Private Equity’s Guide to Impactful Giving with Katie Marchetti

[00:00:00] Sean Mooney: Welcome to the Karma School of Business, a podcast about the private equity industry, business best practices, and real time trends. I'm Sean Mooney, BluWave's founder and CEO. Today we have a really special episode. In most of our episodes, we talk about the art of effectively and professionally building businesses.

Today, we're going to talk about giving back. I think most business builders find a lot of joy in charitably giving back to those in need. But if you're like me, it's also really daunting to do it in a way that's organized and scalable, as your ability to do more increases over time. So today we're joined by BluWave alum and superhero Katie Marchetti, who is the Vice President of Philanthropic Services with the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.

Katie is going to give our listeners a roadmap for how you can really kind of start small, but then seamlessly scale to do things like scholarships and even foundations over time. So hopefully this is something that really resonates with a lot of our listeners today, particularly during a period of giving like now. Enjoy.

So today we have a very special guest, the one and only Katie Marchetti. So Katie is not only a superpower, she's also a great person and an all star BluWave alum. Yes. So Katie, thanks so much for joining us.

[00:01:46] Katie Marchetti: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:47] Sean Mooney: So this is good. I've been looking forward to this for a long time when we started talking about this.
This podcast actually evolved out of a conversation we had, and one of the things that What we're really going to dive deep on today is this whole idea of giving back. And I think many of the folks who are listeners to this really believe in this idea of being thankful and giving back based upon the successes that you've had over time.
I'll share, I think our listeners have the same kind of feeling. While a lot of people want to give back, they find that world very daunting. It's this broad sea of options. You don't know who's really good. There's all sorts of rules. There's all sorts of kind of changes in that landscape. And you don't necessarily even know where the money goes and how it's impacting things.
And should I go deep? Should I go broad? And so it's a really kind of intimidating space for people who aren't involved with it.

[00:02:42] Katie Marchetti: Yep. Understandably. And I've been there.

[00:02:46] Sean Mooney: So Katie and I were talking about her latest mission that she's involved in that world, and she made it so clear and concise and took the fear out of it for me.
So I thought this would be a really good thing to talk to the folks who listen to this with as well, because I'm sure they're thinking about a lot of the same things. Mm hmm.

[00:03:03] Katie Marchetti: Makes sense. And I'm happy to do that.

[00:03:05] Sean Mooney: Great. So before we dive too deep into that, maybe Katie, can you give us just a little bit of the story of you?
Sure.

[00:03:13] Katie Marchetti: So I'm a Nashville native, which I know makes me somewhat unique being in Nashville now, a unicorn as they say, and grew up here and then left for university and hadn't really been back since I started out as an attorney. I'm now a recovering attorney. I was in equity capital markets and. London for a while and then moved to a group called Gerson Lehrman Group.
We work with a lot of the financial sector, private equity hedge funds, and spent about 11 years there on London and then moved back to Nashville with my family just before the pandemic with the three kids and convinced my husband from Ireland to do the same. And then once we got back here was with BluWave for a few years, which was such a learning.
And understanding also the finance landscape in the States. And then after that had played around a little bit with venture capital, but still with kind of a little niggling in the back of my mind, which pervaded a lot of my career with how do I exactly, as you said, give back. And I think that I was doing that in my free time for much of my career, but was never more fully focused on it.
And then in March of 2023, there was a seminal moment with the Covenant shooting that happened. And I took a break from paid work for about a year to prop up a firearm safety lobbying group and nonprofit called Voices for Safer Tennessee. I am still on the board of a local HBCU trying to give my resources and time to writing some of the hurdles that they are overcoming and then found my way to the community foundation, which was the answer to my, how do I make the world a better place and make money at the same time?
That's kind of where I've ended up. And I feel like that itch has finally been scratched. It's definitely presented a whole host of new learnings and new challenges because the nonprofit world is very different, but I feel like I've found a lovely marriage between my skill set with my finance and law background and my passion for improving the backyard that is Nashville and Middle Tennessee.

[00:05:42] Sean Mooney: This is gonna be really interesting because the Community Foundation has a quite novel approach, I think, in terms of bringing kind of excellence And precision to this world that is so neat and we'll drill down into that a little bit in a second here But before we let you off the hook I gotta ask One of my favorite questions, which is more about Katie Marchetti that doesn't show up on the LinkedIn.

[00:06:05] Katie Marchetti: On the LinkedIn.

[00:06:06] Sean Mooney: And so one of the questions I'd love to ask is we'd know you better if we knew this about you.

[00:06:11] Katie Marchetti: Oh, definitely.

[00:06:12] Sean Mooney: What are one of those things?

[00:06:13] Katie Marchetti: Yes. So I like to tell the very sophisticated version of me where I have two passports and I speak Italian and I've lived all over the world and interacted with prime ministers and traveled blah, blah, blah. But the gist of me is. perfectly encapsulated in the story of being born when my father was in law school in Knoxville, and my mother had taken, because she thought I was the most beautiful baby in the world, and had taken me to see my dad in Knoxville and they took a Polaroid of me and went down to the local Kmart and entered me into the beautiful baby contest that Kmart was hosting.
And shockingly, I didn't win. So at heart, I am I'm just a little, the oldest of a family of Tennesseans that are trying to make it in the local Kmart pulling board, unsuccessfully, needless to say, so.

[00:07:12] Sean Mooney: I love that. And hopefully you got those 2 shoes that they were marketing for a while.

[00:07:17] Katie Marchetti: I really, I hope my mom reaped all the benefits of entering that contest.

[00:07:22] Sean Mooney: And so for our younger generation listeners, there's a store called Kmart.

[00:07:26] Katie Marchetti: Oh, that's true.

[00:07:26] Sean Mooney: Kmart created this whole like category. Of kind of superstores and when we were kids. Certainly when I was a kid, they had this infamous commercial that was put to the music of Electric Avenue, where you're going to walk down to Kmart to buy some shoes.
They only cost a dollar. And so, so that was the ultimate cut down when we were in like fifth grade is you bought dollar shoes at Kmart.

[00:07:53] Katie Marchetti: You bought dollar shoes at Kmart and things were cheap.

[00:07:56] Sean Mooney: In my family, we probably did.

[00:07:58] Katie Marchetti: That's it. I forgot that Kmart is no longer around. Wow, I just really dated myself. That's awesome.

[00:08:03] Sean Mooney: I love that tidbit of trivia. Now that I can file that away and that'll be a, that'll be a conversation that we can delve into with a beer, a glass of wine. And so let's go back to the community foundation. Can you share a little bit about what the community foundation is, how they do things, how you all make a difference?

[00:08:20] Katie Marchetti: Sure. So community foundations have been around in the U. S. for, Over a hundred years at this point, and I think that they initiated in some of the bigger cities of the time, like the Cleveland, Ohio's, a lot of Midwest kind of powerhouse cities that may or may not still be as quickly growing today. What it ended up being was local banks and funders were putting aside certain amounts of money in case of emergency, basically.
So imagine like a safe on the side of the bank where people would just contribute to a fund. As in when a tornado hit the town or something, mass tragedy hit, the people who needed it would have access to funds. So fast forward to today and some IRS blessings along the way, community foundations exist all over the U.
S. They can be addressing specifically cities or regions of states or entire states. Oregon has one that covers the entire state, but what we exist to do is connect generosity with need. So you have people out of the passion and goodness of their hearts are setting aside a certain amount of money in a charitable institution, which it is.
So as soon as you give money, for example, to the community foundation in middle Tennessee, You get your tax write off from a purely utilitarian perspective that is done. But what happens then is your money with a donor advised fund, it is sitting in what you can think of as a charitable bank account. So think of having budgeted, say you've given a hundred dollars at the beginning of the year, throughout the year, as and when you encounter institutions or events that you want to give money to, you can go to that account and request the grant out to the various.
nonprofits or 501c3s. They all have to be true 501c3s that you want to give money to. So the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee is reflective of a lot of the more sophisticated community foundations around the country where we meet you with whatever your inclination is from a charitable perspective.
So if you are wanting to set up, again, a donor advised fund, that's probably the easiest entry point. And a more thoughtful approach again is thinking about setting up, my husband and I, we allocate a certain amount of money at the beginning of the year. We say, this is how much we want to give away. In reality, we can set up a donor advised fund with the community foundation that will be earning interest.
That money is invested by the community foundation with a manager. So you'll be earning interest on it. And I get my tax write off straight away. And throughout the year, as in when I want to make a recommendation for grants, it goes out that way. Now, taking it up kind of the value chain, it can get more and more sophisticated with setting up an endowment, if that's what you want to do, setting up a scholarship fund, a corporate entity could set up a corporate care fund where you are doing in a tax efficient way.
Setting up an account where, for instance, at BluWave, you will be setting aside a pocket of money to assist individuals within your employees or their families and dependents in a way that can support them as and when they hit tragedy. And a chunk of what we do as well with fees that we're charging people to keep their cash there.
is also give out grants to local nonprofits. So it's a fraction of the overall amount that we manage, but each year we'll have nonprofits go through grant cycles where they will apply for these grants. If they meet the certain buckets that we're designating assistance for, and then we'll grant out money to the ones that we feel most merit the funds and are doing the best work making the most impact, if that makes sense.
Yeah,

[00:12:28] Sean Mooney: no, it makes a ton of sense. And so as I'm kind of visualizing this, it's In some ways, it's not terribly different than BluWave, and it's a more sophisticated version in some ways, because someone who wants to be active and proactive and charitable giving can come to you. They can put their capital, whether it's a person or a company, in one place.
And it sounds like you're helping with, understand, here's like compliance that you have to do. That's exactly right. If you don't know where to go here, your options, and do

[00:12:57] Katie Marchetti: you vet those options? We do. It's such a good question. And thank you for bringing that up. With the first question on the compliance front, we take all of the heavy lifting off your back.
So there's the iteration of charitable giving where you just have your bank account and it's sitting there and as and when you are motivated by a certain entity or cause, and you pull out the checkbook, shockingly, so much of nonprofit work is still in checks, which drives me nuts, but that's okay. You take out the checkbook or do the ACH transfer or credit card and off you go, there goes the 2, 000 to whatever entity you've just discovered.
With the Community Foundation, what we are doing is trying to understand the real philanthropic anchors. So I meet Sean Mooney. I understand that his motivations are. Children who are in or have graduated from the foster care system, for example, I will work with you throughout the year, knowing how much money you want to give, or even if you don't know, then I will work with you as your philanthropic steward to ensure that you understand all of the entities in the backyard that meet your expectations for philanthropy.
entities that are working specifically with foster care youth or graduates from the foster care system. We have a very cool platform that our donors have access to called Giving Matters. It is such a wonder and I cannot believe that I didn't know about it before I got to the Community Foundation, but it's a portal where all certified 501c3s submit their information.
So I think we have 1, 800 non profits on this portal. So you can go in and type in, okay, I want to give to entities that focus on early childhood development within Davidson County that are focused on ages three to six, poof, tell me everything. And they'll give you however many entities that do that. We can pull this for you as well at the Community Foundation, but you get really smart really quickly and we can be as involved as you like.
Some people, they know what their jam is. They love TPAC or the opera or whatever it is. And that's what they want to give to. That is wonderful. All of the entities, I feel like that we help are worthy entities. If you do want to get more involved and you say, Hey Katie, I actually want to do a site visit to the local boys and girls club.
We get this a lot from people new to Nashville where they know the landscape in San Francisco. They know the landscape in London or New York or whatever, but now they're here in Tennessee. And they want to understand, okay, I've moved from a gigantic city where I had no understanding of real entry points.
I've just landed here. How do I get involved? And importantly, how do I connect with other folks of my ilk that are also motivated by the same thing? So they call us and we organize, for example, donor education series, where you're going to hear from nonprofits who are doing the work, or you're going to go on a site visit, or you want to start talking about legacy gifts, like, okay, I'm 48 now, so.
Hopefully I've got some time left, but as the clock ticks on and you start to think about, Oh, what do I want my legacy to be? And where do I want to set up in perpetuity support for entities that I care about? We can help you with that. And I think that Nashville is such a lovely city in that regard, where we are very connected city.
It's a very communal city. People really do want to get involved. And the community foundation is just a perfect first port of call in that regard. I talk about it as the virtual casserole and bear with me with this ham fisted metaphor. When you used to move to a neighborhood in the South, the local welcome wagon community would show up at your door, generally with a casserole and say, welcome to the neighborhood.
Here's your casserole. Um, and whoever, I live right next door or three doors down. And if we can ever help, cup of sugar, whatever, we're there for you. And that is what I want the Community Foundation to be. I want us to be the first port of call. When people move to town, land with us, let us give you the lay of the land, let us connect you to similar people who have had, and we have a lot of this in Tennessee, we've just had a big exit, and my family has moved to Tennessee for a better quality of life, and we're not sure how to get connected to the broader community.
Philanthropy is a great way to connect. Start to integrate.

[00:17:22] Commercial: Today's episode is brought to you by BluWave. Building a business is hard. Top third parties can help you create value with speed and certainty, but it's difficult to know who's best. That's why you need the business builders network, visit BluWave at B L U W A V E.
net to learn more and start a project today.

[00:17:43] Sean Mooney: I love that for a lot of things. So if I think about what we do, which is totally random, it's, we've got a few charities that we do each year. At some point in the year, we enter our credit card, and just push it through, and then right around end of March, we're frantically looking for, like, receipts in some email that we're not sure we even, sometimes it shows up, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it's mailed, so even just the basics, we're like, totally Random.
Yeah. And then someone will send us something during the year, and then we'll randomly do that one because it seems like a good charity, but then I'm going on the internet and like Googling this charity and 10 string words to say, is this a real charity? And then you're like, you're not sure. And then you go to like 10 websites, like, okay, I guess it's real.
And then at the end of March, I still can't find that one ever. So I never know what I've even given to, yes. I hope I'm compliant. I know I am because I got like a credit card receipt after going through like a year worth of like multiple credit cards. Yeah. And so at the very least, it sounds like you're organizing all this for those who are getting started.

[00:18:51] Katie Marchetti: Yes, very true. You touched on something. I saw an example of where I thought, my God, if people could just look at this, you think about all of the charitable institutions, for instance, that you supported all of your life. When you give through an entity like the Community Foundation, not only do we help organize your giving because we are doing all of it at your recommendation and it's captured in our system, but we produce reports for donors and philanthropists where they can Do a look back on their tenure, for example, with the community foundation, and you can see the impact that you've had.
I just did one for a family a couple months ago where it was six years worth of giving. And this wasn't like an ultra high net worth family, but when you look at it in total, it is just remarkable. And you think of every dollar, especially with, as you said, nonprofits that really merit those funds. It is astounding when you see that number and you think, my God, like, you know, that every dollar with second harvest creates X number of meals for children that need it.
And you look at a bigger dollar number over a number of years and you rightfully feel very proud. And the other thing that we do on the nonprofit side, we really do assist nonprofits and making themselves as effective as possible, collaborating with the ecosystem that they're playing. And if they're addressing.
people who are unhoused currently, then we will ensure that if they are addressing the food part of that, then we'll connect them with the entity that's helping with hygiene and connect them with the back to work scheme and then accessing the financial system again, ensuring that everyone is playing in the ecosystem in a way that is most impactful to the people that need it.
And we limit redundancy. And we're also helping them with writing grants, you have an incredible institution or a credible nonprofit that you sprung up from a very grassroots perspective and you're doing incredible work and there is no reason for you to know about this other place that can help you really improve how you apply for grants or whatever it is.

[00:21:13] Sean Mooney: Yeah, I like that in terms of one, like you said, there's a whole kind of cadre of things you can do and it's not only Individuals, it's corporates. And so even a BluWave, we set aside part of our budget each year to give to charities that we believe in and support. And we have an impact program and these other things that also use the ecosystem to help others.
It's even particularly something there. We have to really make sure we're bundled up because it's within a corporate setting and what you're doing for companies in particular, as I think about our private equity firm listeners who have growing programs, this sounds something like custom built for them, where it's an easy button.
Most private equity firms are not large companies. They're small businesses. And so they can go to one place and have their give back program. Probably even in a unified way between the corporate and the individuals.

[00:22:04] Katie Marchetti: That's right.

[00:22:05] Sean Mooney: To do things with kind of a one, two kind of coordinated effort.

[00:22:08] Katie Marchetti: That's exactly right.
And the entities that we steward through this process are everyone from huge groups like blue cross blue shield, Amazon, those types of big entities down to a 50 person shop, 20 person shop who wants to. Set aside a certain amount of charitable giving for the year. And then again, as involved as you want to be, do you also want to set up a volunteer day where all of you go to again, boys and girls clubs on my mind, cause they just do such incredible work.
And I was just there last Friday, but. If you want to go there and help them build the desks for their new teen center, then we can help connect you with Eric that is the CEO of that entity. For example, you're exactly right in terms of hitting the easy button where you just pick up the phone, call us, tell us what you want to do, and we meet you where you are.
And if it's at a level you say, I want to set up a 200 scholarship. Then I'll say, actually, it's probably best to send that check to an existing scholarship fund, for example, because it's not going to be worth your time and effort to execute that will help guide you on choosing kind of the right tool.
In fact, on our website, we have a find your fund tool, if you will. So you can go on and type in. What you're trying to do, and it'll narrow down the options for you. And then you can learn more about it. You learn about what an endowment actually involves or what a legacy gift involves, you have a super complicated gift with real estate or.
IRA benefits or whatever it is, we truly can meet whatever your interest in philanthropy is and ensure that it is really maximized in terms of impact.

[00:23:56] Sean Mooney: This kind of really came out of the original conversation we had. What I thought was quite interesting was the fact that you think about most people, right, who are kind of thinking about this.
It's your early days. You want to do something in an organized way, but you're starting to have kids. You have a house. There's only so much you can do, but you want to get started. As you grow in your career, you have more, but then you've got college and those type of things, but you want to really get things going and the same thing.
You also want your kids to learn these lessons and get them involved. And then suddenly. You're really hitting the peak of your career. Your kids are now out of college. You're finally like I have liquidity. Yeah Aspire to see what that's like Someday, but then you're like, hey, you know what this school made a big impact on my kids Can we do a scholarship or this charity was really impactful because we're really into childhood poverty Can we do more whether it's a scholarship or endowment?
But getting going and getting started, like you always have to start somewhere, but it sounds like it can seamlessly continue to scale as your life changes over time.

[00:25:03] Katie Marchetti: The short answer is yes. We work with people and entities that can start off really small. I mean, we work with startups, um, participating in the 3686 conference and we working with even nonprofit startups, corporate startups.
that want to really plant the seed in their own minds and those of their employees with how things can grow and ensure that philanthropy is a continued part of their growth trajectory. You're exactly right. You might start with a contribution to, for instance, the Girls Give Fund. This is a pre existing fund that you can contribute into, but it's about helping women and girls be healthier and basically maximize their potential regardless of how many.
Speed bumps are thrown their way. You can get involved with that and a few thousand dollars, and then we will work with you to ensure you can remain as involved or as contributive as you like to be two things I'll say about that. When I first moved to London, I was a poor student and my favorite nonprofit was a dance theater that at a very subsidized version could.
provide tickets for cheap, but you could always access it no matter who you were. And I remember my first contributions were, I was like, yes, I want to be a sustaining member. I'll give you 50 pounds a year. And by the time I left London, those checks were substantially bigger. They allowed me to kind of grow with them.
And that is exactly how we want to serve those who have a passion for philanthropy. from the Community Foundation. And you touched also on engaging second generation and your children. It is something that is so important. And I see it so many times, especially with ultra high net worth families where maybe the matriarch or the patriarch had the hustle and had the grit to earn the money that they are now able to benefit from and contribute in an impactful way.
Maybe the second generation. didn't have that type of exposure, and they maybe don't have the same level of philanthropy. So we work with them to try to figure out what does light that spark for them. A really creative thing that we did with a family, I think it was last year, instead of hitting the second generation, which may or may not get involved, instead of hitting them directly over Thanksgiving, we took the patriarch and the grandkids to the zoo.
And the parents, the second generation, just kind of got to watch. But what we did was set up with the Nashville Zoo, taking them around to the different exhibits and each would pitch their nonprofit. It's okay, you're looking at elephants now. This is a Save the Elephants nonprofit. And this is what that is.
And the kids, like ages seven to 10, I think, got to decide, all 10 of them got to decide Which nonprofit they were ultimately going to support. And they ended up choosing the animal hospital because they serve us all the animals and they didn't have to leave any out in the dark all along. You're engaging the second generation because they're seeing how their children are making decisions and they're seeing how easy it is.
And the first generation is obviously pleased because those seeds of philanthropy are now kind of sprinkled across. So, I think that we are, again, trying to meet people where they are, what are you trying to achieve, and how do we, again, maximize the impact, get the resources that you have to the people that need it.

[00:28:32] Sean Mooney: It's a really good point in terms of, as I think about it, as our family grows and evolves and ability to give in progressively bigger ways. over time, but you really want to impart those values as early as possible on kids because you want them not only from the day to day but also the actions of giving physically to others.
That's it.

[00:28:54] Katie Marchetti: The site visits, seeing the impact that is made. It's irreplaceable. I was at an event last year for the Sexual Assault Center in Nashville, and was so moved by one of the testimonies that was given the night of the event, I said, oh gosh, I'd love to take a tour of the entity itself. Utterly blown away.
Just absolutely couldn't believe that this entity that I maybe had heard of, maybe not, was doing so much good work in the community, and just seeing it, you You can't unsee it. You can't unsee that. And fast forward to this year and I'm chairing their the event this year. But you just think of all those little ripples of goodness that happen just in terms of awareness and the impact that it makes on our community.
And as much as you might agree or disagree with some of the trajectories that Nashville as a city is taking or any, pick your poison, any other hyper growth city, at the end of the day, Nashville is my home. It is my backyard. I'm not going, I'm not leaving and I want to stay and make it.

[00:29:58] Sean Mooney: as good as possible.
Yeah, kind of give local, be local, but you can also give nationally. But it also sounds like you kind of mentioned kind of these like butterfly effects. Getting started with little or relatively little efforts have huge downstream efforts. That's exactly right. And they grow over time and then suddenly you get instead of ripples, it's waves.

[00:30:15] Katie Marchetti: Yes. And also to ensure that it's done in a thoughtful way, like the impassioned kind of opportunistic giving, keep doing that. But also if you set up an endowment, If you have a designated fund, you're going to be supporting that entity in perpetuity with a few caveats. Like we make sure that if the entity isn't there and 10 years that the money is going to go to a similar type of organization, all that jazz.
But again, like looking at the lasting impact, say you have 50 grand hold up before you just write a check directly to the institution, think about setting up a fund so that can be supported forever and ever.

[00:30:54] Sean Mooney: I really liked that in terms of not only the kind of like. Be a professional, manage this money professionally so it can have the biggest impact.
What are some of the other considerations? Are there like compliant, like if you're a DIYer, which people absolutely can and should do if they're offered, but what are some of the things that they should be thoughtful about if you're a DIYer?

[00:31:12] Katie Marchetti: That's a really good question. Compliance is real. The IRS is real.
They don't give away tax benefits for free and you have to do it in a thoughtful way. So we try to take the headache out of that process. And if you are a DIYer, just make sure you consult professionals, just talk to your wealth manager. Be as exploratory, ask the hard questions, find out what your options are.
At the end of the day, just make sure that the resources that you have chosen to contribute to charitable causes are done in a box ticking way. And the way that I think about it, probably the heaviest lift is setting up your own foundation. That requires a lot of people power to set up a foundation. And at the other end of the scale, you've got a donor advised fund, which is essentially your charitable bank account.
What people don't know is there are loads of options in the middle are available to you. And we can help you find what that choice is that makes sense for you, if that makes sense. And there, there really are a lot of options. People think, Oh, it's too much work. I'm just not going to bother. I'll just keep writing checks.
Keep doing that if that is what you want to do, but it's definitely worth exploring some of the other entities in the middle.

[00:32:31] Sean Mooney: And as I kind of like think through, as you're saying this, as I think through starting off in kind of the ad hoc way that we did today, and our family has conversations about mapping forward like where we want to get to in the years ahead.
In my mind, every day I think of the person in the news who tried to do something well or nice, and they screwed it up. name the celebrity, name the sports person. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this seems so daunting.

[00:32:56] Katie Marchetti: That's exactly right. And the Community Foundation, interestingly, we have a sector that focuses on, we call it the Music Community Foundation, where we are supporting the charitable giving.
of two of the biggest stars in the world right now that happen to be from Nashville. And we take that onus very, very seriously. And we really want to go above and beyond because you're exactly right. There are considerations that shouldn't cross their mind necessarily. If they're trying to do good, we make sure that if you want to give a car to the person on American Idol that doesn't have a car, And you want to do that for them?
We want to make sure that it's done in the right way, that you are appropriately satisfying all the requirements from the IRS perspective, but also that we can help you get if you want this to receive as much or as little PR as you want, we want to help you identify the people who can help you do that.
And, and avoid the

[00:33:54] Sean Mooney: bad PR.

[00:33:55] Katie Marchetti: And most importantly, avoid the bad PR. And I'm

[00:33:58] Sean Mooney: quite confident I will never have that level of exposure or notoriety, but I'm equally afraid of screwing up the paperwork. You never know,

[00:34:05] Katie Marchetti: Sean. I was very satisfied with the level of sophistication when I got to know more about the Community Foundation and saw the levels of complexity and the way that they ensure the wishes of the fund holders are truly fulfilled in the optimal way.
It made me feel very happy that it's a set of pros, if that makes sense. Which made me feel good. And there's a lot of stuff that I'm still learning. And I'm glad that there's like walking encyclopedias at the community foundation that know a lot more than I do.

[00:34:37] Sean Mooney: So if people want to hit the easy and excellent button, are they, can they use you or their ones locally?
What, how do they find organizations that will do this for them and make it easy and

[00:34:47] Katie Marchetti: excellent? The easiest is look in your backyard, your community, most of the places, I mean, presumably most of your listeners are in the U S there are community foundations that will cover your region. Give them a call and see what they're.
Abilities are, if they can't help you, they'll probably be able to direct you to the entity that can help them. There are other options too. There's the Fidelity charitables, the vanguards, all that stuff that you've probably heard about from your wealth manager. I had a Fidelity charitable account as well, and it served its purpose.
It was more from a budgeting perspective. And then I was just kind of donating out from there. What I didn't get me personally, what I was seeking was guidance on the nonprofits, like who is doing the best work proactively reach out to me. If you found out that an interesting new nonprofit has started, that is addressing this particular sector of the hunger crisis and the states, or over COVID, for example, my God, the kids that were getting their meals at school all of a sudden, aren't.
I want to know about that. I want to know. This particular segment of the population is facing significant insecurity. We are proactively reaching out to you to let you know about it and see if you want to help. And I want to get educated too. I want to meet other people who are in my same group. So that for instance, was not what I was getting from the groups that my wealth manager suggested per se.
For

[00:36:14] Sean Mooney: the community foundation that you're involved with, do they have to be in kind of the Nashville Metro, Middle Tennessee, or can people from across the country, if they just say, Hey, this sounds pretty good. Can we call Katie and just use that? Cause I know they're good versus I don't know how the Milwaukee one is.

[00:36:30] Katie Marchetti: We have fund holders from across the U. S. The majority is based in Middle Tennessee and we cover 45 counties across Middle Tennessee. That said, We help get fund holders from all over the U S that like what we do, that like the process and some of them also that we have the credibility stamp of, you can look on our website and see the families and the entertainers and those types of folks that are fund holders with us, that trust us.
And I think that that helps with kind of the credibility stamp. So they know that these people have an expectation of excellence. Thanks. And so the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee is a good spot.

[00:37:12] Sean Mooney: We'll put links in the notes for those of you who want to learn more specifically about the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
But there are also others, it sounds like across the country, that can do this as well that people can be mindful of. There's certainly an excellent one that we know of right here.

[00:37:28] Katie Marchetti: That's exactly right.

[00:37:29] Sean Mooney: It was really instructive. This was a whole world that I didn't even know existed before our conversation.

[00:37:34] Katie Marchetti: I didn't either. In fact, and I forgot to mention this when you and I had first started talking about it, the only interaction that I had had with Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee specifically was after the Waverly Flood. We as an entity of BluWave, we're researching what is a reputable place to give to ensure that the dollars get to the people that need it.
And it was the community foundation of middle Tennessee. And that is a stream of support that we consistently activate in times of crisis.

[00:38:03] Sean Mooney: You've got a bat phone that gets flipped on. And so we, we're

[00:38:06] Katie Marchetti: in contact with whoever the local entity is, the Sheriff's office, the local disaster recovery unit, the Red Cross, whatever it is.
They contact us to flip on the fundraising button and increasingly with climate change we're seeing so much more of it. And I actually can't think of a geography across the US that hasn't had to really skill up in that regard. And I did want to say one more thing too, and hopefully plucking on the heartstrings of listeners to a certain extent.
Nashville is benefiting from true hyper growth. We're one of the fastest growing cities in the U S we've seen this play out and other cities across the U S where they've gone through rapid periods of growth. You've had a lot of folks moving their businesses that have really benefited. From our tax protocol or, you know, the highly educated population that exists in Nashville and the number of people that want to live here.
Those are all wonderful, wonderful things. What the community foundation does as well is also keeping an eye on who is this leaving out like in these hyper growth cities. Are we further marginalizing segments of the population that have been here all along and now they are not benefiting from oftentimes the growth.
Nashville, for example, I don't want it to be a tale of two cities. I want a rising tide to lift all ships, including those that might not be part of the corporate ecosystem. And what is wonderful about it is it just makes you want to do more of it. Every single site visit, every single volunteer opportunity, every time I meet these entities who are doing such creative, wonderful things, you just want to do more.
And our building, for example, where, for those of you in Nashville, we're on the corner of two very busy streets and Green Hills. It's a big building and we have opened up the entire bottom floor for any nonprofit who wants to use it. We'll They just booked the rooms. And so we have people coming in and out all the time.
This group is focused on. Metro Nashville Public Schools. This one is focused on firearm safety. This one's focused on a live hospice, whatever it is. And you see the folks coming through all the time, and they're getting to interact with each other and learn. It's kind of like a big clubhouse with all of these wonderful folks who are doing the work in Nashville, and in addition to the fund holders who we're also meeting with, and they get to peek in and listen to meetings and things like that.

[00:40:40] Sean Mooney: And I love that. It's kind of a beacon of the community. And you raise a good point. I think anyone who lives in one of these boom towns, like one of the standard lines I have with friends, they're talking about Nashville. And I'll tell them, like, my only fear is all the people like me are going to totally ruin this place.

[00:40:56] Katie Marchetti: It's a great point. And so it's a call to

[00:40:58] Sean Mooney: action to those who are coming here. One of my friends had a great line is, You can't be a missionary and a refugee at the same time, like, if you're a refugee, like, you got to come here, but don't cause, like, unintended consequences through the organization, and be aware and self aware that there's going to be an impact with the reams of people coming in, or they're going to impact those who are already here.
That's right. And be thoughtful and empathetic towards that.
Mm hmm.
Because the superpowers they're bringing are great. There's also some other things, but not so much. And so

[00:41:31] Katie Marchetti: that's exactly all

[00:41:32] Sean Mooney: of us. Like how do we become part of the community in an active way that supports the success of everyone,

[00:41:38] Katie Marchetti: including

[00:41:38] Sean Mooney: those who are new, but also those who are maybe being impacted by rising costs and changing traffic patterns.

[00:41:44] Katie Marchetti: That's exactly right. Noting too, that especially for probably the listeners of this podcast, this sentiment is relevant. Philanthropy can mean a lot of different things. When we say resources, that can mean. Your money, it can mean your time. It can mean your talent. It can mean your platform as well. I was speaking at a family office conference, uh, a couple of months ago, and I noted that and said, remember that people are listening to what you're saying, you are the CIO of this particular.
Families investments, like people are watching what you're doing and what you're saying. So if you can use that platform, for example, to bring attention to causes that otherwise might not have a lot of airtime, do it, use it. You're keeping 13 percent more of your income. Let me show you a way to save even more taxes.
Yeah,

[00:42:34] Sean Mooney: no, that's a good point. I was playing back what I said around the missionary and refugee, and that's really about like, don't bring the bad things that you're leaving from. As I think about it, you actually absolutely can be a missionary and a refugee. You can be a refugee. You're coming here for a reason, all the good things, but you can be a missionary and also like proactively bring good stuff too.

[00:42:53] Katie Marchetti: It's so easy to do. It's just the opportunities. And if you are struggling with how to get involved. Truly just pick up the phone. There are people there ready to show you around and it's not going to be a deluge. It's not like you pick up the phone all of a sudden, Oh God, I can't get off of these text lists or whatever.
That's not it. It's a curated way for, for instance, a community foundation or a nonprofit or whatever to meet you where you are.

[00:43:23] Sean Mooney: Hey, as a quick interlude, this is Sean here. I wanted to address one quick question that we regularly get. We often get people who show up at our website, call our account executives and say, Hey, I'm not private equity.
Can I still use BluWave to get connected with resources? And the short answer is yes. Even though we're mostly and largely used by Hundreds of private equity firms, thousands of their portfolio company leaders. Every day we get calls from every day, top proactive business leaders at public companies, independent companies, family companies.
So absolutely you can use this as well. If you want to use the exact same resources that are trusted and being deployed in perfectly calibrated for your business needs, give us a call. Visit our website at BluWave. net. Thanks back to the episode.
We've learned a lot. I've learned a ton that I didn't know even was possible. And it's a really good thing. I think a lot of people are, it's going to open a world that you thought you like, you had to be like, you're 70 years old and you've monetized your life work that, okay, then I'll do it. But you can get started today and build to that.
It doesn't have to be this binary all or nothing. That's something I learned. One other thing that I always like to learn is, you know, having worked together, I am a Frankenstein of other people's wisdom.

[00:44:42] Katie Marchetti: If

[00:44:42] Sean Mooney: it were up to me, that would have been a lot of trouble. So I'm a collector of advice. What would be one of the things that you've learned that you wish you knew back in time?
Maybe would have helped 22 year old Katie back in the day and she may not have listened but

[00:44:58] Katie Marchetti: I'm going to give you kind of a, more of a downer piece of advice that was realistic and then a motivator piece of advice, both of which have been incredibly helpful. The first was when I started having kids, I remember I was working with the first female managing director of very large hedge fund in London and she had two kids, I think they were younger.
And I was like 12 months pregnant with my first and I was like, get this baby out of my body. And how am I going to go back to work after this? And how am I going to manage all of it? And I remember her piece of advice was, Oh, Katie, don't, don't worry. When you're a working parent, you just get used to disappointing everyone a little bit all the time.
And I thought, Oh my God, that's so depressing. And then I thought, wait a minute, that's realistic. So I'm never going to please everybody all the time. Woo.

[00:45:49] Sean Mooney: Woo. It's liberating.

[00:45:50] Katie Marchetti: That was true liberation. The other piece, bringing it back to the topic of this conversation, for instance, when the mass shooting happened in Nashville, and I remember having a conversation with the two other people that I founded this nonprofit with, my, my first instinct when this shooting happened was, we're out of here.
We're going back to London where there are very few guns, I'm not trying to poke the political bear. But. It founded and affirmed all of my fears. And then I was chatting with the other two folks who were like, we need to do something. And they were pointing at, for instance, the Iranian women for the protest that was trying to call attention to the woman who was beaten in police custody to death.
They said, we need to do something very visible. We need to do something. I said, I don't know, guys, I think I'm just going to start making the plan to get out of here. I can't handle that. And I remember one of my still very, very dear friends said, Katie, if not us, then who?

[00:46:45] Sean Mooney: Yeah.

[00:46:46] Katie Marchetti: Looking at the population. We are in the upper income earners of the richest country in the world. We have almost every privilege behind us. Who are we waiting for? Who's going to swoop in and make it better for us? And that was a real moment of reckoning for me where I thought, what the hell am I waiting for? Not only am I going to do this, but I'm also going to start thinking about.

Investing a lot more time and effort into, for instance, the nonprofit sector, the community impact sector, again, in a way that meets my needs. I have three kids. I need to make money to support them and ensure that they go to college or whatever they decide to do in their lives to a certain extent. And then they're on their own.

I need to stop looking around, waiting for someone else to do it for me. And just hold a mirror up to myself and say, and hopefully for people listening to this, what are you waiting for? Just give a call, get started, get started with 10, 000 or whatever your entry threshold is and see what happens. Watch the impact, watch the people's lives that you affect for the better.
It is more rewarding and will give you more comfort than anything else on your deathbed to be really Irish about it than what you thought would bring you that same sort of comfort.

[00:48:06] Sean Mooney: I love that advice. It's very kind of symbiotic with the rest of our conversation here. It's just like the world can be scary.
It is scary, right? And it's complex and it's daunting in so much. It's just about take a step. That's it. Do something doing something that's better than kind of like being caught and paralyzed. Yep. Do something and do another thing and then another thing and another thing before you look at it You're gonna see how far you've gone That's right versus how far you have to go and you're gonna go Whoa

[00:48:34] Katie Marchetti: and you can recognize and taking the gratitude journal all that jazz like looking at what you've been able to achieve and I will say One more point that when you have with your children experienced Tragedy in the world or you're watching the news and it's all doom and gloom where you see things out your back door where you're It's the person without a home that you pass on the street every day per the science and the data because I know private equity loves data and science.

The ways to reduce anxiety, particularly in children, but also in adults is to do something. For example, the covenant tragedy is on my brain, but my children were in a total panic. Is this going to happen to our school? What are we going to do? How are you going to stop it? How are we going to stop it? And friends started a bake sale, for example, and my children are young and I was like, okay, well, I'm not, I can't send you all to DC to campaign for whatever, but we can bake cookies.

And so we did a tiny little bake sale. We raised all of 400 or whatever it was, but the comfort that they felt and being able to actually contribute in that way, take that bake sale metaphor and put it into from a resource perspective, a much more impactful level. It does you good. Yeah. And your children see it.
And again, the butterfly effect, it makes an impact.

[00:49:55] Sean Mooney: Yeah. And then suddenly you're not caught in the fear. You're empowered by the action and you're caught up in the positives that you're seeing by doing so. And it's just this whole mind shift. I love that. So that is a great way to end this, particularly as we're in this kind of washing machine of the world right now.
Good news, bad news, good news, bad news. Let's just take a little bit of action. And help the good happen and then see it and then you feel better. So there's like selfishness to this in a good way. I forget who told me this term, but it's like selfish altruism. There's good for you by doing good, whether you know it or not.

[00:50:29] Katie Marchetti: And by the way, this is coming from a stone cold attorney who all I ever wanted to do was make the most money ever and be the highest level at fill in the blank investment bank or private equity firm or whatever it was. And all of that is wonderful. And, keep an eye on the other stuff as well.

[00:50:48] Sean Mooney: I love it. My friend Katie, thank you so much for joining. This is a blast. I've learned all sorts of things, truly, that I wish I knew before, and that's a tremendous gift. I think it enables, really, all of us here to take a little step, one at a time, and just do something, and you're going to feel good about it. And do good for others.
That's great.

[00:51:06] Katie Marchetti: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:51:07] Sean Mooney: Yeah, likewise. Thank you. That's all we have for today. Special, special thanks to Katie for joining. If you'd like to learn more about Katie Marchetti and the Community Foundation, please see the episode notes for links. Please continue to look for the Karma School of Business podcast anywhere you find your favorite podcasts, including Apple, Google, and Spotify.
We truly appreciate your support. If you like what you hear, please follow, five star rate, review, share. This is a free way to support the show, and it really helps us when you do this, so thank you in advance. In the meantime, if you want to be connected with the world's best in class, private equity grade professional service providers, independent consultants, interim executives that are deployed and trusted by the best business builders in the world, including hundreds of the world's top private equity firms, thousands of their portfolio companies, and you can do the same, give us a call or visit our website at BluWave.net. That's B-L-U-W-A-V-E. And we'll support your success. Onward.

Private equity insights for and with top business builders, including investors, operators, executives and industry thought leaders. The Karma School of Business Podcast goes behind the scenes of PE, talking about business best practices and real-time industry trends. You'll learn from leading professionals and visionary business executives who will help you take action and enhance your life, whether you’re at a PE firm, a portco or a private or public company.

BluWave Founder & CEO Sean Mooney hosts the Private Equity Karma School of Business Podcast. BluWave is the business builders’ network for private equity grade due diligence and value creation needs.