Entrepreneur Intel

Wes: I am very excited for today's guest. Uh, today's guest is the author of the book Next Level Nonprofit, a nonprofit system that shows you how to implement a proven organizational operating system to build the team and increase your lasting impact. His organization has invested more than fifty-one million into Detroit neighborhoods, renovated four school buildings, mobilized more than eighty-two thousand volunteers, and beautified over twenty-three hundred city blocks in Detroit.

Founder and CEO of life, Remodeled, Chris Lambert. Welcome,

Chris Lambert: So good to be with you here today, bro,

Wes: dude. The coolest thing I get to do, I look forward to every week is, is introducing guests. Like that is such an inspiring, uh, introduction, but I have to jump in right

Chris Lambert: it's all, all downhill from here or, or,

Wes: all straight up.

Chris Lambert: Alright, let's go.

Wes: But I, but I have to ask, I start every podcast with this question. Um, you know, life remodeled, you've grown this to a successful 3.1 million venture.

Uh, you're currently in the middle of a 14.7, uh, million dollar capital campaign. You have a headcount of 17 people. You've been an entrepreneur for 16 years. What's the most important lesson you've learned throughout this entire process?

Chris Lambert: Um, the lesson that sticks out to me the most that I learned through the school of hard knocks is. How incredibly important it is to get the right people in the right seats and not just top-tier talent, but to truly become a, team of one. And for so many years in the early stages as an entrepreneur, I didn't understand that value, and because of that, we ended up burning through a lot of people.

Sometimes it was because we hired the wrong people for the wrong seats. Other times it was because. I truly didn't know how to develop people if they weren't already rock stars in their own right, and certainly had no idea how to help everybody truly become a team of one. And it wasn't until we were hitting our heads against the walls, realizing that we weren't achieving the level of impact, we knew we were capable of that I, finally realized how important it was to, to, to, to build a team that was going to go through for the long haul and to attract, retain, and develop the absolute best people possible.

Wes: So I, so I have to recap your intro because I think what you just shared with, with us, um, fifty-one million in Detroit neighborhoods. Four school buildings mobilized eighty-two thousand plus volunteers. I, it's hard for me to get my, my kid out of bed in the morning. Can't even fathom eighty-two thousand people.

So I'm, I'm really excited to unpack that. And then twenty-three hundred city blocks, but I want to go back, back in time. Right. Because, you know, to me it having this opportunity to, to spend time with you, it's, it's amazing. Because I'm so curious around the non-profit world. You know, I think as an entrepreneur a lot of people enter entrepreneurship to like make money and build a widget and do all these different things.

And I'm just curious around like how your path led you to, you know, becoming an entrepreneur in the non-profit space.

Chris Lambert: Sure. So I was born and raised in a very small town in Northern Indiana, and when I say small town, I mean we didn't have a four-way stoplight until I was in middle school. So the words urban neighborhood revitalization were three words I never heard in succession. My entire upbringing. My, my story involves a lot of spirituality.

Um, uh, basically my family would take, my parents would take my sister and I to church service about once a month because they felt like it was the right thing to do, but I can't recall them ever talking about God in the home. For whatever reason, and I don't know why this was, I was, this really, I.

Passionate kid spiritually in particular. I loved the person of Jesus so much so that in eighth grade, other kids in school called me Lambert, the Jesus freak, because I was the kid who was trying to lead everybody to Christianity. I wasn't very successful at it. And then shortly before I turned 16, I hit a growth spurt.

Um, it didn't last as long as I hoped. You know, I'm only six feet tall, but I did become kind of a big fish in a small pond when it came to athletics. My high school was fairly large 'cause three little cities went to the same high school. But I started looking around at my buddies who were not following God, and I realized they were having a lot more fun in life than me and my little church youth group.

So I said, goodbye, Jesus. Actually, a a, a more authentic way to put it was I gave Jesus the middle finger. I said, I want nothing to do with you. And for the next six years of my life, from the ages of 16 to twenty-two, I basically did whatever I wanted to do, whatever I thought was gonna make me the most happy.

And at that time, you know, what were my values? My values were sports, uh, girls, um, and parties, good times, drugs, alcohol, friends, you name it. So when I went to Indiana University and studied business, my uh, first, uh, agenda item was to join a fraternity. I joined what was at the time, the largest fraternity on the campus, which eventually got kicked off for guns and cocaine.

Uh, interesting story there we won't get into now, but, um, I, I, I was living the life that I thought I wanted to live and doing the things I thought I wanted to do. But every now and then I'd be embedded late at night thinking to myself like, man, this, this really isn't doing for me what I thought that it would do for me internally.

So my solution to my perceived problem was just to double down on all those activities that I previously mentioned, you know, um, man, uh, amazing. How much of that seemed like a great idea at the time and my junior year of college, I decided to move to Australia for six months to study Overseas. For any of you out there, you have kids that are in college right now and they're talking about studying overseas.

You could just play along with it. Sure. Yeah. Study. Uh, it, it, it was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life because, um, I experienced what I would call radical encounter with God while I was in Australia. Wasn't looking for that. And what took place was a couple things. One, I, I met a couple guys over there who became my closest friends, and they happened to be Jesus followers.

And they were pretty fun guys. They could go out to a bar, have a few drinks and go home. And meanwhile I'd stay out doing the things they weren't doing. And then I also did some travel in various countries in Southeast, Asia, the Pacific Rim, and of course Australia. And I began to realize the world was a very big place and it didn't revolve around me and my 20 two-year-old ego, which was a very important lesson for me at that time in my life.

Look, sometimes I still need to learn that lesson, so, um. These guys who were a lot of fun kept trying to get me to come to their church service. And I was like, dude, no way. I, I, I didn't come to Australia to meet with God, you know, and they wouldn't stop. Finally, I was like, whatever. I went, it was okay. It was this little Anglican church service where the pastor wore skateboarding shoes and skateboarding shorts, which I thought was kind of weird.

Uh, 'cause I'd never seen anything like that. And I ended up going back the second time I went a third time. The third time I went. This guy gets on the stage, he tells this story that in many ways outlined my life and my life choices to that point. And I remember distinctly as he was wrapping up this story, I experienced hearing God speak to me for the first time in my life.

It was not an audible voice, but it was more clear than anything I'd ever heard a human being say. And that was a catalytic moment for me that led me to realize I, I basically had this. Visual, kind of like highlight reel or really more, more appropriately a low light reel of the last six years of my life, and I realized that God let me do everything I wanted to do.

I pretty much got everything that I wanted. He didn't mess up my plans, he didn't send me to jail, which I should have been there for, you know, drunk driving and drug use. I, I, I think I told you before, I was a drug dealer for about three days. I wasn't very good at it. Um, but I certainly could have gotten arrested during that time and, uh, I realized that I got everything I wanted, but at no point was I as happy or as satisfied as I was when I was Lambert the Jesus freak.

So I made a decision right there. I remember what I did. I went up to the front. I got down on my knees, I looked up, I said, God, from this moment forward, I'm gonna stop doing whatever you want me to stop doing, and I'm gonna start doing whatever you want me to start doing. So a couple major, um, Transformations took place in my life.

One, I immediately stopped getting drunk. Look, I still like some bourbon and cigars. But I don't get drunk. And, and I stopped using illegal substances. Um, but what started happening in my life was actually a lot more inspiring. So, prior to this experience, I loved my parents, my sister, my fraternity brothers, the girl I thought I was gonna marry at the time, but I couldn't care.

I've cared less about people outside my little bubble. I wasn't a bully, but I was paying no attention. To them, to anybody outside my, my little, my little spirit. Immediately after this experience, and this was 2002, and continuing on to this day, I have been, uh, experiencing what I would call a radical sense of curiosity, where anyone that I would meet or do meet, I just wanna know who they are, what makes them tick, what are they passionate about, what might they, if anything, be struggling with.

Is there any way I can help? Okay, so I moved back to Indiana University for my senior year. Before I left IU, there wasn't a single Jesus follower or Christian in this entire fraternity of 180 guys before I got back. This had nothing to do with me. My three best friends in the frat also had these crazy encounters with God, um, and so did my drug dealer, who was an atheist before I left.

I got back, they're like, what the heck, Lambert? And I'm like, what the, what the heck, guys? And we got this Bible study going and we started leading tons of dudes to Jesus. After like three or four weeks, we had 12 to 15 guys. I started thinking about my future. My plan was to go to law school and become a real estate developer to make a ton of money to fuel the lifestyle that I thought I wanted.

But after this transformation, I no longer wanted that money. And I just all of a sudden wanted to help people connect with God. And so I felt like God was calling me to be a pastor. So I canceled law school, moved out to la, studied seminary to learn to become a pastor. Eventually met the woman out there who became my wife.

We felt led to come to Detroit and start a church. Before we did that, we did what most people do, and we moved to Africa for nine months. Uh, and I lived in a mud hut in a Muslim village with no running water. And I became a community developer, which I knew nothing about, but I knew how to find out what people wanted and needed and help them get access to those resources.

And the last thing I'll say before I turn it back over to you is that experience in Africa really radically reshaped my understanding of the person of Jesus that led me into the work that I'm doing now. And that was this. As I experienced living among very marginalized and oppressed peoples who were many were experiencing a lot of suffering.

As I reread through the Bible and in particular Matthew, mark, Luke and John, the stories about Jesus, I began to see very clearly that this dude spent the majority of his time with people who were the most marginalized and oppressed. The drunks, the lepers, the prostitutes, the untouchables and his only criticisms were for the religious establishment and the religious leaders.

And he had nothing but love to give and a lot of time with people who were experiencing this suffering. And I realized that that was what he was calling his followers to do. Not that we all need to move into a mud hut or even into the hood. But that led us not only to start a church that was trying to do those things, but eventually that inspired me to create this non-profit life Remodeled, which very intentionally is not a religious organization, but my faith is what drives me to do everything that I do.

And my, my faith is what shaped my worldview. And now I'm at this place. I'm forty-three years of age, and I'm gonna tell you. If I were to do anything else, if I were to go into the for-profit sector and I got nothing but love for the for-profit sector, and God is working through people in all different industries, all over the planet, me personally, I couldn't do it.

I couldn't do it because I would be, I'd be miserable. I actually need the people that we are serving, people who are experiencing marginalization, oppression, suffering here in Detroit. I need them more than they need me. And I find so much joy and fulfillment in being with them that I can't not do this work.

Wes: Yeah, that, that, that's, that's amazing. I wanna touch on a couple different points. One, going back to when you're twenty-four, and for you it's God or you, you think about from being an entrepreneur trying to figure out your life's path. I mean, I can only imagine. You're like, I'm gonna go to law school. I'm gonna be this real estate developer.

I'm gonna make all this cash and feel this lifestyle. Then like all of a sudden like, what an impactful, like, boom. You're like, nah, like, that's not for me. But I mean, how, so for me, I want to just emphasize the importance of, you know, really understanding what you really, really want. I think as an entrepreneur, once you can establish what you really, really want, like you're a really fascinating guy in the sense of a lot of people.

You know, they, they might have pushed that aside for five years, right. Or went through law school and did that, you know, but you took action like right away. So in talking about going through to like, you know, going to Africa to Mud Hut, like I, I hear of that stuff. Like, I don't have any personal experience around anything like that.

Like I've, I hear of things or mission trips or people doing these things. I personally have five kids and sometimes I want to. I want to do something with them. So to get out of our bubble, right? I live in, you know, Novi, Northville, Michigan. Um, we're very blessed and fortunate, but sometimes I'm like, man, I, I just, I, I want you guys to get exposed to like what outside of these walls, what life looks like, you know?

So walk us, walk me through that process of making that decision and Convincing, was it your girlfriend or wife at the time that you're gonna go to Africa for, for nine months? To, to, to, to do what?

Chris Lambert: Yeah. You know, uh, Wes, I've heard you've shared your story with me and I love your story and I'm extremely inspired by it. And I truly believe all of us are living very interesting stories. And there are these inflection points in our life. These, these. You know, divergent paths where we are given opportunities to make really big decisions for me, as you can probably tell in the time that we've known each other, I, I'm just an all-or-nothing kind of guy.

I really don't wanna live any other way. If I believe in something I'm in and I make decisions, I evaluate those decisions. I learn from them. Fail forward, right. So, uh, when it came to my wife being convinced to move, you know, to Africa, the, the good news is I knew who I had married. I had married someone who already.

Had moved into very difficult life circumstances in Los Angeles to, she worked as a sexual assault advocate, uh, with a lot of women in very vulnerable positions. And, uh, she also worked with drug addicts and alcoholics, people experiencing alcoholism. And she'd never done a drug in her life. She had no idea what that was even about, but she spoke the language of love.

And so for me to. Convince her wasn't really something that I needed to do. You know, our hearts were very much aligned and we, we got a vision for what we thought God was calling us to do. And we were both at a place in our life where we, we, we didn't wanna do anything different than what we sense God calling us to do.

And that's how we make decisions in life, um, is really trying to discern what is our Creator saying? And that's what we wanna be about. And look, we get that wrong. From time to time, that's why I say we evaluate our decisions and pivot as necessary.

Wes: So this gets us to your, your creation of life, Remodel. And again, I wanted to reiterate fifty-one million into Detroit four school buildings, eighty-two thousand volunteers. Beautified twenty-three hundred blocks. You start life Remodel. that vision? Or like, you, you, you now come to this place and you have this vision for life remodeled.

Chris Lambert: Mm-hmm.

Wes: What, what's like the first step? Like what do you do? How, how do you, how do you put it all together?

Chris Lambert: Um, you know, our vision and strategy have evolved quite a bit since I launched Lifer model with some buddies in 2010 and, uh, we were way over our skis then. And, um, over the years we've taken on projects. So massive. One of the things that people have constantly told us is, you, you guys are crazy, right?

And so we discovered one of our core values through that process of always find a way. We really have three core values that drive everything that we do, who we are, what we do, and how we do it, and why we do it first. It's community first, which is this. We don't wanna do things to communities or for communities.

We only wanna do the work we do with communities. And that's why it's so essential. And from the beginning, from when we started and all the way through today, and we've gotten better and better at this over the years, it's all about discovering the community's hopes, dreams, visions, and values before you ever come up with solutions.

And I think that's true for entrepreneurs who are selling products or services, is truly understanding your clients. But what's at stake in the nonprofit sector is far greater. Than the sale of goods and services. Right. And unfortunately, so much of nonprofit work is honestly really doing things to people or for people, and that is actually destructive, um, in, in many ways, shapes and form.

And so it's hard to discover what the community wants. Takes a lot of intentionality. Always find a way. Is we surround ourselves with people, we hire people, we partner with people who, when they see a radical obstacle, they certainly don't just do the same thing that they just did that got them to that place.

They innovate, they get vulnerable, they ask others to help. They get transparent with what the problems are. They take radical ownership of where they're struggling or failing, and then they push through. They find a solution, and usually that solution is all about who. Rather than how it's about finding the right who's and aligning with the right who's, um, and together discovering the how's.

And then our last core value is what we call bold humility. And these two things seem like a radical paradox, and they are, but we say that if a person's only bold, then they're a jerk. And if a person's only humble, then they're a doormat. And so we have sought after, um, this value. And living it out all day, every day.

And you asked me about, you know, how do you start your, how'd you start your venture? And it was values based from the very beginning, culture, Trump's strategy, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast all day long. Because we had that culture. We magnetized other like-minded, crazy people who were about that life, right?

And who were so mission driven. People went to the ends of the earth to help us achieve our first project, which by the way, what we used to do is we used to build houses in six days and give 'em away to low-income families for free, take the families through financial training, set 'em up with a free financial advisor, uh uh, a free clinical therapy for the family.

And then we would invest in the surrounding community and we'd mobilize 500 volunteers to beautify the surrounding neighborhood. Look, that was big stuff at that time. And now we're doing, you know, way more than that because of culture and, and ultimately I'm gonna give all the credit to God. And I believe God's all about relationships.

And I have learned more and more as time goes by. It's more important and who is way more important than how, so I spend a lot of my time finding like-minded people, finding what they're passionate about, and then if their passions align with our mission. Now I don't have to beg people to help. Help us or, or help these poor, poor people.

I can help people achieve their values in the world by partnering with us.

Wes: So if I'm hearing you correctly, like you, you just had such a clear vision and along the way you're just finding. Your who's people that can sort of buy into your vision and, and you're kind of the gateway to kind so they can come along with you to serve your mission and vision. Um, but I, but I want to go back to.

You know, I, I, I look at, you know, for me it's tough. I, I look at, anytime I go to Detroit or there's homeless, I can yell that because most of the time, quietly, I'm, I'm slipping twenties, fifties, and I just, it's just something I do. I've always done it. I, you know, I don't do it for any glorification, but I, I like the fact that my kids see it because it's like, Hey, you know, dad might be a hard, hard, you know, hard head guy, but like, he kind of cares.

But like, I wanna in your situation of like, how do you. You know, 'cause me, it's like you have a heart of gold and you want to help everybody. Like how do you pick that family for that house? Or how do you evolve from that? Right. And how do you, you know, as a nonprofit, I'm sure that there's just so much coming in all the time.

Everybody start, you know, you're gaining traction. Everybody's kind of coming to you like Chris life remodel, you know, take our project on, help us do this. You, you can do it. How do you, how do you manage through all that?

Chris Lambert: All the time. So you know what you do slip in twenties and slip in fifties. Look, you gotta do what you feel called to do. That wouldn't be, uh, what I would recommend in general as a great strategy. Um, and we, we talk about that at another point. And life remodeled strategy has evolved radically to what we do now.

And let me start with why we exist as life remodel. We exist because we believe Detroiters have all the talent they need, but many don't have access to all the opportunities they deserve. And let me define lack of access to opportunities. Okay? Right now, eighty-eight percent of children in third grade in Detroit schools currently are not able to read at grade level. At third grade, um, 30% of Detroiters can't access the healthcare they need, and Detroit residents median household income is 50% less than suburban peers. So what do we do in response to that reality? We acquire large vacant school buildings. We repurpose these buildings into one-stop hubs of opportunity for entire families to thrive.

We then fill these buildings with the very best and brightest nonprofits who are doing three things, educational youth programs to address the education crisis, providing essential health and wellness services to address the disparity in health and wellness, and we help Detroiters achieve economic self-sufficiency.

By finding the right workforce development programs that provide workforce education, workforce training, workforce opportunities, and get people in jobs that dramatically change their whole financial outcome. And we not only are filling these buildings with these organizations, and we have a fully financially self-sustaining model because we charge them costs.

What it costs us to operate this building, that's what they pay. No markup, no developer fees, and that's what makes it very accessible. We bring these programs to the community through experts, and then we help them collaborate to make far greater impact together than any of us could ever achieve alone. And that is the problem, is access to opportunity. And that is what we address. And we are really good as an organization, first and foremost, about finding out what a community wants and needs, building trust. And then we find the best organizations, we inspire them to move in, which is a big deal. 'cause most organizations aren't gonna move into the neighborhoods that we work in that are highly distressed, where there's high crime rates and so on and so forth.

But that's where people live. They don't live downtown. And, and the, the, and public transportation is a major problem in Detroit. You gotta be where people are, and then we're really good at helping everybody play well together and achieve very strategic outcomes and impact numbers collaboratively through data, through determination, through clear goal setting.

Accountability. And whenever anybody asks us to do, you know, work like, uh, well, why don't you create a workforce development initiative? Our answer is no, because there's other programs out there that that's what they were born to do, and we're just gonna find them and we're gonna bring them to the table.

Or why don't you create health and wellness services? Same answer, right? So we know who we are. We know who we're not. And believe me, in the world of philanthropy, there's a lot of carrot dangling where maybe a grant comes out for any of those pro programs I just mentioned for workforce development. And we've been tempted to chase after that carrot, right?

But that would take us off mission for who we are. And look, uh, we're really good at what we do. What we do is very much needed. And what others are doing is just. As important. And when we collaborate, oh my goodness, now real life change, real neighborhood revitalization that lasts is happening.

Wes: So this, this gets us to where you're at today, right? We talked a little bit about you're in the middle of a $14.7 million raise. Like, what, what is that? What does that, what does that actually mean?

Chris Lambert: Yeah. So we just acquired. Another vacant school building. Uh, the one we just bought was the old Dominican Catholic Girls High School at I-ninety-four and Whittier, uh, which most recently was a charter school called Winans Academy of Performing Arts that closed last year. We bought the, the property at seven and a half acres.

Uh, we're gonna add a 26,000 square foot addition onto this building. When we're done with construction, it'll be just about 90,000 square feet and we are already, uh, uh, signing LOIs and leases with nonprofits that'll move in, but we raise the capital stack through philanthropy to be able to make this project a success because this project would never work financially if we did it from a for-profit lens, where we do a raise with a, a lot of debt financing that we then have to bake into the pro forma.

Then we would have to charge lease rates that none of the nonprofits would be able to pay, right? And so by us raising the capital stack through philanthropy, we're also going after new market tax credits for about 2 million of that $14.7 million. And we've received some public dollars support. We just got a million dollars through Department of Health and Human Services.

Um, but through that approach, we're then able to have a model where we can charge a lease rate. That is strictly based on the operations of the building, and that allows us to be highly selective about which nonprofits can move in there because we actually say no to every nonprofit that just wants a cool, sexy place to do administrative work.

We say now this. Now go to TechTown. Go to Bamboo, go to WeWork. Those are all amazing places and spaces. This place isn't about that. This place is about direct services. In a neighborhood that are gonna drastically change the outcome of the fu of the, of the future, of that community. And, um, raising that kind of money, you know, certainly is no joke.

It's all done through relationships that we have built over the years of trust of. Building upon, you know, the, the a hundred thousand dollars gifts that someone has given us, showing the impact that we've been able to achieve with that a hundred thousand dollars gift, turning that into a million dollar gift for the next gift that they give, earning trust to where they introduce us to their friends, who also have the philanthropic means to be able to make a project like this possible.

And so we're in a really good place right now, but it look. It's stressful, you know, raising $14.7 million in a short period of time.

Wes: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I bet. I mean, there was a stat I looked at, and it's failing to come to my mind right now, but there was something that life remodeled was recognized, uh, in your industry or nonprofit world about, because I, let me back up.

Chris Lambert: Yeah.

Wes: And I, I, I've had in my personal life or other entrepreneurs I've heard like, well, I don't know where that money goes.

Right? Or I don't, I give it here because it's safe, or I just don't know what's gonna happen with that. what is that in the nonprofit world that you guys are recognized for?

Chris Lambert: so there, there've been quite a few awards that we've won you. You're probably talking about Crane's Best Managed nonprofit. So we've been recognized for two straight years in a row as one of the best managed nonprofits in the region, and at the foundation of that entire determination is. Financial, um, management and stewardship, right?

We also have the highest possible ratings you can have on both Charity, Navigator, and GuideStar, which those are nationwide measurement systems that are measuring nonprofits all over the country. And, um, we have no control over what rating they decide, and they have given us the highest ratings you can possibly have.

And so. Delivering on impact is everything, right. Like I said, it's all about relationships, but you can have the most amazing relationships in the world, in the world, but once people start to give you money, if you don't actually produce the outcomes and impact that you all agreed upon would be achieved.

And if you don't do it in a way that's truly stewarding resources, well, people are gonna stop giving to you and the well's gonna drive dry up. And so we're, we're very committed to excellence. That goes back to the foundation of achieving that excellence is all about the right people in the right seats, developing a team of one, and then we've created a strategic plan that's only two pages in length.

That's another essential practice for us because it gives our entire team the ability to truly grasp exactly where we're going as an organization and how we're gonna get there, and then they can get excited about it. Then we have a few tools that we put in place to ensure that we're actually, um, operationalizing our strategic plan to the point where every team member throughout our entire organization sets ninety-day quarterly priorities every 90 days that are the three to seven most important things they've got to get done that quarter to stay on track for us to hit what we call our ten-year moonshot.

And then we back that out to three years and one year and even 90 days. We hold each other radically accountable and we always know exactly where, where and when a ball drops when it does. And that's not so that we can throw our team members under the bus. But that's so that we're all driven by our why.

We're all driven by the why of Detroiters have all the talent they need, but many don't have access to all the opportunities they deserve. So whenever any of us drops the ball, it's not a time for us to point. Fingers and blame. We're motivated by, Hey, let's figure this out. Right? And look, we don't do everything perfect.

Um, but I would, I would say we, we certainly do things way better than the vast majority of nonprofits, and it's not a competition, which is why I've written this book that you mentioned earlier. Next level nonprofit. I want everything that we do to be open source. Anything that we've learned, which, by the way, I have learned.

From so many great men and women in the business world that I would love to give shout outs to, that these are just principles that have been passed down for generations. For, unfortunately, many nonprofits aren't living by these principles, and so we work very diligently to inspire other nonprofits, like put these principles into practice.

Here's how you do it. We want you to succeed because ultimately that just leads to more people being served. Being served more effectively and, um, yeah, we're, we're, we're about that happening.

Wes: I was gonna ask, I mean, is it sort of taboo in the nonprofit space? I mean, you approach everything, from my perspective, very entrepreneurial to your book. Next Level Profit is this where, you know, you found great success on your path, implementing that into your organization, getting the buy-in. You have this very, you know, successful charging organization.

That was the n Next level nonprofit, you know, like open book. But do you actually help actually engage and help other nonprofits like outta your playbook? I mean, how, how, I love your attitude and vision around like, hey, there's, you know, everybody has a place that, there's a big world out there. I love the abundance mindset with entrepreneurs, but are you like tactically getting in and, and showing your playbook and walking them through to other nonprofits?

Chris Lambert: yeah. So many of your listeners, I'm sure are familiar with for-profit organizational operating systems, such as. EOS scaling up Rockefeller habits, the four disciplines of execution. Pinnacle the great game of business. You know, I, I could go on and on, and it seems like there's a new system developed every six months and, and they're all fantastic.

By the way, all of those systems, including my favorite one, EOS, which was created by Geno Wickman, who was a friend of mine, who I am, he is one of my heroes, okay? All of those systems were created for, for-profit businesses. None of them were created with nonprofit language, nonprofit understanding. One of the things that I've found is most nonprofit organizations are led by incredible people who have very little to no experience in the for-profit world, or at least in successful for-profit organizations.

And they, a lot of 'em just, they don't know what they don't know, and they actually do stiff arm. Business language. So a lot of nonprofit leaders, they're not gonna read Patrick Lencioni or Jim Collins or Michael Gerber or Kim Scott, or Gino Wickman or Vern Harnish. They're not gonna read these books because they label the business world as exploitative and just profit driven, which is such an oversimplification, and it's just dead wrong in so many cases.

Right. So what we've done at Life or Modeled is if you take those principles that are in all those systems I just mentioned that are all great, they're all sharing the same principles. Those are timeless, universal, essential principles. We have translated those principles into nonprofit language, used our own failures and successes as examples in this book, next Level Nonprofit, and we coach organizations in this methodology.

So in the world of, of coaching an implementation of like a, a, a, a great system, like any of the ones I've mentioned, typically a great implementer or as Pinnacle would call them, guide, you know, is gonna cost you 50 to $80,000 for the first year, which is actually a very fair price for the services that you're getting.

And, and I would recommend any of those companies for, for-profit businesses. Nonprofits can't afford that, including our own. So we've broken that down. We only charge $20,000. And what that is, is we coach executive leadership teams to implement this entire system. And we make it accessible, we make it affordable, and we speak their language.

And I'm gonna tell you though, man, it's a tough sell because a lot of nonprofits just don't get it. They don't know what they don't know, and that's not a criticism. But what we do is when I meet with somebody, I don't try to sell them on our system. I just ask them, first of all, what's going great in your organization?

I listen. And what do you wanna see more of that's going well, okay. You know, if you had a magic wand and you could change the biggest problem in your organization, what would you change? Then I start asking them about, I, I talked to the CEO, you know, what are you. Really, really, really good at, and you really enjoy doing it.

And they name those things. Okay, how much of your time are you spending doing just those things? And usually it's a very low percentage of the time. Okay? What if you were able to get to a place where the majority of your time was spent on those things and you could delegate these other tasks to people who would actually do them better than you? And then I ask them about their team, and this is where everybody's, everybody starts to discover their real pain points because. The biggest pain points in every organization are people challenges, right? People issues. And tell me about your team. Do you have all the right people in all the right seats?

Are you truly a team of one? Of course, they always think of problem scenarios and what would your organization look like if you solve those, if those people that are giving you people challenges, what if you could coach them to where they were extremely top-tier performers and they were team players, or.

If they transitioned outta the organization and you filled those seats with the very best people and you became a team of one, what would be different about your organization? Through that conversation, people begin to come to their own conclusions of, okay, we, we need help. We need help.

Wes: Well, what's great is, I mean, Matt, if, if you would take on some for-profit business, what you just said applies to, for-profit business too. Like you mentioned, EOS, Rockefeller habits, some type of operating system is essential. Um, but I get your pain point, but I, but I think what's really inspiring for me is just your vision and just your, you know, to get other nonprofits better.

The abundance mindset, like I, I think that's amazing. can, how can other entrepreneurs or guys like myself, entrepreneurs, like get involved? Right. And I think oftentimes I'll throw myself under the bus. Many times I've had, Hey, like, how can I help? Or people said, Hey, bring your team, and it might've been through your organization or somebody else.

Like, get your team here for the day. And I'm just like, I, you know, I, I feel like I should be doing more. I think with a guy like you, you're very inspirational. I like to attach my wagon or get behind other inspired entrepreneurs, but like what can a real entrepreneurial company do? Or like from your perspective, how can they get involved?

Chris Lambert: Well, I can help answer that question certainly for you because I know your passion and we've already talked about this, but for any of our listeners, if you're passionate about Detroit the city, if you're passionate about Detroit neighborhoods, about children. Achieving better educational outcomes, people acquiring better jobs that drastically change the future of their economic landscape.

People getting access to great health and wellness services. Um, I could help you with that, right? One of the ways you can get involved is every year we have a six-Day project where we mobilize 5,000 volunteers over six straight days, and we beautify two square miles surrounding our opportunity hubs. So we're gonna be on the east side for the next few years in the Dembe community, right there surrounding that new Opportunity Hub that we're creating as we speak.

That project will take place the last full week in September. You can find all the info about it on our website. You can bring your whole company like GM will be bringing a thousand volunteers for one full day next year. One year they brought 3,700 volunteers for us. So there's no group too small or too big.

We can handle your group and we'll give them an experience where they're gonna do work, that they will see the impact of their labor within a matter of four hours with, unfortunately, some of the properties that they'll work on are so covered by brush. You literally don't even know there's a house there.

Until you start taking down all that brush and, and this work has been proven to reduce crime in the surrounding community. We have the data to prove it from the Detroit Police Department. They came to us and they said, look at these statistics in these communities you've worked in. Right? So that that's an easy way for companies to get engaged.

Um, if you wanna use your financial resources to make tangible, lasting impact in Detroit neighborhoods. I can absolutely help steward your resources to those goals and those ends. And if you know, please feel free to reach out to me if that's something you wanna talk about. We do have a really cool event coming up, uh, in May.

It's called Prom Remodeled. I. It's our annual fundraiser. We just did our first one last year. Okay. Um, it's an opportunity for adults to relive or redo prom. And it's crazy. We had a thousand people. We raised a half a million dollars. Our entertainment last year was Montel Jordan. Okay. This is how we do it.

And the gin blossoms anywhere you go. All right. I'm not, I'm gonna stop saying it for minute. Our entertainment this year, we got. Robb Bass. It takes two to make a thing. Go right. Tone Locke, wild thing. And Tratch of Naughty by nature. Okay. OPP, hip hop, Array. Feel me? Flow. This thing is gonna be crazy, but it's, we're just gonna have a great time together raising support for neighborhood revitalization that lasts.

So if you're interested in our prom, you can go to our website and find out more on that too.

Wes: So I gotta ask a stupid question. So I, I look at 14.7 million as a raise, you know. What, what if somebody's got 20 bucks or 50 bucks? You know, and I'm like, eh, it won't even move the needle. Like that's a, that's a big number. Like, what, what is a, You know, if you look at a business or an individual like, what, what, what amount isn't too small?

Or, you know, how, you know, how, how do you overcome that, Hey, I only have $10 or a hundred dollars, or, Hey, I've already, you know, there's other people and entrepreneurs that commit to other causes, but like, what's, what's a good way for somebody to get started?

Chris Lambert: Well, obviously if you have a thousand people giving 20 bucks, you know that's $20,000. If you have 10,000 people giving 20 bucks, that's $200,000. It, it all adds up. So this isn't a, a game where you know, anybody's saying you have to give this or you have to give that. My question to people who are looking at getting engaged in something meaningful like this is, what do you wanna accomplish?

Right. How big of impact do you wanna make? I can help you do that, um, and, and show you exactly how it's gonna happen. And first I'd show you the proof of where it's happened. So I'm, I'm in our Durfee Innovation Society right now, which is 143,000 square foot, former elementary, middle school that's fully occupied with 40 organizations serving 28,000 people now, uh, a year.

Recently, Gallup Research did a survey in the city of Detroit where they surveyed 12,000 Detroiters all over the city, and I didn't even know this study was happening until it was done. And they were asking Detroiters, surveying them about their perception of their ability to thrive based on. The specific neighborhood they lived in.

There were six criteria that they asked Detroiters. Number one, do you believe you can experience economic mobility in your neighborhood? Number two, do you have access to quality educational opportunities? Three quality workforce development initiatives. Four, quality healthcare. Five. What's the strength of your police?

Community relations, which by the way, the majority of the public police community relations activities happen right here in our building in this local precinct. Six. How strong is your community collaboration? Then when this study was done, they released the results at the Mackinac Policy Conference, and they put on the screen, here's the three neighborhoods in Detroit that scored the highest.

On their perception of their ability to thrive. Number one, Indian Village. Okay, no surprise there. That's a great neighborhood. Number two, they put on the screen Durfee community. Here's what's crazy about that. That's the neighborhood we just created, the Durfee Innovation Society. That community didn't have a name before we got here.

The city called it Dexter-Lynwood, because that's just two streets, and there's a lot of neighborhoods in Detroit that don't have a name. Ever since we traded this Durfee Innovation Society, which by the way, the youth named this place, um, people started calling this community Durfee after this place.

Also, when we got here, 80% of people who lived within four and a half square miles lived at or below the poverty line. If that study by Gallup would've been done 60 years ago, this neighborhood would've scored right toward the bottom in the entire city. And things have changed because the opportunity is real.

Community members believe in that opportunity. There's trust and if anybody wants to come here and see it, it is one of those things you truly gotta see to fully understand. Come on, we'll show it to you and, and if you wanna be a part of scaling that and replicating that now to the east side of Detroit in a neighborhood that has even more opportunity gaps than the neighborhood we're in right now.

Um, let's go.

Wes: No, that's great, Chris. I mean, you're, you're, you're, you're an inspiration, uh, to me personally, and I, and I know a lot of other entrepreneurs. How, how can people connect with you? Where can they most easily find you?

Chris Lambert: Yeah, check out our website, life remodeled. L-I-F-E-R-E-M-O-D-E-L-E d.org. Um, if you wanna learn more about prom, you can actually just type in prom remodeled.org or just just go to the life remodel website. You can learn more about the six-Day project there. You can donate, you can find my contact information there.

And um, you know, my focus right now is on this capital campaign, so I'm looking for individuals that wanna make a very, very significant level of impact and I can help you do that. And I'm also working on scaling Next-level, nonprofit all around the country.

Wes: Yeah. Well, thank you. I, I, uh, to anybody that wants to reach out to Chris, I recommend it. You're a wealth of inspiration. I really appreciate what you do. It's, it's really inspiring to me. Um, I could talk to you all day, but I want to let you get back to what you're doing in Detroit. And, and moving mountains.

So I just wanna thank you so much for, uh, coming on today. I really appreciate it.

Chris Lambert: My brother, thank you for your time and what you do and, and how you're doing it. I'm inspired by you.

Wes: Thanks. Uh, if you learned something today, please share this. If you know any non-profits, please share this episode with them. This is extremely important, Chris Lambert. Thanks again man. I appreciate it.