helping lots of people in many, many different ways, be it for Animal Rescue centers, cupcake girls is actually an excellent nonprofit that helps people who are victims of sex trafficking. Lion habitat Ranch is a unique nonprofit organization because they work with animals that are a part of Las Vegas Strip show. So shows that are presented on the Las Vegas Strip, the animals after they're no longer able to appear on the shows. They need a habitat somewhere to go and retire. And that's what lion habitat Ranch is all about. Down Syndrome organization of Southern Nevada helps children with Down syndrome. I mean, there's these, again, are nonprofit organizations that are doing a lot of work, pillars of the community that are making a huge contribution, but they're lesser known nonprofits. And so that's what we're all about, through the Chamber of Commerce and the events that we host as well as his radio show that I'm hosting right now the business of giving. We want to get the word out about these organization, in terms of the way that we work with businesses. The reason why we chose the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Commerce route in the development of this organization is that we know the importance of chambers of commerce in any communities. Any community that you go in big cities all across the country, small cities all across the country have chambers of commerce that represent the interests of people that are in business. For us, rather than just being a traditional nonprofit, which is a route that we could have taken, we decided to choose the route of being a chamber of commerce because we'd be able to represent the interests of nonprofits and represent the interests of businesses, for people who are in business as owners of companies or as professionals, or people who are employed by businesses tapping into the resources of a chamber of commerce, such as the events that they host, the programs that they offer, to nurture and to help the six to help grow the success of the business community is vital in any community for us, by taking this focus, and it being on both the nonprofit community and the for profit community, we are able to serve the interests of each of the entities, which means that we can affect legislation for nonprofit organizations and traditional businesses, and continue to be a resource in bringing those two entities together and also being able to provide services that can really help small businesses and large businesses. And so that's really the focus of what we do with that. cause marketing Chamber of Commerce is we're really about making it a win win win situation. The nonprofit organizations win because of the relationships that they create with traditional businesses. It helps them to be more effective, and to offer their services to more people. For traditional businesses, we enable them to be able to align themselves with nonprofit organizations, and to leverage those relationships in order to serve the community at a higher level and to bring greater recognition to them for the contributions that they're making to the community. The community itself benefits because since traditional businesses and nonprofit organizations are truly two of the largest pillars in any community, again, it's very underrated the contributions that small businesses and nonprofit organizations make to communities, but they truly are a huge part of the infrastructure of our communities. By strengthening both ill strengthening both of these entities that are extremely important to the community, we are able to strengthen the community as a whole. And that's where the Win Win Win comes from wins for nonprofit organizations, wins for traditional businesses, and wins for the overall community. And that's, again, what the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce is all about. If you want to learn more about what we do, you can visit our website, cause marketing chamber.com.

Speaker 1 11:30
We have several guests who are going to join us on the show this week called Domeier leg is feeling a little under the weather, we usually host this show together, but I'm going to be hosting it solo this week. And hopefully we'll have Carl back next month. I love having him as a partner as we do these shows together. But I will be doing these interviews all on my own this week. And the first person that I'm going to speak with is Doug Bradford. He is with US Coast Guard auxilary division number nine and they were participants in the last businesses with heart of it that we hosted. A couple of months ago, I didn't know anything about his nonprofit organization. Actually, it was introduced to us through Carl Domeier Lake and they had a booth at the event I learned more about how they contribute to boating safety and other things. And, Doug, welcome to the business of giving show.

Speaker 2 12:21
Well, thank you guys appreciate it very much spending time with us.

Unknown Speaker 12:27
Can you tell us what your organization is all about?

Speaker 2 12:30
Well, our organization is rather interesting in that we are an all volunteer reserve force we are an arm or what we call the force majeure of the US Coast Guard itself. Our role is really providing boating safety information to the voting public, offering free vessel examinations, to the boating public and different safety courses. We have three really, I'm sorry, five really important things that we want people to do. And we just want them to educate themselves through knowledge and skills of basic boating activities. Obviously, everybody on the boat should be wearing a flotation device. And don't drink while you're driving your boat. That is, it's almost like drinking and driving, but you have less control of a boat than you would a car and then get a free safety vessel examination from our organization. And what that does for you is we if you pass the the examination, you're able to receive a sticker that you put on your boat. That means that you are in compliance with state and local regulations regarding boating safety, oftentimes, the insurance companies can reduce your insurance rate on your boat. And if you are out on the water and you don't have any stickers in the park service or the Department of Wildlife pulls you over so to speak, they can give you a fine of up to 250 bucks for violations that they found on the boat. So if you if you have this sticker, they'll see it and they will know that you have been inspected by the Coast Guard auxilary and you pass all the state and local requirements.

Speaker 1 14:24
We have this huge lake here in Las Vegas, Lake Mead, of course many, many boats out on it in any given time and as an organization, how are you able to reach out to people to show them the importance of what you have to offer?

Speaker 2 14:39
Well, our goal certainly is to reduce loss of life and personal injury to voters out there as well as property damage. So what we do is we'll hold public affairs events, either at at the lake, we have vessel examinations done at Lake on a periodic basis or will go to a place like Bass Pro Shop and set up our own public affairs booth there to educate voters, we work with a lot of the local voting organizations and the marinas at the lake just to provide this kind of information. That's vital to some survivability. For instance, last year, we had 66 accidents on Lake Mead, three deaths with 43 injuries. But there was also 320, some odd $1,000 worth of property damage. So the more we educate folks about boating safety, the better off we try to be. We offer boating classes through we try to go through Bass Pro Shop, or we can also set up our own but there's something called settling in command. And for instance, if you're on a boat and and what happens if the captain then all of a sudden has a heart attack, but you know how to operate that boat to get everyone safely to back to shore. So a lot of these courses are free to the the voting public and or anybody interested in voting with us or learning more about it, we're more than happy to provide information to them. Yeah,

Speaker 1 16:15
just seems like a phenomenal concept in terms of teaching people to be more safe while they're driving their boats. And what's the immediate impact? How are you able to see the results of the education that you're providing for boaters?

Speaker 2 16:32
Well, part of that is through the numbers of people that go through the free vessel examination. And we provide them with the list of recommended items, we go through the boats to make sure that these items are on their boat, and they're part of the state and federal requirements. And then we also have another side of form that says these are other recommended recommended items, like some of the items on the national and state regulations are ensuring that you have a fire a fire extinguisher ensuring that you have enough flotation devices for everybody that's on board, that you have lights on your vehicle for night driving, and that you have emergency horns if you get in trouble. So there's all kinds of lists. And again, it's all free. And if somebody fails the test, we just give them a list of the items that they needed to correct. And then they can go get that taken care of. And if they want us to come out to their house, we'll come out to their house for you charge and give him a reexamination. So the interesting thing about it is that in 2020, because of COVID, we actually had more boat sales than ever before. And most of them were first time boat buyers who had not had any kind of experience in boating safety or knowing how to drive a boat. So we still have record highs for for boat sales. But we just want to be able to make sure that we can tell the people you really it's not like driving a car where you get used to red light green light stoplight there are so many other different variables when driving a boat that that people need to be aware of.

Speaker 1 18:20
Are there opportunities for citizens people who might not necessarily be in the Coast Guard to volunteer in any way with your organization?

Speaker 2 18:30
Oh absolutely. We have about 80 members now we here in Southern Nevada we have two flotillas one is in North Las Vegas and one is in the southern region. And people can contact us by going on to our website@www.us CGAUX dot info and they can put in an extra sheet and we'll get to them as quick as we can regarding whatever information they're looking for. And then we're also going to be setting up a series of classes through Bass Pro Shop. We'll we'll get the word out that people can attend for free of charge and some of the courses don't make charge a little bit because we have to pay for the book materials but for the most part everything else is free.

Speaker 1 19:21
Boating Safety is really important and Doug we We greatly appreciate you stopping by for a few minutes to talk about the services that US Coast Guard auxilary division nine have to offer one more time could you share your website let people know how they can get in contact with you.

Speaker 2 19:38
Oh most certainly guy the website is triple W U S C GAUX dot info.

Speaker 1 19:51
Thank you so much again, Doug for stopping by and we appreciate as a Chamber of Commerce, the opportunity to serve you and provide and connect you with people who potentially could be volunteers or, or even want to take classes to make your boating experience experiences safer.

Speaker 2 20:09
Yes, thank you very much for having us on. We appreciate the opportunity to share our mission with others.

Speaker 1 20:14
All right. All right, look forward to seeing it another event, Doug. Me too. All right, really quickly before our next interview, I want to share some of our upcoming events as a chamber, we have the cars and business education series that's going to be on June the 21st from 6pm to 7pm. That is purely an online event. By the way, you can go to our website, cause marketing chamber.com. For all the details about these events. With the cause and business education series, we feature a speaker every month, who comes and talks about a topic related to either business or nonprofit organizations. So our next event is going to be on June the 21st from 6pm to 7pm. And you can go to our website to register for that event. And we'll you can also get more details about it. Then, our mixer event is going to be our next mixer event is going to be on Tuesday June the 28th from 6pm to 8pm. And that'll be a famous Dave's 1951 North rainbow Boulevard. The featured nonprofit organization is Healing Hearts Healing Hearts movement exactly as that is actually a full name of the organization heal. Healing Hearts movement serves underprivileged youth and their families in overcoming emotional obstacles to heal themselves so they can better handle their academic and home life to become leaders in the community. The cost of attending that in person event is $20. And then of course we have our huge event which is called businesses with heart and our next businesses with heart is on Thursday September the eighth from 4pm to 8pm at Emerald at Queensridge 891 South rampart Boulevard. Networking for a cause the featured nonprofit will be Spread the Word Nevada Spread the Word Nevada is dedicated to advancing childhood literacy in low income communities. The featured speaker will be Linda Smith. She is one of the founders of opportunity village a very successful nonprofit here in Nevada. She has helped organizations raise more than a billion dollars as a fundraiser. fees will be $20 sponsorship opportunities are available. Again all of this information is readily available for you at the website cars marketing chamber.com My next interviewee is going to be Luis ramallo he is the owner of alien fresh jerky. And this is a business that everyone who's ever been back and forth across the border into California and has passed through Baker California knows about welcome Luis to the business of giving show.

Speaker 3 22:52
Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me and it's a pleasure to be here with you.

Speaker 1 22:58
How long have you been in business the weeks everyone's seen the big alien sign? How long have you been over

Speaker 3 23:03
there with alien for the Shirky study in the year 2000. With a roadside table in Lincoln County. With no money basically, we moved to where we are right now in Baker in the year 2002. We give the bell have been in reinvesting in the business and growing they might regard you know and helping other families that work for us.

Speaker 1 23:32
And before I knew you and your family Luis, I've been just such an admirer of alien fresh turkey and what they've done the evolution the growth, the billboards are just unreal. Can you share with us about the significance of these billboards that you have all out on the 15th?

Speaker 3 23:49
Well, we found out the few years that the way which one was the best way to advertise our business. We try different different options like TV like radio like newspapers, we find out that fix billboards were the most effective way to advertise our business, from Las Vegas, from Las Vegas to make it from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. So that's why we have so many billboards because they are very effective. That's allowed to promote the business. In Baker, what are we doing?

Unknown Speaker 24:33
And why the alien theme?

Unknown Speaker 24:36
Because I'm an alien.

Unknown Speaker 24:41
I guess we could all say that.

Speaker 3 24:44
One time, I think I'd say that, you know I was a Indian register. So now I'm a proud citizen of the United States. But this was because I was an alien. Race it right near the end They're 51 When I started

Speaker 1 25:01
interesting and how about the beef jerky? Why why did you choose beef jerky as the route to to business success?

Speaker 3 25:09
I was with no work and no money wife three kids mortgage rock bottom at that time and we have to do something and a friend introduced me to the to this business and I try it and the success was the found the name of the business and we connect huge number of people that like beef jerky with the aliens that a lot of people for the 50% of the population of the United States believe in aliens. I've seen one who has been abducted or have to take a picture of a UFO so we connect the aliens with a beef jerky and that is the success of the business.

Speaker 1 25:52
Right and it's so distinctive Luis really it again that's been a part of the evolution for me watching your business grow is that there's this greater presence of aliens. And, and especially because your brand has grown and now you're in so many stores. I remember years ago, you had that store on in Baker. And that was very prominent, but now it seems like your products all over the place.

Speaker 3 26:19
Yeah, we have presence in Southern California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and some other state growing, the brand is growing, and the product is good. And people like it. One thing I want to say is that I was attending on your last meeting of the chamber and I was I was very moved with this see some people especially they want the movie was the veterans. And I really like to help any way we can. To the veterans, there are many people that want to start a business they don't know how they think they need a lot of money. I started this business with pretty much no money. And if it's anything that we can help, we will do it through the chamber. So if anyone wants to get in touch with you, we can help you know we are we are here to help the community.

Speaker 1 27:20
And that's the inspiration Louis someone like you literally who started a business on the side of a freeway to have grown to where you've got this, this massive business that's serving lots of people and yet you still have a give back where veterans we found that amongst so many successful entrepreneurs is that they always have a purpose for their own business but they also support the purposes of others such as veterans or children and has that always kind of been a part of who you are is that you've wanted to give back to your community.

Speaker 3 27:55
We always want to give back we always try to help people that like to start a business they don't know how many people think they need a lot of money or they don't know where to look you know how to do it and that's what we looking forward to get in touch with the chamber and see how we can help you know with my own experience I'm not an expert but I have the experience so experience on the how to start a business is is a lot of say you know because we've been successful we have now 15 employees and it's not a large company but on the store that's a lot and we help everybody that we can www alien fresh jerky.com We have a website and I also like people if they are interested in in somebody that we know that we can help get in touch with you we no problem we will

Speaker 1 28:53
help thank you so much for contributing to the show today by stopping by alien fresh jerky Luis Ramallah was the owner patronize his store out there in Baker, California if you get a chance or buy his products, they are all over the place. And we are near the end of the business of giving broadcast for this week. Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, also on meetup. And of course, visit our website cause marketing Chamber of commerce.com to learn about upcoming events and things that we are doing. And the biggest thing that we want you to do, whether you're an entrepreneur or a volunteer or a part of a nonprofit organization, is to just stay out there. Keep contributing and doing good. We'll see you on the next show. Take care of yourselves and again. Do good, do good. Do good. See you soon

Transcribed by https://otter.ai