Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Life Reviewed, a podcast by Hope House Colorado, where we invite you into conversation with teenage moms and the people who champion them. These stories of struggle, overcoming and perspective shifts will challenge you to review life as you've known it. One story, one person, one conversation at a time. Oh, I thought I knew the kind of life that I would need.
Welcome to Life Reviewed. We are super excited today. We're having Chris Johnson, one of our board members, here with us today to talk about everything Hope House and his time on the board with us and how he got connected and everything. So, Chris, welcome to Life Reviewed.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Lisa. Grateful to be here.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: So today I just kind of wanted to start out a little bit and talk about your time on the board. I think you're in your second term, is that right?
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Yeah, second term. I think it's coming up on five and a half years.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Wow.
Time goes by fast, right?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Goes by quick.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So Chris, how did you first hear about Hope House?
[00:01:07] Speaker B: So my wife Brittany actually used to work at Hope House. She worked in the residential house as a residential counselor for about two and a half years.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Okay, how long ago would that have been?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Like, that would have been right around eight, ten years ago, somewhere in that range.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Okay. So we were just here at the residential house and I guess the resource center in Westminster would have been open at that point in time, right?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Yes. Yep. Yeah. And it's funny because the girls here at Hope House, my wife Brittany, got really, you know, close and connected with them, but I feel like they really bonded over our son before anybody in my family or even myself knew that my wife was pregnant, that the girls here knew. So they were able to share that journey together, which was super cool.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: I think I remember Brittany telling me that story about Danielle Aster asking her if she was pregnant.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Because she guessed or whatever. That's pretty funny.
Well, you've seen Hope House really grow up a lot over the last the time that you've spent on the board. So the resource center will be six years since we opened the resource center open this September and then, gosh, we're coming up on almost. It'll be a year this fall for the early learning center will be open and everything. So you've seen a lot of growth and everything over the years here at Hope House.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's incredible. It's. It's one of the few organizations that we've ever been a part of that you can just clearly see the impact. You can see the impact in the girls lives. It's life changing. You Know, resources that are getting access to their stories are just incredible. And you just know that whether you're spending time, resources, money, anything that's going into Hope House, there's just like, clear, clear return, clear effort.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Yeah. I think about coming up on 14 years here at Hope House and to see some of our moms grow like I can. There's one in particular this summer that she was one of the first moms here at the house that I remember interacting with. And I took her out to wild animal sanctuary. She thought she wanted to work with big cats and stuff like that. So I took her out there and that we went over. She changed her mind about that and she decided she went to go into culinary school and. And she got enrolled in one of the local culinary schools here. And my husband, he was part of Shamrock Foods and like, got the chef knives that she needed and got her all set up and that sort of thing. And there was a bunch of other life things that were happening with her. And she ended up moving out of the house. And I've always kept track of her through Facebook.
And so this summer I had a chance to connect with her. And her daughter now is. Was offered a position or a.
To come out to Stanford University for a law school. Like, just, you know, come see what we're doing out here and everything. And it's. She's working today and, and she lives in Kansas. She's working for an organization that has a restaurant. And then she's also doing wedding planning at an event venue. And it's like, okay, I've been able to see her for 14 years and see what she's doing. And she's come a long ways and just to kind of see that connection and everything like that. Sometimes if, you know, if you're not here very long, you might miss out on seeing what the long term effects are. Like today we have a board member that's.
That was part of, you know, Hope. I was back in the day and we just announced that we've had 10 graduates that have worked here at Hope House. And the newest one is Jamie, and she's graduated with her GED in 2019. And now today she's running the GED program, which is amazing, I think. So that's pretty cool. I remember like, there was a board member. This was before your time, where she actually said to me, when I first started, are you going to be able to raise the same amount of money as we raised last year, Lisa? I was like, I have no idea. I don't even know how you raised what you raised last year.
And then at one point in time, somebody on the board said, well, what's your. What's your long term strategy? I'm like, we're growing our own donors. Like, what do you think we're doing here?
So anyway, I kind of laugh about that, but it's pretty cool to get to step back and watch and see all these girls grow and everything over the years and stuff like that, which is pretty cool.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's incredible. And that's. That's definitely why we feel so connected to Hope House and why we just continue to want to be involved just in any capacity and tell all of our family and friends. And it's just like, you guys got to just come see, Come see the team, come see the girls, come, come, you know, hear the mission. And it's. It's amazing.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: I appreciate that you guys bring all your friends and stuff to the gala. We always make sure that you get, like, a good table up front and everything like that. Appreciate all the bids and everything.
That's awesome. So, Chris, tell me about. Tell me about you. Tell me about. Did you grow up here in Colorado? Tell me a little bit about your background.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Born and raised in Colorado. So I grew up in Fort Collins and wife and I and two kids now live in Erie, so we haven't made it far.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: My wife grew up in Colorado as well.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Okay. Okay, good, good.
Well, tell me a little bit about what you're. I know you work in the. You're part of our newly formed tech committee of the board, so tell me a little bit about your business background.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah, so I have a little bit of a different background, and I'm sure we'll. We'll get into that a little bit. But I. I tried to pursue racing motorcycles right out of high school.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: And so I ended up graduating high school early so I could move into a training facility. Yeah.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: So I ended up living in a RV at a. In a training facility in Florida and just traveling the racing circuit.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Oh, that's very cool.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: And it's actually kind of interwoven with my faith story, too. So I didn't grow up going to church or anything like that.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: And the first church service I ever went to was actually at the track.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: So we had parked next to this big semi, and on the side of the semi it said mxers for Jesus. And it was like, oh, I don't know what this is about. But I, you know, met the. The main guy and the. The lead pastor and he and I just really hit it off and became, you know, friends, and he ended up becoming a mentor of mine. I started going to his church services, and he was the first one to ever introduce me to. To Jesus, which is. It's super cool looking back on.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: So very cool. Very cool. Yeah. I.
Fun fact about me. I got divorced and I decided to start my life all over again. And I went and got my motorcycle license, and I got the license. I was super excited. I only wanted a Harley.
Like, I just wanted that big bike, right?
And so I only knew one guy that had a motorcycle at that point in time. So I called up Jeff and I said, I really want to buy. Get a Harley. I just got my license. Which bike do you think I should get?
And he, like, stopped for a second and he said, lisa, it's not about the bike. It's about the tattoo. Where you're getting the tattoo, what kind of tattoo you're putting on. I was like, what? I was like, I had no idea what he's. Yeah, that was not what I was looking for at all. It was. It was really, really funny at the time.
So, yeah, so I got my motorcycle license and I. He was so kind. He had a friend of his who let me ride his motorcycle downtown, and I rode around a couple blocks and I was like, cut off the motorcycle and gave it back to his friend. And I said, I'm never going to get really comfortable on a big bike like this.
And I only had every other weekend to ride in the summertime because I had. My daughter was like 5 years old at the time, and luckily for me, I started dating Jeff and riding his motorcycle, and that was the best thing I ever did.
So I can appreciate the love of riding. That's my favorite date of the whole year is when I can go out on that motorcycle and ride with him and stuff like that. So fun.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's amazing. It's still a hobby and passion and things like that today, but there was a point in my life where I thought I was going to make it as a racer. It just. Things were starting to click. I was starting to get the right sponsors and all those type of things. And during that time of life, I had a lot of support from my family to be able to make that happen. You know, kind of on the edge of making. On my own or not. Right. And I think, like a lot of the girls story, which is part of why I'm connected to Hope House so much. Like, just things didn't go as planned. Right. And, yeah, My story is nowhere close to what a lot of the girls go through, but ended up getting hurt at the wrong time without health insurance. And kind of my family fell apart during that time as well, and my parents went through a really bad divorce, and I ended up getting caught up kind of in the middle of all that. And those are hard. Yeah, it was. It was really difficult time. And next thing I knew, I didn't have a place to live and didn't have the racing thing going for me anymore. And it was time to go back to the drawing board, you know, and it's.
I'm so grateful to have met Kevin from MX Research for Jesus at that time. And, you know, that was a huge support system for me. And just having a mentor like that going through a time like that was huge.
And it's actually how Brittany and I first met as well. So I was going through this time. I was looking for a Bible study and found a fellowship of Christian athletes and decided to go to that. And there was this beautiful blonde sitting in the corner. And, you know, in the way my brain worked, it was like, oh, I should keep coming back to Bible study.
This is going to work out all right. So it took me, like three or so weeks to introduce myself to her, but it finally did, and it turned out that she grew up racing cars, and so we just, like, really hit it off with the. With the racing thing. Yeah.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Oh, that's very cool. Yeah. When I met Jeff, we bonded over. We were both from Illinois, we met out here in Colorado, but we were both from Illinois. Big Cubs fans, big Bears fans, and just really hit it off that way. That's pretty funny that you can, when you meet somebody, you have those connections and stuff that you can expand upon and everything. That's pretty cool.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's huge.
Uh, and so I ended up then needing to figure out a. A job. I had a bunch of medical bills, you know, didn't know where I was going to live, kind of all. All these kind of areas. And I knew how to drive semi trucks from the racing days of just driving big, big rigs. Big, big rigs. And so my first, like, real job outside of racing was driving Class A semi trucks.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't know that. That's very cool.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I. I took a job actually delivering windows. And so we would have to, you know, load the windows, check them for, you know, type of things, and go meet the customers.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: And at this point in my brain, it was still okay if I can get the right job. I can get back into racing. And so my shift would start at 4, 4 o' clock in the morning.
And I, you know, it's a hard job and physical and all those type of things. And you didn't make very much money. And I would notice that the sales team would show up at like 9 or 10 and they were dressed really nice and just looked like they were having a nice day, you know. And everybody you interacted with, you know, trucking just, I don't know, it just felt like we're not happy, you know, ever.
So I, I tried for like two years of that company to get onto the sales team.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: And just kept trying and trying. And I finally got the meeting with the big VP of sales. He flew in from another state. And, okay, we sat down in a conversation like this and I, you know, I had to wear a, like a uniform. So I tried my best to like, tuck in my uniform and look, look presentable and all that kind of stuff, right? And he basically sat down and it's funny thinking back on that. The guy was just extremely overweight. Just didn't take care of himself. I think he weighed 3, 400 pounds.
But he was sitting there talking to me about dedication and what it took to be in sales and this dedication. At that point, I've just left being a professional athlete. I was in extremely good shape, sitting there thinking, I don't think you can talk to me about dedication. Something's off. So anyways, long story short, he told me I could never be in sales and I should keep being a truck driver.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: And so I said, well, I, like, just thank you so much for taking the time to finally meet with you. With me. Right. But I disagree and I quit on the spot. And I. That was a fun conversation, going home and telling Brittany, like, well, I quit my job today and I don't know what I'm going to do next, but I'm going to be in sales. And she's like, what does that even. What does that even mean? I'm like, I don't know yet, but I know it's going to be better than driving trucks.
And so I started interviewing around town for sales jobs and ended up taking a commission only sales job selling roofs. And so they basically gave me keys to a truck and said, like, let's see what you can do. And so that was another fun conversation of telling Brittany that I got a sales job. She's like, great, how much do you make? And I'm like, I don't make anything unless I sell something.
But that was how I first got into, into sales.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Okay, that's funny. I, I, I too also just up and quit a job.
I was in college, I was doing my college internship and I was working in retail and I was making back then, just maybe a little over four bucks an hour.
And my boss came in and gave me a hard time about like, I didn't have the displays done and I didn't have this done and that done.
And I was like, hey, but wait a minute, I've like got more sales today than anybody else.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: And so I just stepped and quit on the spot. And today that manager is one of my best friends and we laugh about that. But I walked out of the store. I had like, you, I had school debt, I had nowhere to, you know, I wasn't sure how I was gonna make my rent to go home and tell my roommate I quit my job, tell my boyfriend I quit my job.
Called my dad at the time and he's like, well, what are you going to do now? It wasn't like he said, oh, I can help you out or anything like that. It was more like, oh, you got to figure this out now and everything. That's when I went into sales too.
So yeah. And I, this is really going to date me. I sold word processing equipment before. You know, this is a step up from the typewriter.
But some of those, you know, first time sales jobs, those are the ones that really, you know, you learn to like whether or not you're gonna like it. Right. Whether or not you can connect with people. And yep, there's that sense of satisfaction that you get no matter what you're selling, where you're able to help people and stuff like that, whether it's a roof or a word processing equipment or whatever it is, you know.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. Super grateful for that opportunity. And yeah, got got to know. It's like, oh, I love this. I love working with people and figuring out how to do the right thing and, you know, those, those kind of areas and actually, you know, helping.
And then so the long story short is I had a friend that I knew through racing that was in technology.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: And he's like, wow, you're like doing a really good job in this roofing sales thing. Like we have a, you know, a sales role open at my technology company.
And so he's like, you need to start reading these books and taking these classes and learn this lingo. And so he really started mentoring me and then got me an interview at this, this company.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: And it was kind of this big deal because I was the only one joining the sales team that didn't even have a master's degree, let alone a college degree and like, no experience of those type of things. But he really, like, put his neck out for me and, you know, really took me under his wing and that. So that's how I got involved into the technology industry in the first place.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: That's great. That's great. Yeah, I got a. I got a chance to interview with a college friend's husband's friend, and it was just like one of those weird connections where I was able just to get in front of the right people at the right time and go from there and stuff. So that was. You just need someone to take a chance on you, and most of the time it's based on personality and drive and that sort of thing. So, yeah, I can relate totally to that.
So you've worked in the technology industry for how long now?
[00:16:56] Speaker B: So it's been right around 13 years total in the, in the technology industry.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: And you've done some stuff out of the country even.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: That's right. So a lot of the companies that I've been a part of have these different delivery models. So I've been a part of organizations that are all US Based.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: And then been a part of companies that are based in Eastern Europe and Asia.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: And then the last like seven or eight years or so, I've been a part of companies that are based out of Latin America.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: And so that most of the software engineers are in, you know, another country, but we're delivering services here in the, in the U.S. that's great.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: That's great.
So what, like, if we had any moms that were interested in going into sales or technology, what would you say to them?
[00:17:38] Speaker B: So I, I would say it's, it's definitely doable. And it's, it's one of the few industries that I feel like that there's so much content and courses and things that are out there and potential mentorship programs and things like that that you can get past the, the hurdles. But if you get somebody that can, can bet on you, then it's. It's absolutely possible.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's awesome.
So I know recently you just made another big change. So talk a little bit about what you're doing today.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so in, in that journey of technology companies, I, I've played a lot of different roles from, you know, individual salesperson to director to vp, CRO and CEO. But it was always some type of growth, like helping organizations figure out how to package their services, get to market scale and either, you know, get acquired or, or acquire other companies has always been kind of the focus.
And so it was about two, three years ago I started having people in my network reaching out and asking for advice like, hey, how do we get unstuck? Or what do you think about this acquisition? Or what does this look like? And so I ended up starting a company on the side back then. It's called Wide Open Consulting. And so the term wide open comes from like wide open throttle on a motorcycle or you know, wide open gas in a, in a race car. Right, right. And so I started on the side a couple years ago and just really found a passion for this. And so it's, it's now going back to the industry that I've worked in and selling to that industry and helping these technical companies figure out how to take their service to market and how to have a better client experience and ultimately how to, how to grow their organization.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's awesome. So how long have you been doing this now for Chris?
[00:19:21] Speaker B: So it's come, it's month two. Month two.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: Last month was, was, was great. And now it's, you know, it's month two of doing it full time.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: It's been a couple of years of ongoing work, but it's now second month of a full time effort.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: Good for you. So I may take it you're not missing the travel.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, not missing the travel. And you know, I had some great coworkers, but I also don't miss some of my other previous co workers. So it's been, it's been really good to pick the clients that I want to work with and it's really cool to see the impact on that side of things.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: That's awesome. Well, I'm wishing you the best on this next endeavor. I'm sure you're going to do really well at that.
That's great. Um, so tell me a little bit about your kids are into racing now too, right?
[00:20:05] Speaker B: That's right. So my daughter is five, uh, and Emory is gonna start racing. They're called Junior Dragsters this year. So that's what Brittany grew up racing.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: And so it looks just like a full like top alcohol. Alcohol dragster, but it's just miniature. It's like kid size.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: And so both my daughter and my son Eli, who's nine now, will both race those this, this summer.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Wow, that's exciting. Yes, very exciting.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: It's a really fun family sport, you know, and it's. It's a good excuse to be out together as a family in the camper. And we have a really cool little community of. Of other families that we race with. And it's, It's a good, good learning opportunity for the kiddos, right, to learn how to take care of their car and do the mechanical side of it, but also how to race and good sportsmanship, how to win, how to lose, you know, all those key lessons.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's awesome. We had my son, and we went up into Toron last summer to see that blue Jay splay, and he had a friend up there that was racing one of the Formula one cars. Oh, that's great. And that was super cool to, like, go inside and see all the cars and meet the owners of the company and see his car and everything. That was really. I really enjoyed that. That was super fun.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: That's amazing. Yeah. I feel like Netflix has done a really good job of getting non racers, you know, involved with the. The Formula one show. And I feel like racing is one of those things you look at and it's like, oh, it's so easy. But then you get behind the scenes and you start to learn more about the sport and it's easy to get excited about it.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So my son, he's 20, almost 21.
When he was little, Lightning McQueen came out. And so from Lightning McQueen, we were following all these other racers and monster trucks, and I had never been exposed to that before in my life, but that was super cool to follow that and everything. That was very fun. Enjoyed that. Yeah, enjoyed that.
One of the things I found out in development a little bit, probably a little bit later than I should have, like, people that are super competitive are really good at fundraising, really good in sales and stuff like that. So I think half of our development team right now, they've played soccer or played lacrosse in college or whatever, and everybody's got that team spirit. Right. But they're also very competitive. And one of our core values here at Hope House is extreme ownership. So I see that play out in a number of different ways with our events and stuff like that. That. Which is pretty cool.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: That's. Yeah, that's. That's amazing. And that was definitely true for my personal story and what I've looked for in hiring other people on different growth, you know, related teams and things like that and services is like you said, though, it's the competitiveness, but also the willing to. Willingness to work together in A in a team. Yeah, it's really cool.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.
So you're part of the tech committee.
It's a recent commitment. You want to talk a little bit about your involvement so far with that or what you've. What you guys are doing?
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a couple. Couple of years ago in one of the board sessions we had started talking about just some different areas that were going on at Hope House. And one of the things that we had at the time was a on premise server here in the resource center.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Back in the day.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah, back in the day. And we had realized that the volunteer that was, you know, had set that up and that was doing the maintenance had moved out of state and that there was no kind of like maintenance or anything going on. And I think it was one of those situations where I was voluntold to start the IT committee, but happy to do so. But that was the genesis was okay, we got to figure out how to.
Let's get rid of an on prem server. We don't necessarily need that anymore. Let's move to the cloud. Yeah.
Let's get up to speed here a little bit.
But now the focus is how do we help Hope House from a technology perspective in the expansion efforts, national expansion, elc, but with the staff, with the team moms and start to help have technology be an asset instead of just something that we have to use.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Be more intentional about that. So I think my second desk here in the residential house was the server room.
I didn't know that, but I liked that because the door actually closed and I could actually make phone calls.
So that's pretty funny. That's great.
One of the things that obviously that we're working on here at Hope House is we got that million dollar gift from Mackenzie Scott and we wrote it as if we were going to use that money to expand Hope Houses in other parts of the country.
And I think that's super important that we have like certain things that when we get ready to roll this out, that we've got tech support for all those affiliates coming on board and everything so they can get up and move a little faster.
We've obviously have grown a lot over 20 plus years. We don't. We're in the cloud but, but, but we wanted to use that expertise a little bit differently and help them out, make sure that they can scale faster and everything. So we're super excited about that.
We're getting ready to talk to. We've got like five cities identified and we're. Elise and I are really excited. We've been working on our pitch and trying to figure out what this looks like and everything. So we're excited about expansion. That's going to be a big thing.
The Early Learning Center. We're running into a little bit of a snag with the child care assistance program where all the counties, all 70 or 64 counties in the state of Colorado are frozen, where there's no CCAP childcare assistance available for new moms, or if a mom were to move, which our moms move often.
And so if they change counties and go from one county to another county, then that's going to end their ccap.
So we're going to be working on that and trying to figure out how can we raise, you know, a million dollars more for, you know, direct assistance for those moms that don't have CCAPs. That's going to be a big thing right now. So even though we've opened that new early Learning center, this nag's been trying to figure out the funding for that because the whole structure of the building and the budget was built on ccap, you know, like, that's available for all of our moms. Now all of a sudden, that's been pulled away from us and everything. So we're going to be working on that.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: I remember those board sessions when we had put together that, you know, forecast model of really relying on CCAP and those kind of areas. And, you know, it's. It. To me, that's part of what I love so much about Hope House. As you look back at any of the major milestones, there's always a moment of, man, how are we going to get through this? And there's. There's always these but God kind of moments, right? And to me, seeing the elc, even, you know, that whole capital campaign and everything come together and the building now be. Be there and just be, you know, operational and those type of things. And it's now another moment of like, oh, my gosh, like, CCAP's getting pulled away.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: But, God, like, we need, you know, we need more people to. To understand about Hope House and get.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Connected and that's right.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: Help get through this next, you know, this next hurdle that's been.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Well, it's probably my funnest part of my job is being able to talk about what God's doing here at Hope House and just.
I think I have it figured out. Like, something happens and it's like, oh, yeah, he's got it figured out. I. I don't know what it is yet, but he's got it all figured out and everything like that. So I'm super excited to see what this next rest of the story is going to look like for that, which is going to be great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, why don't we just take a break here for a second and we'll be back in a minute.
Hi everyone, it's Celeste, development coordinator at Hope House Colorado. We have an awesome group of 233 champions called our Bedrock Builders who donate monthly gifts and we would love for you to join. This group is super special to our moms because it provides them stable support through an income stream that they know they can always count on. If you'd like to become a monthly donor, please visit hopehousecolorado.org donate now and make your recurring donation today. Thank you so much for empowering our teen moms.
All right, well, Chris, welcome back. And I was thinking like you could talk to us a little bit more about racing and obviously you had to do some fundraising and get sponsors and stuff like that. So what did that look like?
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny because I used to for a long time, you know, be kind of embarrassed by my story. I would want to kind of hide that I raced motocross and didn't go to college and all these things that I, you know, it was kind of like a chip on my shoulder. Right. And a lot of the different situations that I was involved with in, in business.
But it's funny now looking back, I almost pull all of my, you know, programs or coaching or things that we do with organizations from the racing days and the different like coaches and mentors and things like that that I had.
So I, I had one, one coach that was really a standout for me when I was living in Florida. And so we, it was, we, we lived at a training facility and we had a riding coach that we would ride with all day, every day. And then we had a personal trainer that we would work out with, you know, at the end of the day. And it was called the Pit. Cuz we, we just lived in this, it was a, a track and then around the track it was elevated and that's where all the like campers and temporary houses and everything were for all these, these racers.
And it was, it, this, this coach just really taught a lot about kind of the mental focus and what it would take like to have an attitude take to, to win and, and for him it wasn't necessarily even just about the on track performance, but it was just this, this attitude of A winner. Right. And it was about how you present yourself and how you hold yourself accountable and in all situations. And it was a big part of how we would do, you know, sponsorships and things like that is just how we would present ourselves, you know, every single day at the track or anytime we were at a public track, how were we present there? Were we helping other, you know, kids and other families and were we being respectful and kind and, you know, even on track, like, sometimes we may have been the fastest people there, but were we slowing down to help others, you know, and those type of things?
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Oh, that's interesting.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: And he would just, would teach all the time about how, like, every single thing you're doing, you're creating a brand for yourself in, you know, just like in every way. And we use that so much in, in.
In just getting all the resources that we needed to build a go racing. And it's a, it's amazing looking back now because that's so much of what we teach in business is, man. Every.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: Resources.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Yeah, every, Every, you know, client interaction is a point, is, Is an opportunity. Either like put a coin in the jar or take a coin out.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: You know, like every call, every email, every, you know, every meeting, every. Everything is a deliverable. Right. It's not just these, you know, big annual things. It's. It's every, Every little thing you do adds up to a, to a good outcome.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: I can remember Max's friend in Toronto was talking about, he was super excited. He was going out to dinner with a bunch of their sponsors and getting a chance to meet those people and everything and mingle with that. He was really looking forward to that. But I didn't even think about, like, you're cultivating those relationships.
So important.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I, I got, so I got the opportunity to even stay at that training facility because I was practicing at a public track and was just, you know, putting in a big effort and the, the head guy noticed and, and started talking to me and then heard my background. I got sort of, you know, racing later in life and these type of things and wanted me to be a part of the, the, you know, the, the training facility. So it's, it's amazing how those things start to, you know, tie together.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: That's super cool. We, that reminds me just all the connections here at a Hope House that we have, you know, like, well, there's a gentleman that's coming in. He's a painter. I can't remember exactly what type of painter, but he's holding an event for us in the fall, like a give back or whatever and like a number of, like we've got 50 churches in the donor database and another great way for us to meet people that own businesses, that want to help our girls when we get a chance and stuff like that, which is pretty cool. And like our development committee of the board, like they're constantly connecting our moms to job opportunities and they got to hear from some of the moms of the last development committee and you know, it makes a big impression if you're able to like meet somebody and connect and just who knows where that's going to lead to and stuff like that. I often think about, you know, we got that call from the Bill Ackerman estate about, oh, would you like to put together a grant request? Yes, sure, we'll put together a grant request. Get the grant request and then we have a meeting with them and then we're, Lisa's walking them through the campus and everything. And now, you know, is there anything else that you need?
Well, you know, we were supposed to build a second building when we were building the resource center and you know, be really helpful if we had a lead gift. Oh, okay. Well then like a few weeks go by, then all of a sudden, hey, we're going to give you a million dollar lead gift. The catch is you've got to like figure out how to raise the rest of the money by the next 10 months.
Oh, okay. Well, let's, let's tell that story and let's, let's figure this out.
So, you know, today we're here on this campus and there's no debt on the residential house, there's no debt on the resource center, there's no debt on the early learning center. It's just that's the kind of stuff I look back and all the training that I've done through development, like you should plan for more than 10% of your commitments are not going to come through and ours are less than 1%, less than half a percent didn't come through.
You're supposed to plan on, you know, this set, kind of a setback or whatever and none of that stuff comes, none of that stuff happens or whatever.
So it's always, it's really interesting to me, like just looking back, like, God just shows up here, like crazy things happen. Like at one point when I first worked here, we had like a bulletin board of oh, we need a dishwasher, oh, we need this, we need that.
And then all of a sudden random people would call or knock on the Door and drop off those items. It's just like, are you kidding me? Like, how is this happening?
[00:34:15] Speaker B: There's so many stories like that that stick out for me at Hope House, and I was thinking the same thing of the ELC and just remember sitting there saying, like, oh, we get this huge lead gift, but it's like, oh, there's wait, we have 12 months to raise the rest.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: It's like, less than 12 months.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
That was incredible. But it's for me. And I don't know that this gets talked about enough. Like, I. One of the. One of the inspirational things for me, especially getting to, you know, see it from, like, a board's member point of view, is the leadership team at Hope House is one of the best leadership teams that I've ever seen or been a part of. And I think you and the team have this incredible ability to, you know, always be aspiring for great results. But along with this just amazing humility, like, you and the team are just constantly looking for ways to get better or, hey, this last campaign, we could have done this or this event or this approach or whatever, and it's just this constant improvement. And I. And I think about that attitude and approach that you and the team have had over, you know, 14. You said 14 years, right?
[00:35:15] Speaker A: 14 years for me.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: And imagine if you weren't doing those things for the 14 years. Like, there would have been no way you could have. You know, the team could have raised the money in 10. 10 months, 12 months.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: We've been just gradually scaling, I think, on average, over 10% every year over year, sometimes 20% or whatever.
In the 14 years I've been here, there's been only one year where we didn't hit our goal, and that was after the COVID thing. Like, we had two incredible years. Like, I remember when we moved into the building, it was like, oh, wow, that's done. We don't have to worry about that. Then six months later, Covid hit. It was like, oh, pandemic fundraising. What does that look like? We had no idea what we're doing.
And people, our champions just showed up for us. It was just amazing. The next two years were we raised more than we were. We had hoped for. And I can remember sitting at the whiteboard with Lisa going, okay, so if we completely close our doors, how are we gonna. We're not gonna fundraise, right? Like, people are just closing up their doors. So at that point, we were like, okay, we're gonna somehow figure out how to keep our doors open.
Our girls Are not safer at home, right? Yeah. Like there were so many people that were. Felt like safer at home. But for our moms, that was not the case.
And we were just able to like tell our story. The girls would just pull up and we would put diapers and food or whatever they needed in their cars.
We tried to do something online, show and tell with the little kids. That was not good online. We could figure that out. But there are other classes we could figure out and stuff like that. And those two years, like afterwards, like, we, we did really well. So that one year, I think it was 22, that was the only year that in the 14 years I've been here, we've not hit our goal.
But at that point we'd had enough money saved and put aside for that rainy day or whatever.
We were okay. And then the next year, I'll never forget, like calling the poor treasure and going, we have raised exactly over what we missed last year. We ended up going over that, but it was like in the middle of December, I'm calling him going, you're not going to believe it. We're at exactly $103,000 over what we missed last year. So that was pretty cool.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: That's incredible.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I could, I could write a book, but Lisa's got the book thing. I don't need to write a book about that. I'm happy to tell those stories about everything that God's doing here at Hope House. And I'm, I'm super excited about what's going to happen next with the early learning center. We've been talking about housing. Like, what does that look like for housing? Like affordable housing here. We used to be able to tell all the moms here, like, hey, you got a job at 12 bucks an hour. You could get a two bedroom apartment and you'd be, you'd be set. Well, that's out the window. There's no, that's not the case here anymore. So we got to figure out affordable housing for our moms and that's the next big thing that there's in my head. There's three things I gotta work on, so those are the next ones on my list.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been great to see the, the progress in, in those areas and like you said, the national expansion and then starting to plan out what will affordable housing look like and how can, you know, Hope House provide that resource for the girls. It's, you know, to me it's going to be another one of those moments where we look back and go, wow, we didn't have this or that approach. And look at. Look at what God's done through. Through Hope House.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah. I am super excited that you're here to join me today and share a little bit about your story and talk about the racing piece of it. And I remember working with Brittany way back in the day, and I appreciate how much you guys have, like, stayed involved and have given back to Hope House and everything like that. Chris, thank you for being here today.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Thanks for having me. And we just. We're so grateful to be a part of Hope House and just love this organization.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: Right back at ya.
Things I didn't know? The things I didn't know about you?
Oh, precious. So the things I didn't know? The things I didn't know about you?
About you.
