Mallory: Welcome Everyone. I am so excited to be here today with Angela Matthews. Angela, welcome to What The Fundraising. 

Angela: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Mallory: So why don’t we start with you just telling everyone a little bit about you. We got to meet at AFP Icon this year. And I know your work is both a bit inside the nonprofit sector, outside of it as well. So just tell everyone what brings you to our conversation. 

Angela: Yes, we definitely met at the conference and it was such a whirlwind in Las Vegas and we met each other on the premise of what would it look like if everyone saw investing or money through the lens of abundance? What would fundraising look like? What would the world look like? What would entrepreneurship look like? And how could we really shift the planet through a powerful conversation about money? And not just this high up, high-end conversation that’s super detached. But what happens when we bring the conversation on a more personal level and how does our relationship with money translate to how we’re representing money in the world? And I know that’s a mouth full but it’s there. 

Mallory: Yeah and tell me your money story. Like how, what brought you to a moment in time where you are in a position and wanting to talk about money and how it moves in this world. 

Angela: So I will premiss this with I have a whole company called The Happy Investor Method, and this is really my jam. And I’ve been investing in the stock market for 12 years and I utilized investing in the stock market as my path out. And so for me, I was born and raised in Queens, New York to immigrant parents. And I didn’t come from a super wealthy background. But I was very clear that I paid my dues when I was younger.

And I think maybe everyone could experience poverty on some level to understand what wealth truly means and how it could impact the world or do service. And like I said, was clear that I did my time, from zero to 18, did my time. Not going there, Angela is going to be fantastically wealthy above and beyond abundant for the rest of her life.

And so in making that decision, I decided to ask the person I knew the most and who had the most information about money and wealth. And so I went to Google and I Googled, how do you become rich? Like I said, I didn’t necessarily, I came from very humble beginnings. And so Google always comes through with the answer and Google came through and it said first of all, after much searching, do you want to be new rich? Do you want to be like a lottery winner? Or do you want to be sustainably rich? Do you want to be self-made? Do you want to always have this problem of not having money? And so after awhile I said, hey, I want to be a self-made multimillionaire. And I don’t want to work all the time. How can I do this? And that’s when I found investing in entrepreneurship and I did both.

Mallory: Wow! Okay. So Google, good work. I feel like that could have led to a lot of different things. 

Angela: Yes. And I could have been on a completely different path. Lord knows somewhere else around the world doing Lord knows what. For Lord knows who, but thankfully the results came through that day. 

Mallory: Thankfully you’re here. Okay. Can we define wealth? What do you define as well? Let’s start there.

Angela: For me, wealth is choice and access. Period. It is the ability to choose what you want to do with your time and with your resources. And it also has to do with understanding what those options are. So there’s one thing to have a choice in the matter, but if you don’t know what choices are available, or you don’t have access to certain things, then you can’t choose what you don’t know.

And so for me, wealth is just access and choice. And it can mean whether this is for health, whether this is for financial circumstances, whether this is for relationships, it always comes down to that for me, choice in that. 

Mallory: I love that because I actually think those two pillars really resonate in a nonprofit framework as well. Like they resonate beyond just an individual. When I think about what is choice and access mean even for a nonprofit organization. I see exactly how a certain level and people probably wouldn’t say like our nonprofit is wealthy, but a certain amount of sort of financial abundance leads to exactly the same. Choice and access. So I think it’s really interesting when you break it down that way. 

And so when you work with folks around money and starting their journey of making probably first, a decision around how they want to shift their relationship with money and then how they ultimately want to make money, or maybe it’s the opposite way. Like what’s the start of the journey process here for the folks that you work with. 

Angela: For me, I like to think about it in terms, how did you get here, and why are you here? A lot of us have financial traumas and some of this trauma that we have it’s inherited. Other times it’s us being 18 years old and signing up for every single credit card that gave us an application. For some of us, it’s taking out loans, getting married, or just doing things that we didn’t necessarily expect to have the ramifications that it does financially. In the moment, it felt amazing. Clearly, that’s why we did it. 

So for me, I like to start with that in terms of how did you get to be the way you are? What is your story? What is the trauma? And is there any way we can release the guilt from that? Because you don’t want to create something in the same energy that it was created, right? You don’t want to create a new thing in the same, I don’t want to say negative energy, but counterproductive. And so if we can just own it and say, hey, yeah, I totally took out five credit cards and traveled the world. Not saying this was me. It was totally me. This was totally me.

And releasing that guilt and saying, but I’m so thankful that credit cards were invented so that I can take credit cards out and travel the world. And I am so thankful that I got to meet people that would have probably never been able to come to the United States of America and meet me. And thankfully someone created this plastic to give to someone who was 20 years old without a job to go and do this. And if this was the only reason this was created for, heck we got a win-win situation here. 

So do you see that reframe or I could have reframed it and said, okay wow, we have 15K in debt and I don’t have anything to show for it. And what if I had done something else with that money? And it’s the same exact situation, just two different sides and erasing that guilt of it’s not great. It’s not bad. It is what it is. Then gives me the agency to do something about it. 

Mallory: Okay. You said something in there that I think is really important and I want to dig into it for a second. You said that piece around I have nothing to show for it. And I think this is a really interesting piece of money. And I see it on individual levels, organizational levels, so many different things that I’m sure it comes up in investing too. And so I’m curious, how you think about this.

What I hear you saying is there was this decision made that had this outcome that could have been viewed in a super binary way. That thing I did was wrong, it was bad. It had these consequences. And so I’m going to feel really bad about it because it was bad. 

What I hear you doing is saying actually maybe it’s more nuanced than that. Like maybe I don’t have this because of it, but I have this because of it and it taught me this and it led to this. And holding both truths about what had happened there. And I think that’s really interesting because what do we have to show for it? That piece of the justification of money is so complicated because money is just like one form of energy. Some things, some outputs we can see, some of them we can’t, and how do we value those things up against money? What do you even think about what I’m saying? 

Angela: I think it’s a really interesting query to be in because especially in the fundraising world, right? We’ve got these intangible things that we are fundraising for change, for justice, for whatever it is you’re fundraising for it. And you’re going to a donor and you’re telling them, hey, can you give us some money? We’re going to make this thing happen. And now the donor may come back or you may go back to the donor and ask for more. And they’re going to say what do you have to show for it? And now you have to give a tangible output or explanation for something that may not actually have a tangible output or explanation. How do you actually give a dollar value to someone getting prescription drugs that couldn’t afford it? How do you give a dollar value to education? You just can’t. 

And so in that, what I would encourage people to do and what I think what you’re alluding to too is, hey, how do we look at the conversation if there was nothing to show for it? A) can I be okay with it? Period. Because the real thing is there is something to show for it. It’s just that you haven’t seen it. And then we get to think about what am I not seeing here? And why am I utilizing one paradigm to analyze another paradigm? Like why am I doing all of this in the first place? How can I just honor the decision that was made and trust that I made the decision for the best possible future in alternative? And sit in it in saying that it worked out the way it worked out because that’s how it should have worked out. Because I said so in my original creation of it.

Mallory: And this is pushing the way I think about or try to define money and value, but I think it is we’re also talking about the fact that there are all these different things of value in our lives. And some of them have more tangible value and some of them don’t. And some of them are valued by other people and some of them aren’t. And how do we sit with what was meaningful even for us? And that doesn’t mean that it was good or bad or comfortable. But that had something important for us in it without then starting to judge it by all of the value lens externally. 

So I’m curious from an investing perspective. Let’s say you got someone really excited about investing two months ago. Or something like, I’ll tell you a few months ago I had a woman on from Coinbase and she got me all excited about crypto. I got way too excited about crypto real fast. And then I had a really good friend who worked at a big bank make me even more excited about crypto. So I decided I’m gonna invest in crypto. 

Angela: What did you do? 

Mallory: So I invested in crypto and not a crazy amount of money but something is significant and meaningful to me. And more than 50% of it has gone. And it’s been this really interesting work over the last few days and gone for the moment who knows, I’ve no idea what the future holds. There are plenty of people who would tell me take what’s left and run. And there are plenty of people who would tell me to sit and stay and all the different things.

And I am going to sit and stay but actually, my reason to sit and stay is less about the money that I might gain back and more about what it means to me to sit in the discomfort of temporary loss. To say that, you know what I need to not freak out right now. I need to believe and sit with and work on this being okay, me still being safe. I made this decision knowing that different things could happen, but now they have, so soon. 

But still, I said to myself yesterday I’m really curious what you would say to a client who was like me in this situation in the stock market. I said to myself yesterday in my head, Mallory, if you want abundance in your business, you can not freak out when you lose money. Those are the same thing. It’s the same thing. So if you want to clamp down and get tight and restrict, restrict, restrict. The exact same energy is going to be there in your business. And so what you sit within this moment is going to affect everything else. And so that’s been part of my own investing in this particular moment journey but I’m curious, how you approach a client like. 

Angela: So it’s funny you should say this because I just wrapped up yesterday, a program that was five weeks and I was in a container with students, 45 people for five weeks, and its a container teaching them investing.

And in the beginning, they were like, yes, I’m invested, take all my hard-earned money, throw it in the market, take it, grow it and make me a multimillionaire. And this is what they’re thinking. And right now at the time of this recording, the market is doing some really interesting things and it’s pretty much down roughly 25% since the beginning of the year. And still not the lowest it’s been, one of the recent lows was in 2020 right around the pandemic. So we’re really not anywhere close to that yet. Still nowhere close to where we were with the recession. 

So I say this to say that when you start zooming out of the picture, it starts feeling a lot better, right? When you’re in it, and you’re so close to something, your adrenaline is pumping and you’re thinking, oh my gosh, there’s nothing else that matters in this moment. But this is one moment of so many. And I like to think of investments as the people who run them. So we’re human and so humans grow and develop over a lifetime. The same thing happens with your investment. 

So I too own crypto and I’m in it for the long haul. And so I definitely saw, hey, I’ve at some point lost 50% of my investment because I’ve been investing for over a year. And I’ve continuously invest it and not because this is a sound investment. I invest in the belief of what crypto is. So it’s completely different than the fundamental analysis of the stock market. I am investing in a belief when I invest in crypto, decentralized money, Fiat, and government.

Mallory: I just got so excited and covered in chills because that’s what I say to people all the time too. And I have never had someone say that back to me. People, whenever somebody tells me that I’m crazy for investing in crypto, I’m like I don’t really care. I believe in this. I believe in this and I want to put my resources towards that. I don’t think of it as my philanthropic giving but it is triggered by many of those same decisions. So I love hearing that from you. 

Angela:Yes, exactly. We’re investing in the future we want to see. And so for me, my reaction to Bitcoin is probably like hovering 20 something thousand right now. I went to my husband and I said, oh my gosh, we can own a whole Bitcoin. What do we do? This is not a drill people, this is not a drill. I can own a whole Bitcoin right now. Do we go in on this? This was my reaction. And so you can see it’s like really different than the reaction that you had and it’s not good and it’s not a bad thing.

We’re just watching our reactions. And so for me an investor, you’re right. How you do one thing translates to everything. And I’m thinking this is investing season. This is the season where millionaires and billionaires are created. And when millionaires and billionaires are created especially from backgrounds that aren’t traditional investors.

What would that look like in the world? What would it look like if Mallory was a billionaire? What would it look like if the person listening right now to this became a billionaire? How much of the world’s problems that we currently sit in will no longer exist? How many of the people in your life that aren’t as gifted with money or to see the potential about everywhere? How many of those people get to go as a result of you going? And so when I see opportunities like this in the market with it going down, with Bitcoin going down, I’m thinking it is a free for all. Y’all get your bucket out. It is raining money here. We are getting things at such a discount. The fact that I can pay 20 something thousand for a whole coin. Are you kidding me, like me five years ago? This is so freaking exciting. And I don’t even know if I’m going to actually purchase it or not because I just did an angel investment two weeks ago.

And so, but it is investing season. And so once we think about that, how can we invest in relationships? How can we invest in opportunities to make our money grow? How can you start understanding as a fundraiser and as an organization, how can you understand your donors? Because your donors are probably investors as well. Chances are they are. And how can you understand and correlate fundraising to investing in a future? Investing in a reality? There is no payoff. There is no, did I make the right return on investment or anything like that once we’re investing in something that doesn’t even have.

Mallory: Yeah. I really appreciate what you were talking about around what happens when different people become wealthy. What happens when wealth is gained by folks who haven’t historically had access to wealth? And it’s interesting because we’ve been experiencing a tremendous amount of gun violence in this country, always there’s been an additional spotlight on it recently. And so the other day I Googled how much money the NRA invest in lobbying. It really wasn’t that much money at the end of the day. When I looked at these sort of tipping points, senators, and how much they had gotten over their lifetime from the NRA. It’s not an insurmountable amount of money. 

And it’s just interesting because I think about that a lot, especially in the work that I do when I work one-on-one with women building their coaching businesses and their own sort of guilt or resistance to making money. I’m like what gets to happen in this world when people like you have way more money, like how does everything actually change? And so I think that’s such a big thing that you said that I want to double-click on. 

Angela: Everything changes when we all get to go. Everything, and it doesn’t have to be scarcity driven. I look at my investments making money and I tell my clients, we talk about the cost that we’re going to change and shift. Because yes, there’s my hard-earned money but the whole point of an investment it grows by itself. So I could be here living my beautiful life. You’re living your beautiful life. And I go back and I check in on the account and all of a sudden there’s thousands and thousands of dollars there that wasn’t there before. Now what would it look like if I just gave that away? Which I actually do. I do that often in my day-to-day life, someone looks like they are in need. I literally walk around and don’t jack me if you see me in the street, please don’t. But I literally walk around and like just give hundred-dollar bills away to people. And it doesn’t hurt me. It doesn’t make me feel any type of way because I can look in a brokerage account and easily say, oh, I made a couple of thousand dollars today.

What is it to just give, what if someone just used me as a means to get to them? And that’s really why I think I’ve been so blessed and why our clients are so blessed, and my students and the people, other investors. I think we’re so blessed because we get to give, right? For a lot of us who are in our space, you have a special blessing on you because you have a space in your heart that literally, we will always give no matter what. It doesn’t matter if you have $10, you’re going to give $5. If you have five, you’re going to give $2.50. If you have $2.50, you’ll probably give the $2 and say, you know what I’ll figure it out. 

Mallory: Yeah. I feel like that is also what I was talking about before around the way that money moves in, money moves out, and vice versa. So it’s just like the flow of money. Like when we release it with more ease, it comes in with more ease because it is the same thing. So if I clamped down around the loss, it’s going to block me in the way I bring in money into my business. And I say this to fundraisers, and I know it’s not an easy thing to hear sometimes, but when I have fundraisers say I can’t afford to invest in Power Partners, which is $99 a month. That level of scarcity mindset that’s showing up in your fundraising. There’s just no way around it. And I’m just curious what your sort of experiences there, what you think about that? 

Angela: Absolutely. At some point, everyone knows we have to pay to play. And you have to get a ticket to get into the room. Remember I said choice and access to something that is pricing. To be in the room, to be in certain conversations, to get the introductions you need to the people that can get you the other introductions that you need. And I’m an entrepreneur, right? I’m a business owner. I have a whole company and I talk to my husband about it. Beause he’s like you’re always spending and you’re always making and I’m like, no, I’m always investing. I’m always investing. I’m investing in myself. I’m investing in my company. I’m investing in other people’s companies. I’m investing in relationships. And sometimes I just need to get into that room because I wasn’t born in that room. So how else are we going to get in that room?

I think about sponsoring conferences. And I think, oh my gosh, little old me from Queens, what am I doing? Sponsoring a conference, but I get to sponsor a conference and people get to see that people like me sponsor conferences. And I also get to be put in a position of authority to say, hey, I’m here to let you know that this is what you need to be doing with your money. And once you start playing at that level, you’ll start attracting people at that level. And so I find all the time when there are folks who hire us to teach them investment strategies and it gets a bit addictive. It’s like I won’t lie.  

Mallory: I know, I told you my crypto story. 

Angela: Exactly. It gets you, you definitely get a little hit, right? You get a little hit every time. And there are people who are like, oh my gosh, you won’t believe it. I went to this investor meeting, or I went to this thing and I ran into this person and I landed this huge contract. And you’re like, how did you do that? Birds of a feather flock together. Just being open to investing or change or money or abundance, you’re going to be attracting other people just like that who are open. You’re going to attract opportunities and it’s always about opportunities. Show me the opportunities, help me to understand the opportunities, help me to take advantage of the opportunities, help me to be an opportunity. 

Mallory: Wow. Okay. So I’ll say I feel like the term abundance is an interesting term that I don’t use a ton in nonprofits because I think that nonprofits, in general, are rooted in such a scarcity mindset. That abundance feels like a quote on their coffee mug. The idea of feeling abundant, they’re like how do I get there? Like, how do I feel? And there’s this piece around what you had said before basically if we all got there, if we all get there. If we all get access and this idea that it isn’t zero-sum that capitalism teaches us in many ways, there’s only so much and you either win or you lose and it’s very binary. But you teach within very much a binary system with wins and loss tracking. You teach that it’s not a zero-sum game that we can all win. So how does that work?

Angela: There’s this thing called live and let live. To me, it’s like win and help win. And in a win and help win paradigm, I don’t think that old paradigms have to die for new ones to come. I don’t think capitalism has to die out for a better version of capitalism to be created. I think capitalism created me and it also saved me.  And it continues to save me and creates other inequities and all of that. That’s just a bigger conversation than I care to really pontificate on ever. Rather think about what is a potential solution, what is this new thing that we can create? 

And so for me, I know that seeing that in the lens of abundance could seem woo. I get that but if we have to choose scarcity or abundance. If I have to choose if I win someone else loses, I personally will never want to win. Because within me that means that someone is going to be experiencing pain because of me. And that’s just something that I personally don’t enjoy the thought of. Who does, let’s just be honest. And so we have to scratch that thought. Just because I happened to purchase a really nice handbag or Chanel earrings does not mean that I am a bad person. In fact, I feel so blessed that I can purchase these Chanel earrings. I have waited my entire life to purchase these Chanel earrings. And I don’t feel bad about it. And I kept it to myself. I’m a closeted person in the sense that I don’t want to talk about Chanel. I don’t want to talk about how obsessed I am about it. But the thing is when I hit milestones, I get to celebrate that and the money is going to go regardless. 

This is the story of money. It comes, it goes. Tell me what you spent this day five years ago. What did you spend? Where did the money go? What do you have to quote, unquote, show? Really, we really don’t know. And so if I’m going to get to choose what gets stuck in my net of money, I’m going to be intentional about it. And for me, it happens to be like little Chanel broaches.

Mallory: Beautiful. 

Angela: And yes, I know that I probably could have fed 500 kids with Feeding America. That’s real but I have also fed 500. And I get to go with my Chanel broach and I get to do something else. And so this is what I want to say with this new frontier of money and acceptance and stuff comes in. It’s just owning all of it. Because in the end of the day, if I can’t feel good in purchasing my luxury, whatever that makes me feel good for me Chanel, maybe for someone else, it’s a nice pair of hiking boots. Maybe for someone else that’s a trip or a nice bottle of champagne. It doesn’t matter. But this fuels us, like long are the days, like long gone are the days of martyrdom and choice poverty, in the sense of because I have what someone else doesn’t, I’m over it. 

Mallory: I love what you just said. And I think because and I really appreciate what you said about the 500 people being fed. Because I think that is the type of narrative that gets trapped in the nonprofit sector in a few different ways. And I’ll be honest when I lost the crypto money that was the first thing I thought I was like, ah, like that money could have made such an impact in someone else’s life. That was my first gut reaction condition tendency thought. And then when I really thought about it and I think this is another thing you’re calling people to do is look at your relationship with money as a whole, not this one situation or circumstance or purchase or investment. But what I said to myself was, you do donate a tremendous amount of money and you do all these other things. And this play with crypto was important for your overall money management. It was an important exercise. It’s an important practice. It’s all those different things.

And I think in the nonprofit sector, even when we’re talking about advocating for pay increases. Folks get into their mind around it’s me or more money for the program, which could mean 500 meals. It could mean 10,000 meals. But what’s happening to your energy and your time and your focus and your attitude when you make the decision to always have it go to those 500 meals? I think that’s actually when we do see that martyrdom gets stuck there and the needs of the people in the organizations aren’t being met. And then they’re not showing up with the energy that actually is going to move abundance into the organization from a fundraising perspective. 

Angela: All of it. It is a cycle, it’s a cycle. And you can’t expect other people to give above and beyond if you’re not willing to do the same and see it in the same exact lens. Yeah. It’s just not going to work. And I’m telling you this, I’m not a fundraiser. I’m an investor and I’m a donor. And so it was so interesting going to the conference and being around so many fundraising professionals and hearing the image of the donor. And saying, how can we get donors to give more? Or how can we get those donor dollars back? And I’m like back, what do you mean back? What do you mean? And I get it. How do we bring back the money? How do we get people to consistently give over time? But what would it look like if we didn’t think about it in terms of bringing something back? Because nothing truly was, it’s everyone’s. But what do we look at it and say that, wow, wherever that money went, I’m so happy that money went there. That is amazing that another organization gets to experience this donor in this way. Now how can we re-engage this donor to be more part of the team? How can we talk about a better future? How can I ask the donor questions? 

All this stuff in terms of humanizing the experience of a donor, because I’m an investor. If you make me feel good and you make me feel as if I am changing the world in my partnership and collaboration with you, I will go make money to come back to bring to you to keep on doing it right. And that is totally not what you would expect from a donor, but I am telling you there are new wealthy people being made. Remember old paradigms don’t have to die for new ones to be created. Old money doesn’t have to die out for new money to be created. And I think where this league of new wealthy. What does it look like when someone purchases a whole Bitcoin for $20,000 and one day it’s worth a hundred thousand or a million? And they’re like, you know what, I’m just going to give half of this away because heck I just paid 20K for it and it’s worth so much more money now. I get so excited from this stuff, you can tell. But what would that look like, new rich? 

Mallory: Yeah. It’s such a different way. You bring up this other piece which is the opinions that nonprofits hold about their donors or the decisions that they make for their donors in many ways. And I think the limitations of relationships when they are uncomfortable with money. So making assumptions about people with money or passing judgment about people with money. I would say, even if you feel a little bit uncomfortable with the way you’re hearing money talked about on this episode, that’s something to look at. Even when you said we’re the new wealthy, I was like, am I wealthy? Am I comfortable, I felt it in. And this is work I’m doing every single day, but I still feel that little ping, that little ping in my throat. Am I comfortable there? What does that mean? Because we have been taught and we do all have money stories and money trauma.

God, my grandmother passed away with her entire life saving hidden in her closet because they had lost everything in the Holocaust. And we all live with these weird complicated, traumatic experiences with money. And I would say for me, it’s been a constant untangling and a resurfacing and then untangling again and then a resurfacing and untangling again. So for folks who are listening to this and like feeling those moments of discomfort, sitting in that is where I feel like the work really lies. 

Angela: Sitting in that is where the magic is. Because I know right now I’m talking and I’m this cute little poster, like yay, shift the planet with our money. But it definitely is an onion. There’s cellular things down. I’m a person of color. And so I own property and investments or property. And even in my cellular DNA, I have to contend with the fact that I was once property. That’s something, someone who comes from example, your grandmother, right, holocaust survivors. You have to think about money as a pass to live because a lot of people had to have money to pay someone off to live. So we get to have these conversations and we just get to be in the query of, wow, I’m listening to this podcast, I’m listening to this episode, and that kind of rubbed me wrong.

And so I grew up in a church home back in Queens. And my Bishop always says, if you’re angry at it, it’s because it applies to you. And so it’s hurtful words because it’s true. Because the only person angry right now is the person who it would apply to cause if it didn’t, you wouldn’t be angry. If it didn’t apply to you, you would’ve just kept on listening and you wouldn’t even flinch. So that’s your higher spirit. That’s your intuition. That’s that inner child saying wait, wait, hold on there. There’s an opportunity here to grow. There’s an opportunity to stretch. There’s an opportunity to have a new identity around this topic that really can be the linchpin for so much of who you’re meant to be.

What would life look like if money wasn’t a thing? What would look like if money was always around you, forever and ever and there’s nothing you can do to stop. And if you actually integrated that belief inside of you and knowing that everyone has that power to access it as well. What can’t you do in this world? Who can’t you be? Who can’t you fix? Who can’t you solve? Not that you can fix anything, but what can’t you fix, specific? I know this could be a triggering episode and we love you. I’ll slap you and hug you and slap you and hug you and my slaps, they’re like feathers. But really and truly I think, Mallory, really I honor you for having this conversation and being open to the conversation and exposing your community because once one of us goes, we all go.

Mallory: Yeah. I think so much of the real work for fundraisers, in my opinion, it’s around grappling with the layers of discomfort. And so this isn’t the first or the last What The Fundraising episode where people are probably in their car cringing at me a little bit, but that’s okay. Because I think that it’s not just okay. It’s important in my opinion because I think we want to be changemakers. Changemakers mean changing the status quo. Comfort lives in the status quo. So if we want to change the status quo, whatever that is in terms of our environmental impact, equity and justice work, or progress in any kind of way. It’s going to require us to get uncomfortable. It’s gonna require us to get uncomfortable and the way we act and the way we show up and in the way we think and what we believe. 

And I believe for fundraisers, particularly a lot of that is in this conversation. This is the 0.1 of you want to go into a meeting with a major donor, have you done this work? Have you thought about these things? Because to think that you can go into a major donor meeting with the perfect pitch deck and the perfect impact report and the perfect briefing sheet. And have not done any of this work and you wonder why it didn’t land. It’s in here, the answers in here, so I just really appreciate the way you think about things, the way you push others to think about things. 

Angela: Absolutely. And maybe you’re on the other side of the spectrum where you’re like this was freaking awesome. Yeah, this is what I needed. This puts so much things in perspective. Wherever you are on the journey it’s just know it and honor it. 

Mallory: Yes. And that it’s not going to be linear. Because I have days probably where I would’ve been like I’m going to buy a Bitcoin. So that’s the other thing, there’s lots of things happening around us all the time that impact our energy and awareness and consciousness around money and how rooted we feel in abundance and scarcity.

I didn’t say to myself when I had that moment of oh crap, I didn’t say to myself, you’ve lost all your money work. Like you don’t even know how to think abundantly anymore. You’ve completely lost all that work you’ve done on yourself. I didn’t go there. I was just like, all right, I’m having a moment. I’m having a moment. I need to dig in. I need to unpack this a little bit. And then I went about my day. 

Angela: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I’m so proud of you, I think that probably was a testament to your growth. Just even hearing your own internal thought pattern. Because the you of the past might not have had that reaction. So it really was a thermometer to seeing how far you’ve come. I’m sure. 

Mallory: Yeah, the me of the past would have never even invested. The second me of the past would have sold everything in that moment. There’s lots of iterations of that. But I’m just so grateful for you and everything that you do to help people build the life that they want to be living and do it in ways that does promote a tremendous amount of generosity and community and connection. So thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. Tell everyone where can they find you. What’s the best way to connect with you? How might they be able to work with you? All of the things. 

Angela: So I am on email all the time. And so I send love notes via email to folks and you can go to happyinvestorguide.com and either you can just get on our list and there’s free trainings and stuff like that. But really that’s my jam. I’ve got two little ones. And so social media is quite a bit of a luxury but if you do want to follow, you can follow me at Happy Investor Method. And Happy Investor Method, we try to make you happy with investing and we have programs throughout the year and masterminds. And once you’re in our world, it’s a fun one if you can’t tell already. 

Mallory: Amazing. And I also invite folks, if they want to share a nonprofit to highlight on the show for folks to check out, if they’re interested, do you have one top of mind you want to share? 

Angela: I do. I had no idea this was going to be here but there is one called 8 Cents in a Jar. And what it does is it prepares kids from socio-disadvantaged economic backgrounds to go to investing competitions around the country. And so they get a little bit of money and they have to invest it in the stock market and make it grow and they go to competitions. And so that is my organization of choice, naturally because I teach investing and I know the power it has and these kids are so fearless. They’ll just throw this money in something. And they’re saying, yep, that’s going to work. It’s going to work. And you say, how do you know that’s going to work? And they say, it is because this and this, and they just get it so fast. And so I already know that organization is they’re changing so much just because they’re getting kids before they get that credit card. They’re getting kids when they’re 13 and they’re exposing them to travel. They’re exposing them to money, to competitions, and it’s really a beautiful organization. And yep. Check it out 8 Cents in a Jar. And it’s awesome. And if you all have any organizations that you want me to know about, please feel free to find me on social media or email me. I love love continuing on the conversations. And this is one that is so important to have. 

Mallory: Thank you. Thank you for joining me today.

Angela: Thank you for having me and thank you for listening.