065: Community Foundation of Greater Memphis - Robert Fockler, President

This episode features Robert Fockler, the President at Community Foundation of Greater Memphis.

Show Links

Ed Gillentine:
EdGillentine.com
Instagram: @journey.to.impact

Community Foundation of Greater Memphis:
www.cfgm.org
LinkedIn

Books:
Journey To Impact by Ed Gillentine
Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia by E. Digby Baltzell

Transcript

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;09;00
Ed Gillentine
Welcome to the Journey to Impact podcast. I'm your host, Ed Gillentine. And I'm joined today by Bob Fockler. He's the president of the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis. Bob, welcome.

00;00;09;05 - 00;00;10;11
Bob Fockler
Thanks, Ed. Good to see you.

00;00;10;13 - 00;00;41;29
Ed Gillentine
So super pumped to hear your story and what you guys are doing over at the foundation. But let me give everybody a little bit of background on Bob Hope. Yeah, this will be good because I've been doing some Internet stalking, right? So he went to high school here in Memphis at MUS and then graduated with a degree in history from Princeton, which is also, Bob, I think history and Princeton would be two fascinating sort of philanthropically connected conversations.

00;00;42;00 - 00;01;01;07
Ed Gillentine
Okay. The way I tell people know that I'm a finance nerd is I have a book. Poor Stephen is having to read this book. It's on panics, manias and crashes, going all the way back to the tulip crisis. Oh, yeah. And so fascinating stuff about history.

00;01;01;08 - 00;01;07;10
Bob Fockler
I just I just bought a book. It's like the quintessential book on the tulip crisis that was written by one of my classmates at Princeton.

00;01;07;16 - 00;01;30;06
Ed Gillentine
I'm going to have to get that because I think that's a fascinating time period. And as an investment nerd, I don't think anything's really changed. We just plug in crypto or whatever it is. And so that's why I think history is important. So Bob started his career in commercial and investment banking, and then of six he joined the foundation as a president.

00;01;30;09 - 00;01;55;20
Ed Gillentine
He's led the foundation to significant growth in assets. But I would say even more important is that some of the things we want to get into in this conversation, he's led the foundations effort around Memphis and the Mid-South in terms of inspiring greater giving more generosity. And I would add, more effective giving. He has a lovely wife, Tina, two beautiful children.

00;01;55;22 - 00;02;12;11
Ed Gillentine
And that I get everything. Yeah. Oh, wait, I forgot. In all of my internet stalking, it did come out that you are a musician. And so, you know, we got some history in there, some philanthropy, and now we've got the arts. I was.

00;02;12;11 - 00;02;16;09
Bob Fockler
A musician. Well, fancy myself a musician once upon a time.

00;02;16;09 - 00;02;26;26
Ed Gillentine
There you go. I love it. All right, So without further ado, let's jump in. Give us the Cliff note version of how you got from Ohio to Memphis to Princeton and back to Memphis.

00;02;26;27 - 00;02;54;10
Bob Fockler
Talk about that. Well, I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and my dad was my dad was a serial career person. So he he had several different careers, all of which were fascinating, by the way. But in 1974, back when the earth was cooling, he was looking for something new to do and took a job here at a start up nonprofit agency here in Memphis.

00;02;54;10 - 00;03;13;21
Bob Fockler
So moved us across the country from one of the rusting parts of America to one of the more thriving parts of the country. Even, you know, I don't know that that's the INS. Think of us that way. But at the time, at the time it definitely felt that way. So he he was the first employee at it's sort of a start up nonprofit.

00;03;13;24 - 00;03;16;18
Bob Fockler
It was not a great time to move. I was going into 10th grade.

00;03;16;20 - 00;03;17;02
Ed Gillentine
Oh, wow.

00;03;17;03 - 00;03;20;02
Bob Fockler
Yeah. So it was it was definitely not not a great time.

00;03;20;04 - 00;03;23;10
Ed Gillentine
He didn't really consult you? I'm guessing he did.

00;03;23;12 - 00;03;48;21
Bob Fockler
You know, my parents? Kevin consulted me on a lot. But anyway, so anyway, I moved here in 10th grade. Had a good academic experience at USC, although I think that after for three years here, I think I thought I was going to go away to college, go up north to college, and never come back. And I think my plan was to go to law school and become some fancy lawyer.

00;03;48;24 - 00;03;49;12
Ed Gillentine
Gotcha.

00;03;49;15 - 00;04;23;25
Bob Fockler
The good news is I did one of those, you know, discover yourself trips coast to coast with my roommate summer before my senior year in college. Wow. We drove coast to coast and somewhere in Kansas I realized I don't want to go to law school. So anyway, so I had to retool everything. And I was very interested in finance and because of where I went to college, my connections were in either in New York or in Memphis and I was afraid of because I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, as afraid of just getting stuck down in the bowels of some great financial institution in New York and never heard from again.

00;04;23;25 - 00;04;25;24
Ed Gillentine
So 40 years later, you pop up.

00;04;25;27 - 00;04;33;20
Bob Fockler
Exactly. Yeah. I was afraid of being the world's leading expert in lending to egg producers with revenues between 20 and 40 million. Right. You know, so I'm like.

00;04;33;20 - 00;04;34;17
Ed Gillentine
Yeah, I know what you mean.

00;04;34;19 - 00;04;42;20
Bob Fockler
Yeah. So because I didn't really know what I wanted to do, I came here and started at it. Commercial Bank here, union planners, if anybody remembers, you know, Definers.

00;04;42;20 - 00;04;43;28
Ed Gillentine
Was my first bank account.

00;04;44;01 - 00;04;45;05
Bob Fockler
Okay, Yeah, mine too.

00;04;45;05 - 00;04;45;19
Ed Gillentine
Little Red.

00;04;45;19 - 00;04;46;20
Bob Fockler
Book. In my day.

00;04;46;25 - 00;04;50;12
Ed Gillentine
I recall 7% interest on my savings account.

00;04;50;16 - 00;04;54;29
Bob Fockler
Well, yeah, I mean, I actually started at the height of the interest rate.

00;04;55;06 - 00;04;57;07
Ed Gillentine
Oh, wow. Those eight teens and twenties.

00;04;57;10 - 00;05;19;13
Bob Fockler
The prime rate was like 16 and a half when I when I started in banking. Wow. So I did that and the interesting part of that is that I got the job at it at union planners through the chairman of the board, who was on my dad's board on that little nonprofit. Yeah. And he was looking for it.

00;05;19;13 - 00;05;34;00
Bob Fockler
He was being asked he had been asked to chair the United Way campaign that year, so he was just looking for warm bodies. And I was the kind of most useless, warm body around. So they threw me at the United Way campaign in 1982, back again just after the Earth. Cool.

00;05;34;03 - 00;05;47;19
Ed Gillentine
That's interesting you say that it's a story for another day, but you're the second person I've talked to that that United Way connection with the corporate world. Yeah. Led them into his impact in philanthropy at a greater scale.

00;05;47;20 - 00;06;04;14
Bob Fockler
Oh, absolutely. I mean, that that had everything to do with kind of what came after that. So. Absolutely So and I've been involved with the United Way ever since I've been involved with the community ever since, even though, you know, in finance. And then one of my bosses at Union Planters went to Morgan Keegan and brought me with him.

00;06;04;14 - 00;06;24;01
Bob Fockler
So I spent 18 years at Morgan Keegan, now part of Raymond James, and did some really cool stuff that was involved in in fixed income markets, creating bonds, doing some really cool financing. We did some of the some of the most cutting edge structured finance work with a national audience, which was kind of fun.

00;06;24;03 - 00;06;43;12
Ed Gillentine
You know, as a finance nerd. A lot of times I think finance can get a bad name because you hear about people making gobs of money. Maybe the the see the less than attractive side. But if you think about what money does and what I've experienced, like guys like you and Mike Harris and you put together deals that help people.

00;06;43;14 - 00;06;54;11
Bob Fockler
Well, actually, I ran what we called mortgage finance, which was what we were mostly doing was was structuring bonds that provided low interest loans for first time homebuyers. Yeah.

00;06;54;13 - 00;07;06;08
Ed Gillentine
I mean, nobody thinks of that. Yeah, but that's a B. I remember getting that first loan and realizing you you get more favorable treatment because they know you don't have any money.

00;07;06;11 - 00;07;13;09
Bob Fockler
And so that's how I rationalized that. That's what I was doing that was not just burning my soul or trashing my.

00;07;13;09 - 00;07;16;06
Ed Gillentine
Side, Right. Yeah, but yeah, but real impact.

00;07;16;06 - 00;07;32;20
Bob Fockler
But trying to take care of my family was hell was a lot to do with that too. So I won't pretend that the the income side wasn't important to me. As a matter of fact, my predecessor as president of the Community Foundation approached me during that time sometime in the nineties. Yeah. And he was a good family friend.

00;07;32;20 - 00;07;44;00
Bob Fockler
And he said, you know, you ought to consider succeeding me as president of the Community Foundation. And I said something wise like, Dude, you can't begin to afford me. He rolled his eyes. He thought that was hilarious.

00;07;44;00 - 00;07;44;06
Ed Gillentine
Yeah.

00;07;44;06 - 00;07;48;22
Bob Fockler
And he and I said, you know, you said, when I'm ready to give this up, you're.

00;07;48;25 - 00;07;50;19
Ed Gillentine
Just setting the hook.

00;07;50;21 - 00;07;52;13
Bob Fockler
He said, You're going to want to do this. And I said.

00;07;52;13 - 00;07;53;11
Ed Gillentine
So I said.

00;07;53;11 - 00;08;17;05
Bob Fockler
Something else wise, like, whatever. Yeah, But anyway, so that so anyway it did ended up at several years of First Fantasy as well and was doing just really exciting work in the bond markets. Very, very cutting edge. We were, we were competing against Wall Street for the most part and winning with most of the stuff that we were doing.

00;08;17;11 - 00;08;37;06
Bob Fockler
So I was doing a good job of taking care of my family, but it really wasn't. It just felt kind of empty. And I, I had a partner at first Tennessee, who was irritated by the fact that I would run out and go to a United Way meeting or a board meeting in one thing or another. And he said, Every time you walk out the door, you cost me money.

00;08;37;06 - 00;08;49;23
Bob Fockler
And I said, You don't know if I couldn't walk out the door and do this, my head would explode. Right? And so it's what keeps me alive, what keeps what keeps me productive. So it's actually making you money. You just don't know it.

00;08;49;25 - 00;08;51;18
Ed Gillentine
And he thought that was a great answer, I'm sure.

00;08;51;22 - 00;09;18;19
Bob Fockler
No, he didn't. No, he didn't. He's gotten it now. He's gotten it since then. And as I had been involved with a lot of I've been privileged to serve on some important boards. And I had been asked in 2001 to serve on the board of the Community Foundation and serve several years. There was on the executive committee and my predecessor again, GED Smith, who was well known in the nonprofit community.

00;09;18;19 - 00;09;39;10
Bob Fockler
He had a he really kind of created the modern Mafia before he came to the community Foundation, announced that he was stepping down. And I just took a flier. I just threw my hat in the ring, said, you know, I just see what happens. Yeah, they did a national search. And I think I was told that like 70 people applied and for whatever reason, good or bad, they chose me.

00;09;39;10 - 00;09;59;25
Bob Fockler
So I jumped that fence. And it was interesting because after after being in the bond business for 20 some years, you know, I had licenses and so forth that that go away after a time that I've worked really hard to get to. And I realized about after I'd been at the Foundation for about three years that I didn't have any licenses anymore and it didn't bother me.

00;09;59;25 - 00;10;04;22
Bob Fockler
So I realized I must have made the right decision because I wasn't worried about it. So anyway.

00;10;04;27 - 00;10;30;20
Ed Gillentine
When you think back on making that decision, because we talked to a lot of people about that, that either are wrestling with it or have made the jump and it's interesting how that process goes. I would say, you know, half the people are like, Oh yeah, I had this aha moment. The other half are like, I just thought that's what I needed to do and I just wasn't sure.

00;10;30;20 - 00;10;31;21
Ed Gillentine
How was it with you?

00;10;31;27 - 00;10;59;16
Bob Fockler
Well, I knew what I was doing and I knew what I was getting into and I knew what I was going to. Even so, you never really sure. Yeah. What you're going to. I knew I was going to like what I was going to. I, I wasn't sure what I was going to miss leaving it turned out not being that big a deal, but I I've talked with a lot of folks over the years who are considering making that kind of jump from the for profit world, particularly finance, because those are the people I tend to run into.

00;10;59;18 - 00;11;23;07
Bob Fockler
Right. Who what we talk about is take their talents, want to take their talents to South Beach. You know, like I said, I've been this fabulous investment, you know, fill in the blank investment person like I've made, you know, oodles of money. And obviously I would be hugely beneficial to the nonprofit world, to which now having said on the nonprofit side for 17 years going to be like, oh, we'll see about that, right?

00;11;23;07 - 00;11;27;14
Bob Fockler
Yeah. Yeah. And not necessarily. Yeah. So it kind of depends.

00;11;27;16 - 00;11;58;13
Ed Gillentine
That's that's well said. Talk about your dad because you mentioned him and he had multiple careers, but then he made this jump almost like that sort of leap of faith, if you will, to come to a new city. Yeah. For a tiny johns like nonprofit. Yeah. When you saw that or even looking back, did that influence how you think about like, how did that.

00;11;58;16 - 00;12;16;23
Bob Fockler
Well, it's like that's actually a really good question because I was very close to my father, who passed away a couple of years ago, but I didn't really understand what he did. I didn't understand how he made the decision because he he he was already in the nonprofit world in Ohio. So he wasn't making that up. He had been he.

00;12;16;24 - 00;12;17;18
Ed Gillentine
Already made that joke.

00;12;17;19 - 00;12;23;27
Bob Fockler
He already made that jump. The geographic jump seemed pretty jolting, particularly to my mother, who was from Massachusetts.

00;12;24;03 - 00;12;25;21
Ed Gillentine
Oh, wow. So, yeah.

00;12;25;23 - 00;12;49;08
Bob Fockler
So she she was kind of an unreconstructed mid Southerner, but but but spent 50 years here nonetheless. But anyway, I looked at what he did and he was so smart and so creative that I kind of looked at what he was doing with this little nonprofit and like, what are you what are you doing?

00;12;49;13 - 00;12;51;21
Ed Gillentine
Yeah, almost wasting his talents. Did you think?

00;12;51;27 - 00;12;53;01
Bob Fockler
Yeah, I mean, that's that's.

00;12;53;01 - 00;12;53;24
Ed Gillentine
In a sense.

00;12;53;27 - 00;13;10;28
Bob Fockler
That's overstating it, but that actually is how I would have said it. So now there's a punch line to the story. I don't know if you know the punch line. No. Okay. So my dad was the first employee of what's now the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, although. Yeah, yeah. So when he took it over, it had just been created.

00;13;10;28 - 00;13;30;15
Bob Fockler
It had been founded in 1969 by business leaders who actually saw it as a way who thought that building charitable giving was the way to bring the city out of that. The sensations, right? Yeah, was right. And the problem is they did create the foundation in 1969, but they didn't do anything with it. So it sort of sort of sat there until they hired.

00;13;30;18 - 00;13;53;27
Bob Fockler
They realized that this is going to be nothing. We have to hire staff. Yeah. So, so that's that's what led them to hire him. So anyway, it's interesting. So he he I look at it because we we sit in the same chair, but, but the job descriptions were very different. So he created the foundation from scratch and he took it from $1,000,000 in assets to $20 million in assets.

00;13;53;29 - 00;14;01;20
Bob Fockler
When I came on, the foundation had assets of 280 million, which was one of the largest community foundations in the country. And we now have assets a little over a billion.

00;14;01;23 - 00;14;12;19
Ed Gillentine
So I heard that number the other day and I was like, Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Although I don't know that you ever catch up with your dad growing at 26. I mean, that's going to be tough.

00;14;12;22 - 00;14;15;20
Bob Fockler
And don't think from the financial world. I don't think of it that way.

00;14;15;26 - 00;14;23;17
Ed Gillentine
I know it's it's interesting, too, that that, you know, when you have a startup which in essence what Oh, it.

00;14;23;17 - 00;14;23;26
Bob Fockler
Was.

00;14;23;26 - 00;14;29;14
Ed Gillentine
Absolutely it's a different skill set, different task, different job description. So I'm glad you made.

00;14;29;15 - 00;14;40;21
Bob Fockler
That's the point I like he he crafted policies and procedures which I would be completely unable to do. Right. But I'm running a major financial institution, which I don't know that he would have been qualified at the time to do.

00;14;40;21 - 00;14;59;20
Ed Gillentine
Yeah, and you can't do one without the other. And, you know, to had the vision to lay the groundwork for $1,000,000,000 institute vision, if you will, when it's a million and it's tiny one employee, first of all, there's a lot of faith there. Yes. A lot of hope and vision, but that's a lot of skill to be able to look down.

00;14;59;27 - 00;15;00;21
Bob Fockler
Absolutely.

00;15;00;21 - 00;15;26;23
Ed Gillentine
So let's talk a little bit about about what you guys are doing at the foundation. Yeah. And and you may want to back up and get a running start, but I'm super fascinated about the four traditions of giving that you guys have been sort of working on and I'll say preaching, if you will, because it goes back to inspiring generosity.

00;15;26;25 - 00;15;29;11
Ed Gillentine
Talk about that for a minute and what you guys are doing in that regard.

00;15;29;11 - 00;15;51;26
Bob Fockler
Well, let me take half step back and just talk about kind of what we do. So, A, I think most people know what a typical foundation is. Typical foundation starts with somebody of means, usually an individual or a family or a corporation that is terribly inclined and they throw a bunch of money into a foundation and then do through their charitable giving in whatever manner they choose.

00;15;51;29 - 00;16;16;25
Bob Fockler
Obviously, particularly in Memphis, we have people that are just so incredibly charitable inclined. They don't have enough money to create a private foundation, nor should they. Right. But what a community foundation is, is just a whole bunch of regular people coming together and basically sharing expenses. It's sort of like a a co-op. So we manage 1200 charitable funds, so it looks like 1200 private foundations under one roof.

00;16;16;25 - 00;16;42;19
Bob Fockler
They're all mostly pretty a lot smaller than a private foundation would be. But obviously but again, in aggregate, they total $1,000,000,000. So regular people putting their dollars together can create a fairly large institution. So what we were created to do was help individuals manage their charitable giving. So a lot of what we do is is made of transactions, gifts coming in and grants going out as they can.

00;16;42;21 - 00;17;03;16
Bob Fockler
Our donors get to decide entirely where their grants go. A big piece of it also is investments. So while the funds are with us, we manage we manage $1,000,000,000 portfolio. But I think when we started, that's pretty much all we did. So we were just very transactional and we were there to, to manage those transactions for our donors.

00;17;03;18 - 00;17;32;23
Ed Gillentine
Which is worth it's sort of worth adding on just doing that is a huge value add because you think about I can go back to the eighties when that top tax bracket was in the eighties, Right, Right. And I know it wasn't easy to get there, but still, even now that a 37 top tax bracket, you give away 100,000 or a thousand or 100 million and you get that tax deduction, that is a powerful tool if that's all you did.

00;17;32;23 - 00;17;34;27
Ed Gillentine
But then you took the next step. I thought, well, there.

00;17;34;27 - 00;18;02;23
Bob Fockler
Are there are powerful tax benefits. There's a lot of convenience that that that we offer, too. But yeah, what we what we've done is so we used to just view our our community impact based on the collective actions of our donors. Right. And didn't try to influence that or take it anywhere. And what we've realized over time was particularly as generous as Memphis is and as we keep saying, Memphis is the most generation generous place on the planet.

00;18;02;23 - 00;18;27;20
Bob Fockler
And the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which is sort of the our Bible has has said so and has proven it. Yeah. So it's not that hard to get them to give. But we have thought all along that providing more information and greater resources that they can better inform their giving, can can produce better giving and better outcomes for the community.

00;18;27;23 - 00;19;01;04
Bob Fockler
So that's to come on in a couple of different directions. One, we've, we've created some informational tools like Live give Mid-South dot org, which is a pretty powerful database on community information community needs, but also a really strong directory of nonprofits. So just the more you know about the nonprofit community, the better your rent would be. But I think where you're headed is we we've taken a pretty deep dive with our donors on kind of what inspires your giving.

00;19;01;04 - 00;19;10;24
Bob Fockler
Where is your giving come from? What are you trying to achieve with your giving? So when we talk about the four traditions of American giving and we didn't make this up, we have entirely shamelessly stolen all of this.

00;19;10;27 - 00;19;12;21
Ed Gillentine
But it's because you're efficient.

00;19;12;28 - 00;19;36;05
Bob Fockler
But right, right. Well, it actually was was very, very, actually very interesting because in made me made us I think think a lot about where American philanthropy came from and where it's going. So we talk about the four traditions of American giving, and I'm just going to just walk through them real quick because they're really they really make sense.

00;19;36;05 - 00;19;58;17
Bob Fockler
So the first one is just giving us relief. And that's kind of where we started with charitable giving. And that's just providing just covering the very basic human needs of somebody that they need a meal if they need shelter. That's that's what giving is relief to. So I can just sort of carry it through with well, you'll see what I'm saying about feeding the hungry.

00;19;58;17 - 00;20;23;01
Bob Fockler
For instance, I'm going to carry through on the hunger theme. Yeah, yeah. Through these various traditions. Then I think the next step from there, and that's one of the things that things like Slingshot are trying to deal with is giving is improvement. So how do I keep somebody from being hungry, right? So job training scholarships tends to not not just feed the hungry, but maybe teach somebody to fish.

00;20;23;01 - 00;20;50;09
Bob Fockler
So they're not hungry in the first place. Right? Then the third piece is giving a social reform and that's trying to deal with policy to attack the causes of hunger, for instance. So hopefully create a scenario or a society where people aren't going to be hungry. The fourth one is a little bit more bizarre, a little bit nebulous, and that's giving us engagement.

00;20;50;09 - 00;21;18;00
Bob Fockler
And that's, as we say. Why does the community tolerate hunger? Why do we? It's very philosophical and it gets a community organizing and a little bit more derivative, But I think so it's and we do an exercise on where we talk with our donors are like, here are the four kind of traditions of giving, and I'll give you three things to choose from.

00;21;18;00 - 00;21;39;16
Bob Fockler
You got to get three tokens, like where would you invest your those three tokens? You can't just put them evenly across the four. Obviously you've got to choose, where are you? So what are you trying to do? You care more about just a meeting immediate needs. You care about trying to prevent those needs from arising. It's really pretty interesting and into different individuals, different families, different generations will approach those things differently.

00;21;39;16 - 00;21;49;20
Bob Fockler
So I think it's really pretty powerful. But it's really helpful, I think, to make people take a step back and be thoughtful about, well, what I am, why do I care what I what am I trying to do?

00;21;49;20 - 00;22;16;16
Ed Gillentine
Yeah, And one of the reasons I love it is so we ask every single client that walks in our office, why are you on planet Earth? Right? So some people, it's faith driven, some people it's generationally driven, some people it's altruistic. Like there's a bunch of different reasons, but we've always felt like your money needs to be. It needs to sort of be the wind beneath your wings, if you will, that pushes you toward why you're on planet Earth.

00;22;16;16 - 00;22;43;11
Ed Gillentine
And that can I mean, that can change, right? And then what I love about this is it's addressing the idea of, in my mind, a separate aid in development. Right. If we're still working on Hurricane Katrina 15 years later. Yeah, that's problematic. If if if we're still sending bottled water and food down there. Now, the first two weeks or two months or year, whatever it is, we don't need to be asking questions.

00;22;43;15 - 00;23;07;13
Ed Gillentine
It's not going to be efficient. We need a hell of a drop in bottles of water, these people that are stuck on it. But then when you get to development, that takes a lot longer. And I think the food traditions deal with that. Right. And I've always thought that I want to be doing some aid, but I also want to have a part of my, if you will, giving portfolio in the development and even the engagement.

00;23;07;13 - 00;23;27;00
Ed Gillentine
I think that can be overlooked as well. That's, you know, for smart people or cerebral people or whatever. But those ideas, you're a historian, they trickle down in society and they affect the front lines. We'll go back to food of of hunger, in food deserts and all that.

00;23;27;00 - 00;23;45;23
Bob Fockler
Stuff that the issue is is really easy for everybody to get their arms around. Right. And you know, for for all the the people that are terribly inclined that always want to you know, I'm I'm doing air quotes move the needle on something right. And they look at something like the Mid-South Food Bank is, as you know, handing out food.

00;23;45;28 - 00;24;08;04
Bob Fockler
They're just treating the same issue day in and day out. That's true. But that issue is there every day. And we have to to meet those needs, Right? I mean, hundreds say you can't just say the Mid-South Food Bank isn't making hunger go away, right? Yeah, but if we if they weren't doing what they were doing and they they do a fabulous job, by the way.

00;24;08;07 - 00;24;14;07
Bob Fockler
Yeah. If they weren't doing what they were doing, that the conditions in this community would be even worse than they are.

00;24;14;07 - 00;24;43;02
Ed Gillentine
So, you know, we were Steve and I were kind of chuckling, not at the crisis, but at the reaction. That doesn't seem very thought out in Alaska. Evidently, the governor is they they're worried about homelessness in the wintertime there, which makes sense. But the reaction was we're going to buy one way plane tickets for these people and send them that I don't know anything about else about it, but that seems incredibly shortsighted.

00;24;43;05 - 00;25;10;00
Ed Gillentine
Yeah, but when you have when you have wintertime in Alaska, you have to help people, I think so. There's so many tentacles. Right. When you get into into mental health, you think of the US fighting however many wars for the past 20 years, what that does to the psyche, the mental health, the job preparedness of two generations. Yeah, almost.

00;25;10;03 - 00;25;38;10
Ed Gillentine
There's a lot of, I'll say, existential issues and that's why I like that last. But yeah, because you if you don't think about it, you end up rushing in and making a lot of mistakes. I'm a big fan of Brian Vickers book When Helping Hurts, which is kind of from a faith perspective, but the concept translates, Yeah, and we do a lot of work in Ethiopia, and I can't tell you how many times well-intentioned we've made some pretty significant, you know, mistakes, all of that.

00;25;38;10 - 00;26;02;29
Ed Gillentine
Yeah. Talk about let's go back to music. Oh, good. I'm not I'm not an artist, but I have grown to love it. I have a wife that paints. I love music. I'm always amazed. I met a songwriter that I like. How do you write a song that's unbelievable? I've also always thought that the arts are critical for a flourishing community.

00;26;03;02 - 00;26;03;19
Bob Fockler
Absolutely.

00;26;03;19 - 00;26;21;21
Ed Gillentine
And yet I have heard a million times, and I've probably said this myself if I got money, I'm giving it St Jude. They need money, right? The arts is superfluous, right? The older I get, I don't believe it is. I think it's critical. Talk about how the arts comes into play with philanthropy and a flourishing society.

00;26;21;25 - 00;26;49;06
Bob Fockler
Well, we have a well, Memphis certainly has, you know, monumental health, human service issues. But we're a we're a community of of people that have a variety of needs and kind of what's feed your soul is part of that. What if, from an economic development standpoint, what attracts people to come here? What makes Memphis a good place to live?

00;26;49;08 - 00;27;15;13
Bob Fockler
That's not just Health and Human Services. Sometimes that's that's the arts, sometimes that's sports, sometimes that's educational opportunities. So all of those things are really important to to us, to a healthy, sustainable community. And I my wife and I are big supporters of the arts. My wife's the former board chair. Playhouse in the Square.

00;27;15;15 - 00;27;16;15
Ed Gillentine
Is a great organization.

00;27;16;15 - 00;27;45;09
Bob Fockler
Yeah. So which was challenging during COVID too. Sure. Yeah, but, but, but I'm a big believer that that the arts I understand the argument about the Health and Human Service needs to at some point, at some point come first. But but I've also tried to recruit people to Morgan Keegan into first Tennessee to to move to Memphis and believe it not believe it or not, those issues are really, really important.

00;27;45;09 - 00;27;56;17
Bob Fockler
Kind of the package of why we moved to Memphis and what we were coming to, to experience. But a lot of those things have a lot to do with why my parents stayed, by the way.

00;27;56;18 - 00;27;57;06
Ed Gillentine
Interesting.

00;27;57;06 - 00;28;12;24
Bob Fockler
So so yes, I think that a healthy and a viable arts community, an educational community and all those other things are critically important to our health and viability. As a as a modern city.

00;28;12;26 - 00;28;39;13
Ed Gillentine
I think about kids at St Jude, for example, you know, I mean, going through that treatment's brutal. It's tough for the families, but if they were not able to run over to watch a Grizzlies game or to go to watch a play, how you I mean, it's difficult to measure how that lifts their spirits, which physicians will tell you gives them a much better chance physically so.

00;28;39;20 - 00;29;04;21
Ed Gillentine
Well we I want to talk a little bit technically because one of the interesting things that about Memphis and I would say across the U.S. is the interesting gifts you get. And with donor based funds and foundations, you can give more than cash and stocks, although I do think the single most overlooked tax trick, if you will, is the appreciated stock.

00;29;04;24 - 00;29;26;13
Ed Gillentine
Absolutely. I mean, save so much in taxes. We're working with a client now that has a 1987 Wal-Mart stock, a ton of it. And we just gift it and we're just saving it. It's close to 60 something percent taxes, but you can do real estate. When I was on the board at a foundation, somebody gifted an antique collection of guns.

00;29;26;15 - 00;29;40;29
Ed Gillentine
So talk about just from a technical perspective and a memphis perspective, some of those things that you've seen that you think, you know, these gifts are out there and they can be powerful for good.

00;29;41;01 - 00;30;09;27
Bob Fockler
Well, you'll have to stop me because I have one of the fun things we get to do is is kind of jump through hoops or invent solutions to help Memphians do what they want to do and the key is, is connecting resources to to needs. And those resources are based on wherever people's assets are. Right? And yeah, when people think of charitable giving, they could think of cash or stock.

00;30;10;00 - 00;30;29;06
Bob Fockler
But frankly, what makes appreciated stock so attractive is the avoidance of capital gains. So if you if you buy a stock for $10, it's worth $100. When you give it away, you get to deduct the hundred dollars. So you not only get the deduction for a significant gift, but you also avoid that $90 in capital gains, which you would also pay taxes on.

00;30;29;07 - 00;30;54;11
Bob Fockler
So it's a hugely advantageous gift from a tax standpoint. Well, the same is true for any other asset. You might have this. Appreciate it. So I can this is we're going to have to stop me from from going down rabbit holes. So just start with real estate. So we had a donor who who came to me a couple several years ago now who had a piece of property.

00;30;54;11 - 00;31;15;24
Bob Fockler
It was actually timber property in North Mississippi that had literally been in his family for more than 100 years. So the basis in the property was basically zero. Yeah. So the yeah, the value of it was very significant. So if he had just sold it, he would have had to pay capital gains on the sale of the property.

00;31;15;26 - 00;31;38;00
Bob Fockler
Instead, what he was able to do was, was able to gift it. We sold it. Then the nice thing about property like that is, is eminently salable. So we actually sold it pretty quickly. He avoided the capital gains taxes and created, frankly, in that case, more than $1,000,000 worth of resources to to to meet his charitable needs. So we do a lot of those things.

00;31;38;03 - 00;31;48;12
Bob Fockler
I will say this is an important caveat, is real estate is real estate. And there are things that come with real estate. So we've learned things the hard way.

00;31;48;15 - 00;31;51;04
Ed Gillentine
We're involved at the corner. I'll give you. That's always fun.

00;31;51;04 - 00;32;07;13
Bob Fockler
I'll give you the I said we've very few things that we've learned. We haven't learned the hard way. I'll give you the worst case in a second, but we see a lot of potential real estate gifts and we don't take them all. And in many cases we do turn them. In some cases we do turn them down for whatever reason, right?

00;32;07;16 - 00;32;14;06
Bob Fockler
For sometimes when people show us a gift of real estate, it's because they can't do anything with the real estate either.

00;32;14;08 - 00;32;14;12
Ed Gillentine
Right?

00;32;14;13 - 00;32;25;13
Bob Fockler
Well, if you can't do anything with it, I can't do anything with it. So if I can't sell it, you know, I'm not I'm not a distressed real estate treat that I intend on sitting sitting on bad real estate.

00;32;25;13 - 00;32;36;06
Ed Gillentine
Right. And the inflated value, I mean, a lot of times you get like generational farms, right? Yes. Or whatever. And I'm also everybody thinks is worth more than it is.

00;32;36;06 - 00;32;52;07
Bob Fockler
Well, yeah, We actually several years ago we had two or three or eight right in a row of families who were selling duck camps. Where were the you know, they'd been in the family for a couple of generations, but the younger generations just weren't interested for whatever reason.

00;32;52;07 - 00;32;53;25
Ed Gillentine
And that caring cost is.

00;32;53;25 - 00;32;54;12
Bob Fockler
Especially the.

00;32;54;12 - 00;33;15;22
Ed Gillentine
Case now. Not to get too technical, but really briefly, I think like you can't put your duck camp in there. I don't care if you got $5 million in it. If it can't get appraised at a million, you they can't give it to you for 5 million. Take the tax deduction. What are the cliff note version of just those valuation rules?

00;33;15;22 - 00;33;23;14
Ed Gillentine
Well, and I'll give the caveat to everybody. This is 1,000% dependent on the situation.

00;33;23;17 - 00;33;35;12
Bob Fockler
It is. That's true. And I'll tell you that when we talk about a gift, a real estate we were with, the the conversation was very quickly tied to how we're going to unload it. Yeah. Because we again, it's not our intention.

00;33;35;12 - 00;33;37;02
Ed Gillentine
To stay in a rut.

00;33;37;08 - 00;34;02;19
Bob Fockler
We are we are not interested in holding real estate at all. So so actually, those issues don't come up as much. So under the IRS rules, the donor is responsible for getting their own appraisal. That appraisal has to be from a reputable appraiser and in real mature conditions. That's your brother in law. Right. And the fact of the matter is, we're not going to take unless we think we can sell it pretty quickly anyway.

00;34;02;19 - 00;34;19;23
Bob Fockler
So there's going to be a real sale there. So I'm not going to go too deep into the detail. So in our experience, generally those things have happened pretty quickly. So the appraisal comes in for whatever it is. It's sold pretty much always for something close to that. Yeah, and that's.

00;34;19;26 - 00;34;29;27
Ed Gillentine
The reason I bring that up is a lot of people here that are on call these guys don't don't be calling with, you know brilliant idea that you're going to manipulate the system. That's not how it's designed. Correct.

00;34;29;29 - 00;35;00;27
Bob Fockler
And I can't leave this without telling you that like the sorry story, this real estate story that where we learned all this stuff. So we had a donor that was had a national business in in agricultural products, and they gave or they had an excess warehouse in Watsonville, California. I'm sure you were Watsonville, California, as in we I think we that was at a time where we just waived gifts in the door so we weren't as thoughtful as we are today.

00;35;00;29 - 00;35;22;04
Bob Fockler
And we ended up holding it for an extended period of time, I think, because we probably didn't know how to sell it. So this is 40 years ago, but in the time that we held that property, it was found to have an environmental issue. I think you had had pipes that were full of ammonia. It there was a murder on the property.

00;35;22;06 - 00;35;34;12
Bob Fockler
Oh, it was damaged by in the Loma Prieta earthquake, the earthquake that that affected World Series in California that year. And then it burned down.

00;35;34;15 - 00;35;35;20
Ed Gillentine
Well, you all had it while.

00;35;35;20 - 00;35;58;24
Bob Fockler
We had it. And it was there was, you know, fortunately, it was confined to locally in California. People are going like, who is this nonprofit in Tennessee that doesn't care about this property? And and it's just letting all these things just happen to right at the end of the day, we ended up selling it for a profit after about like six or eight years, but we think we were able to sell it for a profit was literally brick by brick.

00;35;58;24 - 00;36;01;05
Bob Fockler
They took the bricks down.

00;36;01;07 - 00;36;02;12
Ed Gillentine
So they sold.

00;36;02;12 - 00;36;13;26
Bob Fockler
The bricks and we were able to sell it for a profit. But the moral of that story for us is, you know, before we take a gift, we really need to know what we're doing with it. And and that would never happen again.

00;36;13;28 - 00;36;27;24
Ed Gillentine
I hear you. The school of Hard knocks, right? Absolutely. Now, on the fun side, I think of maybe the most interesting or fun gift, maybe not even at Greater Memphis Foundation, but that you guys dealt with.

00;36;27;24 - 00;36;43;13
Bob Fockler
Well, we've we've deal with all kinds of wonderful things. There is a really interesting story. There was a woman that had inherited a very valuable piece of jewelry. It was it was a ten year perfect diamond.

00;36;43;14 - 00;36;44;07
Ed Gillentine
Wow.

00;36;44;10 - 00;36;51;18
Bob Fockler
And, you know, I think it was her is her mother's or her grandmother's. But it was basically just sitting in a safety deposit box as I anywhere.

00;36;51;20 - 00;36;53;18
Ed Gillentine
You really I, I can't imagine.

00;36;53;18 - 00;37;11;16
Bob Fockler
Yeah. Yeah. And she was incredibly the owner was incredibly terribly inclined and was looking for resources And she goes, well, that's just sitting there doing nothing. So she called us in and said, Are you, would you take that? I went, Well, let me see.

00;37;11;18 - 00;37;12;12
Ed Gillentine
You learned your lesson.

00;37;12;12 - 00;37;29;27
Bob Fockler
So yeah, so and actually it was it was really cool. We ended up getting Sotheby's, the auction house in New York involved and they thought it was important enough that they actually sent a armored car from New York to Memphis to pick it up, because I wasn't going to take it. I wasn't going to put it in my drawer.

00;37;29;29 - 00;37;30;12
Bob Fockler
That's right.

00;37;30;15 - 00;37;35;24
Ed Gillentine
So put it in your suitcase and take it up right to their office in New York.

00;37;35;24 - 00;37;37;05
Bob Fockler
Right. You buy it at plain seat.

00;37;37;05 - 00;37;39;13
Ed Gillentine
Yeah, right. Yeah.

00;37;39;15 - 00;37;57;27
Bob Fockler
But now she So they somebody sent the truck. The truck shows up, she sends it over to us, we turn it over to Sotheby's and it goes in the truck up to New York. Sotheby's has a, I think, a couple jewelry auctions a year. And of course, these days everything is online. So you can actually watch them as they go.

00;37;57;27 - 00;38;16;19
Bob Fockler
And these are like fabulous pieces of jewelry being sold. And I was being the nerd that I am, I was actually timing how long it took to sell the average piece of jewelry. These are things are going for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Right. The average time that it took to sell a piece was 40 seconds.

00;38;16;21 - 00;38;38;17
Bob Fockler
Wow. Like and it was just incredible what this piece came up and it was announced. This is a piece owned by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis. And they go in and they sold it and they sold it for a very large amount of money. Yeah. The funds came back here and went into her fund at the Community Foundation and she has invested heavily in the causes that she cares about here.

00;38;38;17 - 00;38;49;05
Bob Fockler
So you took a family heirloom that that was family, but it was literally just sitting in a safe deposit box. And it did lots and lots of great work on the streets of.

00;38;49;05 - 00;39;10;19
Ed Gillentine
Memphis that I have to tell myself a lot when you're trying to to help people, because it's hard to help sometimes. Bureaucracies are that stuff. I'm thinking in my own mind, a beautiful diamond that helped a little kid get a meal or an education. Like there's a human being somewhere around Memphis, the Mid-South, and got helped. And all those pieces.

00;39;10;19 - 00;39;15;21
Ed Gillentine
Even Sotheby's. Yeah. You know, so let's as we as we.

00;39;15;23 - 00;39;16;02
Bob Fockler
Kind of.

00;39;16;02 - 00;39;40;25
Ed Gillentine
Wrap up, let's talk about of young givers. A mentor of mine told me years ago what you do with $5 is what you're going to do with 5 million. And his point was you need to start giving now or you're never going to do it. And and so we took that to heart. You guys are doing some neat stuff with get 360 fives of giving sounds of stuff, really encouraging young people to get involved.

00;39;40;25 - 00;39;42;00
Ed Gillentine
Can you talk about that for a minute?

00;39;42;03 - 00;40;15;03
Bob Fockler
Yeah. And by the way, our experience with that took a little bit of a twist that I'll touch on too. So, yeah, we were we were trying to come up with a a program that just provided folks that didn't have enough money to open a fund, right. To get involved in philanthropy. So we came up with a giving circle and it's called Get Through 65, where an individual or a family individual couple or family pays in a dollar a day or $365, half of that money goes into an endowment that grows over time and adds to the grant pool.

00;40;15;03 - 00;40;41;03
Bob Fockler
The other half goes directly into the annual grant pool. So we've had, you know, 50 to $75000 a year to spend, and that money is spent by the people that put the money in. So they get to decide on a grant making theme. Then non-profits apply against that theme. This is how I'm going to address that theme of the members that paid in get to decide, you know, who's who.

00;40;41;05 - 00;40;59;02
Bob Fockler
They get to pick through the proposals and pick the best ones. There's a really cool event with what we call finalists event, where those like the top ten or 12 get pitch in sort of like, yeah, it's sort of like speed dating. Uh huh, yeah. But they make their pitch and then all the members vote and the money goes.

00;40;59;02 - 00;41;14;04
Bob Fockler
So the members voted for it. So it's been a really cool way for people with limited means to get involved. They've learned a ton about the nonprofits that are in our city. They've seen nonprofits they never would have seen otherwise.

00;41;14;04 - 00;41;15;06
Ed Gillentine
I think that's the.

00;41;15;06 - 00;41;21;12
Bob Fockler
Weird twist of it. And we've been running for more than ten years, so we're actually pushing 15 years.

00;41;21;17 - 00;41;32;27
Ed Gillentine
Would you say? Also, like the best way to learn how to give is to give, and that can be hard. This concept, I feel like you're almost like in a cohort learning part of the people saying different.

00;41;32;28 - 00;41;54;13
Bob Fockler
Absolutely no idea. And it is social and it is learning oriented. So you get you get pretty much hands on with the agencies. Now that the weird sidelight to that is when we invented the program, we thought it's going to be for, you know, 20, 30, $0.40 and about 75% of of gifts or 65 givers are. But there's about another 20 to 25 that are retirees.

00;41;54;13 - 00;41;56;06
Ed Gillentine
That's amazing. And it's and it's.

00;41;56;06 - 00;42;09;18
Bob Fockler
The same thing is folks that have limited means. But actually in their case, have time and want to know more. So it's been interesting because the to have those groups are you there's a lot of 20 and 30 somethings and their grandparents.

00;42;09;19 - 00;42;31;23
Ed Gillentine
A lot of them all across like perspective whose me I just that speaks to me of the idea that giving is contagious etc. that people you start doing it you want to do more because it's fun. And I know this scripture verse gets beat to death, but it is more blessed. And I would insert more fun to give than to receive.

00;42;31;23 - 00;42;36;20
Ed Gillentine
Yeah. And I mean, yeah, that. Well, I love that program.

00;42;36;20 - 00;42;45;29
Bob Fockler
But that's true. I think that in Memphis is really special too, because I think the the advantage that we have in cheerful giving in Memphis is you can really see something, see the effect.

00;42;45;29 - 00;42;47;00
Ed Gillentine
Of your giving. That's a great.

00;42;47;00 - 00;43;02;14
Bob Fockler
I've been asked a lot about why Memphis is such a terribly inclined city, generous city. And I think the ability to make change in see the effect of your gift is probably pretty unique here than it is in in New York or Chicago.

00;43;02;20 - 00;43;32;06
Ed Gillentine
It feels to me. Would you as a side issue, do you feel like this petri dish if you will, for generosity in philanthropy in Memphis is significantly special because of the sort of the already in our DNA generosity? You can do some things maybe that we talked about inspiring people to give. Yeah, Memphis is already pretty inspired to give versus and I don't know another city that maybe you'd have to focus more on inspiring.

00;43;32;09 - 00;43;41;00
Ed Gillentine
You guys can focus a bit more on how to give efficiently, how to get better, all that sort of thing. Do you think Memphis City's DNA plays into that in any way?

00;43;41;01 - 00;43;55;22
Bob Fockler
I do. So I get asked this a lot about why Why is Memphis so generous? And I think it's a combination of several factors. I think that the the impact being able to see the impact is one. But I do think it is in our DNA. I think that we are not as cosmopolitan as a lot of places.

00;43;55;24 - 00;44;18;21
Bob Fockler
So I think most people that are here have roots here, in some cases very deep roots here. So there's a family connection and a multi-generational family connection. Certainly the fact that we're actually majority minority has something to do with that. It's been shown that that that African-American community invests more money terribly than other.

00;44;18;23 - 00;44;20;05
Ed Gillentine
Parts of their peers. Stick, I.

00;44;20;05 - 00;44;31;27
Bob Fockler
Think. Yeah, I do, too. I think I think that's a cultural DNA thing, too, that that that we need to take care of our own. Yeah. So I think that has something to do with why Memphis is so generous place.

00;44;32;00 - 00;44;54;09
Ed Gillentine
It is that that's fascinating and we'll have to follow up on that over coffee or something. But now for the most fun part of the interview, the Lightning Round, whatever you want to call it, But I'm going to ask three questions. One quote, one book, one person. This is how you know. Oh, boy. Yeah. I think you're interesting because this is these are the three questions I ask interesting people.

00;44;54;11 - 00;45;01;28
Ed Gillentine
All right. If you could share one quote with us today, doesn't even have to do with anything we talked about, but one quote, What would it be.

00;45;02;01 - 00;45;06;17
Bob Fockler
If I'm not a quote person, but there's one that I the how do.

00;45;06;17 - 00;45;16;07
Ed Gillentine
You get to Princeton and be a history guy, not a quote person and not like have you ever said that publicly? Because that might get you in trouble with the Princeton people.

00;45;16;10 - 00;45;16;26
Bob Fockler
But I don't.

00;45;16;26 - 00;45;17;29
Ed Gillentine
Know that.

00;45;18;01 - 00;45;23;14
Bob Fockler
I think well, I think as long as I participated in Yale giving money, they're just fine with me.

00;45;23;15 - 00;45;24;17
Ed Gillentine
Good. And serve on the committee.

00;45;24;21 - 00;45;44;05
Bob Fockler
But, I mean, kind of the the journey that I've been on with my life, There's a there's a Margaret Mead quote that gets overused a lot to that. You know, never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, because, in fact, it's the only thing that ever has. That's good. Yeah, that's and I it makes me I'm not my head every time I.

00;45;44;12 - 00;45;53;08
Ed Gillentine
I think of that, you know, for guys not a person that's a pretty exceptional quote. All right. One book if you could recommend one book for anybody, where would.

00;45;53;10 - 00;46;12;14
Bob Fockler
You and I read a lot in I read I used to read all history and now I read mostly literature, but I kind of what pops into my head is there's a book that I read a number of ago that sounds like it's going to be deep history. Baloney. But bear with me. Yeah, right. So the book is called Puritan Boston, Quaker, Philadelphia.

00;46;12;14 - 00;46;40;27
Bob Fockler
And it's not pure history. It's not just what happened in Boston or what happened in Philadelphia. It's actually a sociological study about the the dichotomy between the Puritan tradition, which is, you know, work hard and those who who are who are given more more of is expected of them is sort of an elitist view of society. The Quaker view in Philadelphia was everybody's equal.

00;46;41;00 - 00;46;47;25
Bob Fockler
There's nobody that is any different from everybody else. And so much of our society and so much of our politics live on that dichotomy.

00;46;47;25 - 00;46;48;13
Ed Gillentine
That it's first.

00;46;48;15 - 00;47;05;09
Bob Fockler
And so I think it's really interesting and I didn't even think about it, but this is those are the roots that those came from. But why how often do you hear in in election discourse about, you know, you need to be doing this or I'm not you're not any better than I am. All those kinds of things that comes from those roots.

00;47;05;09 - 00;47;07;07
Bob Fockler
So it's a it's a nerdy a nerdy book.

00;47;07;07 - 00;47;08;23
Ed Gillentine
But do you remember the author?

00;47;08;25 - 00;47;17;26
Bob Fockler
EE Digby Balsall Oh, yeah. He was a professor at I think the University of Pennsylvania probably probably 50 years ago.

00;47;17;26 - 00;47;21;26
Ed Gillentine
We're going to look it up and we we put it in our email or Instagram, the book.

00;47;21;26 - 00;47;31;29
Bob Fockler
Oh, really? It's I've actually recommended I've actually given it to a number of people. But it's it is. It is. It's I wouldn't say it's dense, but it's you got to care about the issue.

00;47;31;29 - 00;47;43;28
Ed Gillentine
Right. It sounds fascinating and I'm going to lean on you as kind of a fellow history lover that I might can dive into that one person that significantly influenced your life.

00;47;44;00 - 00;48;11;20
Bob Fockler
Well, I'm going to probably have to dig back into history, too. But I'm always intrigued by people that are challenged by circumstances and through personal courage, are able to persevere. So I'm going to. And there's plenty of those. Yeah, but I'm going to I'm going to pick on a black and white one that comes to mind. Edward Murrow, who was the journalist, CBS journalist in the forties and fifties on radio and eventually on TV.

00;48;11;24 - 00;48;12;28
Ed Gillentine
The Voice who.

00;48;12;29 - 00;48;20;05
Bob Fockler
Yeah, he had but just just stood up to the McCarthyism when when McCarthyism was it was.

00;48;20;05 - 00;48;21;01
Ed Gillentine
Not easy to.

00;48;21;03 - 00;48;44;29
Bob Fockler
Know. And there were a lot of potential consequences to just standing up to that. Yeah. And, you know, he just said, I don't care. I don't care what happens. And the Memphis I mean, not Memphis, American politics, American discourse can get out of line sometimes. It usually comes back. But we just need courageous people to to say, you know, that's not the way the world is.

00;48;44;29 - 00;48;56;15
Ed Gillentine
Supposed to be. More, I don't care. Yeah, people in a sense. Yeah, that's fantastic. Those are awesome. Where can listeners go to learn more about the foundation and what you guys are? We have a.

00;48;56;18 - 00;49;13;04
Bob Fockler
I think, really good website. See if I would agree. Yeah. See if again there's there's a lot of stuff on there that everything about what we do and give there 65 and live give Mid-South dawg all those kinds of things are on there's all links to help us things that we've been talking about.

00;49;13;06 - 00;49;41;25
Ed Gillentine
Yeah. Some really good articles and kind of blog stuff too. When I was poking around on it during my internet stalking and I've on there before, so yeah, dude, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed it, how much I appreciate. Same here. I really appreciate what you guys are doing. I know it's a big team there. Special shout out to Caroline, a friend of mine, that she's the one that sort of encouraged me along in my philanthropic journey and great whole team of people.

00;49;41;25 - 00;50;10;04
Ed Gillentine
We do that, do that also. Big thank you to our listeners. Hopefully this has been helpful, fantastic stories, but also some technical sort of tidbits that we hope you can use and think about. You can learn more about impact at EdGillentine.com. We like to think much like the cfgm.org, the foundation's website, that it's a good resource for articles and white papers, website links, those kind of things.

00;50;10;06 - 00;50;33;18
Ed Gillentine
You can purchase the book Journey to Impact printed or in any major digital platform through our website Amazon or Barnes and Noble dot com. Believe it or not, Bob, I saw the book on target. Oh, target.com. Oh, wow. But I'd love for you all to get that. It's kind of encapsulates our thoughts. And also you can listen to our podcast and other interviews.

00;50;33;20 - 00;50;35;17
Ed Gillentine
Until next time. All the best.