Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada

Philanthropist: How Small Acts Can Lead To Big Change

• Paul Estrada • Season 1 • Episode 25

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What if the most reliable path to impact isn’t a grand gesture, but a habit? We sit down with Ann Canela to unpack how a childhood marked by strict rules and food insecurity forged an uncommon lens on giving, volunteering, and community. At 17, Ann left Northern California for New York City, learned to stand on her own, and eventually built a career at the intersection of philanthropy, corporate giving, and community partnerships. Her core insight is disarmingly simple: small actions, done consistently and locally, are “too small to fail” and add up to real change.

We trace Ann's journey from limited holidays and censored music to leading programs that mobilize thousands of employees for authentic, high-impact volunteering. She explains why handing out cash at a stoplight rarely solves the problem you hope it does, and how working through shelters, food pantries, and outreach teams can turn generosity into outcomes. If you’ve ever felt stuck between a quick donation and wanting systemic change, this conversation gives you a practical roadmap: design volunteering that teaches, connect with credible local orgs, and build daily habits that move the needle.

Along the way, we get tactical. How do you turn a once-a-year holiday shift into a year-round practice? What does “transformative” volunteering look like inside a company? How can parents model empathy so kids see service as normal life, not a special event? Anne also shares results from a behavior-driven campaign that boosted civic pride and recycling by double digits simply by inviting residents to take tiny actions they could do every day. It’s proof that people lean in when they can see themselves in the solution.

If you’ve been waiting for a sign to start, this is it. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who cares about community, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then pick one small action today—email a local shelter, sign up for a cleanup, or just pick up that piece of litter—and make it part of your routine.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you know what a charity is? What is it?

SPEAKER_02:

It's something that like takes care of something or someone.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Like some people.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think that's that's right. So do you have an example of that?

SPEAKER_02:

Like if someone who owns a charity, do I know anybody?

SPEAKER_01:

Not somebody that owns a charity, but just like what is like like a type of charity.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Like what?

SPEAKER_02:

A charity that gives food to uh homeless people.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a good one. Or they could give them like clothes or things like that too, right? Why do you think it well is it important to give to other people?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Why do you think that's important?

SPEAKER_02:

Because you're helping them.

SPEAKER_01:

Why do you think it's important to help people?

SPEAKER_02:

So that they can live their life.

SPEAKER_01:

So that they could live their life? Yes. Do you think do we have to help people or is it just like a nice thing to do?

SPEAKER_02:

We don't have to help them, but it it would be a really nice thing to do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Why do you think it's a nice thing to do to help people?

SPEAKER_02:

Because you're basically giving them something so that like they can actually live.

SPEAKER_01:

Could be, or make or just make their life better, or just help them out if they're having a hard time or something, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Believe it or not, there's actually a person that I'm gonna talk to, and her job is to find different people that really, really need help, and then find other people to help them.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Does that sound like a cool job?

SPEAKER_02:

A little. I think the Mr. Beast sounds cooler though.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, actually, so let's talk about so Mr. Beast has it's called Beast Philanthropy, and philanthropy is a fancy word for helping people. So basically, he makes like he has his main channel where he makes like all the videos that you watch, and then he has another channel that's just about helping people. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_02:

There's a video where he helps people, like where he paid like they build 100 wells.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so he'll like go to different countries and maybe people don't have access to like clean water, and so then he'll build wells. So that's exactly what it's like. Anyways, I just I think it's something important for you to think about is just or just helping a friend at school that that needs help. I think there's just always people that need support, and they sometimes they just need a good friend, and like we have an opportunity to help make somebody's day feel a little bit better. That's pretty great, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01:

Hi, let's ride listeners. It's your friend Paul Strata. If you've gotten any value out of any of the episodes, I'm here to ask you to pause this episode and take a moment to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to this podcast. If you're a real go-getter, please take a moment to leave a review of the podcast. I'd be indebted to you forever. Thank you for supporting and listening to the show and for going on this journey with us. Pause, subscribe, and let's ride. Our guest today grew up in a world where most holidays were forbidden, music was restricted, and food insecurity was her daily reality. Yet she found the courage to run away from her home in Northern California at the age of 17 to start a new life in New York City. From navigating a childhood shaped by strict religious rules to building a career at the intersection of philanthropy, corporate giving, and community impact, she's learned how small actions, those that are seemingly too small to fail, can transform lives and communities. Her journey, shaped by her upbringing, is about resiliency, independence, and finding ways to spread love through meaningful work that uplifts others. Our guest today is Anne Cannella. But yeah, growing up, I was like really punk rock. Like in high school, I was in a punk rock band in college. And there was um, yeah, so I'll have to share a video. There might be some music floating around online somewhere too, but that's for another day. Um and yeah, there was there was one band in particular called MXPX. When you listen to the podcast, that song that plays is actually by them. I I was able to license the music directly from them. Um, they're a really cool group. They're actually pretty popular in that scene. Um, but what was fascinating to me was I didn't know exactly what I wanted the podcast to be about. And that music video for that song is basically the lead singer life starting as like a kid, like a 12-year-old kid to getting his first car to his first job, young adulthood, finding the love of his life, having his first kid. So it's just kind of like the progression natural progression of life.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I thought that that was really fitting for what I'm trying to do here. If you look at my logo, it's it's a kid with a backpack to like a young adult to an adult. With the concept just being that, you know, what I'm trying to create and the the conversations I'm just trying to have are about people progressing through life, whether you're a parent, whether you're a young adult that's trying to figure out what you want to do professionally or just how you want to live your life. Um, you're just trying to put thoughts and ideas out there. I've learned a lot of things. I feel like maybe I'm a slow learner or it's taking me a long time. And so if I can help same expedite people's uh thoughts, then that's kind of well, we're all so we're all here learning and and doing that.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's also about the journey, right? It's about the journey of like the ride is so important.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right.

SPEAKER_00:

It's not the destination, it's sort of what you're learning along the way, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you're getting way deeper than how I thought about it, but yeah, I love that too. That's that's more or less it. So well, hey, thanks for thank you for joining us today. I wanted to to talk to you because you know, I I've been looking at your LinkedIn posts. I've just been more fascinated with LinkedIn lately, and you just do some really fascinating things. I feel like you live this life that everybody would aspire to and want to live, like you're just bouncing from this city to that city and you're helping people here and helping people there. And so you just get to do some really interesting things. And I think, you know, for all of us that you know just have different jobs, but we want a component of charity or giving in our lives, um, just to talk to an expert about how we can go about doing that. So, but before we get to any of that, I did want to talk to you just about your upbringing and how you kind of navigated the early stages of of your life to eventually get to where you are today. Where to start, right? That's a big question.

SPEAKER_00:

Where to start? I was gonna say I can start with, you know, a rough sketch of my growing up because I think that's a huge part of who I am. I am the daughter of a minister and the product, I'm a PK, if you if you've heard that phrase before, pastor's kid, which meant okay. I grew up in a fishbowl. You know, my dad had a a fairly large church growing up and is was very well known. My parents were sort of like mini celebrities in in Elberto County, which is old Gold Rush County.

SPEAKER_01:

Um and where is is that like Northern California or what is Yeah, just about Northern California.

SPEAKER_00:

Fascinating area. I was talking about the other night and I was saying, uh, you know, all the hippies in that free love movement moved up north. And I remember being in church, and you know, people were when I was little, no one had shoes. Everyone would be barefoot, you know. It's just a very sort of the Jesus revolution happened. A lot of those people turned to religion. And then if I think about the arc of the religion and then the satanic panic happened, I don't know if you remember that, but it was like you should know about this because you're a musician. That's when like ACDC hit and KISS and like all of these big groups. I was sort of there was a thread of think modern Christianity that tracked with historical times. So there's a purpose to me telling you all of this, but you know, imagine the first ACDC song that a parent ever heard, or like KISS, it was a whole thing, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But in that scope of like history, my upbringing was almost um like a very cult-like. That's the only way I can describe it. Very, very legalistic, and we didn't celebrate the only hol holidays we celebrated were Christmas and Easter. Um the uh we couldn't celebrate Halloween, we couldn't listen to music, we putn't except for a certain music, we couldn't play cards, like so.

SPEAKER_01:

Ann, that's a big word, like cult that I mean that's a big word to use. Um when you're growing up in it as a kid, is that something you recognize or is that something that you don't realize till later? Because that's what you know, right? Like you're in that environment, that's like what you know. Is that true? Is it that was how you just that's what you knew?

SPEAKER_00:

It was all I knew. Okay. And also, it's only sort of in the past few years that I've been able to even embrace that word. And I recognized it more honestly through watching. There was a documentary on the Duggars that came out on Netflix. I think it's still on there. My father followed the same religious leader, and actually it ended up being a cult. Like he was taking money from people, and it's a whole thing. But it was, it had a set of rules where everyone's under the umbrella of the father, and then daughters are under the umbrella of the mother, and you can't step out under the umbrella. Like, there's this whole crazy growing up experience. I don't know why, in that experience, my mother was a little bit more relaxed with me than she was with my brother. So this is gonna sound odd to you, but she let me read Vogue magazine. I don't know why, and I was obsessed with it because it was my only outlook to what the rest of the world looked like. And then she let us go to the library and she didn't edit our books, so we could get any book we wanted at the library. So I would come home with a stack of stack of stack stack of books.

SPEAKER_01:

And so, of course, when you see that Vogue magazine, right? That's such a I'm assuming such a divergence from what you're living and experience. So, how do you like how did you reconcile that or how did that play out in your head? You're like, okay, I'm seeing this one thing in a magazine, but I'm living this other thing. Like, how did you reconcile that?

SPEAKER_00:

I would look at the advertisements and I would, it was my version of television. I would just imagine myself in that city, in that wearing those clothes, or you know, whatever it was. You know, there's also great writing in there, um, eating that food. And I just lived through that until I was about 17. And then I upped and ran away to New York City.

SPEAKER_01:

So you went from at 17, you went from Northern California to New York City. I did. So tell me about that. So I mean, that's not I'm assuming that's not a decision you just make on a whim overnight. So was that like something that was like planned over time? And then so that's one, and then two, like, how the heck do you actually do that?

SPEAKER_00:

I I mean, if my daughter did that now, I would chase her down.

SPEAKER_01:

I bet.

SPEAKER_00:

I bet you would be the more I grew, the more I learned, the more I I educated myself, the more I knew that it I needed to get out of the situation I was in because what I saw around me, especially for women, was women that did not work and a lot of families that were stuck in this poverty cycle. And even my own family, you know, my father had this, he had this calling, but the calling was anything that he got, he gave away. So we experienced a lot of food insecurity, which really informed some of the work I'm doing now. We I know what it's like to go into the cupboard and see, like, oh, there's a 25-pound bag of rice and like a huge bag of uncooked beans. Like, how what am I supposed to do with this at 12? I think just all of those experiences together, I realized I needed to if I was going to break the cycle of how women were showing up in our family, I needed to leave the county. I needed to get out of Northern California. And I think New York was the farthest place. I I never really wanted to go to New York City. Like, it wasn't like there's some people, some kids are just like pine, you know, but it was just the farthest place away I could think of. And I saw it in these magazines all the time, and I just thought, yeah, I'll do that.

SPEAKER_01:

So before we actually get into the you moving on, there's a lot we gotta unpack there. And so the first thing, you know, just talking about the food insecurity part. Um, you know, you said your your father was a pastor, and so there's a lot of giving involved, but to the to the extent that there there was barely enough, it sounded like for his own family. And so were you going to public school as well or some sort of school, or you're you're being homeschooled?

SPEAKER_00:

No, my dad started a private school at his church, so and it was it followed the same rules as the religion. So my education, my early education was all based on this same protocol of you know, and religious viewpoint. So I didn't have the the best education in that sense. And then when we moved and my dad started another church, they homeschooled my brother and I. And that was basically um my high school years.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Which was really, really hard for me.

SPEAKER_01:

So again, when you're kind of in these bubble, this bubble, but you have this magazine to kind of grab onto where you're kind of getting a sense of what life could be like or how life exists differently outside of your bubble. Um so when you're experiencing, let's say, food insecurity, because it's what you know, it's the environment that you're in, does that like get normalized, or is it constantly like, no, wait, there's something wrong. This doesn't totally feel right.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you, you know, when you're a kid, you don't know better, but also I, you know, I had other friends, other family members. I knew that my dad wasn't around as much and that when we were sp specifically me, when I was trotted out, it was to make a good impression. I think when you're a kid, you you know that your life is not like others. And, you know, if you're surrounded by other teenagers, like say in the youth group or whatever, you understand like their families are much different than yours. I you kind of intuitively feel it, but you don't recognize it. I think like I didn't recognize it until I was an adult and really had to grapple with what had happened as a child. Do you know? So there comes a point where you don't realize how much you how uh this is a double negative, you realize how little you've learned, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, right. But it almost seems like there's uh like they say ignorance is bliss, right? So almost in a way, because you were sheltered um and you kind of didn't know any better, like even though what you're you know, later on you could recognize like, okay, well, this wasn't great, like food insecurity wasn't great, and not being educated as well wasn't great, but because you were like in the middle of it, it sounds like maybe that wasn't as big of a issue, or is that am I getting that right or no?

SPEAKER_00:

I think there were both, I think there were some benefits to the way I live my life now. I can definitely see, for example, we I didn't really have a sense of hierarchy and authority. So, I mean, this is just a very good example. So if I work for somebody that has a lot more money than I will ever see in my lifetime, it doesn't matter to me. I just see them as a person. And that has served me well in my career. So there's certain things that I think were beneficial about being raised in an unorthodox manner. It provides you with maybe a different level of thinking than other people bring to the conversation.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. And and not only that, but maybe like uh more empathy, I would think a lot more empathy, actually. Like once you start working and getting to know those people that find themselves in the situation that you've lived. One of the things I think about with, you know, raising kids, for example, is you know, we are fortunate that we've got a roof over our head, we have food in our pantry, we have, you know, we put we can put them through good school, they can play sports, they can, they're clothed, right? Like all their necessities are met. And there's almost their other end of the spectrum, which is, you know, those that maybe have too much and then they lose a sense of empathy or uh gratitude for you know just things, right? So it's kind of like it kind of goes both ways in a sense, but because you've lived, you know, in that side, I would imagine you can connect with people in a much more meaningful way and really understand where they're coming from and and what like the help that they need, basically.

SPEAKER_00:

Definitely a hundred percent agree with all of that. And I will add that I came out of my childhood like a sieve. Do you know what I mean? Or like um, I don't know, Swiss cheese or a sponge on the bet on if I were to sort of draw a spectrum, a sponge on the best day, absorbing everything around me, learning as quickly as I could, on the worst day, just full of holes, you know, where everything sort of washed through me and I had no boundaries and I didn't know how to create boundaries, but then also sort of learning at a rapid, rapid rate. So, and forcing myself into that by moving to, you know, the biggest city in the United States.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So let's go there. So you yeah, we we kind of we got off track, but we had a great conversation. But you make your way, you say, okay, so you go as far away as you possibly can, you go to New York City, which is probably the complete opposite of everything that I mean, this is like everything, the like the senses I'm sure were out of control, right? So, like what was that like first, I don't know, month or so like of just like getting acclimated to this completely different surrounding?

SPEAKER_00:

It was wild. I I don't know if I remember, I don't know if I remember my first glimpse of the city, but I certainly remember my first day because I didn't have a job and I had I was basically sleeping on a friend's couch, you know, who had moved there. And my intention was just to go and visit, but then I quickly realized I was gonna stay for a while. So my first order of business was to get a job. You know, one of the things that I think growing up, the one of the ways I got out was I started working at 14. I was out and working and feeding myself, and you know, I learned to take care of myself pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And so I got a job. I think by the time I turned 17, I was waiting tables and a pretty nice restaurant. And so I had an introduction into from one cook to the other into a restaurant in New York City.

SPEAKER_01:

If I had to summarize what I'm hearing so far, it's that, you know, even though you may have had challenges associated with your upbringing, you had some personal draw. I mean, I can't, I'll tell you right now, if I'm 17 years old going across the country, the first thing I'm not thinking about is getting a job and signing up for college. Like that's certainly probably nowhere near my radar. I'm going and you know, goofing around for at least for a while until I can so I think there's something really significant there that that is important to lean on to. And then also just like figuring out like this level of independence, it seems like you have. Like, even though you're in this bubble, there was some foundation that was established that um provided you with a skill set that was gonna allow you to be successful inside or outside of that bubble. So that's what I just heard.

SPEAKER_00:

That's lovely. And I think I I it rings true to me.

SPEAKER_04:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00:

It rings true. Of course, I'm Gen X too, so we were let to run wild. And then so there's um built-in independence to growing up in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm gonna skip uh ahead a little bit, but I think we're understanding um certainly like who you are and where you're coming from and um getting into your career a little bit. Did you start um straight into the corporate giving environment or like how did your how did your career start?

SPEAKER_00:

And so one of the organizations that we partnered with was this International Women's Association. They invited me sort of onto their advisory board, into discussions about how they were working it within the city to, you know, create more opportunities for uh diverse young people to uh provide on-ramps into you know good education, good jobs, all that sort of thing. And that started opening up my eyes to the fact that there are these opportunities to both do good and do well, you know. So that opportunities to be influential and then also to sort of start to marry, well, how does that impact the business? So the sort of brand social impact partnerships, and then also my experience of giving personally. I think that was the beginning of the transformation for me.

SPEAKER_01:

That makes sense. And so, yeah, looking at your LinkedIn, I mean, yeah, you spent a lot of time in in marketing, communications. I'm seeing different roles, like you mentioned Chicago, I see DC in here. And then yeah, it looks like there was kind of like this pivot. Well, it sounds like you were doing that, but then like you really went deep, like starting around 2017. I'm seeing philanthropy university, and and then it kind of kind of goes down this path from there. I think for a lot of us, you know, that especially if you grow up in a just even just a normal area, much less an affluent area, you might see things or hear about things, but it's not it feels so far away, like you feel so detached from that. I think it's like it's hard like as a human to sympathize or even like understand or try to put yourself in those people's shoes because you're so far like uh water insecurity, like man, like I turn on, I have three faucets here. I can't get fresh water, and so like you kind of it's kind of hard to connect those those dots, I think. And what I well, interesting thing that I'm seeing is is kind of what what you just described is there's all this social media influence out there, you know, these days, and some of them are doing video games and just you know uh joking, you know, joking around or uh things like that. And there's others that are actually very, very famous for literally going up to people in a in a Walmart or um, you know, uh just somewhere on the street, somebody that's asking for money and literally changing these people's lives. And what's fascinating to me about that is they do it kind of in this uh I see the most common one is like they try to get people to be kind to them first without knowing that they're gonna get something, uh per se, right? So they, you know, I know this one guy that might go up and just ask somebody that you could tell Ne is in need for something, but he's asking them for something, and they give him something, and then he gives them their money back and then some, right? Like$500 or something. And then that turns into like these campaigns online where GoFundMe's and things like that, where literally these this guy can go back the next day with the check for$50,000 that was crowdfunded by a bunch of strangers that just connected with that story of something that they saw because they were scrolling through their phone and saw a re a one-minute reel and connected with that story in that short amount of time. So I I know I I just kind of went off on something there, but you I mean, do you know what I'm saying? It sounds like you know what I'm talking about. I do just like this idea of like how do we get people to connect more to those things? Because I feel like if if we could do that, then raising money and helping becomes like simple, from what I can tell.

SPEAKER_00:

It's one of the joys of the work that I get to do now. And it is really hard, and it it's it's common, right? It's really hard to connect to kids in Africa, to be honest. Like, what is how is that relevant to me? You have to have a special sort of that's a special sort of passion, perhaps. But when you see something closer to your home, it's different. I think truly the biggest changes that can happen in the world happen at the local level in your community, right where you are. And while I appreciate the idea of being able to give someone$50,000 to change your life and maybe you did connect with them, I would like to see, I would like to be a catalyst for local actions that literally are too small to fail. That's sort of my passion. And to me, that means that you are demonstrating love. I think of love as an action and it's also sort of my personal platform. I think that my purpose in the world is actually to spread love and at a local level. You know, love is kind of one of these phrases that's thrown around a lot, like you're falling in love, or you love this, or I love, I love ice cream. That's not what I mean. I mean really paying attention and caring about uplifting another person is an act in itself of love.

SPEAKER_01:

When you said local, it triggered something for me. And that is I've lived in the same neighborhood for 10 years. I've seen the same three homeless people almost, I want to say almost that whole time. Like I know where they hang out, I know where they're gonna be in certain parts of the day. Like they follow this like rhythm. And you know, when I can, you know, let's say there's one at this stoplight all the time that I see, and you can roll down your window, I could give them a$5 bill. I've seen, I've literally if you wanted me to describe this person's face, I could do that. I've seen them that that many times, right? Um, and I can give them five dollars and I can then go about my day and do what I gotta do. I don't know where that five dollars is going. I'm not creating a human connection with that person. I feel like I'm helping them, and it gives me maybe this very quick like moment of like, hey, okay, I'm helping you. But then I always find myself thinking, okay, but I I don't know what you're doing with that five dollars. I don't know where you're gonna go spend the night tonight. And oh, I've seen you here for years, so clearly things aren't changing or getting better for you. And so then part of me is just like, well, are am I actually even helping at all? Or yeah, um, nothing.

SPEAKER_00:

Homelessness is one of the hardest, it's the hardest to get at from a issue area. It's also the hardest to raise money for because people have that exact like, what am I doing? How is this helping? They get so overwhelmed by the by it they become apathetic, but it's such an epidemic in the world.

SPEAKER_01:

It's just something where you want to see the change. Like, and that's like when I go back to it's like one of the great things about some of these philanthropists is like they're not just giving these people money. It's like you think about that phrase like um what you know, you teach you give somebody a fish or you teach them to fish, right? Yeah, I can give you five dollars, but like if that is just be like that same problem presents itself the next day and the next day and the next day, versus like, you know, you see some things now where it's like, okay, I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna help you with your immediate needs. But, you know, uh I know this other guy in in South America was like, I'm gonna set you up with a small business. You're gonna have a little store, and so you're gonna kind of become self-sufficient. I gave you a a little bit of a push and nudge to get you set up, but now I can turn my eyes and walk away to the next problem that I have to solve and feel like, okay, I didn't just temporarily solve this problem. I hope I just solved it for this family for the foreseeable future. And I think like maybe that's like where people are trying to like connect those dots.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a question I think I always ask at the beginning of trying to solve any problem, which is number one, can money solve this? Because sometimes that's not the answer. Philanthropy isn't always the answer to everything. Sometimes money is not the issue. Sometimes it is that the person is bipolar and or has some other mental health issues. And despite all of the things that you do around that one person, you may not be able to impact that person. Now you can go to your local homeless shelter and you can say, Hey, I keep seeing these three people. I'm sure you guys know them. Is there anything we can do to help and get them off the street? Is there anything that you need? Can I provide you blankets? Can we do some food drives? Like at least you know then they are aware of the people that you're seeing and they will be best suited to provide an intervention of however they see it fit. Like I definitely go through the experts, right? Rather than handing out the money. Also, I think that you have an opportunity to consider is this the highest need in your community? What other issues are there? Sort of getting engaged and understanding that is of importance. And sometimes it might not be in your community, but it might be the community next to you where you know you're in this affluent community, not you necessarily, but you might be. I see this uh in the work I do now. Like some of the some of the plants where we are in really good communities, but right next to them is a community that is suffering. So that's where we'll go. I think it's kind of the same with individual choices. I don't recommend handing money out to people on the street. I recommend, and I don't recommend trying to create a personal connection with somebody. I recommend doing that under the expertise of the local whatever or the state, whatever, or you know, the homeless shelter, the food pantry, the those are the people that are going to be there sustained for the long time, for the long term. And you may not be. These guys are trying to set this organs, these people up with a small business, it may look glossy and it may succeed, but it may not. And then that goes away. And where does that leave that person? I'm much more interested in that sustained support.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, and I see too, you know, when you talk about those communities, it's if you put out a a call, right, to people and just say, hey, guys, we we found this opportunity to help people, and we need people to volunteer and come support. I need you to put together these things, I need you to pass out this stuff, I need you to clean up this beach, whatever the case may be. People like are in we're inherently good people. And I think you have no problem getting armies of people to come support those efforts. And again, when I think about that, and I feel like I'm being pessimistic, I'm not trying to be, but it's like people are good, they want to help, they almost need like a nudge to be like, hey, there's this specific thing at this specific time, and people will show up for that. And I guess what I'm trying to get at is how do we kind of create that mentality in our everyday lives? Not just something that we're doing once a month or once a quarter or something like that, but something that like we are making a part of our everyday life.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, what I see is, you know, in my work now in corporate in corporate philanthropy and corporate giving is you I literally have a platform where I can engage thousands of volunteers on an annual basis. And I do. I think last year it was a couple of thousand volunteers. Volunteers that came out, but this year it'll be, it's gonna be exponentially more. And where I feel what I feel is transformative is when you provide experiences and connections to the community that are authentic and real, and you allow for the magic of volunteering to happen. And I have heard from some of these, some of the of my team members, like I'm still on the high from volunteering two days ago. This completely transformed the way I think about XYZ. And there's intentional strategies on how you even think about that from a designing a volunteer experience. Um so, like most things, it needs to, in order to sort of impact someone in their daily life, you have to be thoughtful and strategic about how you do it. So I think what I'm hearing you say, and the way I think about it, is it's less transactional, meaning like I'm just gonna show up on Easter and Christmas. I'm gonna like be in the food pantry on ongoing. You're moving it from transactional to transformative.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you're you're saying it much more uh eloquently than I am. But yeah, that's that's basically what I'm getting at, which is like, okay, it's great to go uh to your local food bank and on Thanksgiving and go help serve meals. And that does feel good. And it is needed, right? So I'm not discouraging people from doing that. Like, go do those things. Um, but again, it it does feel a little like again, and in my mind, it's like, okay, well, I just helped this person for this particular day, but I haven't, I'm not getting to the root. Again, maybe that's me as like a corporate, right? Our corporate minds are like, what's the root cause? How do I get to the right? I'm doing this uh uh uh surface level stuff that's not really doing anything. Like that's how I and I maybe I'm the exception, but like that's how I feel about it. I I feel like I'm probably not alone completely in that um my way of thinking. But yeah, just trying to figure out how to incorporate that more into our our everyday life. And again, for me as a parent, right? How do I instill that uh sense in them early on too, so that that just becomes a normal part of their life and not just something when um Ann emails me and says, Hey, I need some help on this today.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, it takes all of these things. So, you know, a great example Saturday is uh Saturday in in California is our ocean cleanup day. And we have 50 plus volunteers showing up and they're bringing their families. So, you know, corporate philanthropy is or having a volunteer experience engaged, engaging employees at work is a platform and is a way to start plugging in. And it's a wonderful way to start plugging in because you're it's so much more than just the volunteer work, it's volunteer work, plus you get to engage with team members that you're not normally engaging with, plus you might get exposure to leadership, plus um it's aligned with the business. Like there's so many reasons why uh corporate philanthropy and corporate volunteerism is a really good place to start. And then when you can, bringing your kids to that, they can begin to see what it's like to be in a company that does good. And so there is that piece. But I wouldn't discount these other small actions, the showing up on um Thanksgiving. What I would say is every little, every little thing, every little step, every opportunity, even just to lift up someone's day to say, like, hey, how are you? Or your barista at Starbucks, like, hey, you look great today, or you know, what'd you do this weekend? Anything. You just never know how impactful that is gonna be. From someone that actually had to stand in line to get a turkey at a food bank so that we could celebrate Thanksgiving, it's needed. If that didn't come, we wouldn't have had those Thanksgivings.

SPEAKER_01:

So I think, Anna, what I what I just heard you say is that I'm a selfish person because basically what I just what I just described is why I'm I'm so like frustrated by it is because I do that and I don't feel satisfied with what I provided that day. But what you do what you just told me is like, yeah, but shift your mentality instead of thinking about yourself and how that experience went for you, think about that other person and how that felt for them. So that's what I just learned from that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I first of all I just want to say I didn't call you selfish.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that's why I know you're ambitious.

SPEAKER_00:

Not selfish. You're ambitious, and I mean, look, you're thinking at it from a systemic point of view, which is it is very um, you know, you're trying to solve the problem. Not any one person is not gonna solve the problem of food insecurity. It's gonna take all of us together, pushing at the right places, you know, looking at uh weight, food waste, recovery of things that farmers are leaving behind. Like it's a bunch of things, right? Actually getting out into the community and handing out food, all of these things together. That's one issue, but that issue is also tied to lack of affordable housing and it's a tie to economic development. And so none of this is easy stuff, but that is why there are simple things that we can all do, and why I'm really on this local action, small actions that are too small to fail. So if I think about the environment, a great way to engage with an environmental cause that is literally you will never fail doing this, is when you see a piece of litter on the street, pick it up.

SPEAKER_01:

Pick it up, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And if it's recyclable, hey, recycle it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Every time you go out for a walk, just look. There's don't walk by that piece of trash. If we all did that every day in our lives, that is an action that literally you cannot fail at.

SPEAKER_01:

It's funny you're saying I'm smiling as you're saying that because I I have this debate with myself often where I see exactly I see a piece of trash, and I'm like, oh, that sucks. Like that that's there. I'm like, and I'm like, should I pick this up? But it's pretty dirty, and like I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

From now on.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think like half the time, I I wanna I'm gonna say maybe half the time, I do pick it up. And I'm like, yeah, that was a very small thing, but I I do think, and maybe somebody saw that and they got inspired inspired to do uh yeah, so it's small, and yeah, I get it, but yeah, it is small, but imagine everybody imagine every piece of person on earth picking up that piece of trash and recycling it could be recycled.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Or even just everyone in your community doing it. Your community is starting to actually invest in itself and showing up with consistent action that demonstrates what I would call love.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it's it actually goes back to what I was saying about those social media people doing these uh crowdfunding campaigns. Like you're talking about somebody raising$50,000, but it's not like some you know big major philanthropist or organization cutting that$50,000. That's like, I don't know,$25,000 people donating$2. So I think you could give$2, and that's not gonna really move the needle on your budget. But because$5,000 people all made that same decision, you just impacted this one individual in a massive, like life.

SPEAKER_00:

In a massive way. Yeah. So I think finding the finding the causes that you are passionate about, um, thinking about consistent small actions to begin with is a great way as an individual to get started in basically changing the world. And I think to myself and I tell, you know, my kids, and I'll say, you know, every time you pick up that cigarette butt, which is you know, full of pushing it and you're pushing it at the same time.

SPEAKER_01:

Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, full of like uh it was like the worst thing that you find on the beaches in California, right? And has a it you are part of changing the the planet. Every you're keeping that out of the ocean, you're keeping it out of you know, all of our waterways. Every time you pick up a a water bottle and recycle it, as we know, they're 100% recyclable. Um, you are uh impacting the planet. And that can layer up then, right? So then you have this experience where like, oh, I did this ocean cleanup. Oh, wait a minute. What's this organization, Heal the Bay? Oh, maybe if I gave them a dollar uh every week, that would be something that could actually complement what I'm doing as I volunteer. You know, it just kind of ladders up. Um, so that's I think that's the the way I would approach it.

SPEAKER_01:

Um Well, that's a complete shift because if you hear what I said 20 minutes ago was I'm really frustrated because I can't systemically solve this massive problem that um, you know, hundreds of thousands of uh scholars and people have tried to solve in the past. Um, and instead you're saying, hey, yeah, well, you know what? You know, that that's not really what's needed. It's just doing this one little act and doing it maybe a couple times a day, and then getting your friend and getting your neighbor to do that same thing. And then, you know what? Like we do that enough times, and you will start to move the needle on some of these, as opposed to trying to put together this business plan and executive strategy about how we're gonna solve this extremely complex problem that can't be done that way.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'll tell you, uh, this is this is a hypoth this was a hypothesis of mine. And because of the nature of what I get to do on my in my daily work, um, I was able to test it. And we invested in some um behavioral research, which was, you know, literally people following other people around saying, why do you, why do you put that in your why do you put your recycling bin here? And why when you go out for a walk and you saw that piece of litter, why didn't you pick it up? And what would move you to pick it up? And anyway, we uh ended up launching a campaign in Austin that was focused on actions that were too small to fail. We increased civic pride by 15%. We increased recycling by somewhere around 11 or 12%, which is huge. We increased confidence in uh what went to landfills, we increased education, all of these things by double-digit numbers because people felt like they could see themselves in the bigger problem and saw themselves as connected to it. And that campaign's now in San Diego. But I think there's um there's real power in local action, whether that's and it doesn't have to be obviously environmental, whether that's you know, look, every time I see this homeless person for the next, you know, six months, I'm gonna hand them a bottle of water, which is something that that you, Paul, could do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, a hundred percent. I have access to that. That's fair. All right, so don't invite them to my house uh for dinner per saying, okay, got it. No, no, go through the proper channels and I will do that. Uh I want to uh wrap up with this, and that is, you know, I think you know, we're we're here near the end of September. We're going into you know the Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. I feel like that's like a really big put it tends to be a really big push for I feel like a lot of these different types of efforts. And so I feel like the timing of this conversation is is really, really good. For those that maybe don't work at a company that is deliberate in how they engage with their team members to get involved in these sorts of things, like what do you recommend for those people that that don't have an Anne Canela telling them where they should go? Like how should they how should they go about identifying opportunities and getting involved?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's a number of ways. So look to your local YMCAs is a good is a good example. Local churches, local uh business clubs, local chamber of commerce. There's a number of ways that you can find the the sort of influential organizations. I say influential, meaning they'll have opportunities where you can engage. And I think those a lot of those are the ones that naturally surround your community. Um, there's also some there's platforms online that are volunteer focused. If you want to, you could probably literally, literally Google volunteer in my area and a number of them would pop up. But also local churches, if I didn't say that, are a great place to start. Food pantries don't just need food donations, they need people to come in and organize for them all the time. The food pantries are a great place to just say, hey, I want to volunteer. They need, especially those that have dining, big dining rooms, they need people to come in and maybe paint, mop the floors, clean up things, organize if they have a closet, organize a closet. And then the other thing I would say is before you, if you're gonna donate, if you're gonna think about throwing things away, please think about donating them. And then also consider organizations like Toys for Tots. And, you know, one of the things that I always think about and love is if we're going to give back, if we're going to volunteer, can we also add joy at the same time? Can we actually surprise somebody? So, you know, a lot of kids don't get toys at Christmas and or holidays. So think about think about the kids during that time. Because I certainly was one of those and appreciated those efforts.

SPEAKER_01:

And if all fails, just pick up a piece of trash and know that that's actually having an impact too.

SPEAKER_00:

So do that anyway. Do it anyways, guys.

SPEAKER_01:

Go right now. Push pause on this and go do now. But and thank you so much. Like I said, I believe all people are inherently really good people, and sometimes it's just a matter of convenience, right? It's like, I don't know exactly no one's telling me exactly where to go and what to do. And so I think you know, what you just gave us is everybody can, with a just like a tiny bit of effort, go do something. And then, hey, what you're doing might seem really small in nature, but it's actually part of uh, you know, thousands or tens of thousands of other people doing the same thing that believe it or not is moving the needle, and so yeah, that's important too.

SPEAKER_00:

So thank you so much for having me on. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01:

I enjoyed it too, and so uh best of life. Seems like you're gonna be a very busy lady here to finish uh the rest of the year. And um, yeah, you can expect uh uh email from me to sign up for one of your upcoming events. Oh, all right. Thanks so much. All right, Anna. Talk soon. Thank you.