NPC Don Ward – 9/26/17
Hugh Ballou: Welcome to this version of the Nonprofit Exchange. Russell David Dennis, how are you today sir?
Russell Dennis: it’s a beautiful day here in Colorado. A little cloudy, a little cool. It’s a great day just to be alive.
Don Ward:
Hugh: We have a long-time friend and another brilliant person who is in my life. Russ haven’t met him yet, but you will discover for yourself that Don has many, any gifts. We are going to talk about a special topic: We are all challenged around the topic of talking about money. We like to champion charity as the definition of what we do in the social benefit sector. The word is nonprofit is used a lot. I ends to color our thinking about money. Our guest today is Don Ward. Don Ward wears a number of hats. I know Don Ward from the CEO clubs in Central Florida, where you have introduced me to some really great leaders. Don, welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange.
Don: Thank you very much. Honored to be here. As they say, whatever you honor will honor you.
Hugh: Love it. There are a lo of things you do, but in this space of influencing leaders, our topic today is money has eyes. Talk about your background, your experience, and what gives you the knowledge and wisdom to present today around this topic.
Don: Mistakes and great mentors. The only two ways you learn. So I would say that is what qualifies me. Probably there is a call that I am going to give you a mock version of that call later. I used to run a CEO of an organization you and I were a part of. People would find outa bout an event and go, “Oh my god, I have to be there. My credit card is maxed out. I don’t have any cash. Nobody loves me.” And all that stuff. We would just say, “Do you see yourself being there next week?” They say, “Yeah, I gotta be.” Okay. No problem. Be on a call at 9:00 on Wednesday night. I’ll give you a dose of that call a little later on.
Hugh: Great.
Don: But yes, I have helped over 400 companies raise seed capital on up to over a billion. I could go into a whole lo of things about what attracts money, but I will give you the coaching little bit segment there. Basically, if you have an A-level team and you have a B-level play-in, you are funded. You have an A-level play-in and a B-level team. Ain’t no money comin’.
Hugh: Whoa. That’s a reality check. So you have some really good information to share with us today. We often just go back and forth in a Q&A with guests. I want to give you some space to share in a presentation mode about money has eyes. I heard you say, you kind of slipped it in, that you helped 400 companies raise capital. Is that what you said?
Don: Absolutely. I don’t have it on my business card. I don’t have it on my website because I only do it for people that I know I am divinely called to work in conjunction with. Not everybody is our assignment.
Hugh: Got it. We work with- Russell and I work with charities. I work with early-stage entrepreneurs. Many, many, many are challenged. This is a great topic for everyone, so I want to get out of your way. So you have worked with seed capital, and I heard you say a billion dollars.
Don: Well, actually, I am sitting on two operations right now. We are in the middle of a $9.9 billion raise on one, and the other we are in the middle of a $500 million one, but we are gonna need a lot more than that before it’s done. My biggest part to bring to it isn’t just laying out the corporate engineering or the capital development, but really it’s helping people to reshape their vision and mission. If you can talk about what you can do in 15 words or less, people might hear what your’ saying, and you might actually sound like you know what you’re talking about. But if you can get it down to five words, you are powerful, probably the most powerful person at the event. Especially if it is a networking event. They ask you what it is; you want money to be asking you questions, you don’t want to be telling it anything.
Hugh: That’s a paradigm shift. Why