Below is an auto-generated transcription. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.
Brandon Burton (00:00.942)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is a true force in the world of Chambers and community development. Jeff Meredith brings over 16 years of experience in the Chamber industry, earning his IOM designation in 2017 and completing his MBA in
in 2022. In 2023, Jeff made the leap into full-time economic development where he’s already helped his community secure more than 3.5 million in grant funding. Known across the chamber world as the Foundation Guy, Jeff has guided over 50 chambers through the process of establishing 501c3 foundations. On top of that, he offers nonprofit consulting services
Helping organizations with everything from getting started to reviewing bylaws and performing financial analysis. Jeff’s strategic mindset and deep expertise make him a go-to resource for Chambers, nonprofits, and communities looking to grow stronger and smarter. So get ready to take some notes. But Jeff, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and
to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
Jeff Meredith (01:30.15)
Sure, well, Brandon, first of all, thank you for hosting me and for all the Chamber Champions watching this show. Again, Jeff Meredith, he’s already introduced me some. But a few things that you all might not know about me from within the Chamber world is, in addition to my full-time economic development job and a side hustle as a consultant, I also very much enjoy refereeing soccer.
It’s mostly a lot of youth. I tend to do U15, so basically not high school. I also do adults. I do speak English and a pretty solid Spanish, which is very useful in the soccer world, especially here where it’s 35 % Hispanic. It’s always interesting when I am referring because I don’t necessarily tell people I speak Spanish.
Brandon Burton (01:53.921)
Okay.
Brandon Burton (02:12.803)
Yeah.
Brandon Burton (02:19.183)
That’s smart.
Jeff Meredith (02:22.298)
But I do give a warning because there are certain things that if you, for example, you curse at me and say certain words, I show a red card and I send that person off.
Basically, they’re done for the day. I usually give a warning when someone says such a thing in Spanish to let them know I do know what they just said now and they should not say that again. And I normally just kind of tap the red card as I pull it out of my pocket to remind them that I do have these available. So a lot of soccer roughing. Anyway, not much spare time in my life, but I enjoy it and I stay busy. So yeah.
Brandon Burton (02:50.178)
Yeah.
you
Right. So where did you pick up Spanish? How did that become something that you could add to your…
Jeff Meredith (03:03.098)
It’s actually funny, when I was first going to college for my bachelor’s, I was studying to be a bachelor’s, again, a bachelor of arts in history. For a BA, you have to have four semesters of one foreign language. So I chose Spanish. During the day, I had the book work, but at night, I actually was working in, well, Ryan’s family steakhouse, which is now bankrupt.
or no longer in existence. And one day they said, hey, this is Antonio. He doesn’t speak English. You guys are going to work together. So I was able to have the book work during the day, speak Spanish at night. And honestly, since then, I’ve used Spanish in several different restaurants. I can tell you stories about how I used to get free cake for speaking Spanish because I was a server.
Brandon Burton (03:28.696)
Yeah.
Brandon Burton (03:49.752)
Yeah.
Jeff Meredith (03:52.41)
They said, we need to speak Spanish. I said, no, like we’re paying you like, uh-huh, $2.13 an hour. That’s not a skill. Bring in a translator. It’ll cost you more than the five bucks for the piece of cake. So I got lemon cream cake from Olive Garden anytime I had to speak Spanish.
Brandon Burton (03:52.717)
Yes.
Brandon Burton (04:05.133)
Right?
Brandon Burton (04:10.542)
That’s great. I love it. Well, this is the point where I usually ask you to tell us about your chamber. since you’ve kind of shifted focuses professionally, tell us what your chamber background was and kind of the size of chambers you worked with and that sort of thing to kind of set the stage for our discussion.
Jeff Meredith (04:13.924)
Yeah.
Jeff Meredith (04:33.094)
Sure. So I have worked for two different chambers. My first chamber was the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce, which is a larger chamber. At that point in time, they had approximately 1200 members. I think total staff of 17 or 18 in the building between the various economic development entities that were present there. And when I started, I was the administrative assistant. I didn’t know how to spell. I didn’t know what chambers did. I wasn’t sure.
Brandon Burton (04:34.542)
Sorry.
Jeff Meredith (05:01.195)
and but I discovered it was something I was decent at. I’m a friendly guy and then I got promoted to be member relations at the Joplin Chamber.
Brandon Burton (05:03.726)
Thank
Jeff Meredith (05:09.914)
While there, the Joplin tornado came through, 2011. And so that brought me some experience in dealing with disaster recovery, seeing what the community did. And then approximately year later, I did go to Monette Chamber, which is a small chamber. The chamber itself had a staff of two, but because we had a very good non-due revenue stream, we actually had more employees and it was, we were able to accomplish a lot because we had a nice budget.
Brandon Burton (05:10.35)
Well, I’ll you in the next one.
Brandon Burton (05:15.906)
So,
Brandon Burton (05:28.302)
and self-cultivation.
Jeff Meredith (05:39.75)
So I’ve spent two years in the small chamber and was able to leverage all of the financial resources available to complete all kinds of professional development while there.
Brandon Burton (05:40.142)
And there it is.
Brandon Burton (05:46.223)
and so they’re successful in a number of first of all. Very good. I remember seeing you at MAKO conferences and things like that over the years. So that professional development pays off.
Jeff Meredith (06:01.03)
I was on the Mako board for, I don’t know, five years, I think. In fact, I was past chair the year we canceled Mako because of COVID. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (06:06.444)
Yeah.
Brandon Burton (06:11.63)
Yeah, there you go. So it’s fitting that our topic for discussion today is going to be all about foundations, since we’ve got the foundation guy on the show. So we will dive in deep on that topic and what it takes to start a foundation and all things foundations as soon as we get back from this quick break.
All right, Jeff, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, today we’re diving in on foundations.
You’re the guy to have on the show to talk about foundations. So I know chambers throughout the country, pretty healthy amount have foundations now. Some of them are pretty new. Some have had them for a decade or more. And then there’s another big segment of chambers out there that just aren’t sure where to start with the foundation or how to make use of a foundation or any of those things.
Let’s talk specifically to, I’m thinking mainly that segment of where do I start? How do I use a foundation? But even for those that have foundations, I’m hoping there’s still good value that they can lean out of this as they see how they can better leverage their foundation. we can start where you want to start, wherever the best point is. I’ll let you decide on
Jeff Meredith (07:34.726)
Sure, so, and I can just kind of ramble on for a minute, Brandon, and obviously if you’ve got questions, please pause me. I’m rarely at a short for words. So as far as where to start with foundations, I mean, let’s just kind of start with the basics. When I’ve had these discussions with chambers and their boards,
Brandon Burton (07:41.218)
That’s perfect.
Brandon Burton (07:45.038)
All right.
Jeff Meredith (07:55.794)
I remember one time someone said, so why? Let’s keep it short, Jeff, or we refer to things. Keep it succinct. Why should we do this? And if I had to do it in three words or less, it would be one word, which is money. A 501c3 has access to funding that a 501c6 simply can’t touch.
This is available through grants. Other 501c3s can give to you if you have a 501c3. In some states, you get tax exempt benefits for the c3 that the c6 does not get. And you can also get donations of things from various corporate entities in the country if you have a 501c3. And it’s just really kind of a money thing. So that’s where I would start. And some say well.
Brandon Burton (08:31.15)
This is not the end. We must forget the actions of the farmers, the families of the people of the country. And if you have a thought, look, the values of the
It’s where I live, it’s where I come from. And so I’m home. And I’m home, and I’m done with this.
Jeff Meredith (08:49.862)
How do I know if I can get money with a C-3? I mean, this may be a little bit of a tip as well. Ask. You know, most chambers, you probably have a board of directors for local leaders. Find out if there are 501 C-3s or charities in your community. You can also look some things up. You can Google if there are simply charities in the area.
Brandon Burton (08:57.838)
to to really want to travel to a smaller country. But I want to find a place to experience the beauty of this unique country. But also to think about the people who are so unique. Most ancient long-distance travel is happening in the world. This is where the time travel for the world can be. But it’s in the right hand. It’s in the past. But the world is still coming. And we have not lost it.
Jeff Meredith (09:12.75)
Most major corporations have their own charitable giving because it’s a way to take money from their left hand, put it to their right hand to receive a tax benefit for it, and then actually still direct their giving as well by passing from their right hand. So, that’s a good place to start.
Brandon Burton (09:26.988)
Yeah. I know Dave Adkinson and his book Horseshoes versus Chess calls out the importance for Chambers to have a foundation. And he gave an example, I can’t remember which chamber was that he worked with at the, or that he was at at the time where this happened, where he established the foundation. there was a family in their community that had a significant amount of wealth. And there was the
Basically the last remaining member of the family was getting ready to pass away, didn’t have heirs to leave it to. And because they had a foundation, that was a landing place where a great sum of money came into. It wasn’t everything, but it was a good sum of money because they had the structure to be able to receive it. And obviously they’d been doing the work in the community to show their value and build that trust for a family to want to.
to leave money to the Chamber Foundation. But yeah, it all comes down to money and being able to be a valid recipient of that money, whether it’s grants or these other examples that you put out there. So when it comes down to money, maybe it would be helpful just to talk about some ways that Chambers utilize foundations. I’ve seen some with
you know, that are chambers and they’ve got the economic development responsibility, which that seems pretty obvious in ways that they can utilize that. But if you’re a standalone chamber or if you’ve got tourism or economic development, what are some, some ways that are good utilizations of a foundation?
Jeff Meredith (11:09.606)
Sure, so most chambers, 70 to 80 % of what a 501C6 does could actually be a usage of a 501C3. And I start to think about what I see communities and chambers doing. There’s maybe some workforce programs.
that might be available. A lot of chambers they might give away a small scholarship to someone graduating from their school. Maybe they have a leadership program that they’re hosting currently. Foundations are good ways to offer this sort of thing because
There are, again, by leveraging those funds, you can get some sponsorships and some donations from some of these entities to support that same workforce program that you were doing before. And then you can actually kind of help fund it onto the chamber side.
Economic development is a prime example of something that a 501c3 is helpful for. In fact, sometimes you might even want to have more than one c3 set up that you have some control and access to because they’re for different purposes. And you can actually start to get really convoluted where you are having transactions between them based upon who’s doing what.
For example, where I am now as an economic development organization, we are a 501c3. So I can certainly speak to that degree on some of the things. As a c3, I’ve been able to leverage that status, again, to get grant funding for community development projects. And not because I was in economic development org, but because of the c3. Things that I’ve seen some chambers do that my EDO has done.
Brandon Burton (12:31.818)
Thanks.
Jeff Meredith (12:53.344)
is maybe you need to get a housing study done for your community. Perhaps you’ve thought about getting a hotel study done for your community. Let’s determine what that looks like for those areas. I got a grant from a governmental entity to pay for half of those studies that I was able to match with a private grant. And it was a rural development funding opportunity. Simply because my community was less than
Brandon Burton (13:15.747)
them.
Jeff Meredith (13:21.798)
50, 20, something, the threshold was higher than 15,000 because we were below where we are. And again, that’s a funding opportunity to do something that the Chamber wants done to support your businesses and members, but you don’t want to have to pay for it yourself.
Brandon Burton (13:23.342)
Sorry.
Brandon Burton (13:27.874)
Yeah.
Brandon Burton (13:40.056)
Good.
Jeff Meredith (13:40.858)
Those are the opportunities. The same thing with the educational side. In fact, if you have a chamber foundation, in addition to providing educational courses to others, I’ve seen some that leave their own foundation to pay for their own institute experience.
Brandon Burton (13:46.41)
you
Brandon Burton (13:50.031)
Yeah, that’s good examples.
Jeff Meredith (14:00.364)
It’s professional development, education related, as long as you don’t specify, must be for high school students or children or something such as that. It’s still a perfectly legitimate use.
Brandon Burton (14:17.388)
I’ve seen some that have the economic development contracts, responsibilities as well, use it to acquire land as they are attracting a big industrial company to make a move to their community. then able to refund that, know, get that money recouped once the transaction is closed, but the chamber is able to be that instrumental piece in being able to make the deal work out. So lots of different ways.
to utilize the foundations.
Jeff Meredith (14:48.888)
Yes. And a lot of it, again, you’re doing similar programs. It’s just under a new umbrella. And that new umbrella just gets a little more favorable look when you start talking about some of these funding opportunities. I mean, some of the grants that, you know, the 3.5 you mentioned in my introduction, the first one of those was a million dollars from a trust that I was able to leverage for a million five that I could get for the city.
So I mean, put together five, you know, was ultimately a $5 million purchase between public and private funds my first month on the job, simply because we had the 501C3 and there’d been some planning done.
Brandon Burton (15:27.17)
Yeah, yeah. So for those listening, some may be intimidated at the idea of starting a foundation. I mean, they’re already busy at their chamber, right? Trying to keep their head above water. So what does it take to establish a foundation? What thought, what kind of planning needs to go into that? Who’s buy-in?
Do you need to be able to do something like that? What would you suggest?
Jeff Meredith (15:57.798)
Sure, so typically when most people start thinking about a C3, it’s either something they’ve had on their mind, they’ve seen a lot of these discussions, maybe they went to a training of some sort. So typically you need to get the buy-in of your chamber board upfront. Because the chamber board, you’re gonna need some startup cash to start a C3 and the chamber is a good source of that funding.
And while once you actually get the new entity set up, the chamber board no longer governs that entity, they’re still usually going to sign off on the bylaws to some degree and obviously the donation of the funding to get that going.
Brandon Burton (16:26.104)
Thanks.
Jeff Meredith (16:38.958)
Outside of that, it starts to be what is it you’re wanting to do that your C6 can’t do? Is there a pot of money you’re hoping to access out there? Is there a new program? Has someone said, will give you money if you have a C3 and do this? Again, just go ahead and ask people. Talk to your major employers. If we had a C3, that open up opportunities? And start that discussion.
Brandon Burton (16:40.846)
and sort of like bursting out. we do to people, what we do citizens, what we do. What’s going on, what we do, what we do to ourselves. It’s your very own work. And someone’s own behavior, and you’re not just doing it for me. Thanks.
Brandon Burton (17:00.398)
I’m not going to lose. I’m going to win.
Jeff Meredith (17:08.806)
as far as the steps to actually create a C3. I mean, it’s you set up a corporation with your state and then you do some things with the IRS and you’re good to go. I mean, and I say that in a drastic oversimplification because I’ve done it a time or two, but truthfully, we can get the process done in less than a month if we can get the appropriate approvals on the local entities.
Brandon Burton (17:23.15)
So, thank
Brandon Burton (17:28.718)
So how about like establishing any bylaws or selecting a board or any of the structural elements of building a foundation? If you’re starting from scratch, what direction do you give?
Jeff Meredith (17:36.986)
And then you just wait for the IRS.
Jeff Meredith (17:57.223)
Well, first off, would in this day and age, I would never start from scratch on almost anything. You know, think about
Brandon Burton (18:03.778)
Great advice.
Jeff Meredith (18:07.898)
because again, there are groups out there, there are resources out there. mean, many states offer sample bylaws for certain organizations and entities. So that’s not a bad place to start. Since we’re focused on chambers, I remember that my chamber colleagues were always more than happy to rip off and duplicate a little bit of R and E.
And then you would just say, hey, I’m looking for some examples of this and then you can share them with that and you start to kind of decide what’s going to make sense. As far as your foundation boards go, your chamber board is a decent place to start for some of those members. Again, when I work with.
Brandon Burton (18:47.662)
I was going to ask, do you suggest utilizing some of the same board members or having it be a different makeup?
Jeff Meredith (18:54.274)
I utilize some of them. Now again, whenever I work with an entity, I say your foundation board should be a minority of which is currently on the chamber board. And there’s a specific IRS that says this because chamber foundations want to be a public charity, not a private foundation. If you want to be a public charity, a majority of your board cannot be related by blood, marriage, or business.
Brandon Burton (19:07.374)
and I’m going to be signing this. I’m to be signing this with the Proudly Stranger of the United States. Proudly Stranger of the States.
Jeff Meredith (19:23.174)
Now, I’m not a lawyer, I don’t claim to be, but if the reason people are all part of a different entity is simply because they’re serving on a board together, in my non-legal opinion, they are related via business. So I keep it a minority. And when some say, well, that’s what we want to do, I then question, do they not have any other willing participants in their entire town other than these 12 to 25 people that they have involved with their chamber already?
Brandon Burton (19:25.582)
Thank you.
Brandon Burton (19:42.014)
Excellent. Now we have a new program that discusses the importance of our lives. For which we find out about it.
Jeff Meredith (19:52.25)
You want to have some separation. And so then we start to pick out those other ones that you want because when you write your bylaws, because you’re starting from some level of scratch ish, right? Say who you want. My bylaws said we wanted someone from the school district and somebody from the city because we were going to do community economic development projects. I wanted that city. We did scholarship things. I needed that to the school district to promote my scholarships. Talk about appropriate.
Brandon Burton (19:57.327)
of the country and its people.
Brandon Burton (20:04.078)
So, I don’t know if that’s gonna be a good time for me. That’s all I have to say.
Brandon Burton (20:16.046)
As far as ongoing care and maintenance of the foundation, what is there to be considered there?
Jeff Meredith (20:21.968)
Now generally, we have the superintendent and the senior administrator, but they’ve got to pick who they want to trust. Find the focus and get the people that you’re looking for.
Brandon Burton (20:43.711)
And how involved, for example, as a chamber executive, how involved would they be with a chamber foundation on the day to day?
Jeff Meredith (20:52.614)
Sure, so as far as the ongoing maintenance goes, with a 501C3, there are two things, three things you’re required to do on an annual basis. You’re required to have at least one board meeting, and that’s just for standard corporate compliance. You are required to file a tax return of some sort, and depending upon your state, you have to keep your corporation active.
Now, some states only require that every other year or every three years I’ve seen. And as far as the tax return goes, depending upon your gross income, it could be a 990N, which takes, it almost takes you longer to log in to the IRS website than it does to actually complete the tax return itself. And if you’re making.
Brandon Burton (21:39.756)
That’s unheard of.
Jeff Meredith (21:41.286)
I know it is and I’ve helped people with that before and then they’re shocked how simple it truly is. So that’s kind of it and then as far as the involvement in well it all depends upon what you’re doing with this new tool. Are you taking programs the C6 was doing and you’re just doing them with a new hat on your head as the C3 then your workload’s not changing very much.
Brandon Burton (21:49.336)
That’s it.
Jeff Meredith (22:06.406)
Are you starting this new entity and because you have a C3, you’re suddenly launching new programs and new strategies or initiatives? Your workload will absolutely increase. But if by doing so, you’re generating enough funding to pay for an additional staff, then that’s a way to kind of help really maximize the chamber itself. And one benefit of having this relationship is,
The C3 can actually generate funding from various grants and sources and ultimately pay the C6 to actually carry out that scope of work as long as the fees being charged are fair and reasonable.
Brandon Burton (22:44.886)
So I understand some people are a little intimidated with the idea of grant writing and constantly be thinking about deadlines and applications and so forth. Is it worthwhile having somebody to run and manage the foundation separate from a chamber staff? Or I’m sure you’ve seen it done both ways, but what thoughts do you have around that?
Jeff Meredith (23:11.122)
I mean, again, if you’re growing that entity large enough, absolutely. Sometimes you could have a position you had already, perhaps a work first coordinator or something that maybe becomes the foundation director to some degree because there’s a natural crossover there. And if you’re a larger organization with a larger foundation, absolutely it makes sense because you’ve got the funding to support it. But if part of the reason, if you’re a smaller entity that’s trying to access fresh dollars from an outside source,
you creating a C3 to support the C6 and then having the sudden overhead of a new employee to manage it kind of defeats the purpose of leveraging that for the C6. I work a lot obviously with the multiple jobs we’ve talked about.
Brandon Burton (23:52.014)
All
Jeff Meredith (23:57.644)
and I’m cheap. whenever someone approached me at one point about, let’s throw in some money to help support a, at the time it was a Main Street director, I said, no, I don’t want to give my money to that, but I will work harder in exchange of not giving the contribution towards. And we accomplished a lot of things because we were able to do that. So every person is different.
Brandon Burton (23:58.134)
And that’s
Jeff Meredith (24:21.742)
I know some chamber execs, like to outsource a lot of their duties because there are experts in those fields. I’m more of a keep it in-house and reap the benefits and frankly learn along the way by doing so.
Brandon Burton (24:27.502)
for all those firms in this area.
Brandon Burton (24:36.8)
Yeah, just probably good advice. Keep it in house as long as you can until you get to that certain level and where it makes sense to hand off some of those responsibilities.
Jeff Meredith (24:46.438)
And you mentioned grant writing and things as well. I know that because there are some grants chambers can access and they say, well, I don’t want to spend the six hours or eight hours or whatever working on that grant application. And then I asked them, you know, I’ve seen one, was a 50, let’s keep it simple, $1,600 grant for eight hours of work. I don’t know of many chambers that are making $200 an hour.
Brandon Burton (24:54.21)
Yeah.
Jeff Meredith (25:12.806)
or that can go out and do anything else within their community to generate $200 an hour of return. So I believe that that is a great use of time and resources. And perhaps it’s just a different situation of prioritization versus allocation.
Brandon Burton (25:30.53)
Yeah, being able to shut off some of those other, you know, dings and lights and whistles and everything that beg for your attention when you’re busy at a dream group. That’s right. That’s right. Hunker down and get that application done. What other things need to be considered as somebody who’s looking to start a foundation and any pitfalls to avoid or things to look out for as they
Jeff Meredith (25:40.324)
I the cell phone out the door.
Brandon Burton (25:59.865)
Go down that path.
Jeff Meredith (26:01.806)
As far as pitfalls, I would just kind of look around and make sure there’s not some entity doing things you are already doing. And that’s not to say that maybe you can’t do it better.
But it’s an opportunity to, instead of setting up this whole new corporation, maybe partnering with an entity. Again, I’ll just go back to my time referencing the Main Street organization. We used the Main Street org to do a lot of community development activities for MONET because it had that C3 at the time. It was better known. It made sense. There were funding opportunities for that entity. Whereas we use the Chamber Foundation, which was also a C3 separately from, focused on just specific things.
So it’s really just kind of finding out what is that best usage. But I made sure that the C3 chamber was not doing downtown stuff. I wasn’t trying to take on any sort of facade grants or beautification or flowers or anything downtown. And we did a little bit of a mural project, but simply because the Chamber Foundation had the match, whereas Main Street didn’t.
and I guess this is just a secret to success for any community, you can accomplish a lot of things if you don’t necessarily care which entities actually getting the credit.
Brandon Burton (27:20.482)
Yeah, that’s a great point.
Jeff Meredith (27:23.278)
In fact, I remember once I was talking to my wife about something about, hey, she’s like, you’re working harder on that. I’m like, well, but it’s not. It’s the Chamber Foundation. And she’s like, you are a, you know, called me a name that I won’t repeat for your viewers. It’s still you. You’re just doing the work with a different hat on that day. Like, yeah.
Brandon Burton (27:46.456)
Yeah.
Jeff Meredith (27:48.09)
So Main Street’s getting credit for work that the Chamber Executive was accomplishing and the Chamber Exec was technically paying to do the Main Street thing, but it made the Chamber job better so it all worked out in the end. So if you have lots of entities, chat before you talk about setting up a new one, make sure that there’s not a crossover.
Brandon Burton (28:02.456)
Yeah.
Jeff Meredith (28:11.372)
know, maybe I maybe should get on the board of something else. Now ultimately we did have them separately because there were separate missions and separate purposes. So yes.
Brandon Burton (28:14.765)
Yeah.
Brandon Burton (28:22.08)
And how specific do those purposes need to be in the foundation when they’re established and how easy is it to change focus if you get in, you know, 10, 20 years down the road and things. What we originally set this up for is not so relevant anymore. Let’s shift focus. How hard is that?
Jeff Meredith (28:40.294)
Well, so I usually tell people, when you’re setting up a thing, to keep the purposes somewhat generic. So it’d be workforce, economic development, community development, arts, tourism, education. But then within this, because you have to also have the vague and be specific. should the IRS, depending on which path you’re choosing, if they come back and ask additional questions, if you say you’re going to do workforce things,
If someone says, what’s your workforce program? You need to have an answer of that workforce program is I’m going to go and talk to middle school kids about the job opportunities or about career fairs or interview skills or something, or I’m going to host a leadership program for adults. You don’t necessarily have to have that in place yet, but you have to have a plan versus just saying I’m going to do workforce things because it sounds good.
And then should your focus or vision change in the future, again, you can always go back and amend those articles. You can refile those articles in the corporation. And then with the IRS, should your NTE E code, which basically describes what line of business the foundation is in, should that need change, you can also update that with the IRS as well in the future. So it’s really kind of a thing of, and I know it’s somewhat contradictory.
Brandon Burton (29:55.469)
this week.
Brandon Burton (30:03.47)
This was my best.
Jeff Meredith (30:06.31)
You want to have it vague, but also have the ideas of the specific programs and things in your mind so that you can kind of go from the vague to actually make it real versus just this ethereal world out there of all the things you hope to do, and you know, actual planner idea on what it is or how to accomplish it.
Brandon Burton (30:06.862)
And also that they are very much in the group as the Foundations. So it’s kind of both a problem for us to deal with. And we’re a lot of work to help you. And we’re happy to help you with your work. That makes sense. Is there anything else that we’re missing when it comes to Foundations? I’m sure there are several things, but as far as these are concerned.
Jeff Meredith (30:29.062)
There’s lots of things we’re missing. So really, guess, just a key thing, and maybe this kind of goes into what might be a tip. With 2026, charitable giving has changed. Individuals such as myself, who generally take a standard deduction on their taxes because of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
and I’m married, in addition to my standard deduction of, I think, $31.5, I could actually take an additional deduction of $2,000 for giving charitable contributions. Now, that’s relevant because, A, for those people who want to make a little charitable contribution or have been in the past, you can now get a deduction for it. But more importantly,
for those who might think about a C3, you suddenly opened up the world of people who could get a terrible infection for giving to you from roughly, I think I remember it was 15 % of the population, you knew almost 100 % of the population.
Brandon Burton (31:30.35)
Yeah, that is a big deal. So yeah, I usually ask for a tip or action item for listeners who are trying to take their chamber up to the next level. Do you have something else beyond that that you wanted to put out there and offer for the audience?
Jeff Meredith (31:46.182)
Absolutely. And this one may seem like a foreign concept for some chamber execs because I remember we’re all hard workers, right? You want to get everything done that you can. When I used to do community events at the chamber, if the event made an extra $4,000 above budget or whatever, I did not get a bonus.
And this is relevant because I think in a lot of chambers, this is what happens. They can generate additional funds and frankly, we bust our butts to help an entity make a whole lot of cash, but in exchange, you’re not getting a dividend. Now I’m not trying to be selfish here, but what I’m circling back to is, I learned that instead of killing myself to stand underneath a tent for 12 hours on the 4th of July,
tying myself to that, I could pay someone, at the time it was $15 an hour, to do the same thing that then freed me up for additional tasks that were more important. In this case, at the 4th of July, as example, making sure that things weren’t going bad somewhere else, introducing bans and whatnot, interacting with my vendors who were paying me money to be there, and I wanted to make sure that they were fine.
So I’m not saying you should outsource everything, but there are certain skills that can be done by almost anyone. Don’t be afraid to find that because the old 80-20 rule, remember, 20 % of your job probably impacts 80 % of your actual performance.
Pick out those things that are most important to your job and your responsibility that someone else can’t do or can’t do as well as you and focus on those and those little things, especially with community events. Why work 16 hours for something when you could have someone do part of that job for a couple hundred bucks for the day and you’re better rested, you’re less stressed and frankly, the event goes better because now if you’re the face of the organization, they see you where you need to be.
Brandon Burton (33:22.734)
That’s
Brandon Burton (33:31.889)
And that’s how it is. This is the first time I’ve done anything like this. I don’t know how this gets to the end of the video. But you can have some of it.
Brandon Burton (33:43.47)
You must be one of those friends who really get that much fun because now if you have a fifth form of social, you’ll see that you’re not getting any less than what you’re talking
Jeff Meredith (33:52.472)
not sitting under attend, dealing with the rank and file attendees. that’s my work less hard and accomplish more.
Brandon Burton (33:58.807)
Yeah. I love it. I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future of Chambers and how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?
Jeff Meredith (34:15.234)
I Chambers will continue to exist in the future. I think they are still an essential function and an organization and the services that Chambers provide are very necessary. Even if you just focus on the networking aspect, which is something that a lot of Chambers are very well known for, even as we have moved on to social media and during COVID and things with the distancing, I know that people love that human and social interaction.
So chambers will continue to be a powerful force and they just have to make sure that they find their niche to provide their services. Because chambers, like a lot of 501c3s, can do many different functions and still be legitimate and legal. So find the things that your community needs and someone else can’t provide and the chamber can maybe provide that service. So that’s good for the longevity of the chamber.
Brandon Burton (35:06.894)
That’s good.
Jeff Meredith (35:08.87)
It’s good for the future growth of the chamber and if it’s a service for which you get money, it’s also good non-due revenue for the chamber, which also ensures all of those things continue on in the future. So I think the chamber outlook is very good.
Brandon Burton (35:12.59)
Just like I said, I’m going to take it So I’m going to help you to tell us what you want to about all these things that you want. Yeah. I’m going tell you what going to Very good. Glad to hear that. Jeff, this has been great having you on the show. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information or anywhere you would point listeners who might want to.
Learn more about foundations or about how you might be able to help them. Where would you point them? What would be the best way for them to connect?
Jeff Meredith (35:44.07)
Sure. So, well, I’m always happy to connect with anyone that wants to more about foundations. My first consultation is always free. And if you want to reach out to me to get that discussion started, I am in central time. So I generally do these before or after my work hours or else at noon central time. So I kind of play a little time zone math there.
but you can find, I do have a website. My profession is not web design, so don’t hold that against me. It is jeffmconsulting.com. I do have a Facebook page of the same name, or if you’d like, can just send me an email, which is joplinjeff@gmail.com.
send those messages out. We’ll schedule a time that kind of works for both our schedules and let’s have a chat to see if a foundation is good for you and whether you decide to use my services or not. I’m always happy to answer questions on that first call.
Brandon Burton (36:24.814)
and I’ll you time.
Brandon Burton (36:36.612)
That’s perfect. We’ll get all that linked in our show notes to make it nice and easy to find you. But Jeff, thanks for spending time with us today and for going over these ins and outs of Chamber Foundations. think listeners will find this valuable and it’s a good one to have in the archives as well. So I appreciate it.
Jeff Meredith (36:41.851)
Awesome. Well, thank you.
Jeff Meredith (36:56.71)
Well, thank you, Brandon, and thank you to all you glorious chamber people. Have a wonderful day.
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts, Spotify or now on YouTube. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your feed each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
