Episode 22: How to Give Back in Midlife
What does giving back look like in midlife? In this episode, Brent and Rob talk about how service often shifts from something we admire to something we feel called to do. They explore the different ways people can support nonprofits through time, experience, relationships, and financial resources, and why local community impact can feel especially powerful. As part of this year’s global Podcast-a-thon, they also highlight The Cycle Effect, a Colorado nonprofit creating brighter futures for young women through mountain biking, mentorship, and access to the outdoors.
Links, resources, books mentioned:
Topics we are covering in this episode:
Midlife philanthropy and the shift from achievement to contribution
Time, experience, relationships, and resources as ways to give back
Volunteering and using professional expertise to support nonprofits
Donor-advised funds and strategic charitable giving
The power of local community impact
The Cycle Effect and its work supporting girls through mountain biking
Transcript:
Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.
Lena: At some point in midlife, giving back starts to feel different, less like an obligation, and more like a chance to contribute in a meaningful way. Today on Midlife Circus, Brent and Rob explore how service can show up through your time, experience, relationships, and resources, and why they're participating in this week's global podcastathon to shine a light on the work nonprofits do every day. Before we begin, remember to follow Midlife Circus on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, and join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Let's dive into how to give back in midlife.
Brent: Rob, when you think at this stage of life, why do you think the idea of being at service starts to feel more important or at least a little different than it did maybe earlier on in your life?
Rob: I think of a couple reasons for this answer, Brent, and I'll go through a couple of scenarios or a couple ideas here. One is when you're young, I think you're usually both time poor and money poor. And so in midlife, you finally have a little bit of both, which then it allows contribution to feel a little bit more possible. And so I think about when I was younger, I was building a career, so I didn't have much time. I was focused a 100% on the work that I was doing, and so I didn't spend a lot of time volunteering as a young professional.
And I didn't have the resources. I was trying to save money to buy a house, to buy a car, you know, all of those things. So I didn't have those resources. And now in midlife, I have a little bit more of each, which allows quite a bit more flexibility for me to go and give back in our local community and more broad than that. The other thing I think of as you asked that question is, as we age, I think some of us get a little bit wiser.
Not all of us. I know I know I still make a lot of mistakes that I wish I wouldn't make at this age, but I think most of us get significantly wiser. And in that wisdom, we can look around in our community and see things that we may not have seen in our younger life. So different needs and different opportunities to be able to be of impact and be of service and actually change what's going on around us. So I think it's both a factor of we just got older.
And so because we're older, we have a little more time abundance. We have a little more financial abundance to be able to have an impact, and we just become more self aware and aware of things in our community that we want to go and impact.
Brent: I hear what you're saying. There's this time paradigm that changes a bit as you age. There's this wisdom component, and then you may have some excess resources that you can give back to your community.
Rob: Well, you even feel a little more stable at work. Right? So you're able to step away for an entire day. You don't feel guilty about stepping away from work, which I know I did as a young professional. It's like, oh, if I step away from work, I'm not helping grow the business, grow the company, grow my career.
That guilt disappears because now I a little bit more stability in all of our work that we don't we can step away for an hour. We can step away for an entire day. It's not that big of a deal. It's not going to have that negative of an impact on the work that's being done at the company.
Brent: Absolutely. So this brings us to what we're going to talk about today. Today's episode is about giving back. And simply stated, it's really understanding in midlife, how service shifts from achievement to contribution. And then also getting involved in nonprofits often gives more back than it takes.
And so we're going to explore that topic. But part of this is a much bigger experience that we're actually introducing is we're really excited at Midlife Circus. This week, there's a global podcastathon. It's what it's called. And it's a group that came together over in Europe and they put this together a few years ago and they do it the same week in March every single year.
And several podcasts get involved and they specifically highlight a charity that they are participating in, they're interested in, or they just want to give more exposure. So to give you some statistics, last year, there was over 1,500 podcasts that participated in the Podcastathon from over 40 countries worldwide. This year is projected to be over 2,000 podcasts, which we're one of them, and the country will be much broader than that. So we're super excited for that. And then later on in this episode, we're actually going to talk about the charity that we are highlighting part of the Podcastathon, and Rob's going to give some details of this charity that's local to the community that we live in.
So we're excited for this. This is a great opportunity to talk about philanthropy in your midlife, and we think it's really important. So to kick things off, Rob, what I want to talk about is there's typically three or four elements associated with giving back, volunteering. It has to do with time, experience, relationships, and resources. So I'll kick it off with the basic, the simple one that we're all familiar with, time.
And when somebody says volunteering, a lot of times it's correlated with giving your time. So you might volunteer at a local soup kitchen. You might volunteer to do some work to clean up the community that's sponsored by a nonprofit. That is time. That is something that most people can relate to.
But what I want to shift into, Rob, is experience. And I know you've done this with a number of nonprofits throughout your life and talking about the experience that you provide. So maybe you could talk a little bit about what does it mean to be actually providing your experience or your expertise and maybe an example of something that you've done in your past.
Rob: Nonprofits don't just need people to stack boxes or deliver food. They need people to market. They need accountants. They need connectors. They need office administrators.
Right? They need people that are actually not just doers of stacking boxes, but they need people to actually donate their experience to help that nonprofit continue to function or continue to grow. And so I think about experiences. As we hit midlife, as I talked about, you become a little bit more wise as we get older. We also have developed a significant amount of experience in our professional careers, and that experience is tremendously valuable to nonprofits.
No matter what your experience is, no matter what your career was, you can actually transfer that experience to a nonprofit that doesn't have that resource or doesn't have that, gap filled currently. And so I can think of a real specific example, Brent, that happened for me, I would say probably fifteen or twenty years ago. A friend of mine was the president of a nonprofit board, and he asked me to join the board as a treasurer. And the biggest reason why he wanted me to join the board as the treasurer was actually to fix the finances of this nonprofit. And, it wasn't just the finances.
It was really the books. They had somebody volunteering before, and that person had the best intentions, but they didn't have a background in finance. They didn't have a background in economics. They had never done and dealt with the dollar figures that actually this nonprofit was doing. Where I was able to come in and actually recalibrate how they ran their books, bring in some software programs they weren't familiar with, and help them actually just having a better accounting for the overall nonprofit, put a system in place for that nonprofit to actually continue to run the books in that way going forward.
And it was really tremendously valuable for me taking my business experience and actually transferring it to a nonprofit. And I felt really wise when I would bring up a comment or a question during a board meeting, like, I've never thought about it that way before. The people that work for me didn't think I was wise, but this nonprofit board did because I was asking questions I hadn't thought about, and no one was posing things in that manner. And so that was me bringing my experiences to a nonprofit to help them continue to function and to grow. The other example I would share here from an experience standpoint, my spouse, Tara, was actually an office manager for a big organization.
And for a period of time, she actually went to work for a nonprofit in office administration, and that was a function that they needed. And actually really think about how this small nonprofit had a much better client experience or customer experience, if you will, so how they engage with the community differently. And so she was able to go in and transfer her background in running an office, a large office space, to help this nonprofit really start to have a greater emotional impact on the community based on how the office function, but also how they interacted with the greater community as a whole.
Brent: As you described that, I think it's really important to understand the connection with your expertise to nonprofits. Because a lot of times, and you alluded to this, is you go into a nonprofit and they've got gaps all over the place. Your job is not to go in and say, you got gaps all over the place because they already know that. Your job is to go in and say, I could help fill some of those gaps. And we talked about it in a previous episode where there's different ways to earn an income in your next great act.
And some of people choose to go nonprofit. And I believe Rob, you had mentioned that sometimes the greatest way to start with a nonprofit is volunteering your time with your expertise. And that might turn into a job. You might actually become employed with that nonprofit and might work out really well. There's so many different levels of expertise.
And I think it's not to go in there assuming that they've got it all figured out. Most organizations for profit, nonprofit don't have it figured out. We know that. But nonprofits are typically lean on staff. I have an example for me where I was asked to join a nonprofit.
And at the time I joined the board of directors for Goodwill Industries in Denver. And I was actually on that board for about six years, but what they were interested in was my skillset. I had never done a board role before, so that clearly was not why they were interested in me. It was because I had a lot of experience on operational effectiveness. And they are saying, is there ways that we can be more efficient in running our operation?
And so I, as a board member facilitated a number of workshops and I got to work with their head of finance and their head of operations, head of customer service, and really bringing parties together because I had a specific skillset and it was really rewarding work for me. I enjoyed it because I could see the impacts of the experience that I brought. And I think you alluded to the same thing, Rob. As you brought in that experience, you're like, they didn't have it.
Rob: From an experience standpoint, you brought in operational effectiveness experience. How much would they've had to pay a professional to come in and actually help them do what you were doing?
Brent: Well, if it was related to my specific client work, I mean, that could be thousands of dollars a day. It was a complete savings on their side.
Rob: Well, the biggest thing you brought from a value standpoint was your experience. I was thinking hundreds of thousands of dollars in economic impact you probably provided to that nonprofit based upon the experience from what you were doing from a professional standpoint.
Brent: And at zero cost to
Rob: them. Yeah.
Brent: The next category, as we're thinking about volunteering stereotypes is relationships. And one thing I did learn while I was on the Goodwill board of directors is the value of relationships. And what I saw is there was a lot of high level executives on that board. Our board was actually quite large. I think it was somewhere in the 20 person range.
It's big for a board, but that was strategic because we did fundraisers throughout the year and we were looking for a lot of donations and a lot of those people came with connections. And I got to see that firsthand the value of relationships. And so a lot of times when you join a board of directors, as an example, you're not only bringing experience, you're going to bring your relationships, and in most cases, relationships to donors. I did learn the importance of that. So that's a really important aspect if you get involved with a nonprofit is what other type of relationships can you bring?
And it doesn't always have to be financial relationships. You might be able to identify somebody with different experience than you that could come in and help, somebody that would be willing to donate their time. So that's something that we always think about with the relationship side.
Rob: As midlifers, we all have a tremendous amount of life experience, but also business professional work experience at this point in our life. Twenty, thirty years of working, some of us have had both in professional careers, even nonprofessional careers, and that experience bringing that to the nonprofit, I think, is incredibly valuable. One of the previous episodes, Brent, that we also talked about was being on a on a for profit board as possibly a way of driving some revenue during midlife and during retirement. One of the things you mentioned during that episode was joining a nonprofit board as kind of an entry point into a for profit board. Can you share a little bit more about that?
Brent: Yeah. One of the things that I find is a lot of seasoned leaders think that they can just go jump on a bunch of boards as they think of their next act. Maybe they've been in their career for thirty or forty years and they're like, I'm just going to do board work afterwards. That's a hard transition to make. And I've served on several boards, both on the nonprofit and the for profit side.
And usually when somebody joins a board without any experience, it's a learning curve and they're not adding value for their, maybe their first year, year and a half, two years in a way that you would want them to on a for profit board. So my advice is typically go seek out a board role at a nonprofit because a good nonprofit's going to have governance practices in place. They're going to have committees in place. You can get involved in various capacities and you're going to see the inner workings and you might try it out to say, is this something I actually want to do before making that big commitment to a for profit board. I just find it's kind of the training grounds and it's a very common practice.
It doesn't mean you're going to bring anything less to a nonprofit. They're just probably going to give you a little bit of grace on the experience that you may not have of being on a board. So I highly recommend that. And you may learn that's where you want to spend your time. I know people that do a lot of nonprofit boards, they don't even go the for profit because typically a nonprofit board is not pain.
And so that's something that everybody needs to understand when you go into a nonprofit, it's philanthropic. And so, but it is a great way to get that experience, that learning, and you have a better sense of how it operates being on a board. And then you can add that much more value if you do choose to go to a for profit board. And that's something Rob also that I encourage people to do while they're in their career, before they're focused on their next great act is getting on a nonprofit board. And most organizations that I've ever worked for, or I've been associated with support that Because it's usually not a massive, massive time commitment, but I highly recommend it as you get further along in your career.
The first board I joined, I was in my twenties and it was a nonprofit board. And a lot of times they're just looking for people to help. And it's a great way to start that experience earlier on in your career or even later in your career. And you don't have to wait till you're next great act to do it. You might choose to do it several years in advance.
So the next topic that we have Rob, beyond relationships is one that's also, it's kind of like time most people are familiar with is resources. And when we say resources, we're talking about money. All nonprofits need money. Is a consistent across all nonprofits. They will always gladly take your money.
And that's how they're set up. That's how they pay for their programs, their staff, their marketing, all the different activities is resources from people like you and I, and a lot of our listeners. So when we think about money, there's a really simple aspect to it, which is what we're used to. It's like, I'm going to write a 100 check. I'm going to write a $200 check.
And it's really easy to do. That's something that we learned pretty early on in life is the simplicity of donating to a nonprofit. But I think it goes beyond that. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how you've seen, given your background in finance, how you've seen it evolve in different ways that people contribute resources or money to nonprofits.
Rob: There's a number of ways you can actually help financially support a nonprofit, Brent. I'm glad you started with the really easy way, which is the $100 here, the buying the cookies outside the grocery store on your way out the door. Man, I love those cookies too.
Brent: I love those cookies.
Rob: Yeah. Or the popcorn tin or when the high school kids come and knock on your door for the football team or whatever it is. Those are really the kind of the simple, easy, quick, one hit wonders I think of when it comes to giving financially to a nonprofit or to a cause. I think as we hit midlife, though, those, while they are important, we start to think about things a little bit different financially. And because we have resources, we're able to give significantly more than just a couple boxes of cookies or, you know, to the high school football team.
We're actually starting to think about how do we start to have a much more big financial impact within an organization. How can we help change something? How can we help this organization grow and actually do more great work? A lot of people think of giving when they pass away. So I know a lot of people from financial services world will work with clients and they'll say, when I pass away, I want a certain percentage of my estate to go to a nonprofit organization.
And that definitely helps the nonprofit. However, Brent, you mentioned they need money today. It's they some of them can't wait ten years for that resource because the person that needs the resource needs it today. And so you can just start giving large gifts, as you mentioned, Brent, to nonprofits, but a really efficient way of thinking about donating money over an extended period of time to nonprofits is using what's called a donor advised fund. It's a really efficient way to give money to nonprofits over a period of time.
So I'll explain what a donor advised fund is. Basically, you make a gift to this fund, and the gift is actually an irrevocable gift. So once you give the money into this donor advised fund, you no longer can access it for personal use. You're still an adviser on the account, which means you can talk about where the money goes, how it's invested, which nonprofits will benefit from this. You can still get to advise on the asset, but you can't actually spend the asset for your own household expenses.
Lot of major financial institutions will help you set these up. So the Charles Schwab's, the Fidelity's, big, big, big financial institutions, but also some community nonprofit organizations will help you set this up as well. There is a benefit to them in helping people set up these donor advised funds. One of the neat things, though, Brent, when you make a contribution to the donor advised fund, you get a tax deduction for that gift. And so I've seen a lot of people not just gift cash into the donor advised fund, but they'll actually gift highly appreciated assets.
Assets that they would have had to pay significant taxes on, they can give to the donor advised fund and actually get a tax deduction for that said gift. And so it's a really efficient way to actually start to begin to transition some of your financial resources to nonprofits and give money over your lifetime. So you actually get the benefit of watching nonprofits benefit and use the resources that you're actually contributing to this donor advised fund. Brent, I know you contributed to a donor advised fund and you set that up. So how was that experience for you?
Do you mind just sharing with our audience what it was like to set one up? And then what some of the things since setting up your donor fund, what have you noticed or what have you experienced afterwards?
Brent: For me, it's been a great experience to learn about donor advised funds. I was exposed in my prior work to a lot of high net worth individuals. And I noticed that a lot of them had donor advised funds. So I was just curious. So I ended up setting one up.
And what I was most surprised, Rob, was how easy it was to do as you alluded to. I don't think it requires a lot of money to donate into a donor advised fund to start it. I think it was probably a couple $100. So what I did and what I learned from others is when I set up the donor advised fund, you can title it however you want. But one of the things that I did with it is I set it up that my entire family's involved in it.
I did this intentionally because I wanted my kids to understand the power of getting involved and the benefit of getting involved with nonprofits and sometimes through donating money. So whenever we want to donate any sort of funds to a nonprofit is we just send out a text and say, I'm thinking of this, or we get on a call and we talk about it and then everybody can get excited about it. And it's cool the way we set it up is anybody can come forth with any idea. We didn't set up this specific directive and made it overly complex. It was more a way of, let's all get involved in this.
And it was fun to see my kids. Sometimes they're like, whatever, sure, dad. And then sometimes if I mention a nonprofit, they're like, oh, I've heard of that. That would be great. I think they're great in our community.
So it's been fun to just see how they interact. But the whole idea there is not only on the front side is mom and dad getting the tax benefit of making a donation to the donor advised fund, we're actually getting more out of it by getting our kids involved and getting them the exposure to the importance of philanthropic work and in this case giving.
Rob: That's really cool. And just a suggestion for your kids is if you give them an important title, maybe they won't think, oh yeah, dad, whatever. Give them some important, you know, big, robust, fancy title as to what they are as part of this nonprofit foundation that you have.
Brent: I told them that they could be king of the board. They could do whatever they want. You know, what whatever the resume is going to look good for my oldest, you know, as he approaches the workforce when he graduates college in a few years, it's like, use that to your advantage. You joined this board, this foundation several years ago, and you make contributions and so forth. So
Rob: yes. Applications, job applications, absolutely a value add there. And, Brent, you mentioned one thing in there that I forgot to mention when I talked about setting up a donor advised fund is you can actually transfer those assets from that to the next generation by naming them the successor on that donor advised fund. So what you're setting up right now with your family foundation stays with can stay with the family into the next generation, something they can make contributions to and something that they could even make contributions to and then pass it on to their children to make contributions to and distributions from.
Brent: And that's the long term goal. And of course, if that's what my kids, if they want to take it over, but hopefully, because the cool thing about the donor advised fund is it is appreciating in value as long as the investments that are within it are appreciating. So you can see it grow and hopefully over time it'll grow into something of significance that they can be involved in the foreseeable future as well. So as we think about one of the things that I learned, Rob, in doing this is the importance and where I saw more of an interest from my kids and myself and my wife was doing some things locally. And so out of the donor advised funds, we've made some local donations.
And where I want to segue our conversation is there's an impact when you do things locally, and you can start to feel it. And so we've made a few donations locally. And it's really cool because you start to see and you get more interested in what they're doing. And you might want to get more involved in the projects that they're working on. Can you talk a little bit about your experience of doing nonprofit work locally or some of the things that you've learned from doing, maybe even just donating your time locally that you may have not gained by not doing it?
Rob: You start to gain, I think, Brent, some perspective on what's around us in the community, where there is truly a need and become really aware of how I think we can become a greater impact on society overall. It actually hits you in the face maybe a little bit more than some of the big nonprofit work. Not to not to take away any anything away from those large, large, large nonprofits at all. They all do tremendous work. But when think about the local level, local nonprofits really need resources and because they're focused on the microcosm of that small community and maybe a small just initiative in the community.
And it's something that we personally, you and I become active in in our local area, doing some volunteer of time work. But it also when it comes to finances locally, you can immediately see the turnaround of those finances here locally. You can see that impact. It's usually even small gifts can have a big impact for small local nonprofits. Whereas, you know, a couple $100 to a large nonprofit, it's not even a rounding ear to them.
A few $100 to a local nonprofit could make the difference in, you know, feeding a family that month. It could make the difference in that nonprofit functioning for a number of more months.
Brent: Yeah. And you alluded to, like, one of the local nonprofits that you and I have gotten involved in as well as some of our other friends is there's a local nonprofit that focuses on the health of the trail system. So the hiking and mountain biking trails throughout the broader community. And it's a nonprofit setup because these trails get used a lot. And the challenge with that is they start to break down and they've got their challenges with erosion and people kind of creating their own new trails when they shouldn't.
And so they actually manage the trail system and we've gotten involved by adopting a trail. And that was a humbling experience for me because there's trails that are literally in my backyard or accessible right near my house that I use on a regular basis. And I always wondered like, how did these stay in good shape? Well, there's volunteers out there all the time trying to out there with shovels and picks, really trying to work on those trails. And one of the cool things is we put together a group of, people to help work this one trail that's used quite a lot.
And it had some areas for the last ten years that have been just notoriously beat up. And when I say beat up, they've got really big trenches and they've got a lot of problems that, you know, what happens is most people start walking around the problems and then the trail gets wider and it just kind of makes a bigger impact on the environment. So we did something really cool is we focused on one area and it worked out so well that last year, and Rob and I were there to accept the award, is we got the project of the year award for this nonprofit that we're volunteering for. So shout out to us for actually being involved in that. But that was a really cool experience.
And what we did is we made it fun for us that we would do barbecues afterwards. We go to a restaurant afterwards and we just had a lot of fun and we'd invite other friends. I know we invited one of my sons and some of his friends came once to help work on the trails. So it's something that we're getting more people involved, but it's cool once we did it and we realized that we weren't making an impact. And then you start hearing other people saying, gosh, did you see what happened to that section of the trail that's always been so bad?
Finally got fixed. And we just say with pride, that was us.
Rob: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I know some of our listeners are probably listening to this podcast while they're out on a walk, out on a run, or driving and looking at beautiful scenery. Somebody's keeping that clean. And so if you're looking around right now as we're as you're on this podcast, listening to this podcast, you might find a cause right where you're at in terms of getting involved and active and helping in, in your micro community and something you use regularly.
That's just another way of thinking about donating your time is something that you use, help take care of what you use.
Brent: Absolutely. This segues really well, Rob, into we're talking about trails and the time that we donated, but we want to highlight a specific nonprofit in our community for today's Podcastathon. And it's a nonprofit that you've gotten to know. And I know you reached out and talked to one of the founders of the nonprofit. So maybe, Rob, you could talk a little bit more about this nonprofit and some of the great work that they're doing in our local community.
Rob: I'm really excited that we decided, Brent, to highlight The Cycle Effect as our chosen nonprofit to highlight as part of podcastathon. And I'll start off with just giving you the mission statement of the cycle effect. The cycle effect's mission is to empower young women through mountain biking to create brighter futures, build and build stronger communities. They have three primary goals. First one is just physical wellness.
Second one is community impact and mentorship. And the third is building brighter futures by providing opportunities for girls to be engaged in regular healthy programs that build self esteem and promote overall wellness. So I'm reading for some of the notes that I took from a conversation I had with Brett, the founder. And, so I'm reading some notes. I want to make sure I don't miss anything here.
But this this nonprofit really speaks to me as you talked about, Brett, our use of the trails. And we've talked about that we're out on the trails quite a bit, whether it be mountain biking, running, hiking, chasing after our dogs. Something that I know I've taken for granted a little bit is my ease of access to these trails. I think of ease of access because they're right out our backyard. But, Brent, something you and I've talked about is ease of access and how we were raised.
I was raised going out into trails and hiking and biking and running on trails, and so it was easy for me just to adopt that lifestyle. Not everybody had that ease of access. Right? They didn't have the ease of being, being out on a trail from a young age and being comfortable in that environment. And really cycle effect helps create that by giving girls, young girls and women ease of access to some of the parts of the community that you and I really love and enjoy.
Many of these girls were out on trails for the first time, and they were just a mile or two from their house. Some of them could actually see their house from the trail, and they never would have felt comfortable going out in that area without having resources, having this help, having this team around them. And so I'm going to go through some of the stats with you, Brent, around cycle effects. So it was started actually officially in 2013, and the work the two founders, Brett and Tam, have been doing this work in the community for a long time before that. But 2013 was when it first started.
As of today, they actually serve in five counties across Colorado, and they're always in conversations of extending out how big this nonprofit can be and how they can have an impact on much bigger communities. They have 80 paid coaches, And so they put paid coaches on staff, and one of the things that's cool about the paid coaches is they take teachers, they take development professionals, and even former athletes, they pay to come out and actually really invest time and mentorship with these girls. I'm really excited about something that they share with me is they have a junior coaching program. And what this junior coaching program does is it it's for tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade girls. And what they were finding is is that right around that age, girls were leaving the program.
And they were leaving the program because they had to go to work. They had to work to help support the family. And so they started paying some of these girls to be mentors and coaches for younger girls, so creating a system where these girls were able to stay in the program. They didn't have to go find a job because this program became a job and a resource for them to mentor and help other people get out on the trails that you and I love so much. They've actually extended this program beyond girls.
And so what they found is that if you get moms involved in a program like this, it transfers to the whole family. And so they have a program called mires y pedales, women and pedals. And a 100 women are out on the trails, and they're bringing for the first time ever mountain biking on some of these trails for the first time ever, and they're even bringing their daughters out onto these trails. So really neat. So I've gone on and on.
I love Cycle Effect as a nonprofit. I love seeing these teams out on the trails, and these girls out on the trails, whether it be they're riding or they're working on the trails like you and I do, I love seeing that diversity and that new element of individuals that I can run by and wave at and laugh with and high five as I'm out there doing stuff. So if as I've shared about the cycle effect, if you're interested in learning more about it, you can actually follow them on all the social channels at the cycle effect. Or if you want to find out more information about how to donate or how to become involved with cycle effect, it's the cycleeffect.org, a great organization in our community that I'm really excited that we're highlighting today.
Brent: As you got to interact with one of the founders, what was your big moment? And let me step back really quick before you answer that. I've been a part of this community for several years and I've always see Cycle Effect specifically in one area and they are so active throughout the spring, summer and fall. And I just never understood the magnitude, but I'd always see large groups of women doing amazing things, whether they're working on the trails, whether riding and just the excitement. They always bring a ton of energy and they also teach a ton of trail etiquette, which is really cool.
But what was your experience as you were talking to the founder? Like what was some of the big thing that surprised you and made you possibly proud that they're a big part of our community?
Rob: I think Brent, I mentioned this as I was talking about the cycle effect, it's access, and how easy it is for you and I to access our trails. And it's not easy for everybody to feel comfortable and have confidence outside doing things, especially at this day and age. And so the neatest thing and the moment I had on the phone call was it's not just getting girls out on trails and women out on trails. It's building a sense of confidence and building a network that actually can go and do these things together because it's a little safer to do it as a group than it is to do it solo. And so I think about the for me was how much for granted I took my access and my ability to go and do stuff like this really regularly, and not everybody had that.
And how do I start creating more access for more individuals to really enjoy some of the things that I personally love to do? I know you love to do. How can we create an environment where more people get a chance to go experience those things?
Brent: That's beautiful. It's really humbling a lot of times when you pull back the curtain on a nonprofit and it's humbling in a way, all the nonprofits that I've been involved in, once you start to see what they're actually doing and who they're impacting and their mission statement. It's just not their website. Go to one of their events. And when you start to see it, you alluded to, if you get mom involved, you typically get the whole family involved.
Rob: Whole family's involved. Yeah.
Brent: And that's great. Like that's so positive. And we're seeing the positive impact that the cycle effect has on our community, our youth, but they've done such a cool thing to keep expanding it beyond youth, families, different generations. And it's great to hear the amazing work that they're doing. How do you think Rob, people could start to get involved with a nonprofit?
Like what's one thing that somebody could do in the next couple of weeks to get involved, but more importantly, sustain that involvement? How do you think about that? Because I know you've been involved with various nonprofits throughout your life, but that sustainment is always that challenge. So think about what's the one thing they could do, but maybe do it more than once.
Rob: I think a couple of things, Brent. And the first step, we've talked about this on other episodes. The first step is the hardest step. It's the outreach to the nonprofit. It's the walk in the door to a nonprofit that you've never been in before and the uncertainty around the know unknown.
My first reaction is get over it. There are people that have a lot more unknown than you probably do right now. And so get over that yourself. Right? And I I would leave with just this.
So you mentioned, Brent, earlier there was two over 2,000 podcasts that are part of this podcastathon. And I know we have a certain number of listeners. Every one of those podcasts has a certain number of listeners. And just imagine if every listener on us, these 2,000 podcasts, went and did something simple this week. I'm not talking about next week.
It's easy to think. I'll just do it next week. I'm saying today. Go online. Finish this podcast.
Go online. Find something in your communities. Think about what's called to you, and go have an impact now. Go do that this week before this this fades and it wears off, and think about doing it on a quarterly basis. But I think about if we're able to inspire people through this podcast and through the podcast on the 2,000 podcasts out that are out there participating, and every listener went and did something this week, that's not a movement.
That's a wave. And how big of an impact can we have with just that small effort this week?
Brent: That's such a great way to state it. It's this is such a big movement when you use those numbers and we're encouraging people. But our challenge back to all of our listeners, and I'm just going to reiterate it, Rob, is to do something today. Do something this week and then consider doing it on a regular basis. And we talked about four key attributes of getting involved with a nonprofit.
The first is your time. What if you just donated two hours of your time to local food bank? They're going to welcome you. Then we talked about your experience. What if you just go help them set something up based on your past experience and something you're really good at?
Most likely they're going to open up their arms up to you helping them there. Then we talked about your relationships. Maybe you could reach out to a nonprofit to say, I know another group that could probably benefit from what you're doing, but also a group, when's your next fundraiser? I'd like to be involved. Or I've got some things if you're doing a silent auction that I think could be a value.
That could be something there. And then the fourth one is your resources in donating money. We know some of those are easier than others, but our challenge back to everyone is to just do it. Just go do it. We're a part of the wave.
We're doing the same thing on our end. We're making our commitments. And we were excited that some of the things that we highlighted today, they're in our local community. I think the challenge that I also want to put out there is next time you're out and about in your community, look around. There might be something that you now see differently that you may get involved.
When you see those adopt a highway, you see adopt a trail, you see this, you know, a river cleanup or a highway cleanup, that's something you can get involved in, and they're going to need some heavy lifting. So it's something that you could do really easily. So any last thoughts that you have today before we wrap up, Rob?
Rob: Go do something. Don't wait. Do it this week. Do it this week. Do it today.
Sign up today. Donate money today. Do something today. Because if you wait, it'll fade, and you won't do it at all.
Brent: That's great. So we like to close all of our episodes with gratitude. And a lot of times our gratitude is from our listeners. We get a lot of the listener emails and correspondence and DMs and people telling us about our various episodes, but we're going to flip the script a little bit today. Our gratitude today is for all of the people that are running nonprofits.
And our shout out to you is thank you because the work that you are doing is so important for the community that you serve. We know it and we're incredibly grateful for everything that you do. Keep charging ahead. We're here to support you And with tremendous gratitude, we just have to say thank you.
Lena: That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlifecircus.fm for show notes, transcripts, and all the latest happenings. And be sure to join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Follow Midlife Circus on Apple podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss your next great act. Quick reminder, the opinions and stories shared here are personal reflections, not professional advice.
This show is for entertainment and inspiration only. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the big top next time. Midlife Circus is a Burning Matches Media production.