262 | Helping Trafficking Survivors Increase Employment Readiness with LeiLani Quiray
Our guest this week on the pod is LeiLani Quiray. LeiLani is the Founder and CEO of Be The Change HR, a company that helps small businesses with their HR, have fun and change the world. One of the key areas of impact that Be The Change is dedicated to is helping trafficking survivors increase their workplace readiness.
And a special thanks to Saybrook Business Administration programs for sponsoring this episode!
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Increasing Trafficking Survivors Workplace Readiness: Interview with LeiLani Quiray
NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer this transcription by Otter.ai for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.
SPEAKERS
LeiLani Quiray, Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:02
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode I do a deep dive in with a thought leader in this intersection, someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce you to our guests and our topic, I have one request, you could go over to Apple podcast or whatever app you're listening to the show on, do a rating and review, it helps tremendously. Thanks so much for considering. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to LeiLani Quiray, and our topic is Helping Trafficking Survivors Increase Employment Readiness. Leilani is the founder and CEO of Be The Change HR, a company that helps small business with their HR have fun, and change the world. One of the key areas of impact that be the change is dedicated to is helping trafficking survivors increase their employment readiness. Leilani Welcome to the show.
LeiLani Quiray 00:45
Thank you so much for having me, Paul, I'm excited to be here. Such important work you're doing and thanks for doing. Thank you very, very much.
Paul Zelizer 00:58
So this is really important work, but not necessarily super easy work Leilani, what's a wellness or a resiliency practice that you personally use to help you be ready for this important work?
LeiLani Quiray 01:14
Ooh, there's there's two that I do and actually everyone on my squad to be the change HR does. The first one is in order to really show up for someone who's been through trauma, and to stay healthy. We all go through trauma informed training. And then vicarious trauma training. This came about because I was I was working with a group of individuals with a nonprofit called the cupcake girls out of Las Vegas. And it's so deep and heavy when you hear these stories, and so I knew at one point in that day, I would be upset, right? You know, and this is what vicarious trauma is. And it was a in the middle of dinner in front of a bunch of people and I burst into tears. And I was so you know, it just came all came up. And I thought there has to be, you know, a better way. And so understanding, you know where someone's coming from, from trauma in order to support them. And then number two, how to not really take that home. My second practice is kind of something that someone told me and I was like this, I'm not sure this is gonna work. But in the work of human resources in the work of, you know, being there for trauma survivors, it's assault. So you putting salt in a either your bathtub, or if you don't have a bathtub shower, it doesn't even need to be fancy salt. It could literally be from the kitchen and you know, on your shoulders, your chest, the neck and kind of wait until the energy lifts. And I listen, I did that I was like this, there's no way like, how's this gonna work? And I kid you not? My I felt lighter. And so when I have heavy days, whether it has to do with the individuals we work with, or just life in general, of course, I'll do that practice, I just word of caution, make sure you didn't shave anywhere before you put it on your body because I've done that too. And I was like, Wait, I don't I'm not worried about my day, because I'm just in pain. I'm sure you do when your skin is prepared and ready for it.
Paul Zelizer 03:33
I'm a trail runner, and certainly Epsom salt. But I've never heard that particularly, you know, an Epsom salt bath after a really hard athletic endeavor is common, but I've never heard that practice. I'm gonna have to try it. Thanks for that line. You're welcome. So this intersection of HR and positive impact and helping small business like if somebody didn't know you, and they were like, Well, how did you get interested in this then? Is that what you've always done? Or what's been your journey of this as the focus of your work? Give us a little bit of that backstory? Yeah. So, you know, when I found it Be The Change HR, I wanted to do HR and philanthropy under one roof. And so I'll take you back. I've done human resources, my entire career, and some teen years. So I've known nothing but this wonderful world of HR. And I say that because I really do love it. I feel like people who are in human resources are a little bit a little bit crazy because of what we have to deal with sometimes. And then the other piece of it comes from a very, very personal place. And I feel like a lot of people who are in the impact space and I really feel like a lot of people who give back it comes from somewhere deep inside them. And so I you know, when I when I tell this story, I don't go into all the details. There's pieces of you know what I've been
LeiLani Quiray 05:05
in my 20s, more than once I hit rock bottom. And it was a very, very tough place to get out of drug and alcohol addiction, mental health issues, suicide attempts, like there was so much going on with me. And as I started to get healthier, and climb my way out of where I had been, I vowed to myself that I was going to help others, because part of that journey is being able to take care of yourself, being able to make money to, you know, support, just life in general, you got to eat, you got to put a roof over your head. And when I felt like I was in a place where I was healthy enough, I started volunteering at nonprofits that helped with workplace readiness. And I would volunteer, they would, they would go to many nonprofits, these the one nonprofit that helped with the job readiness. So I was helping women who had been incarcerated who had been rescued from trafficking, who were getting out of domestic violence situations homelessness, addiction, like you name it, and standing in front of someone must get emotional and talking about this. Stand in front of someone where you know, where they've been. And you tell them like, look at me, you can do it. And here's where you start, because there's something so empowering about getting a job, and being able to support yourself. And so as my career grew, I continue to do that job readiness work through the nonprofits, amazing ones, like working wardrobes out of Orange County, wh W out of Orange County, as well. And then I grew up my career. And it just like many of us who start businesses one day you wake up and you're like, why am I making this as me? Why am I making someone else's money? And why is it so difficult for me to have to ask for volunteer time off, I would I would get flack from from my bosses for it. So I just got so frustrated, I thought you know what, I am going to start my own business. And I'm going to do HR and philanthropy under one roof. And that's how BE THE CHANGE HR was born.
Paul Zelizer 07:23
And when did BE THE CHANGE HR start?
LeiLani Quiray 07:26
Five years ago, I feel so proud being able to say that five years ago, five
Paul Zelizer 07:30
years, congratulations. Thank you very much. How awesome is that? And, and just the deep out for you for your own journey. I'm glad you're here. I'm sorry, you had some hard moments in your journey. I'm glad you're here. And I love the way that you incorporated helping others into what you're doing. And so many of the folks that I talked to, it's like, I know, I've had some very rough times in my journey as well. And, and there's something about being of service that so many people who've made positive changes in our lives, and also when we're thinking about helping others. Like if we have a very personal relationship to like, I really want to help others. And that helps me stay. Gosh, feel good about being on this planet in this incredibly chaotic and challenging time. There's something about the way you told that story that just kind of brought me back to how many of our guests have said, There's something that when they hit turbulence and syncing that up with being of service to others, they both had more effectiveness and being service to others. But it also helps us stay, you know, true to who we're supposed to be in this really turbulent time. And is that resonate for you at all?
LeiLani Quiray 08:49
Oh, it totally does. I mean, I feel so grateful that I know my purpose, at least at this this juncture in my life, and especially when I are just when someone in our class because this happens in a lot of classes after so it's an let me explain it we do for the individuals we work with, we do a two hour or one hour job readiness classes, one on one basics, interview, resume, networking and LinkedIn. And we also do one on one coaching. And that's meeting someone where they're at. It could be it could be I don't even have a resume. It could be I have a resume I have this gap of employment coach me through how I handle what I always say when I'm interviewed because unfortunately gaps of employment aren't normalized. I think they should be unless you're a brain surgeon. There's really no reason why someone should ask you at a certain amount of time off. But they do. And so in these in these classes, when someone looks at you and says Something attuned to I, I feel better, like I feel like I can do it now is so powerful because it's coming from someone who has been through such heavy trauma. And they're finally believing in themselves. I often say we don't really teach. I mean, we teach how to, you know, build a resume, but we don't really teach that what we teach is confidence in oneself that people deserve healthy gainful employment.
Paul Zelizer 10:27
And when I was getting ready for this interview, there's kind of like two parallel tracks that I wanted to get your expertise on and help our audience with. So let me just name them and maybe go back and forth with them on this interview. One is the work that you're doing, particularly with women who've been through some really challenging experiences and how you do that employment readiness, I want to I want to unpack that a little bit, because I think it's just so important. And then another is, you're working with a lot of impact and values oriented organizations about HR work. And that's a space that many social enterprises and impact oriented businesses don't always have the easiest journey with. They know a lot about both, so you're the right person for that. So thank you for being. So I want to I want to unpack a little bit about both of those knowledge areas that you have. And like I said, we may go back and forth a little bit of that. So let's, let's start with the impact area, because our audience is super impactful. Because so when you're working with him, and and have these incredibly, you know, challenging experiences, our episode title is, is referencing trafficking, for example, but also domestic violence. You talked about addiction, you talked about mental health crises. When women who are already the workforce isn't well designed for women, we've done other episodes on that we have so many blocks for women, from pay to how much care that women do and families to trafficking. There's so many challenging experiences that women are facing in the modern workforce, when you're working with women and helping to address some of those competence issues, as well as some of the strategy issues. What do I put on my resume during this time that, you know, most employee decision makers might not understand, given us a little bit of some of the nuances like when you're talking to him, and he's had an experience like this? What are some of the suggestions you're bringing to the table.
LeiLani Quiray 12:34
So in our job readiness course, and in the one on one coaching, we really meet someone where they're at. And you brought up one key piece that we teach in every single class we do, that isn't typical, to most folks, it does have it was not typical to most folks. And that is gaps of employment. So there are we have two kind of categories. And one is a gap of employment due to incarceration. And the other one is a gap of employment due to some type of life circumstance. And I give the the folks who are in our classes permission to lie on one of them to not on the other. There are so I'm going to talk first about incarceration. Some employers not all. And so here's what you if you follow me here, some of the competence piece comes in, right? Some employers not all run background checks, background checks, if there's a negative mark on a background check, it has to be something that would affect the job, you just can't deny someone employment, just because they have a criminal record, it has to be something that would be that would affect the job. So my example is if an accountant had a felony DUI, or three or four, and then went to prison for it, is that a reason to deny employment to an accountant? No, what is driving have to do with being an accountant right? Now, what if we had a school bus driver? Then yes. And so it's, it's not a mark of you'll never get employment because this thing happened to you. And on top of that, there are special circumstances with women who've been trafficked, that have criminal records because of their traffickers. And so there are legal sources, resources out there like a free to thrive out of San Diego, an amazing nonprofit that has attorneys that helps individuals with those situations. So there's hope that that type of thing can be expunged. The other is life circumstances. And whether it's because someone was being trafficked, or someone was experiencing homelessness, or you took a year off and you want you lived in Bali, I mean, like there's there's all these reasons why. This is where I give permission to not say the truth and listen, even as that comes out of my mouth. It's hard for me to say because I'm, I'm an HR we're like such honest people and And for that situation, we use something like I was taking care of my family during that time, in an interview situation that just shut down the conversation. Um, they shouldn't be asking follow up questions just due to discrimination purposes and due to, you know, it's personal information. And, and it, it shouldn't affect the interviewers, decision making based on just something like it shouldn't write again, I wish gaps of employment were normalized. But that is about it, that is just one situation of the many that we come across. So when we have classes, you know, all my facilitators and teachers out there, you know, you read the room, and you just meet somebody where they're at, because maybe where they're at is literally just being open to the idea of starting the journey on what it would look like to go find healthy gainful employment. And maybe they're just there to, you know, just learn and that's it. And then again, we have people who come in, and they have full resumes, but they have a gap, and they need coaching through that. And so it just depends on each individual circumstance, or classes are very small. And we try it, we do breakout rooms, and then again, we do coaching one on one so we can get a good sense of where someone's at, and what do they really need to take that next step.
Paul Zelizer 16:25
Those are great suggestions. And I love that breakdown between, you know, where might run into something that would happen in a background search, and where might it not? And how can you frame it, I hear you calling it lying. And I also want to push back on that a little bit. You're keeping yourself alive and getting yourself back on track, you are helping your family. So is that really a lie? I don't know. I'm gonna put it back on. Fair, fair. But But somebody like yourself, who understands the nuances and also understands HR. And if you say something like, I think what I hear you saying is, if you say, Hey, I was taking care of my family, there's HR rules and regs and somebody can't dig too deep in that direction. And somebody like yourself can help somebody understand what was going on and find ways of framing that both answers the question, but also my Yeah, spin it in a way that doesn't automatically sabotage the ability to get that job is that fair to say? That it's fair to say, then also an I did listeners write down that we will put free to thrive and any other resources that Leilani mentioned in the show notes. So there might be some legal help, particularly for women who are read a trafficking situation and had some legal results or some gaps in employment, there might be some very specific things that you can offer, including things like free to thrive. So I really want to first of all, just encourage anybody who's had that history is listening to this episode. Again, I'm so sorry. And like, work with you or find some resources that would allow them to find a way to frame it that wouldn't again, immediately sabotage their career for the rest of their life. I think I hear you saying I'm so sorry, that happened. And there's ways to navigate it. So you can still have an incredible values aligned make plenty of money kind of life, even though some really hard things happened in a particular woman's experience. Is that fair to say?
LeiLani Quiray 18:32
And it's fair to say yes.
Paul Zelizer 18:35
So you meet people where they are, and you start to help them come up with ways of framing be prepared, fill out resumes be, I would imagine how a woman handles herself in or anybody's had a difficult situation in an interview, that can communicate a lot. And just by prepping somebody, knowing what the process is, as opposed to being caught off guard. I didn't hear you mention that, but I can't help but wonder might that be part of the secret sauce here?
LeiLani Quiray 19:07
Oh, yes, you know, the resume piece is like the foot in the door. And once we get the guiding and teaching about the interview phase, there are so many sort of nuances to, to what that might be like and, and we have a step by step guide. Again, very basic, very one on one to help someone get ready and prepared for that. And so there are things that we all experience. When we go to interviews, like you know who you're gonna meet with, did you research the company showing up on time what to wear, don't wear a lot of perfume, don't wear any perfume at all. And then there are other things. We get questions on like closed doors, interviews with a man alone in an office and how to handle that. And so there are there are situations that some of us might not think of, but when someone's been through that type of trauma can even see very triggering to them.
Paul Zelizer 20:02
And then I would imagine you draw on your trauma informed training you and your team have. So you bring that to the table to help look at what an interview or what a hiring process might look like. And where there might be some challenges. And again, just help somebody prepare for what's coming. And he confident and able to make informed choices. Rather than be surprised and kind of go into that freeze response that can happen so easily or the flight, I want to get out of here and run away, which might not be the best impression if you're trying to get a job, right. And so you can see what's coming and prepare for is that fair?
LeiLani Quiray 20:38
That is fair. And there's something I kind of want to paint a bigger picture for and how we do this, because I know we have a lot of impacted entrepreneurs listening. And so how we do this is we've teamed with nonprofits that support women who've been rescued from trafficking across the US as we work with several. And they are the ones that bring us the women who are ready to start that journey. And so they you know, we hold classes, for most of them once a month, sometimes once a quarter, and then the the individuals will come to the class. And that's how they make their way to us. And from the class. There's also an offer for the one on one coaching, then there are other nonprofits where we just solely do the one on one coaching, but we team with the nonprofit and offer it to them for free. internally in my organization, everyone is paid for that time as volunteer pay. In fact, 2% of our top line revenue goes to our job readiness program. And if you can imagine a human resources professional is like the perfect person because we already know like, you know the basics of what we're looking for in a resume the things in an interview, we've got fun stories we can tell, that helps guide someone from a professional Human Resources person's point of view, because we see it all. And we're so like, educated in how the process goes.
Paul Zelizer 22:10
And those partnerships, I love that you brought that up the 90 and people who listen to this podcast, you know, I'm like, I have my soapbox. This is one of them partnerships, strategic partnership, like people who have blinders on and operate in silos, in general have less impact than folks who have well chosen and well maintained strategic partnerships, I feel comfortable saying that without apologies, like I've just been in this field for 15 years now, like I feel very confident. Talk to us a little bit about the specific partnerships you have in in this space, working with trafficking survivors, like what is important with a good strategic partnership and this specific impact area? Yes,
LeiLani Quiray 22:58
in this specific impact area, it is individuals who are ready. And that can mean that can mean all kinds of things when you're talking about trafficking survivors, but individuals who are ready to start somewhere. The other thing is, we are we do this virtually for the most part. And so technology is really important, right? As long as we can get individuals on a call, because sometimes you know, the resources, you know, a nonprofits resources are difficult to come by at times. And so there's been classes where we've had four ladies on one zoom, like one laptop, we've had people holding phones. And so if at the very least we know the technology and capability to get everyone's faces to the meeting. The other thing is, and I know like we all learn this along the way. At one point, someone was like Leilani you can't just give this away for free, you got to ask for something. And he's like, okay, okay, so you know, and as I refine, like, you know, the model and the process, every one of the nonprofits that we work with, there's an ask, so the class is completely free, completely free to them. The ask is at a certain cadence. There's some type of marketing piece that involves us. So whether it says social media blasts, putting us in the newsletter, having us be a sponsor, like something like that in the nonprofit. And so we do that with all of them as well. So there is there is give on on both sides, a symbiotic relationship.
Paul Zelizer 24:35
I love that you're thinking about reciprocity or mutuality, and in this case, the nonprofit's that you're working with. They might have donors or volunteers or people on their board were people that they've helped former clients who've gone on to have very successful business careers and they are in a position to hire you and your the way that you're developing that relationship, there's an impact area, but it's not just we're nonprofit, we're gonna give everything away there's a, there's an intention to reciprocity and anything you can say about what works with that kind of reciprocity. I've seen social entrepreneurs sometimes struggle, they, they love to give things away. But then when it comes to their own well being as just financially, they get themselves in a little trouble, because they give away more than they can actually sustain. So what have you learned about that kind of relationship where their nonprofits or the organizations are helping or doing some marketing for you?
LeiLani Quiray 25:38
Oh, my goodness, I just say, Oh, my goodness, because it's a it's a lesson we all learn, I, you know, we're in this space, because you want to make an impact and change the world. At the same time, and this is a lesson that I've learned, I need to eat and sodas on my team. And, you know, in, in this I, I always make the comment, there's like, no magical unicorn very, that tells you all the numbers that you need to know when it comes to your financials for the impact piece, let me be specific. I know there's with p&l and all that we know like, Okay, what numbers are good there. But it is, you know, how much of the money that we bring in as BE THE CHANGE HR from the consulting side, the Human Resources consulting side, can we give to the impact side without affecting, you know, the organization's health? So, so, so number one is, Be The Change HR needs to be financially healthy, like any of our health, right, in order to take care of our own individuals here, so that they can take care of their own families, and then the job readiness program that we have. And so finding that delicate balance of how much money do we make? What are we netting? What's our net profit, you know, our net profit percentage? And how much can we add a lot to this program? So that those are numbers that we monitor? You know, in our goals, every month, we monitor how much labor hours, which is our dollar costs, which attributes to part of the 2%, top line revenue that we don't we dedicate to this program, like doing all of that math and monitoring it to make sure that we're not going over? Because at the end of the day, be the change HR needs to be financially healthy in order to continue the mission?
Paul Zelizer 27:33
Yep. Can you say that again?
LeiLani Quiray 27:37
For the people in the back? Yeah, you gotta, I mean, it's like anything else, you know, heal yourself, heal the world. Take care of yourself first, so that you can take care of others. The business is much like that the business has to take care of itself first, because it'd be the change, HR didn't exist, we would never be able to make the impact.
Paul Zelizer 27:58
Totally, I'm joking. But I'm not joking, because I think our listeners love the impact and like, we can give this away and give that away. But yeah, I just love and matter of fact, when we come back, I want to hear more about that what you call the delicate balance and where you are now things like your revenue streams, who's actually paying for you so you can give away this awesome work and things like that. But before we do that, just a quick word from today's sponsor. I'm excited to announce that we have a new sponsor for the pot, Saybrook University. Saybrook University prepares students to challenge conventional thinking in business, social structures, mental and physical health and more. They have innovative online and hybrid programs to help students become part of a global community. They offer certificate, Master and doctoral programs, and they're guided by renowned faculty with years of experience in their respective fields. Saybrook is committed to helping students achieve their full potential, and their sacred community is deeply rooted in this humanistic tradition. Sacred graduates are transforming healthcare, providing organizational leadership, developing sustainable practices, and caring for populations and be open to business and non business majors like, say bricks. 100% online Master of Business Administration Program is designed for students who are passionate about conducting business operations guided by the principles of sustainable social impact. Their hybrid online Doctor of Business Administration Program is designed for experienced professionals who are interested in exploring and applying the most recent research and theories regarding organizational and social systems change. You can learn more@saybrook.edu There's a link in the show notes. And thank you to Saybrook University for sponsoring this pot. So welcome back everybody. In the second part of the show, we like to joke about Putting on our entrepreneur glasses and getting into some of the more granularities about how the enterprise in this case, be the change. HR actually works. So the money you put on your social entrepreneur glasses with us just for a moment, five years in, like, give us a sense, like you mentioned a team, like how many people on your team? How many companies do you work with in a month or a year just give us a little bit of a lay of the land of the the change as an enterprise right here right now.
LeiLani Quiray 30:28
I'm smiling, because as we all know, it's such a journey. So right here right now, there are 10 HR pros on the squad. And as we call ourselves, HR pros, we call our team, the squad. We work with over 50 clients in any given year, probably across several different industries, really industry agnostic. And we do human resources consulting for small mid market businesses. So it that's like a really simple way to put it. But it's things that aren't so sexy like employee handbooks. So wonderful harassment prevention training, we've got diversity, equity and inclusion programs. We help coach and counsel our clients on all kinds of different situations. Anything that falls under the umbrella of human resources, that is either compliance, anyone in California is like rolling their eyes right now, because they know what that means in the states that are very employee friendly to the strategy piece. And that is you how do you make a happy, healthy workforce? How do you make sure that you find the right talent in your organization? How do you measure the performance of that talent? How do you measure the happiness of the overall organization so we, we have the lucky position of helping smaller businesses with that, because once they get larger, they're able to hire on a human resources person in house. But as you grow, it's like you know, you don't have the money to really have someone on board full time for that. So that's where we come in. It's almost
Paul Zelizer 32:01
like you're a fractional HR people. For smaller organizations, listeners, we've done episodes on, you know, fractional CTOs, chief technology officers with James Connor, other things like that, like these organizations that are growing and have teams and having to make big HR choices, but might not have somebody with decades of experience in HR, they need some help. They want to make sure you get it right, put it in air quotes, because the expense of not getting it right is you know, there's a there's a penalty to be very expensive, both in terms of culture and turnover. But also, you know, there's laws here, and there can be very significant financial consequences of, you know, getting some of this stuff running afoul of some of those laws. Is that fair to say?
LeiLani Quiray 32:52
That is very fair to say, especially in these employee friendly states. And it's, you know, we, you hear a lot of cautionary tales, and you never want to be in that position where something happens, and it is expensive for your organization. And so yes, we are like fractional HR folks who have decades of experience. And then another way we're, we're a form of, you know, insurance when it and education, because you don't like as a business owner, you don't know it all. Nor should you have to know all that kind of stuff. That's why you get someone who studies this type of thing, and enjoys it like we do.
Paul Zelizer 33:30
And when you think of your impact work and the women that you're working with in terms of trafficking, survivor dv, like the organizations that come to you honestly, how much do you think there's a sync up between the impact work you're doing and the branding of Be The Change HR? Like, how much does that factor in why a client chooses you all? Or is how much of it is you'll just really know HR? And I need somebody who knows HR? And you're the people for me, like, yeah, help our listeners with that?
LeiLani Quiray 34:06
Yes. So two things, it is in all of our marketing, trying to get the message out that we are a social impact business, and that's not easy to do. And then, you know, to, in the calls that we have, where we're closing clients, and the impact piece is always part of the conversation, which is something I've really had to learn to always say, and have it not be after thoughts again, we're impact entrepreneurs. We're here to like, save the world. At the same time, you know, I feel like Eleazar talk for me personally, I felt a little shy about it, you know, and so it was just like, well, this is the work I'm doing like why do I have to shout it from the rooftops and I realized this is the this is our business. This is what we do and everyone needs to know that because if they work with us, that then means that they help that impact piece. And so over the years, I've learned, make sure it is in our tagline. It's all over everything we do, we have in our newsletter, we, we give, you know, the who we've impacted that month, obviously, not individuals, but the organizations that we work with. And then the other part is, you know, I do our closing calls for sales. And when someone learns about what we do, the reactions are always Oh, wow, that's amazing. And I know, I have to attribute some of the decisions made to work with us are based on that piece. Yeah, we're an amazing organization that does HR, and we help individuals who've been, you know, who've been rescued from trafficking, find healthy gainful employment, like why wouldn't you want to work with us?
Paul Zelizer 35:55
Above that advice, he said, impact is not an underlying not an afterthought. And, and just listeners, one of the things, if I was going to highlight something about what be the change is doing well, is how you've baked your core fundamental service around HR, and who you help with your impact areas. Sometimes it's less, shall we say, well integrated, right. And I think that's something you're doing really well in money. And I want to highlight to our listeners that not only are you telling people, and how you've made that a part of your sales, conversations in your marketing, etc, but it's also like, it's like integrated into the nervous system of the organization, you have a product service that you provide around helping people with HR, and you have an impact area, and the two are connected, right? If I'm somebody in the marketplace, I can see how employment readiness for women who've had these incredibly challenging experiences might make sense to be a passion point, for an HR oriented company, it's like it syncs up well. And a mentor of mine talks about like, when you have a a dog sled, if the dogs are all pulling different directions, it's on ice, it's chaos. But if the dogs are all pulling in the same direction, it's like probably the most effective way to travel in that environment. Like everybody's pulling in the same direction. It sounds like in both your people, but also what you're doing with your brand. And what you're doing with the impact area sitting over here. That's what I'm seeing does that have you put intentionality between what you're doing for money and the impact you want? It? Has that been an area you've put a lot of thought into?
LeiLani Quiray 37:46
Oh, totally. It, you know, the the model that we have today is not the model I had five years ago, the model I had five years ago was like start a business. And we'll just figure it out. I think a lot of us do that. Right. So when I first started, I was still volunteering at the nonprofits that did the job readiness. And at that time, I was allocating 10% of our bottom line revenue to, to donate. And I was asking the clients to pick a nonprofit for them to donate to and it just wasn't working. It wasn't gelling, people wouldn't answer me. You know, and I just thought there needs to be more focus. And so one day, it just dawned on me, why don't I write the job readiness course, and offer that and so that that journey started about two years into the business of figuring out, you know, how, what, how do I do that, as an organization? How do I team with nonprofits? What segment of individuals are we going to serve? And there's been an evolution, you know, the trauma informed training didn't happen until like, I learned the lesson was like, Oh, everybody should do this, you know? So it's, it's a constant. You know, it's it's a constant evolution of how this can be better. How can we make more impact? How can we keep the organization healthy while we do it? How can we communicate it to the public that amazing work that we do? And finally, how do we grow because the more and I love saying this, the more money BE THE CHANGE HR makes, the more impact we have, because 2% of a million dollars is different than 2% of 10 million. And so these are, these are all things that I like fundamentally, like go back to and on how we make that impact.
Paul Zelizer 39:43
So listener, if you're not quite fully synched up later on, he just shared a whole bunch of questions, probably about, I don't know, there were either eight or nine of them. It was too fast for me to write them all down. They're great questions, go listen back about five minutes and notice some of those questions. If you ask Leilani and listeners, you may come up with different questions, different answers to the question, but the questions of how you sync up your impact area and your core product or services are just those are the awesomeness questions, right? So go listen to that listeners, if you are still less than, you know, if you could use some clarification there. Fabulous questions. Thank you. So talk to us a little bit like what do you think's coming next for Be the change? You don't seem like the kind of person to just put your feet up on the coffee table and say, Oh, this is great. We're done. Right? Like, what are some of the things we're working on that maybe somebody wouldn't know if they went to your website right now?
LeiLani Quiray 40:37
Yeah. So it, you know, internally in this organization, I'm, I'm always looking for ways to continually support the folks that work here. I will always say they come first. And this is, you know, also part of the magic. And the model, I think of why we've been so successful is my people always come first. I'm always wrapping my arms around our core values, which are calming, caring, reliable, and fun. And making sure that we are living those that my folks are having a good time and what they're doing that they feel supported, not only professionally, but in their personal lives. And as healthy as they possibly can be. So I'm always thinking about that. And then the other piece, as many of us are doing is, how do I continue to scale this business? Something I love to say is, you know, even though I am an impact, and an impact business, and I'm looking to make all this change, it doesn't mean that you know, the money that we make and how and how healthy that money is, goes to the wayside. And so with all the things that I've been doing over the years, every single year, we continue to grow, the least amount has been 25%, the most has been 300. And I'm looking to continue to scale now, I used to put numbers behind it. But then I realized that the numbers stress me out. And my health also is very important. And so I'm taking incremental steps to figure out how do we continue to scale and grow? How do we do that in a healthy way? And how do we do that in this current environment, there's more questions for you all. And so these are things that I focus on, in order to make sure that it's healthy, that it's sustainable, and that we can continue to grow in order to make the impact. And then I'm always looking for new ways, new nonprofit organizations to team with. I do want to put in a small note, we have one nonprofit we work with out of Atlanta, Georgia, that helps bipoc homeless men out of the cycle. And so I have men on my team. And if you can imagine individuals who have been trauma survivors from any type of sex trafficking, typically the nonprofits will ask the facilitators that we have to be female. And so I have teamed with another nonprofit to make sure the gentleman on my team can also serve and so we work with them as well. And I'm always looking for new nonprofits to work within the United States to offer this job readiness course. Because as we grow, we'll need to bring on more nonprofits to work with. And of course, like the that's a core piece of what we do, and it's so important for us
Paul Zelizer 43:35
those nonprofit partnerships, if you had any sense like is that 10% responsible for your growth? Or is that 97% responsible for you? Do you have any sense of how much these partnerships have contributed to that growth rate being between 25 and 300% a year?
LeiLani Quiray 43:56
You know what I don't, but these are, these are I love data. So anytime we come across another, you know, data point we can track. I think it's very valuable for us. So even in this podcast interview, I have a task to figure out how we can ask individuals who work with us if part of that decision was because we are a social impact business. So I will learn that in the future for certain.
Paul Zelizer 44:24
Cool, I'd love to hear it if you want to circle back around. And my sense is that number just as across sectors, that number is going up as the economy is getting more challenging listeners as we are in this period of high inflation and people being more intentional and going from like this super red hot, you know, hiring phase in the economy to people being much more cautious that what kind of positive impact a company is having has already for the past five years been growing but just on the good round when I'm talking to founders, they're saying that level of importance across sectors is going up whatever that's worth listeners, that being able to clearly articulate how you're making the world a better place and how that's baked into the DNA of your company. If you are a company that can articulate that, well, you have a significant edge over companies that don't in this more challenging economic environment, that's Tales from the frontlines of social entrepreneurship right now. So not every company, but feel pretty confident across the board. That's what people are saying. So Bonnie, you're a busy woman, I could hang out with you all day, you're doing awesome work. And you're busy, and our listeners are busy. If there was something you were hoping we were going to get to today, and we haven't touched on it yet, or there's something you want to leave our impact founders with, as they're starting to, like, integrate and think about what we've talked about means for their businesses, what would that be?
LeiLani Quiray 46:00
And I touched upon it a little bit earlier. And this just comes from my own lessons. And that is finding a balance between all the things, you know, we start these businesses because we want to make a difference in the world. And we need to have healthy businesses, and we need to be healthy ourselves. So striking that balance, I think, is really important. And so I just encourage everyone, to really find that for yourself, for your business and for the impact that you make so that it can be sustainable. And you can you can do it for a really long time because the world needs you.
Paul Zelizer 46:37
Lonnie, thank you so much for being on the show today.
LeiLani Quiray 46:41
Thank you so much for having me.
Paul Zelizer 46:43
So listeners, I'll put a link to the Be The Change site, to the free to thrive nonprofit and some of the other resources we've mentioned today. Thank you so much for listening before you go. Just a quick reminder, we love listener suggested topics and guests. I mean, we love them. So if you have an idea for an episode, please go to the AWARE partners website and on our contact page. It has three simple guidelines, which we use. Unfortunately, we can't have everybody that reaches out but we try to be really transparent. Here's the criteria we use about who's a good fit, who's not. If you take a look at that, and you've got somebody in mind, please reach out, let us know what you're thinking. So for now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.