Kathy Selders & Marchelle Sellers - Charity On Top Giving Crypto

Kathy Selders & Marchelle Sellers - Charity On Top Giving Crypto - Marchelle and Kathy are back talking about Charity with Pete A Turner. The ladies continue to push the Boundaries between giving and gifts adding in a new crypto charity features to the Charity On Top platform.

harity isn't just money...it's also time, location, presence etc. Simply giving rides in support of a charity, or running errands is a huge boost to what we can all do to help. It's always fun to check in with Kathy and Marchelle, our question is, how are you giving?

#charity #podcast #episode #peteaturner #kathyselders #bids #marchellesellesr #savethebrave #scotthuesing 

#breakitdownshow #jonleonguerrero #macedonia #giving #charityontop #life 

Haiku
Gifting charity
Sweetens all of our presents
Be charitable

Similar episodes: ​
Charity on Top
Kathy Selders and Marchelle Sellers
Carlos Reyes

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Executive Producer/Host/Intro: Pete A Turner 
Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev
Writer: Bojan Spasovski ​

Transcript

​Pete Turner  0:00  
Hey everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of the break it down show I wanted to do today's introductions to do for a couple ladies that I just get. I cannot get enough of them. And I just love them to death and what their mission is and what their passion is. They've been on the show before. It's Kathy souders and Marcel sellers. They run charity on top, and they've got a career, both of them in the nonprofit space. They understand they consulting for nonprofits, they understand the mission, the game, and they were trying to find ways to bring more money to charity more passively.

​Pete Turner  0:00  
Hey everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of the break it down show I wanted to do today's introductions to do for a couple ladies that I just get. I cannot get enough of them. And I just love them to death and what their mission is and what their passion is. They've been on the show before. It's Kathy souders and Marcel sellers. They run charity on top, and they've got a career, both of them in the nonprofit space. They understand they consulting for nonprofits, they understand the mission, the game, and they were trying to find ways to bring more money to charity more passively. So they invented charitable and giving as gifts to others. So let me give an example. Let's say I want to give you charity, so I'll send you a charity on top gift card via email or an actual card itself. And I'll give it to say Phil green and I'll say hey, Phil, which I do in this episode, by the way. Hey, Phil, here's 25 bucks, give it to any charity you want. And then you go on to the charity on top site. Bam. The charity gets the money. Here's the thing. That's amazing. The way the giving us Up there when the charity gets that money on announced, it's actually more valuable than if you gave it to the charity themselves directly. Yep, that's right. Most givers who give the gift of charity to the person they absorb the administration costs 3% I think it is a little less right around there. Basically as small as it could possibly be. The ladies are proud of that. Charity on top. This is really awesome. And I want you to consider that. But also consider other ways you can give time, money, effort location, doing errands for charity can credibly valuable writing letters, whatever it is, there's a lot of ways to help out as we all look for ways to improve things. Charity is a big big part of what an adult should do for somebody. So here comes Kathy, Mr. Shell. I know you guys are gonna love them. Lions rock productions.

Unknown Speaker  1:51  
This is Jay Mohr and this is Jordan. Texture from the Navy Sebastian youngsters, Rick maronna, Stewart Copeland

Pete Turner  2:00  
Actors Gabby Reese, Rob bell. This is john Leon Guerrero. Hey, and this is Pete a Turner.

Kathy Selders  2:06  
Hi, this is Kathy solders with cherry on top

Marchelle Sellers  2:09  
and Marcel sellers with charity on top and you're listening to the breakdown show.

Pete Turner  2:15  
Yes, we're in Marshalls backyard and his lovely back here actually, inside the house it is cooler than it is outside.

Marchelle Sellers  2:22  
It's beautiful out today. So we're gonna have all the randomness of the outside. What I can't help it. We're soaking up the sun after all these days of rain.

Pete Turner  2:30  
Yeah, I saw you on TV the other day for the great American sleepout Is that what it's called?

Kathy Selders  2:36  
world's big sleepout the world's biggest leak but Okay, so it's a global event that happened in December December 7. And it was started by Josh little john out of Scotland, and he's with social bite started social bite. And he had this idea to have a big sleep out in Scotland in solidarity for people who are experiencing homelessness, and just placement, which is happening globally, obviously. And he had a he ran a couple very successful sleepout. They raised money and raised awareness for the cause. And he decided he and his team decided to take it global. So this year, there were 52 cities that participated. Yes, all over the world. We hosted cherry on top hosted the LA flagship event at the Rose Bowl. So it was iconic and pretty fabulous. And we raised money and awareness for the cause. And so we had people, so we we changed it up a little bit, because we're LA, we got to do it a little bit differently. And so we had a big concert, and then the sleepout portion, were sort of separate so you didn't have to sleep out to come and participate, although quite a few people did and we certainly did, Marchelle and I

Marchelle Sellers  2:47  
with smiles on our face, it goes down.

Kathy Selders  2:47  
We did it did. It wasn't the most pleasant no I've ever spent the point right

Pete Turner  2:47  
it is Ramadan real like I'm gonna go through this.

Kathy Selders  2:47  
Exactly and and while I was lying there on the cement warm enough because I had a decent sleeping bag and yeah safe enough you know feeling safe enough I really reflected a lot on how a lot of people that is not their night, they are not warm enough. They are not safe, they're happy to have a place to have their sleeping bag if they have a sleeping bag and they're not complaining that it's on concrete because that's what they're used to. And snuggled in the corner of a building somewhere outside like like we were doing, though really woke up a little bit sleep I got you know woke up just feeling achy and grateful.

Pete Turner  2:47  
I love the guy flying overhead

Marchelle Sellers  2:47  
just makes you feel like you're just it's outside. It's a sunny day. He's out enjoying it. So

Pete Turner  2:47  
I should probably catch up folks who don't know you ladies have been on several times now. And because you know we all have this powerful chip personal charitable trust. You guys started your own charity company. And basically the concept is, is I want to give a gift and instead of buying another candle or a toaster or something, I don't know what to get you. You just buy a gift card that's got charity, and that person then takes that gift card and gives that charity, that charitable donation to whoever they want. You know, maybe they're into livers. Maybe they're into horses, maybe they're into, you know, whatever it is. Yeah, maybe. Exactly. Penguins, all of these different songs, and you ladies have the map of it. It's always awesome. You're like, there is a person who cares about people that have no middle finger on their left hand as a charity as a charity

Marchelle Sellers  3:49  
for Yes, there is. And I think that that's the that's the coolest thing. And really, if you even take it further back than just the charity gift cards. I think what charity on top is and why we started it was because raising money for one charity is extraordinarily difficult, and everyone has their favorite charities and we're seeing a huge shift in charity movement anyway, just with donors. coming in and saying, you know what, all of these, you know, charities are great. But the charity that that is the most important to me is the one that I care about the most. And and I think that that's our underpinning is basically, you know, charity on top represents 1.8 million charities. And so people can give to whomever they want to, through our platform or using our gift cards. And so what we really offer in this kind of day and age is that flexibility and that choice and for people to express themselves and say, I want to give to what I want to give to Yeah, and what's really cool is that we process hundreds of payments a month. And I think about we're probably like 85 or 87% of the payments that are going out are not going to the large charities that we've all heard of. Okay, no, it's high. Yeah. And so people are saying, I want to support something that's close to me, that might be in my own backyard, maybe that I volunteer with on the weekend that I really care about, and I We're in that my $10, or my $20 is going to go to buying a bag of dog food at a local shelter. That so that's really what we're seeing is this sort of pattern and shift. And so our gift cards allow us to do that people can go on directly and make donations, they can do that. And that's really, really what we stand for is, you know, having helping people to make those choices, helping companies to make those choices and giving their employees or retail partners, their customers the opportunity to say I want to give to charity, but I don't want to give to charity that you're choosing for me. Yeah, that's your charity. That's what you care about. Right? I want to give to the charity that I want to give to and so we're allowing our partners to be able to have that flexibility without having to do the administrative back end because we're that's what we're really good at.

Pete Turner  3:50  
So and then we have to always account for audience folks and people all over the world at this point over 80 countries listen actively to the breakdown show no

Marchelle Sellers  3:50  
nice

Pete Turner  3:50  
So it's fantastic. So I want to make sure we say this because this one the people here charity, for whatever reason, there is a big portion of the emotion is like, okay, who's getting rich? Right? So

Marchelle Sellers  8:18  
I don't know.

Pete Turner  8:23  
Purposely take the tiniest possible piece. And it's strictly like because you get charged to process this thing. Yeah. So you're not taking, like you guys are not getting rich on this. You guys are barely making any profit at all. Well, let's

Marchelle Sellers  8:36  
just start with the fact that we're volunteering. Right? So we're going on our fourth holiday season, we just completed our fourth holiday season and we're both volunteers for the organization. And we have been since day one we co founded a million dollars a year. Lots and lots of karma and feedback and yeah, whatever but no, and for specifically on our Our gift cards, we charge $1 95 because we're printing the card, right, we're mailing the card, and we are activating the card and working to make sure that there is one of those things, too, you know, it's a hard call

Pete Turner  9:14  
anybody else who processes if you go to the gas station, you don't say, Oh, you've charged me $2 to process this payment it costs.

Marchelle Sellers  9:21  
Yes. And you have to think about the functionality that goes in it. And you know, the ink that's used in the design, we do all the design most of the design we do for free. So you know, there's there's that little minimal part. And then out of the out of the donation that's given when people load up their card 96.25% goes to the charity and 3.75% stays with charity on top to cover all of the other costs because we still have to pay the charities we have to make sure that their texts are out. We provide a lot of customer support that back in the back end of all this stuff, and that just stays with us but again, really Awesome. I think we're up to almost 90% of people that buy gift cards have the opportunity to cover that 3.75% and almost 90% of the people do. Exactly. And you don't want $100 card. It's $3 and 75 cents. Yeah. So it's pennies on the dollar when you're talking about that. And if you go on any of these other big fundraising sites, they could be anywhere from six to 20%. So we're actually really proud of that we, we keep it lean. And we come from nonprofit. We've been in fundraising and nonprofits for 20 years. So we know how hard it is for the charities to be raising money. We don't want to take money out of their pockets. We want to give money to them, and we'll do everything we can so we would rather trim ourselves back.

Pete Turner  10:49  
And isn't it also true that, at least in circumstance, certain circumstances by giving through charity on top, there's not a promo for you guys? I think this is a statement of fact that they actually The charity would actually get more money dollar for dollar, because it's cheaper to have you guys process it than for the Is that right? Yeah, it

Kathy Selders  11:07  
is it is just the just the processing, which is crazy.

Pete Turner  11:10  
It is the way

Kathy Selders  11:11  
it is kind of crazy. It definitely is economical for the charity, versus them raising the money themselves. And of course they're doing that they're raising, but for them to raise money and for them to reach out to people to get them to give. There's a lot of staff activity that has to go on. There's all you know, a lot of expenses, and they're not doing any of that with the money that they get via charity on top there. It's passive on their part and it's free on you know, from their perspective. And so they love it when they get a check from charity on top because it's it's like Marshall, it says found money. It's like It's like new money. It's not that they had budgeted for it before and they don't have the expenses against it. And so it's it's extra, so then they get together. Either that just makes their budgeting easier, or they get to do some things that they hadn't planned to do. Or they get balloons to the gala.

Marchelle Sellers  12:08  
Yeah, they didn't have planned or they get to do something special for their clients for holiday. They don't maybe none of the sponsors were able to cover they get to do stuff that we call off budget. Were it's something special for the clients or something that they've needed for their program that they haven't had the opportunity to buy because they haven't been able to, you know, put the money in the line on the budget there. They're incredibly grateful. And Kathy gets to talk to the charities all the time. People are calling going, like, Who are you and where does money come from?

Kathy Selders  12:40  
And what

Marchelle Sellers  12:41  
are you sending more?

Kathy Selders  12:43  
Right? It's fun, because that's changing because now we have been around for a while and we're sending checks to a lot of the same charities and so used to be Who are you and should I really cash this check and how did this happen? And now it's a little more of this is spectacular. We shouldn't count on it right? You know, that kind of thing? And because we have no control over who chooses them? And then also, you know, are there any restrictions, which unless the donor put a restriction on it, there's no restrictions?

Pete Turner  13:12  
Yeah. So it's fun to have those conversations with charities, and we give because charity on top offers the ability for the lender to pay the administration costs, that wouldn't necessarily be true at at charity x or charity F or whoever it is, because, you know, they just have to pay that out of their own saying so right. I'm glad to pay the $4. So whatever it's going to be, even if it's more for like a big charity, because they got more folks pay for. I'm glad to cover that as the giver. But I don't have the option. I don't even think about it

Marchelle Sellers  13:40  
well, and in this is such a huge conversation right now because of charitable overhead, where being a fundraiser and being in charity for 20 years. I see both sides of it, because you you know, everybody says Well, I don't want my my donation to this charity to go to overhead. But the problem is, is that in any job no matter whether it's charity Anything, it's the humans at least all right now that are doing the work, hey, if AI can start figuring out how to fundraise I all about that, let's just automate the crap out of that I'm totally in favor, but right now it's humans and humans are providing Human Services and they need to get paid to do the work just like anybody anywhere else. So, so being able to cover that percentage and understand that it's a small percentage, but it does help and every little bit helps. It's just more and also that that is part of the contribution, then that's part of their tax deduction when they cover it. And, you know, the, I think 95% of the companies that do big corporate orders and that makes about 65 70%, almost all of them will also cover that fee so that the charities can get the, the all the amount and they like that and they feel good about it and it is an additional tax incentive for them. So it's, it's an understanding that there is work that goes into raising money. Generally, they're not doing the work for charity and top we do the work for them. We just don't pass along those those costs. But

Pete Turner  15:05  
the other thing and you said it now I, you know, we have to we have to account for these things so we can have the rest of the conversation. But you've got an MBA from Pepperdine, you know,

Marchelle Sellers  15:14  
you got the MBA and she went to Pepperdine.

pepperdine my undergrad

Pete Turner  15:21  
degrees. And you have 20 plus years each in the industry. Yeah. Like, we we lose sight of the fact that you have to have good people to make this thing work, you know, and look at the two of you how much free time you guys put into I mean, look, right now, you're doing something right? You've got better things to do than talk to me, you know, you could be producing something or on a phone call, whatever. So to bring in quality people it does take a resource, you know, their charity, Okay, great, but also like someone has to pay the bills Someone has to do AR maybe you get someone to volunteer in their free maybe, right sometimes you gotta hire that person. Right? You know, and so so we're often hard on Looking just justifiably So, because some charities are a little bit expensive compared to what they could be, but we all need to ease up a little bit. And then I'm going to get on my soapbox here for a second. As an adult, though, all of us should have some kind of significant charitable charter. Yeah, you know, whether you're giving your time, your attention, I say this all the time, your capacity, yes, you know, send that that charitable thing out, you know, let people know offer your services, I will stand there and hand out water, you know, whatever it is. Yeah. And by the way, ladies, it ain't supposed to be fun and easy all the time. Right? Sometimes you got to be stuck. You're like, I really don't want to get up on this cold rainy night and go sleep outside, right, you know, and organize all this stuff ahead of time. So then I'm gonna get my soapbox a little bit, but everybody needs to do if you've got something. Now it's now time to start turning around and helping in some way. You know, and it can be insignificant it can be a tiny bit of your time or money.

Kathy Selders  16:56  
Exactly, exactly. My mom. Always said that that, you know, if if everyone did something to give, you know, if everybody like whatever your heart is, you know, my mom was very moved by literacy. And so she helped teach people to kids to read and made books accessible to kids. That was just that was her thing. You know, and when I would talk about Oh, but the dolphins and oh, but the, you know, something else and the environment and all these important things. She said, Yes, I care about a lot of things. And, but I'm going to choose at least one thing that I'm going to give my time and my resources to, and if everybody does that, we're good. Yeah, we're super, super good. And I realized when I got older, not everybody does that. And so we all have to do a little bit more to cover for the people who aren't doing that, but that's okay. But you're right, if everybody will, just something that tugs at their heart and whatever it is. Yeah, it's all good. There's lots of need out there. There's plenty to do. Yeah. And so if you know Whatever, whatever makes you happy to contribute to, and you contribute in the way that you can, that's, that's what you're right. As adults, that's what we need to be doing. And argue, as Even kids and teenagers need to be doing that as well. And often, that's where our, you know, our passions come from, you know, when we're young, and we get excited about something, and that's when we dig into things and, and start learning about things and get involved. So I really encourage people to do that and encourage their kids to do that. And the kid says, you know, Mom, you know, I just, you know, heard a report, Emily and one of my classes and they said that not everybody has access to water. I don't get it, like you just turn on the faucet but they're saying that doesn't happen everywhere. Right, encourage that, like, you know what, you're you're right. Let's have a conversation about that. What can we do about that? Well, there are organizations that are bringing clean water. There are organizations that are finding ways to bring clean water to you know, remote areas and Stuff like that. Let's find out about them. Let's contribute to them. How can we volunteer? You know, what can we do? Maybe that could be your birthday project is that instead of getting gifts that you probably don't need and more junk? What if you ask for charity on top? gift cards? And you use that money to go towards clean water for someone else? Yes.

Pete Turner  19:21  
Like in lieu of flowers?

Unknown Speaker  19:23  
Yeah.

Pete Turner  19:25  
Charity on top gift cards and let the family decide, you know, exactly. And they really could like, there's 25 people who are grieving like here, everybody gets this much put it into, you know, and you really can diversify that gift that to the 87% of small charities.

Marchelle Sellers  19:39  
Yes, it's astounding, but it really hits the point home that we're all looking for personal connection. And to Kathy's point, you know, literacy may have been her mom's passion it and we all certainly want people to be literate, but it might not be mine, and it might not be Cathy's, and it might not be yours, Pete, but so Finding a genuine connection and just starting and doing a little bit, I'm telling you from the charitable perspective, if you're, if you're at a charity, and you've got volunteers coming in, and they're genuine about the cause, and they're eager and and they're enthusiastic, and they'll kind of, you know, jump in and pitch and even if it's for an hour or so a week or a couple of hours a month, you start building relationships with those people. And it's also a really, really neat way of meeting a lot of people I think we're missing that.

Pete Turner  20:31  
It's such a powerful networking, it's was

Marchelle Sellers  20:33  
really huge. And it's and we're missing that personal connection. And it's really cool. It's like going to camp with all the people that care about the same thing that you do, and being able to be around all of those people that are, I don't know, use the word like minded and networking and it all sounds very, it's not it's not plastic. It's not surface surface II at all. It's actually very ingrained and Everyone's around the cause. And boy, it sure just, you know, brings out so much in people. And yeah, I think it's I think it's really, it's, it's really cool. It's January, it's the time to do it. It's the perfect time to do it. And there's that, that little big secret that's out there that people have have found. And when I hear this all the time, that they get far more from volunteering, they get far more personally, yeah, then they feel like they've put into it. So if you're like, I'm feeling tired, I'm depressed. I don't, you know, get out there. You know, socially. I don't have a lot of energy. I don't have all of those things. If you find the right place to volunteer, I can almost guarantee you'll get all of those things. It will help you it will feed your soul.

Pete Turner  21:47  
Yes, you. I absolutely have. I've discovered this, that veterans suicide and a lot of ways could be helped. If we just got busy being useful to someone else. Yes. It gives you purpose. That's where staying alive.

Marchelle Sellers  22:01  
Everybody needs purpose. Yeah, yeah, everybody needs purpose. You know, Kathy and I and you know, we're very fortunate that at our ages, we know why we're put on this planet. We know what we're supposed to be doing. But there's so many people that really don't. And I think once you start getting out and you help other people, even if you need all the help yourself, and you turn around and help other people, it's remarkable what can happen in your life.

Pete Turner  22:24  
It's, it is totally true. And, again, this, the people that you meet that are already doing this at a like they have the bigger charity muscles than you do and the charity you go to. They are incredible people. Mm hmm. And they like come do these incredible things with me. So you get you do get enriched, you do get fed. And and it's it's a simple thing like this Saturday afternoon, instead of doing nothing, I'm going to go do something and so yeah, and I wanted to make sure we cover those bases because it's really easy to say I'm too busy. No, you're not. Yeah, someone on the street right now, who needs a little bit of help. And if you keep driving by that person, that You know, that's not feeding your soul?

Marchelle Sellers  23:03  
No, it's definitely not. And we'll do a plug for volunteer match. They're a great organization nationally, that matches up or, you know, individuals that want to volunteer. And even in just doing regular Google searches of volunteer opportunities near me, because, you know, don't try one thing and it wasn't a good fit you I feel like people you know, you didn't really click with anybody, try a few things get out there and also volunteer like Kathy was saying, you know, with your families, Oh, my gosh, what a What a great opportunity. It is to get my 14 year old out, you know, when we're feeding the homeless, here closer to our house. Our family went and did that. And we had some really great conversations going during and coming and I think that we need to find those things.

Pete Turner  23:48  
No, I all we've been talking it looks like I haven't been paying attention, but I bet you guys know what I'm doing right now. I'm buying a charity gift card right now. You

Marchelle Sellers  23:55  
are

Pete Turner  23:57  
still green. Yes. He's a friend of mine. He's got ALS and nobody is out giving them him I know he's on three different boards I think they'll have significant als you know, organizations yeah just giving giving giving giving is a he's a giver and a Dewar. Did we had a great conversation so glad to be introduced to him and you know what a what a fight the thing about that disease to and that charity system is that you know, when you guys first started talking to Phil, you moved around normally still, I don't believe he can walk far if at all by the time

Marchelle Sellers  24:33  
and all that long

Pete Turner  24:34  
right now. Right? And so this is what how fast it goes. So like for the patient advocacy, and just, you know, the ability to do it and you know, like now is his time Yeah, we just got to give this guy some money so he can go out and and, you know, that's the thing is like, these guys have a lot of resources, but the problem is is so unique for each patient.

Kathy Selders  24:54  
That's very specialized, very customized. In that case,

Marchelle Sellers  24:58  
medical there's no time There's no time that I think time is charities biggest enemy. When you think about that, especially for people that are fighting diseases, but time is creeping up on homeless issues and time is creeping up on lots of things that are out there. And that's that's where we're just we're, we're, you know, we're battling against lack of resource. And, and lack of time.

Pete Turner  25:25  
Yeah. From this is Pete's opinion so I may be wrong on this. But it's ladies like you it's who have the same passion for a specific problem that really are the best pathway to help or to ending the problem or whatever. We can't rely on the government to do it. Because look, they can't do something and charge nothing and but you're not even allowed as a government employee to do a free graphic for the US government. that's against the law. That's right. And so it has to be these small elements that go out and just care so much that they'll be damned if they're gonna let this problem lick them. You know, Right. So what about what's next for you guys what's going on? Because then we spend a lot of time doing that. But let's talk about crypto and all these exciting things. Yeah,

Kathy Selders  26:07  
so we've been talking with you about crypto for a long time for many, many years. And we love that you're that you're a fan of crypto and, and I'm newer to the game and Michelle's been in it for quite a while. But we're really excited that we are able to offer crypto donation so as a crypto user, you can use your Bitcoin and five or six other different currencies. Okay, right.

Unknown Speaker  26:36  
A theory I'm back.

Kathy Selders  26:38  
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And make a donation to the charity of your choice through charity on top. Now, the cool thing is, most charities out there don't have the mechanism for it. Yes. Or the understanding

Marchelle Sellers  26:53  
at this.

We've had to really it's true.

Kathy Selders  26:59  
It's it's still not New, a lot of people and even if someone even if they can wrap their head around and like oh, this is great of course we would take crypto it's it's a currency we would accept it as a donation.

Unknown Speaker  27:10  
Yeah, you want to give this donation will take it will take a piece of land.

Kathy Selders  27:12  
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah to Really? Yes. Yes, actually, absolutely. You know, stock shares like you name it. Yeah. Give us a blade of grass. If that's gonna help us, we'll take it right. Um, but they may not have the system. Yeah, right to process it because it isn't processed through banks and credit cards and all that stuff the same way that US currency is right. So even if they're, even if they're up for it, they may not be able to like their hands are tied, right. And so and it'll be a while before most charities are able to do that. A lot of the some of the big charities are not even a lot some of the bigger charities and then some that maybe are more tech focused or kind of just ahead of the game there are accepting it now and have figured out ways to do that. But it's going to be a really long time before kind of just the standard local charity

Pete Turner  28:07  
with that cost to set that capacity up ladies teeny tiny. Yeah.

Marchelle Sellers  28:10  
Well, no, it's not. It should be. We're just not there. Yeah. And I also i do think that the knowledge is what stands in the lack of knowledge. And it's just really because share it, we're so hard pressed for time. charities are so hard pressed for time, that you don't have time to sort of explore all of these new things. But it does open up an entire new donor base and you know, people that invest in, take in crypto are spending their crypto and they like to spend their crypto and that's the currency that they prefer. And so we're seeing donations, accelerate and go up and up and up. There was a site it was sometime early last year that had individual school teachers That could get on and the school teachers put in all of the school supplies that they would need and project supplies. So it's kind of like a GoFundMe, but for teachers, and they had a crypto donor come in, and they spent $18 million. And they funded every single teachers project on the entire platform. Wow, all with crypto. They had to figure out how to facilitate those donations. But this exists. Yeah. And there's also more tax advantages right now. Yeah. Um, for crypto users and, and also, they're able to avoid capital gains with using these types of donations as well. So

Pete Turner  29:50  
Or even better, like that avoid, like, you could say they're just using the money in a way that instead of paying the government, you're paying charity, right?

Marchelle Sellers  29:57  
Yeah, that's exactly right. And this is all the transparent, the donor has the same opportunity to share their information with the charity just like you on our platform. It's always you can do it anonymously if you want to if you don't want to be on people's mailing lists, or you can share your information, but we're able to accept crypto on behalf of 1.8 million charities, which means we don't have it set up yet for that gift card that you just bought. You can't use your crypto yet to buy a gift card that's coming. But you could make a direct donation to a charity using your crypto and it's the way that we sort of say it is it's similar to if you wanted to give a gift of stock, right, you would give it to the charity and the charity is best practice when they're given any kind of stock or land or anything else is to liquidate that ASAP. Most people would think you'd keep that in your portfolio most charities do not it's actually not the best practice. So the best practices to liquidate that and and so we would take this gift of crypto which in essence, think about it as sort of like a little stock certificate valued at this much at this time and date right now. And it's sort of time stamped. And within 10 seconds, we liquidate that to cash for the nonprofit so long.

You know, we argued over nine seconds

extra just to make sure everything, you know, the the T's were crossed, and their eyes were on it, were dotted, but we can convert it immediately because it is a commodity that's traded. And it fluctuates, you know, by the minute. And so that's part of what people think is yes, but if I give it to you in the morning, and I don't liquidate it, you know, so we liquidated immediately. And it's great because it allows all of these nonprofits to be able to accept crypto without having to get into crypto. Right. Right.

Pete Turner  31:45  
Right. Yeah, that's a key point. It's a huge point because I could send it to your your, your address, your crypto address, I'm gonna get all crypto here but you don't have to even do that. There is a pathway you're saying? Yeah,

Marchelle Sellers  31:56  
so we have a widget on our website. So you wanted to give to XYZ charity, you get come to charity on top.

Pete Turner  32:03  
Hey, this is Pete Turner from lions rock productions we create podcasts around here and if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that's scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show com Let me help I want to hear about it.

Marchelle Sellers  32:24  
You could come to charity on top you could make your choice to donate Of course you can still donate using the traditional method of using your credit or debit card or buying a gift card or you can donate to a charity using crypto and you decide you you choose which which cryptocurrency that you know you want to donate in and and the donation is made and we transfer that to cash and we alert the charity and we make the transfer

Pete Turner  32:48  
so they don't have to have the capacity to process the crypto into something because it's already been done again and we we do you guys yeah

Kathy Selders  32:56  
we do. So it makes it accessible to all the charities in the United states, this is really big.

Pete Turner  33:02  
It's a huge, it's really exciting. And in my head, a lot of folks that deal in crypto are younger folks. They're used to it. And they have a very powerful, you know, whatever we did to screw our kids up, we seem to have given them this charity thing real like, this is important to me, I've got this money is blown up from, you know, 100 x. And I need to give some back. So we need these folks to have a path where like, you know, we got to figure it out. Right? Just breathe and push and done, right? Yeah. Then 10 seconds later, right nine on your best day. Cash on the way to whatever. It's a good point. And also, I want to bring in another aspect because there is a lot of money sitting in your house that could be well, things that are valuable that could go to charity. And I know like during some of the recent fires in gosh, there's so many fires, I don't remember what fire it was but you partner with someone who converts gift cards regular and gets them over to you and then you guys can get them after charity. Is that a regular program? was that?

Kathy Selders  34:00  
Yeah, we have that ongoingly Yeah, we partner with card cash. And so if someone wants to donate retail gift cards, so traditional gift cards for fast food restaurants or the gap or Amazon or whatever, Walmart, whatever, whatever, whatever, we can accept that and cash those in, in essence, and then make the donation to, you know, to a charity. Yeah. So if you have gift cards sitting around that you're thinking like if you know yeah.

Marchelle Sellers  34:31  
Yeah, sitting in their, in their wallet, their glove box, like someone said on the bathroom drawer, junk drawer, read the coffee cup from your desk. Yeah, yeah, they're all different places and they're not necessarily all loaded up. They there may be a partial, you use partial, right? And you're like, I don't know if I'll ever go there again. And besides I have this to Nordstrom. I have, you know, 20 bucks left and what am I going to be able to buy at Nordstrom for dollars. That's the perfect type of card that you can do. Donate to your favorite charity. So again, we convert those to cash. And we give those to the charities and, and so with all of the unused gift cards out there, it's just another mechanism. I think what it does in some is really charity on top is a platform of giving to other charity, like however you can think of doing that. How do we support charities? How do we get more money to charity, our goal, our mission, our philosophy, and we're fanatical about it is how do we push more money to charity? Because we sat on the other side of charity? Yeah, and it's hard. Yeah. And it's getting harder and there's more charities and there's more demand and there's less resources and donors are getting fatigued and there's only so many events you can do

Pete Turner  35:45  
and I am at

Marchelle Sellers  35:46  
grief. We all are. We're just fatigued in general. Yeah. And then we're like fatigued on top of charitable because we're so stretched. Yeah. So how do we facilitate maybe doing something that It's out of the box, maybe thinking of different ways that people can give look, trading in, you know, unused balances on gift cards. That's all money coming out of your pocket. Right? Right. That's a way that you could give $200 to a charity without even having to do anything. Let's realize this, that Nordstrom gift

Pete Turner  36:15  
card is making Nordstrom money every second it sits there.

Marchelle Sellers  36:19  
Yeah, that's right. That's exactly.

Pete Turner  36:21  
That's not good for Nordstrom, right?

Marchelle Sellers  36:24  
No, but it sure messes up their books you don't like and they don't necessarily like it. And if you're not coming in, see they're expecting you to come in, spend your $20 and then and then up spend another 40%. So you're not going to do that. You're sitting there with that card. That's that's just a pain in the butt for them. Yeah. So give it to a charity that's like, hey, there's $20 I didn't have to go find. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but it is. It definitely is.

Pete Turner  36:52  
I mean, if there were literally 100 people every day going, here's 20 bucks. I sold my duck at the market. I'm going to give this 20 bucks and This keeps showing up for all these different angles always impossible things 20 times 100 every day, yes, a lot of money. But they did nothing to earn it other than right. You happen to hear of it, you know? Yeah, that's right. It's it's an incredible thing to be able to be in this type. What about is there? The concept of acorn saving? Is there an acorn and that's a brand, right? We every time we go out, this rounds up and then that money goes into whatever. We have a thing Jerry and I do called bumped and it's like a loyalty program. So if I go to Chevron, if I go to McDonald's, he different categories, you pick something and every time you use that service, like if I go to McDonald's, and I buy McMuffin hashbrown on a coffee, I think I get 27 cents of McDonald's stock on my portfolio every time I do it, right. And here's what I do to do that nothing. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  37:56  
I was gonna say not specific

Pete Turner  38:00  
Ready to go? Yeah, you pay for your order your credit card obviously is registered with with the bar. Yeah. And then literally, and it's not a lot of money, right? I think I'm not a big consumer. So my account maybe has $15 of stock, but it's Chevron stock, Starbucks stock, McDonald's stock. And so that grows over time. And so there's definitely a charitable part where you could just say, every time I spend round up 25 cents and then float into my charity on top bucket, or maybe it's directed to something I pre pick, right, and then they get micro gifts all the time.

Kathy Selders  38:34  
Okay, we're on it. All right.

Marchelle Sellers  38:39  
Okay.

It is all things charity. And I think also what you're doing is you're showing that you you can do little things every day. Yeah. You know, to contribute. Time is amazing when people can give time. But the truth is, is that charities need the financial support as well. Yeah. So those little things he in there that are not, you're not going to necessarily if you don't have a lot, you're not going to necessarily miss a whole bunch. But it does have a huge impact on the charities that you're choosing. And there's lots of ways to be charitable around us. I think we've seen that lots of companies are really standing up and saying that, you know, they're putting together Corporate Social Responsibility programs and that they're doing sort of a buy one give one and you know, it's it's a, it's a lot more out in the open, I want us a lot more visible. And I think that the employees are demanding it, consumers are demanding it. And so it does kind of go back into not only do we need our own personal charitable missions and charity on top certainly has its, but these companies need theirs as well. And they're and they're leading the path. And so I feel like we all are kind of going forward in this forward momentum together. Yeah. Which is really exciting. And we're just trying to bring new things and new ways of thinking and new ways of giving to sort of not only keep people interested, but keep up with, you know, the changes that are going on because I don't know that everything that we were doing is really still working

Pete Turner  40:07  
well we definitely are better at defining and exchanging value, you know, and that's what software becomes money which it has. Either you're able to say this is valuable, this is valuable, this is valuable and it can go to these areas and do a lot of self accounting, you know, almost in our lifetime. You will not need an accountant like it all be done by spy a robot right you know, and so

Marchelle Sellers  40:28  
blockchain digital yeah blockchain for sure. Right.

Kathy Selders  40:33  
accountability. Yes.

And, and charities are incorporating that concept, the transparency, accountability concept, which I think is amazing. You know, if I give money and and I know it's going to buy a bag of rice. Yeah, I want to see that bag of rice getting to the people that supposed to get to and and I hate to believe that it's gotten lost with government. And you know, who knows where it ends up and all that kind of stuff. I want to know it got where it's supposed to go. That's why I gave it right. And so organizations are incorporating that. And we're huge fans of that.

Pete Turner  41:11  
You know, it's funny. Someone said, Well, why don't you get a grant? And I'm like, oh, get a grant. I'll just get it. Go get it. Good.

Kathy Selders  41:19  
Oh, it's afternoon. You have nothing else to do. Go the grant store. Grab a couple grounds for friend do some cool stuff.

Marchelle Sellers  41:24  
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.

Kathy Selders  41:27  
Yeah. Oh, it is not that easy.

Pete Turner  41:32  
To write a common grant, I know it's really

Marchelle Sellers  41:34  
symbols donations. Want you to start out with a letter of inquiry first, thankfully, they've adopted a letter of inquiry. So you're really writing an intro letter that's, that has good and bad, you know. I mean, there's positive and negative benefits to that. But the positive is you're not spending a whole bunch of time but the negative is you got one piece of paper. Yeah, to make an impression enough for them to allow you then to submit for more. Yeah, and that Then can take weeks, it depends on the size of the grants and what they're doing. There's no universal grant application. So it means that you're doing everything custom with no guarantees, you're going to get anything, it's not even a 5050 chance whether you know, you're going to get it or not. And the majority of the time, what we're finding even in foundations is foundations want impact. And they are also wanting results just like we do as individuals, we want results, we want to see what you've been doing with our money this whole time. And the foundations have that same thing that's happening with with them where they have to find purpose, and then an ROI. And so rather than giving, let's say they have a million dollars to give every year which Wow, they could do quite a bit with but if they're giving a little bit here, and a little bit here and a little bit here and there supporting your gala, and your golf tournament and your fundraisers and, you know giving the here and here and here and here. There's really no impact demonstrable impact that they can really find. Yeah, so what they're doing is they're honing in on on areas and they're saying we want to take that million dollars and split it up. into three different ways. And so in. So come so nonprofits are getting larger pieces, yeah, but there's fewer of them that are getting them. Sure. And they may or may not be getting multiple year gifts, which ties up money moving forward. So foundations are not what they used to be. And that also then has an effect on people, nonprofits that are doing the golf tournaments and doing the fundraisers and the Gala's. They're not getting the support for their tables, those five and 10,000 or $25,000, gifts were huge for them, they're not getting those anymore. foundations don't want to support that anymore. There's no ROI on that. That's the problem. And my second soapbox, is that, you know, there's large foundations and there's, you know, a couple that I will not name that people open up these big foundations or accounts and these big foundations and they shove all their money into it, and then they only have to give away 5% every year. So there are like millions and millions and millions and I wish I had my stats in front of me of money that just sits it's it's earmark fortune They got the deduction for charity, they're not using it for charity, it just becomes a bad return rate account like where they still are making money. interest on a good year, there's basically spending interest, which is great because it's got legacy. But the problem is, is that it's not addressing the issues of today. So what I love is that there's new philanthropists that are coming out that are saying, you know what, I'm, I'm Warren Buffett gave His Son money to start a program. And he said, I'm only funding this for five years, because in five years, you better be done. Yeah, you better have accomplished what you set out to accomplish. And we're seeing that more and more. And I think that that's really interesting. Like, let's let's solve a problem. And let's give ourselves a time frame to get it done.

Pete Turner  44:44  
I want to talk real quick to about capacity as opposed to money because I mean, everybody can say, I don't have any money, and so let's believe them. But if 10 people show up and say hey, I'd like to help charity on top. You're all going to say okay, what can you do? How many of those 10 Can you put Work

Marchelle Sellers  45:01  
10

Pete Turner  45:04  
we don't have that option, right, we believe

Kathy Selders  45:07  
what I have to offer. Yeah, all the time. What would you what would we what would I do? I don't even know what I would do. There's something to do at every charity. I mean, I'm thinking of things just within charity on top. Yeah, you know, they're just simple things that need to happen stamps need to go onto envelopes, because gift cards need to go into the mail, right? Anybody could do that, you know, all the way up to you know, somebody developed our, our crypto software, right. You know, so it's, it's from the very simple and tasky mundane kind of stuff that anybody could do to highly highly sophisticated specific. everything in between.

Pete Turner  45:51  
See the Ravens my home charity, yeah, mom my effort. And we have a CFO now because I'm guys like, I'll do that. Yeah. You know, and he's not it's His main job right given amount of time each month do it. Yeah, CFO.

Marchelle Sellers  46:06  
And that's how it starts as volunteers and people saying I want to be I want to volunteer. Yeah. And I want to help. And the one thing about nonprofits, there's multiple things about nonprofits, but nonprofits are super creative and really flexible and very crafty. In a good way. forceful, resourceful. Find out someone's script. Yeah, well, because you're like, you know, well, I'm really good at, you know, doing something specific. Like, you know, I keep books every now and again, and you're like, wow, that would be really helpful. Yeah. So you know what, don't take it upon yourself to define what you can do for the nonprofit. don't discount yourself or talent or the organization. Talk to them about you and let them help you find the fit, because they know what they need. You're trying to guess what they need from the outside without even knowing it. Don't do that to yourself before you get in the nonprofit sector. crafty, and they're gonna go you know what we need? And if they're good, they're gonna know exactly where to put you. Yeah, exactly.

Pete Turner  47:06  
I mean, just the willingness to drive from here to there. It's all Yeah, you can now stay on task. Like, can you run this 45 minute task? each direction? Right?

Kathy Selders  47:16  
Like, oh my gosh, we need that.

Marchelle Sellers  47:19  
Yeah. Are you able to do that? Yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah, one of the charities that's local here. Union Station Homeless Services is super good. I'm on their mailing list because we've done some volunteer work there as a family before but they do a great job and they're like we're looking for people to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches tomorrow. 40 of them you know, we need someone to come over we just got the email. We need someone to come over and decorate a room for December birthdays. We need someone else to package up meals and and you know, and someone else to like, Oh, go through christmas toys. You know, that are left over now and they need to figure out what to do with and stuff like that. But they're really good at like, they're just little things. So if you're sitting there going, what would they need me to do? But they're, they're telling you what they need and if you can fit in, then then that's great, but we would not it was, I think 10 I think she organized their pantry after their big Thanksgiving meal in the park. Yeah, dinner in the park. Right for I don't know. Oh, many thousand.

Kathy Selders  48:27  
Yeah. Super rewarding to do that. But after that, yeah, she like everything has to go back in the pantry. And it was crazy. And that's choose loves doing that. And so she put everything back and got it all organized and so gratifying for her. And they loved it. And then for the year all their stuff was organized, you know, something that she could contribute in the moment. I mean, that's

Pete Turner  48:49  
it's extremely valuable. Yeah. And because if she doesn't do it, all the sudden the CEO of the organization is doing

Kathy Selders  48:55  
exactly

Marchelle Sellers  48:58  
after events, we just don't Everything into the van, we're so exhausted. And we'll just deal with this next. Sometimes that stuff will sit there for a really long next year, because you know what the program is still running and everything that you didn't do, has to start being done. I mean, they've got people to take care of and so had had, you know, Kathy's daughter said to herself, well, what can I really do? What is there really going to be to do? But again, the nonprofit was able to say, Hey, we need people who are highly organized that want to come in and do something you know to do. Oh, that's right up my alley. That sounds great. So there's, there's all kinds of things. Yeah, we put ourselves in boxes. And you shouldn't be doing that when it comes to volunteerism,

Pete Turner  49:39  
this juber idea. I mean, you just think about this. When you do events, right? You want to make it as easy on the celebrity type person or whoever it is, it needs to get to the event as possible. And if you're like, Hey, you know, Jennifer's gonna come pick you up, and I'm gonna take care of everything you need, and get you to the event and she will take you home. Oh my god. Right like that.

Marchelle Sellers  50:00  
That we did that I actually got to go pick up George Winston from the hotel and take him to Huntington hospital here in Pasadena where he played for a bunch of the patients in the lab. I wouldn't have known who George Winston was when my mom was a big fan. So we had a great conversation on the way there and back but it was a volunteer effort. It didn't cost the hospital anything they didn't have to call a car service which gets expensive and deal was absolutely

Pete Turner  50:24  
would have to get normal. Absolutely.

Marchelle Sellers  50:26  
And I was in my little volunteer outfit and so we we got to talk a lot about the hospital and a lot about the volunteer program. And so I think you're right, you know, throwing on that, that charity shirt and running those errands and being out there. If Kathy and I are walking together and we both have a shirt on. It only takes two and maybe even one sometimes to spark a conversation about what you do and it's amazing how many people are really looking for something and dare I say what I found is people in in their 40s I've tied found people in their 40s coming into Their 40s I think start to have an appreciation for what they have. They start realizing they've dodged a lot of bullets, either with themselves with their jobs with their families, certainly with their kids with diseases, whatever it may be, and they've got life experience now. And there's gratitude there. And they're looking for places to volunteer boards to serve on feeling like I gotta give back in some way. I don't know. And their eyes are open. Yeah, they're waiting for something to happen. And so we've done events, we've done things where people are going, I've been looking for something and I love being with you guys. I love the friendship here. I want to have a group of friends I can volunteer with and do stuff with so you know, get out and be a part of what's going on in these nonprofits because people really are looking for things so you know, it's just as there's lots to do. There's lots to do again, all these charity you

Kathy Selders  51:48  
don't know where to go. Call me. I will find a charity in your area or not joking. No, no, I love doing this

Marchelle Sellers  51:55  
actually. Inquire at charity on top.org email Selassie loves this. And I'm very Russell reactional. And I'm making an app for people. And we love doing

Pete Turner  52:06  
that we organize their charities all the time. Like you're always talking about how we do

Kathy Selders  52:10  
it. Yeah, we help a lot of startups and

Marchelle Sellers  52:14  
several charities.

Kathy Selders  52:15  
And, you know, somebody that says, I know what I want to start, I'm not sure how to go about that. Right. And it isn't easy. It's not hard. You just have to know how to do it, I guess. And we've done many we've started our own yeah a few times and helped others. And so Marshalls especially good at that, and kind of helping them to define their, their mission and set up their board and then jump through all the hoops that you have to jump through with whatever state you're in. And then with the federal government, they

Marchelle Sellers  52:42  
are jumping out jumping to this

Kathy Selders  52:46  
1.8 million of us have done it 1.8 million charities in the United States. In the United States. We've all done it. Yeah, right. And we're all hanging in there. Yeah. And some come and go but it is there. The hoops are jumping And so yeah, if you're interested in doing that, and you have a great idea and you have some means to do it in some way that will help you incubate, incubate that. And if you need it, we should also say to there are a lot of charities that already do that. Whatever that is. It's also not bad to bring your fresh energy into the thing you're already passionate to collaborate on the hoop jumping. That's right, collaborate with someone who's doing it, and maybe they're ready for your fresh idea. They are and your man. They are. Yeah, they are. They are all almost always Yeah,

Marchelle Sellers  53:31  
yeah, they really are. Yeah. And we've helped companies really look at their social giving and decide whether or not they're making genuine choices. And does that you know, does is what they're doing and giving make a difference. And what makes sense to them. We just, you know, had Unilever is one of the sponsors of the big sleepout and they do right to shower. Yeah, right. And they are talking about how everyone has the right to be clean and to feel clean. And to be free from disease and be dignified with a shower. And when you think about Unilever and what they're doing with just the products that we know, certainly not everything that they market, but just when we think about their soap products, that makes sense what they're doing makes sense and what they should be doing. Avery Dennison does reforestation, and they do work in the Amazon that makes sense where milk bone does things with pet charities. It's like how do we help those nonprofits Make sense? And, and we're super excited and I think it would be great to do a plug that we also helped do a love match and a love connection between route 21 which is in 700, stores, retail stores, their their youth apparel, and they adopted the Humane Society of the USA. And they're doing special gift cards with all of these adorable pictures of cats and dogs on them. Yeah, for their gift cards this year, and they're making a $25,000 contribution to Humane Society USA and charity on top was really proud to you know, help. With those discussions, so, you know, we're it's kind of all things charity comes from all sides and all angles. And so we're always open to different conversations and we certainly are good. You know, we believe we're good resources. And if you are.

Pete Turner  55:17  
It's always wonderful to talk to you too, because you are so just packed full of energy. And you're not thinking like, just let's just plug charity on top. Like, no, you're like, everybody is in this thing together. There's every direction. That's just cherry on

Marchelle Sellers  55:30  
top is the vehicle. Yeah, yeah. It's not the mission. It's the it's the, the mechanism.

Kathy Selders  55:36  
Yeah, we're the conduit. Yeah. We hope we hope with a platform. Yeah. Thanks, charity and gift cards as well.

Pete Turner  55:42  
It's, it's January, we've all got our you know, our new year's resolutions, or at least you know, we've done something where it's time of change. So I'm encouraging all of you to Well, look, first off, I'll say save the brave.org go to the Donate tab, and to subscribe, monthly 15 bucks there. You've done it for the whole year. Right. So I think every month you just boom, boom, boom just comes out and 15 bucks who's even gonna miss it? So if not that also like, charity on top like you want to give someone something. Don't even think about it. I can't decide what to get you as soon as you think hear yourself think that what

Kathy Selders  56:13  
should I bring? What should I give to charity card? We have lots of different designs, or you can send in your own design. My cousin had his 50th birthday and I'm thinking what am I going to get him? Yeah, like you said obviously a cherry on top gift card. So I found a photo of he and I when we were little kids from the 70s it's super dorky and super cute. And that's on his gift card for 50th birthday. You know, I mean, it's you can't you can't miss you know, and and he got to give $50 to the charity that he chose and I would not have guessed the charity that he chose. Like I didn't know it was on his radar at all. For everything Yeah, exactly. Something

Pete Turner  56:56  
everything conservation preservation Yeah, ancient stuff. new stuff everything has as a charity so yeah, don't decided for him. Yeah. I never know what to get that person now you do.

Kathy Selders  57:06  
Yeah. It's gonna be meaningful to them and they're going to think highly of you because you believe that they were charitable and you were charitable first. I like it, so you can live for that. Yeah, they're gonna remember that for a long time. Yeah, though. It's a meaningful guest. Oh, it's memorable.

Pete Turner  57:20  
Yeah, everything else.

Kathy Selders  57:22  
We're talking about this all day charity.org. Visit