Driving Outcomes

Kelsey is the Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer of EverFree and formerly the Founder of Willow International. The last time we caught up with Kelsey was late 2020 when she focused purely on East Africa, specifically Uganda, and now she is partnered with 10,000 Windows focused on the Philippines, now known as Everfree. Most of Kelsey's work is overseas but both Kelsey and her co-Founder, Jeremy Floyd, are doing the work remotely from here in the U.S. (California and Tennessee) to address systemic issues and combine resources. Kelsey shares about students and about a local story here in Orange County of human trafficking! At the end of the podcast Kelsey describes how you can get involved to help the efforts.

I had the pleasure of doing a podcast with Elizabeth Andrade, CEO of Family Assistance Ministries, talking about homelessness and food insecurity and pockets of poverty within South Orange County. Elizabeth describes her experience as CEO leading an organization that responded to a true crisis in 2020 as a result of COVID-19 and how they dealt with it, and described where the organization is today helping to acknowledge and educate individuals through State of the Family once a month. Elizabeth describes for us how the causes of homelessness for families is very different from homelessness for the individual. At the end of the podcast she shares how we can solve homelessness in our own community.

Joining Traci for today's podcast is Councilmember Matt Mahan from the City of San José, District 10 who is also running for Mayor. Councilmember Mahan shared his experiences growing up in Watsonville, California, through today and how he relates his work in the social sector to that in the private sector. Councilmember Mahan specifically compares and contrasts start-ups and venture capital to work in government. For instance, both sectors operate in environments of uncertainty and Matt helps propose some potential solutions for alleviating such within government. As part of Matt's work serving the public, he is extremely customer-centric much the same as businesses serve customers and clients. Matt highlights for us many of the questions citizens have for instance around "where does our money go?" and he shared about the 311 app that has been successful in San Jose as the initial step in performance measurement in a community that the public responded positively towards that others may want to learn more about, too. Councilmember Mahan strongly advocates for a public sector environment that creates comprehensive measurement and analysis in the performance of their community that helps us identify what didn’t work in the system, and also what does work which gives us all as leaders to drive clarity, and an opportunity to empower ourselves to create better options.

In today’s podcast, we talk about how the federal government can utilize data to address the fiscal pressures it has encountered and how such data can be used to make better decisions surrounding what actions to take despite changes in leadership and administration over the last few years.For those that find data to be too abstract, data is simply information. Traci talks about howa specific framework and identified process used by The Mark helps to provide guidance with reference to how data or information is used and can help adapt to each federal agency’s needs to make decision-making and leadership easier.

On this week's podcast, Traci is joined by two individuals who are familiar with the value of B Corps,Vicente Escriva and Diane Kaldany.Diane shares that everything she does is driven by a big-picture philosophy of the world. Diane worked in Corporate, specifically in financial banking, and she did work for a Non-Governmental Organization (“NGO”) outside the US.Vicente, who has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics realized that he wanted to focus on Developmental Economics where he has had experience working with a bunch of NGOs and working with social enterprise and corporate responsibility groups. B Corp falls under for-profit organizations and it is strictly for companies. The process by which you become a B Corp is to become certified by the organization, B labs. The certification is very broad and it is performed by an organization that does a third-party review and gives a lot of credibility. Some well-known company names are Ben and Jerry, and Patagonia - which was one of the first big corporations to obtain certification.Whole Foods, who chose not to be B Certified, even though the CEO wanted to really instill that kind of mindset shared publicly that he regretted not being B certified when Amazon bought them because the company felt all that work was now at risk of being let go. B Corp certification essentially gives the companies an opportunity to reevaluate their values, essentially, at all levels, as it coincides with a lot of current events around social change. Additionally, B-certification helps to increase enterprise value as a whole because it captures non-financial metrics or outcomes that help complement or affect a company’s financials.

On this week's podcast, Traci is joined by Richard Ward, a Financial Planner, and Philanthropic leader. Richard has been helping people have better life for more than 30 years. Richard helps people give something to the community without putting their future at risk. He said, once we grow older, we see our lives more clearly as mature individuals- we start to decide how to live our life. Richard added, "without a sense of purpose, we don't grow and evolve". Being a mature individual doesn't really necessarily mean that you need to be 50+ to be called one but in general, that is typically the age. It is finding your purpose at a stage in life to be called a mature individual. We reach financial stability when we pay it forward to others. Richard believes that each of us has something to offer. In such ways, Richard helps people discover things that they could offer and be involved in any organization. Richard's perspective towards life is that there is philanthropy in all of us. We can give what we can give. Participating and contributing in the art of giving help us achieve better lives.

Customers place more and more emphasis on publicly reported information related to environmental and social governance (“ESG”) to make purchasing decisions. Companies publish specific information or data on the world wide web, and this information is used by over 700 sources to rate a company in ESG. Company leadership needs to be informed about such ratings.On the Driving Outcomes podcast, Cynthia shares what is CSR Hub (Corporate Social Responsibility) and how it has evolved as a company over time. Cynthia also mentions how she has helped companies understand how they are being perceived in the marketplace by different stakeholders, including prospective customers.

Robyn Williams, Community Engagement Manager for Miracles for Kids joins Traci on today’s podcast. Miracles for Kids is an organization that helps low-income families (who earn less than $23,000 a year) in Southern CA with a critically ill child for up to two years. Miracles for Kids provides financial assistance towards rent, provides housing through Miracle Manor for those facing eviction, helps provide basic needs, and also offers free counseling and wellness programs. Robyn shares testimonies of families that Miracle Manor has helped, the obstacles families face, and how the families they have helped pay it forward. Paying it forward involves parents who have come back to support other families or cases where Miracles for Kids has also helped families to advance economically by saving, so that they are also able to provide directly for their families in the future. Thus Miracles for Kids not only provides support for critically ill children and their families, but overall support for families to sustain themselves in the future.Nine months ago, 360 Miracles was launched. 360 Miracles is a group of women dedicated to changing peoples' lives together. If you know someone would like to get involved please go to 360miracle.org to learn more. 100% of your contribution will support families crumbling under the combined impact of their child's critical illness, a devastated economy, and the effects of COVID-19.

Traci is joined by Veronica Olazabal, Senior Advisor and Director of Measurement, Evaluation & Organizational Performance for the Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation is the first and one of the largest philanthropies in the world which was founded by John D. Rockefeller back in 1913. Veronica discusses Rockefeller’s mission to promote the well being of humanity throughout the world and how they are working to advance the new frontiers in science, data policy and innovation. Learn how the Rockefeller Foundation is trying to end energy poverty, how they are responding to the pandemic, the challenges they face and how they are being addressed. You'll not only be a more informed but hopefully also a better philanthropist learning from Rockefeller Foundation's history and work.

Traci is joined by Rebecca Brown, Administrative Director, for the MARC U STAR (Maximizing Access to Research Careers – Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research) Program on today’s podcast. The MARC U STAR Program is an undergraduate program that helps underrepresented students gain research experience and helps them move into their undergraduate degree after graduating from UCR.The National Institute of Health (NIH) federal agency funds the MARC U STAR program in an effort to enhance diversity in research-related fields. Rebecca explains that UCR is one of 60 programs that NIH funds. The purpose of the program is to encourage underrepresented students in the sciences to pursue graduate research and careers in the sciences. Student’s field of study that relate to human health can range from biochemist, mathematician, bioengineering, chemistry major, behavioral science, and microbiology. Learn how students are identified for those that qualify and the different training programs offered to students. To learn more please visit https://marcu.ucr.edu/.

Traci talks with LaVal Brewer, President and CEO of South County Outreach (SCO) on today’s podcast. SCO’s core mission is to prevent hunger and homelessness by helping people help themselves. SCO’s focus is love and help from the community not on the social stigmatism associated with needing help. SCO addresses resource food desert situations where food is needed in areas that socioeconomically would not be expected but is a necessary resource to help individuals in need. LaVal discusses with Traci how the pandemic changed SCO's approach to how they servepeople with their food pantry and of the rebranding of the organization's ultimate vision to help end hunger.For individuals that want to help themselves SCO provides assistance with housing and food. Additionally through SCO's computer lab, the organization also enhances an individual’s skills to obtain job opportunities to be able to provide for themselves in the long term thus helping to put an end to hunger.

Julie Serafin, Director of Science and Research at WV Higher Education Policy Commission joins Traci on today's podcast. Julie helps faculty at higher institutions at WV obtain federal funding from NSF and other entities by connecting researchers with specific programs. She helps provide feedback on how to make the grant more successful with NSF to make sure it gets funded. Julie is specifically in charge of the West Virginia Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) project. Her office administers grants from EPSCOR to build research infrastructure in the state of WV to build industry and workforce. This includes a STEM speaker series along with a magazine to help educate the public on various topics from volcanoes, water resources in the state of WV, and gravitational wave astrophysics in the hopes to bring awareness to inspire young people.

Dr. Xinnan Du, Program Manager and Outreach Director in research in physics and astronomy from UCR, talks with Traci on today's podcast. She talks about her involvement in the educational outreach program which encourages students to pursue higher education in STEM fields, including astronomy. Xinnan provides examples of careers that are related to astronomy and how their skill set can be utilized in other fields, too. To learn more on virtual events that are free to the public you can visit https://physics.ucr.edu/news-events/community-outreach

Dongming Mei, Director, CUBED/Professor Physics at the University of South Dakota shares with Traci what the PIRE program is and his focus on nuclear research and dark matter as a multi-country collaboration. He further elaborates on the National Science Foundation’s interest in this research and how USD received a $4.35 million grant from NSF to help advance germanium materials for developing detectors and other technologies in the study of dark matter and neutrinos as a multi-country collaboration and global community effort. Dongming explains the positive outcome of nuclear research and the uses that nuclear matter can have that extend beyond our political understanding or fears.

Steve Allison Associate Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Earth System Science and Courtney Hunt Academic Coordinator of UCI both join Traci on today’s podcast. With funding from the National Science Foundation, the Ridge 2 Reef graduate program tackles a wide range of ecological challenges for Orange County. Steve and Courtney discuss how environment ties to culture and vice versa and how one of their research projects is a relationship between COVID19 and sewage water.

Leyla Riley is the Executive Director of the OC STEM Initiative, which is housed in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Leyla works to foster Orange County’s economic competitiveness and sustainability through promoting STEM competencies across the educational continuum through the creation of public-private partnerships between community stakeholders, including but not limited to K12 schools, higher education, industry, government and philanthropic foundations. Take a deep dive with Leyla as she explains the foci of OC STEM and how you can get involved. Leyla discusses what she does by focusing on research and the OC STEM ecosystem and her role there.

Bimal Nepal, Associate Professor in the Industrial Distribution Program at Texas A&M University, joins Traci on today’s podcast to discuss the $7 trillion industry. Dr. Nepal’s research interests cover a wide range of topics in industrial distribution and manufacturing. Those include: inventory management, lean six-sigma, pricing optimization, supplier management, transportation optimization, production and operations analysis, quality and reliability, and new product development. Bimal and Traci discuss the impact and skillset industrial distribution students gain and the steps Texas A&M is doing to connect higher education to industry. Dr. Nepal talks about how lean six sigma research will help optimize manufacturing and the diversity/inclusion of women in STEM.

Mike Gallo, Director, Research Development of the University of California, Irvine joins Traci on today’s podcast. Mike’s role at UCI is strategic in nature and he helps principal investigators (PIs) vet proposals that are likely to get funded. Mike discusses how competitive the research field has become now with limited availability of funds combined with the growing number of research institutions and funds have decreased significantly due to lack of increase of funding despite the increase in inflation. Mike explains what it is that PIs need to understand to be successful at winning grant proposals and get funded as well as what research institutes need to understand to bring in more funding.

Linda Christopher, Manager for Grants and Project Development of Riverside Unified School District ("RUSD") shares how as a school district it was decided to pursue a National Science Foundation grant to show themselves as the pioneers in ascertaining funds typically pursued only by higher education directly, yet RUSD is still working with UCR and others. Linda Christopher further discusses the end to end research that focuses on grades K-12 with a specific focus on high school students and the data resulting from the students exposure to air pollution. Linda and her team are a leading example of innovation by her school district because of their pursuit to obtain federal funds which can be a paradigm to other school districts seeking funding in a time of need where innovation, creativity, and collaboration are paramount. Presently most federal research grants are pursued by higher education institutions only.

Wendy Schluchter, Ph.D. Professor and Chair from the University of New Orleans joins Traci on today’s podcast. During this podcast you will hear how Mardi Gras is being celebrated during this unusual time we are all experiencing, how it was celebrated this year and how it relates to Wendy’s New Orleans background.Wendy had the opportunity to speak about the most common professional fields and industries that most students pursue after receiving their degrees in microbiology. She concludes her portion of the podcast by discussing how microbiology is multi-disciplined. Many microbiology students pursue medicine, and many of them, in preparation of becoming a doctor, will need to minor in technology or engineering to stand out or be competitive in their respective fields.