FUTR.tv Podcast
FUTR.tv is a weekly interview podcast talking with the innovators who are building the future, focusing on technology, sustainability and social responsibility
FUTR.tv Podcast
From Fundraising to Advocacy: NEP Services is Changing the Nonprofit Game
Building a community can be tough work. For not for profits, community organizations, charities, and unions, there are a lot of details that need to be tracked and communicated. Today, we are going to talk about a company that helps them, and find out what drives them.
Today I have with me Stacey Yudin CEO of NEP Services. They are leading a new era of digital transformation for nonprofits and they were recently named Fast Company’s 8th Most Innovative Company of 2024.
They provide communications solutions for nonprofit organizations including an array of markets such as unions, education, essential services, regional non-profits and Firefighters.
To date, the company has helped its clients raise $65M for their communities and $7M for its “Help a Hero” crowdfunding platform that raises money for community heroes in need.
So let's talk with Stacey about how it all came together.
Welcome Stacey,
https://nepservices.com
Click Here to Subscribe:
FUTR.tv focuses on startups, innovation, culture and the business of emerging tech with weekly podcasts talking with Industry leaders and deep thinkers.
Occasionally we share links to products we use. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases on Amazon.
Building a community can be tough work. For nonprofits, community organizations, charities, and unions, there are a lot of details that need to be tracked and communicated. Today, we're going to talk with a company that helps them out and find out what drives this company. Today I have with me Stacy Uden, CEO of NEP Services. They are leading a new era of digital transformation for non profits, and they were recently named Fast Company's 8th most innovative company of 2024. They provide communication solutions for non profit organizations, including an array of markets such as unions, education, essential services, regional nonprofits and firefighters. And to date, the company has helped its clients raise 65 million for their communities and 7 million with its help a hero crowdfunding platform that raises money for community heroes in need. So let's talk with Stacy about how it all started. all came together. Welcome Stacy.
Stacey Yudin:Hi, thank you for having me.
Chris Brandt:I'm excited to have you. Uh, this is, um, important stuff. I think that sounds like you guys are doing here. So I want to get the details and anybody who's looking for, you know, help in building one of these communities. Uh, you know, this is going to be a very relevant conversation. Um, but before Before we get into all that, I know that you've got kind of a, a, a background in, in charitable organizations and, and that sort of thing. Could you just tell me a little bit about what brought you to NEP services? Like what were the kinds of things that made you excited about NEP services?
Stacey Yudin:I joined NEP services about a decade ago. Um, and since then, we've been building probably one of the most innovative, uh, platforms that help nonprofits easily on ramp and create a digital future. So what that means is everything from operational efficiency to fundraising and strategic marketing. And really in the space of, you know, there's a lot of technical tools out there. And there's really no one cohesive strategy. So NEP services caught my eye in the sense that they were already doing this strategic work on digital marketing. So how, how could we expand that and, you know, really reduce the burden for nonprofits to implement this? Cutting edge technology to help run their union, help run their nonprofit more efficient, more efficiently. And as a businesswoman, that efficiency, that operational, that dynamic operational efficiency really caught my eye. So that, that was really, I fell in love with the business aspect of nonprofits and, and it's really the perfect marriage at NEP.
Chris Brandt:From what I've seen of nonprofits that I've been involved with, you know, they, they do use a hodgepodge of solutions and, you know, oftentimes with nonprofits, uh, nonprofits, there's not a lot of money to go around necessarily either. So, you know, there's, there's a, there's an interesting, you know, when you say business dynamic to it, there's an interesting business dynamic to non, not for profits that sort of drive different kinds of requirements, right?
Stacey Yudin:One of the things that attracted me obviously to working with nonprofits is that, you know, I, Transcribed I'm a community led individual. I've been raised on giving back, having an impact, you know, as cheesy as it sounds, making the world a better place. And so the intersection of operational efficiency and business KPIs and the non profit world, how I can give back, how I can make leaders. amplify their impact and their time. For me, that was, you know, the ultimate kind of world that I wanted to live in. And the technology aspect, it gives her so much opportunity, um, to really streamline the tools that nonprofits use and to, to really start to think about technology with a strategic, um, I, um, you know, measuring KPIs, measuring delivery, measuring impact, segmenting your audience, whatever that might be. So all of those business initiatives are now really in the, in the tech revolution, right? The industrial 4. 0, all of those KPIs and all of those goals are now being wrapped around the nonprofit sector. So it's a very exciting time to not only lead a nonprofit, but to work alongside these change makers. Cheers.
Chris Brandt:I gotta imagine you're, you're working with people who are, you know, passionate about their mission and passionate about their community or passionate about their organization, but perhaps not so, um, versed in a lot of technology and, and, you know, and, and, and, and, and perhaps more sophisticated business techniques that would help them, you know, sort of visualize what's happening as much as well, right?
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, and that is again one of the biggest business challenges that we deal with every day at NEP. So how do we make the technology accessible? How do we make sure the client training and service model is one that non profits at every budget size Can can take a part of. And so I think where we stand out in our, our point of differentiation in the marketplace is that we're not just a tech company where, hey, here's your SAS model. Here's your traditional tech, you know, download your app and you're on your own. We really have created a customer success model that enables and supports a Non profits through this journey to adopting technology, right? Adopting it, using it, engaging with their audience and then, you know, reporting on their success. And so these are, these are traditional relationships. that you see in a marketing company where they're helping you through the entire marketing life cycle from design to support and then, you know, obviously the acquisition of, of donors or, or members. Our technology model really follows that traditional relationship based, um, support system, which is, is a cool and a very interesting hybrid. And I think a lot of our success and retention of clients and nonprofits has been from, and is due to that. That customer success model. So we're, we're very proud of that. And we're constantly innovating on how to do that. Um, and grow at the same time and how to, how to make sure all clients get the attention that, that they need to be successful.
Chris Brandt:That, that sounds like it would really be valuable to, um, these organizations. I do want to like, touch on, you know, like one of the things that we've been hearing a lot lately is, you know, I guess it's an election year. So this always comes up in election years, but sort of like the, the, you know, the rise and the importance of unions in this day and age. Right. Um, could you speak to, you know, like, Um, I, I know, you know, you do a lot with, like, firefighter unions and things like that. Could you just, you talk about, like, how, um, like, what is the importance of these unions? You know, because I think that's one of the things, you know, I'm from Chicago, so we had the Haymarket riots and, you know, you know, we have a big tradition in, in sort of the, the, the, the, the value of unions and, and, you know, how they created the five day workweek and, you know, 40 hour workweek and things like that, you know, I mean, you know, made some really important strides, um, but, you know, sort of fell out of favor over, you know, the last 20, 30 years, I would say. Um, could you, could you speak to like how this, this growing movement, you know, impacting what you're doing and, and how you're helping with that?
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, absolutely. The, the labor movement. is really has deep, deep roots in the American independence movement. Um, and actually started in the industrial revolution in Europe. So the labor movement is a fabric that has been behind workers rights and pretty much every modern day benefit. that you and I enjoy, whether we work for a private company like NEP or work for a government, um, everything from the weekend. You can think every day that you have off, every Saturday and Sunday, the weekend was gained from the hard fought battles. of the labor movement, from unions, from trade workers, um, and that established
Chris Brandt:I like weekends.
Stacey Yudin:I love weekends. Who doesn't love the weekend and weekends?
Chris Brandt:I could use another day for it, too. Could we work on that?
Stacey Yudin:You know what? You never know what the future may hold. Um, but Never
Chris Brandt:know. We were promised a four day work week a long time ago, so
Stacey Yudin:Oh, there's been books on the four day work week, but, you know, I don't have those statistics. Ready, but the, you know, all the benefits that we enjoy the weekend. I mean, the end of child labor. I mean, I don't think there's anyone in modern times who think children should be working at a factory instead of going to school. So, you know, it was the earliest 20th century
Chris Brandt:rise of like lowering the age limit though for children to work now too. So we, we have seen sort of backtracking on some of these, um, things that unions have delivered for us. So I think that's why we're seeing this.
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, and the surge in, in, in the conversation around unions and the labor movement recently is I think a direct result because we're starting to slide backwards on a lot of the benefits that have been won over the last hundred years. Um, you know, the statistics are very, very clear that as the union membership decreases, so does the middle class. And so the middle class is really what drives the economy. So I always make the argument. that in a, in a capitalistic economy, the labor movement is a good counterbalance to the growth and the sustainability of the middle class, right? If we can help rise up our middle class, they have more discretionary income, they can buy homes, they can, you know, have credit cards, go on vacations. Those dollars that they make, they actually spend and reinvest into the corporations and their local communities. So it's a symbiotic relationship. I think that's, essentially incredibly necessary, um, to maintaining and growing a successful, you know, uh, economy. And so I, I always use that argument at dinner parties when this topic comes up. Um, because there's, you know, if you look at the statistics, they're, they're, They're absolutely union wages and union membership is tied in with the success of the middle class. And there's, you know, no way really to argue around that.
Chris Brandt:You know, I was a political science major. So um, you know, I had a professor who always said that you can't have a democracy without a middle class. When you have extreme wealth polarization, it, it, it, you know, countries fail on, on, on those kinds of conditions. So it's not just a, not just as necessarily a good economic sense, but it is potentially an existential sort of issue for a, for a country.
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, absolutely. And I think the economic success and the thriving communities that invest back into their workers, the people that are every day doing labor and service jobs, over time, those communities are stronger, more resilient. They see all of the other fruits of that labor. literally and physically within that community. And so you see the strength of those communities and the labor movement really go hand in hand. Well, so, so tell me
Chris Brandt:like what, what kind of challenges, you know, do unions and, and, and some of the not for profits, like what are the, what are like challenges that are sort of specific to these kinds of organizations?
Stacey Yudin:You know, it's funny, we, we talk about nonprofits like they're their own, strange enigma and you know, they're, they're so different. But one of the things I continually say when I meet with leaders is that you need to run your nonprofit like you do a business. So you need to think about, you know, strategically aligning your tools. You need to think about what your strategy is. You need to think about operational efficiency. Um, you're setting up a just at the end of the day, your nonprofit gives all of their revenue, all of their profit back to the community. So you need to measure your impact. So that's really step one is to say, okay, I'm a change maker. I want to make the world a better place. But that doesn't mean that you can run a successful organization with all volunteers. You need to think about investing into your infrastructure, the people that are on your staff that run, cause it's, it's the humans that make the impact. And so sometimes Growing your infrastructure, you know, whether you're, you're adding on a full time employee. Yes, technically you can, you're giving less dollars back to the community and, but really the dollars are not the full picture. How are we measuring the impact of the programs that you're rolling out, right? Results oriented. And so one of the challenges is, okay, what tools do I put in place? for my non profit, for my labor union, to make sure that I can report and measure on my impact. So, you know, one of the, one of the major challenges. right off the bat is obviously tech, which every business has an issue. Like we need to have more tech in our business. We all know that unions and nonprofits are trying to figure out how to do that as well. Right. So yeah, data, it comes, it comes down to database. It comes down to your audience. How are you measuring your donors? How are you tracking your donors? How are you tracking your members? How are you communicating with your membership of your labor union? Um, but again, really comes down to the same set of problems that businesses had. What type of tools do we select? And how do we make sure that we're making our, our spend and our choices about how we use our budget as efficient as, as possible?
Chris Brandt:Yeah. And I, and I would mention too, that in a lot of these organizations, I imagine people are working for free as volunteers too. So you want, you want to be respectful of how you use all of your resources, right? And you're using donor money too.
Stacey Yudin:Yes. And in front of a business challenge, right? Working for nonprofits. It's how do we create a product in our, on our connect plus membership engagement and communication platform is in its third generation. And that has been our biggest challenge. How do we create a software product, a SAS product that is really flexible so that nonprofits at all size can really. implement it and it's cost effective for their size of their organization. Um, and, and it's not a, a budget breaker and they're still getting the majority of the funds back out to the community. They're investing in the programs and you know, the, the schools or whoever they may help, may be helping. So that's a business challenge we have.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. I mean, that's another constituency is education too, right? Um, so tell me, you know, like I, I would imagine, you know, like if I were starting a not for profit, you know, I would be like, Oh God, I don't have much money to work with here. Um, you know, like you, you mentioned several times that you kind of scale between very small organizations, very large organizations. I mean, like how, how affordable is it to get into this and, you know, how can some organization that doesn't have a lot of money or skill. You know, get in, get in on this.
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, great question. And we do have a variety of clients. I think our smallest client has a range of like six, six seats, six members. And, you know, some of our larger clients have hundreds of thousands of members in their organization. So, I mean, we've been able to scale our connect plus membership engagement and communication platform down to 99 a month. You know, all the way up to, you know, a custom enterprise level. And we're very proud of that. And there's a lot of features within our system. You can add a website, you can do online petitions, you can do digital voting, a lot of tools that not all unions need. So you can add them on. You can pick and choose. You can turn them on for six months in a shorter term, or they can be sort of baked into your software from day one. Um, and so our system and our customer success team really helps you engineer that and makes it really simple to adopt, right? That's one of the keys that needs to be simple to adopt for you as a leader, and it needs to be simple to adopt for your members.
Chris Brandt:Tell me like what, what it all looks like. Like if you, if, if, if somebody comes to you and says, I want to get on the platform, you know, like what, what all is it that you provide and what are all the pieces that go into it?
Stacey Yudin:Really? It's about membership engagement. It's about branding your organization in the community and to your members. And so it's everything from, you know, engaging website to help you convert more. potential donors to recurring donors to a payment app where we can help you process the payments for those donors or those membership dues all the way to back office software. So imagine being able to run your non profit in the cloud, everything from document storage. communication systems, text, email, integrated two way chat. We typically, we can help you kind of reduce your technology spend by eliminating all these third, third party hodgepodge array of, of tools into one seamless back office system. So it's, it's very impactful when you think about, I got, I can go to one place as a leader. I can see all my documents. All my members, I can run membership reports. I can send a text message to my executive board, all in one place, on the go, from my mobile device. Um, and I, and I think it's that ease of use and, you know, that really amplifies the impact you can make as a leader, because as a union leader, you've got all lots of other stuff to do than worry about your tech and your software and your IT infrastructure. And you're taking care of all
Chris Brandt:that infrastructure and all that.
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, absolutely. We handle all that. We're, we're really that strategic partner for you when it comes to, um, building and maintaining your organizational software.
Chris Brandt:The organizations that you're talking about have a lot of like regulatory and compliance challenges as well as like in particular taxation challenges. And I would imagine, you know, there's all sorts of regulations around, you know, meetings and, and communications and recording certain things. Is that all kind of built into it?
Stacey Yudin:One of the areas I think we're the strongest is that. We really listen to customers, so this journey over the past 10 years, you know, I've really made it a point that we're customer obsessive. We listen to the building of our software and the, you know, improvement of our software and adding new features has really been a focus and driven from the customers. So our customers came to us and said, Hey, we have a bylaw change. We have a new, uh, Um, we have a new compliance request and we need to record our meetings. We need to make sure our meetings are documented. We need to make sure meetings are sent to all, you know, 15, 000 of our members. And we need a system to prove that we did give them opportunity to join our board of directors meeting and our general membership meeting. So yes, all of these things and nuances of running your labor union, running your nonprofit have been baked into the software over the last decade. And that's It's really thanks to our customers. They've driven the innovation of, of the Connect Plus platform. They've driven the innovation of communitypetition. com. They've driven the, the improvement of Help a Hero, our crowdfunding platform, which we're very proud of.
Chris Brandt:Could you talk a little bit about help, uh, help a hero?
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, again, you know, you mentioned it earlier. One of the biggest challenges is the funding challenge for nonprofits. So it's, it's kind of the cart before the ox. Sometimes they know they need all these technical tools. They know they need an email marketing system. They know they need, um, a database to track their members, but they sometimes don't have the funding. Right. So our different membership and payment apps, Like our crowdfunding platform, Help a Hero, you can spin up a campaign to fund a cause. So if you're able to raise more dollars efficiently for your nonprofit through Help a Hero, that allows your current budget to be used in other areas. And so we've helped create these funding tools, helpahero. com, our membership app payments tool, that again, make it easy for our organizations to really secure and grow their, their donations and their budgets.
Chris Brandt:Could you talk a little bit about like who help a hero has benefited?
Stacey Yudin:It's a fully automated SAS platform. So anyone can go to help a hero. com and spin up their own crowdfunding. What's great is that, you know, we don't share the donor data or any of the data that's flow that flows through the platform. So truly your audience of donors are your audience. audience of donors. They're not re shared with any third party marketing companies. So, you know, when you get a call from, you know, the SPAM telemarketer, that's, that's not going to be because of that data set. We keep that proprietary to your organization. So, It helps you grow your impact. I mean, we've had police officers, firefighters, um, labor organizations, individuals in the community that, you know, need help because they've lost their jobs. Um, there's been a variety of examples where individual individuals have been able to, you know, just spin up a crowdfunding page and, and really be able to, uh, connect with their donors and
Chris Brandt:help people who are injured on the job, things like that. Yeah,
Stacey Yudin:exactly. Injured on the job, you know, um, you know, you know, work of life, hardship requests. You'll see that across the platform. Obviously
Chris Brandt:you've worked with a lot of different people. You've helped raise a lot of money for a lot of organizations, but, you know, even beyond the raising the money, you've built the infrastructure for a lot of organizations. Can you talk about like, Some of the success stories that you've had, you know, some organizations that you've worked with that just, you know, like it really impacted their, their lives.
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, absolutely. There's a recent example that comes to mind. It's an electrical workers union and they were struggling to keep, uh, union jobs in the, the state budget was going to take away about 8, 000 jobs, not for any other reason than some, you know, backdoor politics. And Mm hmm. They needed someone to help them deliver a message to the community members and to their actual, their, their actual membership. And so we came in, and in about three days, we sent 55, 000 emails to legislators that were driven from commentary. of their local organizational members as well as people in the community said, look, we need to invest in our local union. We need to invest in the labor jobs. We can't, we can't keep the infrastructure of this community going without these, without these individuals. So in about three days, we were able to really turn the tide. that, that, that PR, um, and really communicate effectively to legislators how important those individuals are to the infrastructure of, of the greater Syracuse area. And I think that's just one of hundreds of examples my team works on every year. Um, of how we're helping amplify the message of these organizations, helping nonprofits raise more funds. Um, we have a police organization that we work with, um, outside of, uh, California, and they've had officers that have been injured, severely injured in the line of duty. And we helped raise close to a million and a half dollars for those officers to help cover, you know, rehabilitation that's not covered in their insurance. So, home retrofitting, retrofitting, um, a lot of these additional expenses, the family is burdened with that. And so, we were helped to kind of fill that gap to make sure that each one of these families, um, was able to make the necessary investments. retrofitting requirements to their homes for wheelchair and accessible access. So really, you know, very impactful examples that sort of make us all, all clam up sometimes.
Chris Brandt:So one of the things that you were kind of hinting at in there was that, um, what, you know, and I know a lot of the challenge for not for profits unions, things like that, uh, is, is communication. They're not always great at marketing, communicating, but it sounds like you've also got things in there that, you know, like to help with even. Sort of like lobbying efforts as well. I mean, is it, it, does it get that granular?
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, it does. And you know, what's interesting about that aspect is that when I first joined the company, I was really focused on the engagement and communication model for nonprofits to their community. Right. Right. So it was this nonprofit, one directional to the community. And over time working with nonprofits and learning about the true kind of engagement. 360 degree service model, there was an opportunity in the marketplace to engage the community to communicate back to the non profit. So over the years, we've built a community petition and legislative tool because certain times of the year, it's really important to help elevate their concerns to legislators. And they represent At some times, hundreds of thousands of members, um, they've hundreds of thousands of individuals in their labor union. They're an important voice, um, in politics. And so what's great is that you can add on these different features and ultimately, you know, you have your one virtual union office where you can create a petition, create Metta. Create something, you know, a viral, uh, something on Instagram and you can drop it into our communication platform. Connect plus and in one click of a button, you can strategically communicate by text, email, chat, news, push notification and really amplify getting the message out. So you're. You're not just stuck with, I have to, my only communication channel is social. You now control the branding and the communication channel outside of social media. You're not, you're not relying on that algorithm to hopefully reach your members and your followers. You can create your own audience and then control that delivery. And so I think that's been one of the more successful evolutions of the product. Yeah. Is that it, it can pivot. based on what the non profit needs? Is it charitable? Great. Is it, is it legislative? Is it community based? Just, you know, tips and tricks? Is it public safety prevention?
Chris Brandt:Right.
Stacey Yudin:It can, it's dynamic in that way.
Chris Brandt:Yeah, no, that, that's, that's really interesting. I mean, it's, you know, like the more, more you dig into this, the more you can see how The needs of these organizations are very different than a lot of other companies. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of similarities to but there's a lot of a lot of unique features that that they they need that you know, like is not not typical. And it sounds like you know, considering you go from 99 to you know, huge enterprise plans. Um, it seems like a lot of value in a in a in a In a one package.
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, that was our goal. It was to be as strategic with the nonprofit's budget as possible. You know, we know that when you start off, a lot of times you have no dollars in your nonprofit budget. Um, at the same time, how do we come in and make an impact for an international organization? Where, you know, their problem is not, it's not the funding side. It's the fact that they have 347, 000 members. And really it's a data management issue. So how do we, how do we have a scalable and flexible platform, which we've done with Connect Plus, that it's really a data management tool. Whether the audience is membership. data management or donor data management, it comes down to you need to know who your audience is, and you need to be able to strategically communicate with them. And you can't do that if the data is all over the place in seven different tools,
Chris Brandt:right?
Stacey Yudin:So it's, it's really been reverse managing a lot of
Chris Brandt:spreadsheets at that point.
Stacey Yudin:Yeah, exactly. So it's spreadsheet on spreadsheet and. This group of members lives in this area and this group of members has this job type journeyman, um, you know, inside outside electrical workers. All of those nuances in the data require different communication journeys. And you should have a different branding and communication strategy for different segments of your audience. And so, for You know, we've been reverse engineering almost. I've been thinking about how do I sit in the leadership seat as a nonprofit leader? How do we reverse engineer this? And I think that's what we've done really well over the last decade.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. What's next for NEP? Like where do you go from here? Like what are the things that you've got on your radar?
Stacey Yudin:I'm a tech enthusiast and I think you are too. And you know, and I happen to be in this, you know, space of union and nonprofit management. And so we're Spending a lot of time and playing paying close attention to the impacts of A. I. And usability for our marketplace. And so we have we have Thankfully, we have a really incredible R& D team that is very client obsessive, that listens to clients. They join conference calls all the time with, with leaders across the country and are, are, you know, analyzing and assessing where does AI play a role? How do we create more operational efficiency? How do we create more impact and more value within our platform, but also ultimately for the goals? of the nonprofit or labor organization. So for me, that's the most exciting kind of future, um, that's before us. And, you know, I'm, I'm someone that I like to, I'm an early adopter of everything, uh, and our clients are not. So I feel like that's our role also around thought leadership is right. We jump in and we early adopt this tech digested and, you know, And, you know, build it into solutions that work for our labor unions and nonprofits.
Chris Brandt:Well, and I think it's great that you're sort of eating your own dog food on the AI front there, too, because, um, you know, the other thing about AI is not just, you know, there's a transformative nature of work, but it's like, it's going to have a big impact on labor, too. So when you're talking about, like, you know, protecting workers rights and things like that. I mean, this is like, um, this is a big transformational moment.
Stacey Yudin:It affects just not only the internal operations of a union, but as you pointed out, the really the effect on the workers and how does that look? And I think the conversations that are happening and what I see happening in the marketplace is that there's some really positive conversations around how can AI be used within the labor space. And so some organizations like the IBW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, they really have adopted technology really well. And they have an entire segment of electrical workers who, you know, they're engineers, they're actually coders, they're developers. And so they've embraced the idea of technology. Um, into their union and made a space and a place for that as part of their strategic plan. And I think one of, one of the things that I've learned on my journey working with, with labor unions in particular is, is the amount of training that they do for, for union members. And so when we think about workers education and retraining American workers, Labor unions, I think, play an essential, if not pivotal, role in helping educate and set up these training programs. They already have incredible training programs for the trades unions,
Chris Brandt:and
Stacey Yudin:they are already incorporating the technology aspect into those, and I think that's kind of a, an aspect that's really not, you know, Yeah,
Chris Brandt:well, and that's going to be hugely important because I mean, you know, the one thing that we can be certain of that is that the labor market jobs in general are going to be changing very rapidly now. And like that continuing education and sort of strategically refocusing. Focusing your, your users and your, your, your base, you know, to, to stay vet, you know, relevant, um, is going to be hugely important coming up.
Stacey Yudin:It's an enormous challenge that we as a country have, right? We have the middle class, we have people that work in labor, and of course, we still need it. the labor class to grow it. And by the way, I mean, they are what made America what it is today. Every bridge, every road, every electrical line, they make the world run. When we're talking about AI energy consumption, where does that come from? It comes from these big energy plants and production. And so again, it's, it's two sides of the same coin. Um, and I think there's definitely an opportunity for organized labor to play a big role in the training and education and the next phase of work in America. And a lot of organizations are already doing a great job of setting themselves up to be and to position themselves to really be that education and training center as they should. They've done a great job over the last whole year. 200 years of training the workers that make, you know, that have built American infrastructure. So I think it's a natural fit and I'm a huge supporter of that training and education model being sort of held in the space of labor.
Chris Brandt:Yeah, we, we always hear it talked about, but it, you know, we don't, we don't always see the output of that, you know, so that, that's, that's really fantastic. Well, I, I think, um, if you have a not, not for profit or you're starting a union or, you know, whatever, I think, uh, this is a great place to start because there's, You know, having been on non profit boards and things like that, there's so much that you don't think of that you can't imagine that needs to get taken care of. And like having that all kind of a one stop shop, I can imagine is extraordinarily valuable. So I think it's, it's very cool what you're doing. I think you're helping a really interesting segment of the economy. And, uh, I just want to say thanks so much for coming on and sharing it with us. It's, it's very cool.
Stacey Yudin:Yeah. Thank you for having me on. It's been a great conversation.
Chris Brandt:Thanks for watching. I'd love to hear from you in the comments. And if you could give us a like, think about subscribing and share this with your friends and any nonprofit out there that you know that needs some organization. And I will see you in the next one.