Building a Legacy Through Philanthropy with Phoenix Hafen and UI Charitable

[00:00:00] And sometimes people hear that and they kind of scratch their heads and they say, well, philanthropy is actually really simple. I just give cash to charity. You know, it's that straightforward. And we say, no, that's the worst thing you can do. You should never give cash to charity. And we say that not because you shouldn't be supporting charities and not because you shouldn't be generous, but just because cash is actually the least tax efficient asset you can donate.

[00:00:33] Welcome to En Factor Podcast. I'm Rebecca White, your host, and thank you for joining me today. Today's episode is a little bit different. You know, some people ask me why I started this podcast six, seven years ago, and it was really to democratize my research.

[00:00:51] I had interviewed entrepreneurs for many years and written a lot of academic papers about entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurial mindset, but I thought it might make sense to share the entire interviews, the stories, not just my findings, with a broader audience.

[00:01:10] So The En Factor was born, like I said, in 2019, to share these stories of entrepreneurs. Today, I'm talking to someone a little bit different because I wanted to talk about something very important, I think, to all of us and something that many entrepreneurs find valuable as they think about the legacy that they're leaving behind with their company and with their lives, and that's philanthropy.

[00:01:35] So today I've invited Phoenix Hafen to join me, and he's very young, looked at a finance career, and found himself working with a company that actually helps entrepreneurs figure out how they can leave a legacy through philanthropy.

[00:01:52] So we're going to have a conversation today talking about philanthropy and entrepreneurs, and not just about how to build a company, but also about how you can make a difference and give back. So let's dive into this conversation with Phoenix Hafen. Welcome to The En Factor, Phoenix. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Rebecca.

[00:02:20] We were just talking about the fact that you're very young, and you're already spending a lot of time in the whole philanthropic space. So talk to us, tell our audience listening to the show a little bit about what you do, your company and what you do specifically. Yeah, sure. So coming out of college, I thought I wanted to be a financial advisor. So I thought I would go out and get some relevant experience. And so I was interviewing around with different groups, and I found this group that I'm at now.

[00:02:49] So UI Charitable. I was just, I was really impressed with the team. I thought they were doing really interesting, innovative things in the philanthropic space. And we operate a lot like an RIA. So a lot like kind of a financial advisory practice would. And so I thought, okay, great. This will be a great place to start out my career. And here I am four years later. So it stuck.

[00:03:08] That's fantastic. So some of the things I've read about you, you've already done some pretty big deals. So talk to us about some of the experiences you've had since you got started. And maybe is there a memorable story or two in there about what you do that might be really interesting to our audience, which is, you know, early stage entrepreneurs, as well as those who are out there and have been running businesses for a long time?

[00:03:35] Yeah, yeah, sure. So at UI Charitable, we view ourselves as a philanthropic back office. And so we work with high net worth individuals and families to help them with their charitable planning. And in doing that, we really focus on two main goals, which is our clients achieving the charitable outcomes that they care about. And then are they structuring their giving in the most tax efficient way possible?

[00:03:57] And so, you know, we're looking at, okay, you've decided you have a philanthropic interest, you know, how are you going to fund this journey? What assets are the most tax efficient to use to do that? And then on the other side, what are your charitable goals? You know, what geographies do you care about? What impact areas do you care about? And, you know, what vehicles or services make the most sense for you?

[00:04:21] So yeah, we help people optimize their philanthropy. And sometimes people hear that and they kind of scratch their heads and they say, well, philanthropy is actually really simple. I just give cash to charity. You know, it's that straightforward. And we say, no, that's the worst thing you can do. You should never give cash to charity. And we say that not because you shouldn't be supporting charities and not because you shouldn't be generous, but just because cash is actually the least tax efficient asset you can donate.

[00:04:51] So talk about how you're different from a typical wealth management, because it sounds like you do a lot of wealth management at the same time that you're thinking about philanthropy and of course taxes, which every entrepreneur faces at one point or another pretty early on.

[00:05:06] Yeah. So to go back to that a little bit. So we encourage people to to not donate cash. And the reason for that is that it's it's the least tax efficient asset you can donate. And so to unpack that a little bit, if you give cash to a nonprofit, so let's say, you know, you give $10,000 to the Red Cross, that $10,000, you know, you're going to get a receipt from them that that can come off your adjusted gross income. So that is that's the one tax benefit you're getting. Whereas with any other asset,

[00:05:36] any appreciated assets, so whether that's public securities, real estate, private business interest, you know, really any any other asset that has some capital gains appreciation on it. If you donate that asset directly in kind, this is one of the rare circumstances where the IRS actually allows you to double dip on tax benefits.

[00:05:55] So you get a deduction off your AGI of the fair market value of the asset, but you also avoid any capital gains tax on the portion that is that capital gain. And so for example, if you have a stock that you buy for $10, it appreciates up to $15. If you donate that to a charity or to, you know, a private foundation into your donor advice fund, you know, really any any charitable entity.

[00:06:22] When you make that donation, you receive a tax deduction for the full $15 of that donation. But you also either the charity or the entity that's receiving that is able to sell that and receive the full $15 as a charitable gift.

[00:06:39] And so, you know, if you compare that to, okay, I have stock and I'm going to sell it, pay the capital gains and then donate the cash to charity. It's just very, really inefficient. Right. And so I think that's just, you know, if there's one thing you take away from this overall, it's that if you have a philanthropic interest, you really shouldn't be giving cash to charity.

[00:06:58] You should be looking at, okay, what are my most appreciated assets? And, you know, that's what I'm going to select as, you know, for my gifts. And even one step above that is if you can charitably bunch, right? So you can look at, okay, how much philanthropic giving am I going to do over a five year or 10 year period? And let's front load that into year one. And so then you're getting the maximum deduction above the standard. And we can talk more about that, you know, a little bit later, but sorry, I cut you off. Go ahead.

[00:07:28] No, that's okay. So, so, you know, one of the things that we advise entrepreneurs at the university where I teach and when I coach entrepreneurs is that they need a team. And actually we've even done some research on the importance of having your accountant and your banker and your financial advisor and, you know, your attorney actually working together.

[00:07:50] How do you all fit into that? So to the entrepreneur out there that's thinking, well, yeah, I want to be philanthropic, but I've already got, you know, I've already got an accountant and I've already got a lawyer and I've already got a financial advisor. Do you, how do you fit into that and how does that work? Do you communicate? Is it a team effort? Yeah, it's such a great question. So, you know, we found, at least for our business, we found financial advisors are a great channel for us and we partner with financial advisors.

[00:08:18] And so, you know, that's probably of all the business that we do, probably 80% of it actually gets referred to us by financial advisors that we're partnered with. And then, you know, the other 20% is entrepreneurs and individuals coming to us directly. And so, yeah, so to answer your question, you know, you have your CPA who handles your tax picture. You have your financial advisor who's, you know, doing wealth management for you and investing your assets.

[00:08:44] And then, you know, we fit in under that charitable or philanthropic pillar. And so, you know, for example, when we're setting up charitable vehicles for clients, usually we are the, you know, the charitable provider and then the financial advisor is there to actually manage the assets within their charitable vehicles. Yeah. So you collaborate, you work collaboratively and you encourage people that come your way. And that's actually how you find a lot of your clients through financial advisors.

[00:09:14] So we talked about this earlier. Our audience, a lot of our audience is very early stage in their entrepreneurial journey. Others are further along. When does someone start thinking about philanthropy? Yeah, it's a great question. And I would say when you engage us, you know, when it when it makes sense to engage us is really whenever you're, you know, your charitable interest, your charitable giving.

[00:09:37] I would say, you know, it's around when it starts to approach the standard deduction for for for a tax year. So, you know, for a married couple filing jointly, that's around thirty two thousand.

[00:09:50] And so that's kind of, you know, if your charitable giving is approaching those numbers, that's kind of where, you know, we can step in and help you either on the tax planning side or on the side of actually, you know, figuring out, OK, in my charitable giving, am I achieving the outcomes that I actually care about? So do you help do you help organizations set up a foundation if they would like to do that? Or is that? Yeah, that's a that's a great question.

[00:10:18] So a lot of people there, you know, their standard perception of philanthropy and of, you know, charitable giving is the private foundation. Right. That that is what comes to mind for for a lot of people. And a private foundation is good, is good in some situations. So what we focus on for the most part is another vehicle called a donor advised fund. And so a donor advised fund just at a high level is a charitable giving account.

[00:10:43] So you set up this donor advised fund, you take, you know, assets, put them into the donor advised fund. Could be cash, could be public securities, could be privately held business interests, could be real estate, you know, really any asset. Put it into that donor advised fund, take an immediate charitable tax deduction. And then over time, you can recommend grants out to to nonprofits.

[00:11:04] And so what a donor advised fund is doing for you, much like what a private foundation is doing for you, is it's separating the tax consequences of your giving from when you actually accomplish that giving. And so the reason that's important is because then you can actually optimize for both of those. Right. You can give the assets that make sense to give at the time when it makes sense to give it. You know, take your tax benefit, you know, get that out of the way.

[00:11:30] And now you have, you know, a charitable vehicle set up where your advisor can manage those assets for you if you want them to invest it for you or you can do it yourself. And then when the timing's right, you can recommend grants out to nonprofits or even do other more interesting financing to support causes you care about. So, for example, we have a few individuals who do impact investing out of their donor advised funds.

[00:11:57] And so they'll say, you know, hey, I have this group that is in Africa. They are doing this is, you know, an example of one that we did. It was a startup in Africa doing refrigerated trucking. And so they needed some working capital to build out their infrastructure so that they can build this business and create more economic prosperity in Africa. And so this donor said, I don't just want to recommend them a grant.

[00:12:24] I want to issue them a loan that they can pay back to my donor advised fund over time. And so we structured that for him. And so what's interesting about that is that he's supporting this this African startup that has a, you know, a social mission. But those dollars actually come back into his donor advised fund and create this perpetual philanthropy for him.

[00:12:46] Right. So he can he can continue to have, you know, dollars to to give out and and improve, you know, either support his community or support other initiatives in other areas that he cares about. So I find that super interesting. A lot of people I know when they exit their their entrepreneurial venture, they want to to support other entrepreneurs.

[00:13:10] And so sometimes they do that by investing, which is, you know, the more traditional route. But this sounds like a different approach and a really interesting one. And so what are the restrictions on that? If if you know, if someone wanted to to to do that, does it have to be an organization that is registered as a not for profit or can it be any ongoing venture or organization? Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question.

[00:13:39] So, yeah. So just to kind of frame it, like I was saying, you know, private foundation, a donor advised fund, they are, you know, they're very similar vehicles. Most of the time for what people want to do, a donor advised fund works great. Probably 90 percent of the time, a donor advised fund is great. And a donor advised fund is just an account at a sponsoring nonprofit.

[00:14:02] And so in this case, it's us at UI Charitable, whereas a private foundation is your own entity that you're setting up, right, your own 501c3. And so you have, you know, your own filing you need to do for that and you need to hire staff. And so, you know, a donor advised fund is a way to, you know, have a philanthropic vehicle and to do your charitable giving out of with just, you know, less overhead and and more support, more guidance. Right. From our team. And so to answer your question, you know, what are the what are the restrictions?

[00:14:32] So within a donor advised fund, you kind of have have two options for everything you're doing. And that is either you're investing the dollars in the account to grow that charitable capital or you're you're deploying resources out, usually in the form of grants to nonprofits. Right. And so when you're deploying those assets, if you are recommending a grant to any 501c3 in the country, that's easy to do, no problem. Right.

[00:14:59] So a lot of people, what they'll do is they'll set up their donor advised fund and, you know, they're going to give to their church every year or they're going to give to the Red Cross or a few other nonprofits that they support. And so so that's kind of the, you know, the standard option and how they get used in the most general sense. But there's also a lot of opportunity to do more creative things with them. So, you know, I mentioned there's kind of two things you're doing within a donor advised fund.

[00:15:25] You're either investing those dollars and growing that charitable capital or you're recommending grants out of it. But on the investing side, what I think people don't realize is when they think investing, they think, OK, I'm just going to put it into public securities and grow the dollars. And then, you know, at some point I'll sell it and and send the grants out to charities. But you can actually do much more interesting things with that.

[00:15:51] And so to your point of, you know, entrepreneurs sell their business and now they want to, you know, support the local ecosystem. We have one donor, for example, who's very involved in the venture scene in Silicon Valley. What he likes to do out of his donor advised fund is he invests into emerging fund managers. You know, these these GP or, you know, fund managers of venture capital funds, they might be launching their first fund, you know, and they set out to raise, you know, a few million bucks.

[00:16:19] And they're having a really hard time getting their first LPs and our client will use his donor advised fund to be the first twenty five thousand or the first fifty thousand into into those funds. And so it's interesting because it's technically an investment, right? He's investing his dollars to grow his charitable capital, but he views that as his philanthropy. Right. So that's how he's giving back to the VC community is through investing into these emerging fund managers.

[00:16:47] And the reason that he's doing that out of his donor advised fund, as opposed to his his personal pocket, is that it's a lot more tax advantaged to do it out of his donor advised fund. And what are the restrictions on any kind of proceeds that come back to him for that investment? Yeah. So because the investments are being made out of the donor advised fund, all of the proceeds or profits that would come back out of that do go back into the donor advised fund.

[00:17:13] Right. So that is, you know, that is one thing to caveat all of this overall with is, you know, if you don't have a charitable interest, a donor advised fund is not a way that you, you know, magically make more money. You are setting aside dollars for for charitable uses. Right. And so. So, yeah, any investments that you make out of the donor advised fund, you know, profits that come back from that, it grows your charitable capital that you can now, you know, use to make other investments or support nonprofits.

[00:17:40] But those profits don't come back to you personally. Your your benefit is the tax deduction that you got when you first contributed that asset. Yeah. And and the good feeling you have that you're helping build something. So, yeah, I mean, it's just I just think people don't appreciate that, that there are a lot of things you can do to support your community with your charitable dollars. And it doesn't have to be you're giving money away. Right.

[00:18:04] It can be these these type of investments and things or, you know, another interesting example is we had a donor come to us who said, hey, there's an abandoned school in my community. And I really want to purchase it and turn it into a community center. And I looked at doing this out of my personal pocket. But, you know, if I have to free up a million dollars out of my my public securities, I'm going to trigger a few hundred thousand dollars in capital gains tax.

[00:18:30] But I have a donor advised fund. And if I free up a million dollars in my donor advised fund and purchase this school, there are no tax implications for me personally. And I'm totally fine with that because I'm not doing this project to make a profit for myself. I'm doing it to beautify my community. Right. And so that's just a really interesting example of if you you know, if you have a goal, you should then review, OK, what's the most tax efficient way to accomplish the goal that I want to accomplish?

[00:18:56] Yeah. Yeah. And that becomes more and more important, I think, as you're building your company and you're trying to figure out, you know, how you want to give back. But when you're talking to the early stage, because one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show, Phoenix, is to talk about philanthropy, because I believe that entrepreneurs have made a huge difference in the world and continue to make a huge difference.

[00:19:21] And there's plenty of evidence for that. But it's my understanding, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that philanthropy is struggling and has been for a few years. You know, people raising money are struggling. And, you know, while there's still a lot of giving, I think there are a lot of people that maybe don't know how they can do it given their personal circumstances.

[00:19:42] Maybe they're not in a position of the typical philanthropist. You know, they're not Bill Gates. So, you know, they're not they're not able to think about that in that same way. What would you say to someone early in their entrepreneurial venture who might be listening about how they can, you know, how they can start thinking about it now?

[00:20:04] Wow. You brought up, you know, that you need about, I think you said, 32 or $35,000 to be ready for your kinds of services. What can they think about is part of my question. But the other part of my question is, am I right or wrong about the state of giving? Like, where is the state of giving now in the United States in particular?

[00:20:24] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK. There's a lot there. I'll try and answer it as I can. No, that's great. I would say the state of giving out of U.S. private households is still is still very strong. I do think with, you know, the current administration and some of the reduction in in government spending towards nonprofits and towards universities, there are a lot of of university programs and and nonprofits that have had significant federal funding cuts.

[00:20:53] You know, for those for those nonprofits. Yeah, they are scrambling to to figure out funding. One thing that I would say to nonprofits that are trying to to fundraise is you have to get a little bit more creative about how you're sourcing gifts. One example of that is what we've seen in our experience, at least, is that there are a lot of donors who are probably not willing to to write you a large gift, a large gift that is just cash.

[00:21:22] But they would be willing to give you a larger gift if you can find some creative way to source that or some creative way to alleviate another problem for them. And so, for example, we had one donor who came to us who said, hey, there's this this nonprofit I want to support. You know, they're looking for a pretty sizable donation. I don't really have the liquidity to give them a sizable donation. But what I do have is I have these four greenhouses in some rural land.

[00:21:51] It's here in Utah. And what I would be willing to do is donate those greenhouses to them. But they have they have no idea what to do with that and how to accept that gift. And so we stepped in as as a middleman there. We accepted that donation of those greenhouses, got them praised for the donor. He took his charitable tax deduction and then we helped sell those those four greenhouses. And then we got the cash proceeds over to to the nonprofit.

[00:22:17] And the numbers there were the greenhouses were appraised for around seven hundred thousand dollars. So the donor got a great tax deduction out of it. He got this, you know, this difficult asset that he didn't know what to do with off of his balance sheet. And then we had a hard time selling them. It was, you know, they were worth seven hundred thousand to the ideal buyer. We were able to get about half of that out of them. But still that that nonprofit still receives a really sizable gift. Right.

[00:22:43] And so that's a circumstance where if that nonprofit had approached the donor and said, hey, will you write us a check for three hundred thousand dollars? The donor would have said absolutely not. But because they, you know, there was this collaborative approach of like, hey, let's actually figure out, you know, what could you give us? If there was some, you know, some asset that's on your balance sheet that is, you know, a bit of like a problem asset for you. You know, then he ends up with a large charitable tax deduction. The nonprofit ends up with a pretty sizable gift.

[00:23:12] And so that was, you know, a big win win all around. And so so that would be one thing that I would encourage nonprofits to look more at is raising non-cash gifts, because that's where your donor base is going to be much more inclined to to potentially do very large gifts. Right.

[00:23:30] So another, you know, another big circumstance to look at is, you know, if you have someone in your donor base who is selling a business soon, that's another thing that I spend probably half my time on is facilitating non-cash donations into a donor advice fund or to to a charity. Right. So, you know, a client will come to us and say, hey, I have this plumbing business. I've been growing it for 20 years.

[00:23:56] You know, I want to donate 5% of it to to this nonprofit, and that's going to save me X amount of dollars in in capital gains tax. We'll actually facilitate that donation into a donor advice fund. So we'll get, you know, 5% of that business donated into the DAF before the business sells. The client receives their maximum tax deduction possible. Then the business sells. The sale proceeds go into the DAF, and then the client can give whatever portion they want of that cash out to to nonprofits.

[00:24:24] If they want to leave some in and invest it and then use it for their future giving, they can do that. And so, yeah, so complex asset donations is a huge piece of what we do. And it's a huge piece of how we help clients maximize their tax efficiency and how we help nonprofits fundraise sizable gifts. So how does that affect the company?

[00:24:45] You know, I'm talking now maybe from the perspective of someone who is exiting and they want to either pass this on, their business on to their children, or maybe they want to sell the business. How does it affect that if they've entered into this kind of an arrangement? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it does when you donate a portion of your, you know, your business, or if it's real estate, if you donate a portion of that real estate to your donor advised fund, you are taking on a new owner, right?

[00:25:14] There is a new owner on your cap table. Your donor advised fund is its own entity. It's its own owner. And so there is some complexity there worth considering. And so that's why usually we're engaged with clients who they want to sell this asset that they're donating, right? Or maybe they're already engaged with a buyer. You know, that's a really common use case that we see on most of these non-cash asset donations that we're doing. You know, that's the case is they have a line of sight to a buyer.

[00:25:43] They think a transaction is going to close in the next, you know, three months, six months. And now they're just doing some planning of, okay, what's the most tax efficient way to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish? And so that's kind of when they'll engage us. You know, we'll handle all the paperwork and all of that for that to happen. You know, get the business interest donated into the donor advised fund. And then when their sale goes through, they sign all the sale documents and all the closing documents and their DAF.

[00:26:11] Also, you know, one of our authorized signers will sign on behalf of their donor advised fund. Let's say I'm a college student and I or I've recently graduated and I'm starting a company right now. And it's a high priority for me to be involved in giving back. What can they do as they get started to prepare themselves and be able to be in a position? Obviously, their business or whatever they're doing needs to succeed.

[00:26:39] But let's say they're young and they'd really love to be able to give back sooner rather than later. What can they do? Yeah, I would. I mean, I would encourage those that are young to spend time discovering what they care about. Right. And and what problems they're actually interested in. You can do that with a geography focus. You know, it can be it can be locally. So, you know, for a lot of people, that's community focused. Right. They want to inspire change in their own community.

[00:27:06] You know, others have you know, they have traveled somewhere and, you know, there's somewhere in Africa that they they really want to do some some giving towards. That's that's one thing is just discover what you care about. And, you know, you can do more than just give cash to charities. You can donate your time. Right.

[00:27:24] And so that would be kind of my my advice there is, you know, start to think through what are the either the problems, the geographies, you know, or the impact areas that I care about. What nonprofits are doing great work there? What nonprofits have great outcomes? And then, you know, see what you can do there. Reach out to them. Is there volunteer opportunities? Is there, you know, start to build that that relationship? Yeah, I think that's really great advice.

[00:27:51] You know, understanding what what's going to give you the feel like, you know, you're you're having leaving a legacy and making a difference and and figuring that out early on. And interestingly, I think I see this with your generation and the students that I'm seeing is thinking about this at an earlier age and traveling, like you said, and exploring the world and understanding where they want to get back. So let's talk about Phoenix for just a few minutes. I think you've given us a whole lot of information.

[00:28:21] So, you know, you studied finance in school. I did. Yeah. Economics at UC Santa Barbara and then the University of Utah. Yeah. Yeah. So so you were focused on a financial career. Is this different than what you expected? And I guess, has it changed your perspective on philanthropy to be doing this work? Yeah, I think, you know, coming into this role four years ago, I knew very little about charitable giving. I didn't know what a donor advice fund was.

[00:28:49] I just knew I wanted to be in financial services as an industry overall. But I mean, that's why I have stuck with it with UI charitable is because I think we're in a really interesting niche, you know, and we're doing interesting things. And there are not very many other companies out there like us. It's been a good it's been a good grouping between, like I mentioned, we operate a lot like an RIA. So, you know, a lot of the clients that I'm talking to, a lot of the financial advisors that I'm talking to, in some ways it feels like a financial advisory practice.

[00:29:19] But we actually don't give financial advice. We just focus on the charitable aspects. So it's been cool to be in that that niche. Yeah. So I'm curious, as you think about like being on a podcast like this or other podcasts, what is your goal? What are you trying to achieve with spending your time talking to various audiences of entrepreneurs? Yeah. So my role, you know, I'm really focused on it's very much a business development role. Right.

[00:29:45] So so growing our daft assets under management and also growing how many dollars we are allocating towards these different charitable programs. And so, you know, I spend a lot of time talking to financial advisors. I spend a lot of time talking to individual high net worth individuals. That's not phrased very correctly. I understand. And also to nonprofits.

[00:30:08] And so, you know, kind of across those three, those three buckets, those three groups for nonprofits, I'm trying to help them understand how they can fundraise better and how we can help them with with, you know, non cash donations. With financial advisors, I'm speaking to how they can grow their practice through offering charitable planning services, you know, how they can grow their relationship with their clients. You know, and then for individuals, I'm speaking to them on how they can achieve the charitable legacy that they care about and do it in a tax efficient way.

[00:30:38] Yeah. So let's let's talk about your legacy. Have you thought about that? You're really early in your career. What's the future look like for you? And what what do you want to leave behind? Yeah, I have a bit. You know, one thing we do here internally, because, you know, like I mentioned, we function kind of like an RIA. And so, you know, sometimes we get really into the weeds and really into the business side of what we're doing. Sometimes we can start to feel a little bit detached from the nonprofits and all the all the incredible work they're accomplishing.

[00:31:06] And so we'll do weekly charity spotlight where each each staff member will just once a week talk about what's important to them. And so, you know, it's interesting. I this year have been really into birding. So are you are you familiar with that? Birding. Yeah, no. Talk to us about that. It kind of started as a joke. And then it's just I just keep doing it. I actually think it's really fun. So just just bird watching, you know, hiking, figuring out, OK, what you know, what birds am I seeing here and logging them?

[00:31:35] And so, you know, it's such a it's such a goofy hobby. But it's been fun. I've been super into it this year. And as I travel for work, you know, if I'm in a new city, I'll get out and go on a hike and make sure I see, you know, what birds are there are locally. So I've gotten involved lately with Great Salt Lake Audubon. So that's our, you know, our local organization that's focused on on bird conservancy and awareness and all that.

[00:31:58] And so, you know, a focus for them is the Great Salt Lake and making sure that there's advocacy around that because the Great Salt Lake has been shrinking for a while. And, you know, there's some concerns about if that dries up. And so, you know, so so far, that's the that's the nonprofit that I've I've put put some support towards. So, you know, I've made a few donations and then they'll do field trips here and there where they get a group together and go out and do a hike together and do bird counts or things like that. So so I've done that. Well, that's really cool. I wouldn't have expected that.

[00:32:27] That usually the demographic you think of is somebody more my age than yours doing bird watching. Have you met some really cool and interesting people that way? Yeah. Yeah. It's been it's been great. And like I said, you know, it almost started out as a joke. Like a couple of my buddies were like, what if we what if we got into bird watching, you know, and then we're like, hey, this is actually pretty fun. Gets us into all these new locations. Yeah. And then, you know, the people you meet doing it are always characters. And yeah, so it's it's been kind of interesting because, you know, started out a little bit as a joke.

[00:32:57] And then now it's turned into something that I'm like, oh, yeah, I actually do. I really enjoy this and it's fun. And there's some community aspect to it. So sure. Sure. And so you'll have to come to Tampa, Florida, where I am, because I live on the water. I'm actually looking out at it right now. And we have all kinds of interesting birds here. So very different than what you've got in Utah. Yeah. Well, this has been really interesting, Phoenix.

[00:33:20] And, you know, I I think that our listeners hopefully have learned a lot about philanthropy and how they can be involved even at any stage of development in their company. And I think I know what you're going to say. But I always ask if you had one thing that you want people to take away from today, whether it's an aspiring entrepreneur or one that's already been out there for a while, what would it be about the topic of philanthropy? Mm hmm. So, yeah, you know, I'm going to come back to that that main point. Never give cash to charity.

[00:33:50] And again, we're not discouraging you being generous. It's just, you know, the most tax efficient way is to be getting appreciated assets. And so so that's big focus. Never give cash. And then I would just say, you know, overall, entrepreneurs bring so much rigor and intentionality to their business that they're building. And I just don't think that really always carries over into philanthropy and into into what they're doing charitably.

[00:34:15] And so so we encourage donors to approach their philanthropy with the same level of drive and passion and and intentionality. So that's something that we can we can help them do. All right. I love it. I do believe in the power of philanthropy. And I'm glad that you shared all the education that you did today with our audience. And I appreciate your time. And where can our listeners connect with you, find out more about you and your company and even about philanthropy?

[00:34:45] Yeah. Yeah. So our website is uicharitable.org. So that's just the letters UI and then charitable.org. And if you go to uicharitable.org forward slash learn more, that's where if you'd like, you can schedule a call with me or we have a lot of other a lot of other resources and case studies and things like that. So there's more information there. And then I'm on LinkedIn as well. So feel free to shoot me a message. All right. Thank you, Phoenix. Appreciate you joining me today. Yeah. Thanks, Rebecca. This has been great.

[00:35:21] So thank you for joining me today on En Factor Podcast for this conversation with Phoenix Hafen. You know, what I took away from it is not just that philanthropy is important. I think we all knew that. But also that you don't have to wait until the end of your career. You can start planning now for how you want to leave a legacy and an impact even beyond your business.

[00:35:43] And, you know, as I've moved and transitioned my own research from looking primarily at an entrepreneurial mindset to now focusing more on a broader entrepreneurial intelligence, I see this as even more important because meaning and purpose are so critical to an entrepreneurial intelligence. So I hope you'll think about what we talked about today.

[00:36:09] And I'd love for you to share this episode and also head over to my website and check out the EI Lab, the Entrepreneurial Intelligence Lab. That's where I'm sharing information about my new work. My new book will be out soon. And I look forward to sharing all that with you. And I'd love to see you there. It's Dr. Rebecca White. That's drrebeccawhite.com. Thank you for joining me today. Let's keep building and let's keep giving back.