Delivering Good CEO on Providing Record Donations

The nonprofit has been doing it for thirty five years in counting, and since then, over two billion dollars worth of donated products have been distributed through their network up partners. So let's find out a little bit more on what they were doing and how the pandemic impacted their organization and the folks that they are trying to help out. Lisa grew Rich is President CEO of Delivering Good. She joins us on the phone in New York City. Lisa, nice to have you here on Bloomberg. How are you.

How are you? I'm doing okay? Uh, certainly nice to see kind of our world reopening and getting a little bit closer to normal, if you will, But we know the world is still struggling. We're still not over the pandemics as well. Tell me about the last year and what it's been like for you all at delivering good Okay, I feel like we're emerging too, but we have to acknowledge that the last year has been really tough for a lot of people. People lost loved ones, people lost jobs,

They had business challenges. We've heard a lot about the mental health challenges, especially for young people, and we're certainly all very aware of the continuing racial inequality in this in our society. So a lot of challenges. But at the same time, UM, we were able to provide a record amount of new product donations to people we need. So these numbers are going to sound pretty incredible. Over three hundred million dollars worth of new products. That's about

seventy million items. Wow. So tell me how. First of all, it's a sign of that people needed it and they needed the help. So that's the rough side of it. But pretty remarkable considering it was not an easy year, at least until we kind of found our footing too, you know, work within supply chains and get things to where they needed to be. So tell us how you did it. Well, It was not easy for anyone. Um.

We have a team. We are a small but mighty team of about sixteen people and they worked literally around the clock for days and weeks and months in order to get these needed products from where they were to the people that they could help. But we don't do it alone. We do it in partnership with incredible businesses in the retail subdern manufacturers, UM and people all along the lines of those organizations. Sometimes it's the CEOs who

are aware of us and who makes a connection. Sometimes it's the folks in the warehouses who are aware of

some excess inventory that can be used for good. And so we are grateful to everybody who has played a world Well, that's what I wanted to ask you, just, you know, dig a little bit deeper, if you will, and unpack it a little bit in terms of it is not you know, you probably had a lot of partners who were just dealing with their own crises of their businesses or supply chains, or keeping their team and their workers safe amid the pandemic. How were How did

that all kind of work out and come together? Was it a little bit tough the first couple of months in terms of you know, you being able to do what you needed to do because those that you work

with for having a tough time because it's interesting. We have a lot of conversations with CEOs who basically say, yeah, back in March, we thought our business was done, and then we started to figure out how to pivot and how to do things within a pandemic world where we were, you know, basically working from home and figuring it out. So everything that you just mentioned is absolutely true. The retailers, as y'all know, had to close many locations and some

are still in the process of doing that. It was very difficult. It was traumatic, so those who were left to work in those who they had to say goodbye to, so it was hard for everybody. In addition, there's another set of partners that we really need to acknowledge. Um with sixteen people, you can imagine that we can't give away seventy million items. And also to affect local communities, so we have about two thousands local community partners in every state in the United States, in Canada and in

other places around the world. They were struggling as well. They were struggling to keep their employees and volunteers safe. Many people who volunteer in the organizations that we work with weren't able to go. They may be older, they may have health risks, so they were not able to volunteer, so there were challenges in every direction, and of course charitable funding was not always available for everybody who needed it. So Lisa tell us about this Women of Inspiration roundtable

series that you guys are hosting. Tell us a bit about it. Happy to do that, Carol, and I'm also pleased and appreciative to say that Bloomberg Anthropies is one of our sponsors. So thanks to UM BAM and other genuine sponsors UM, we're able to do something that we can't normally do. Usually in June we invite people to come to a luncheon. It's a fund raising luncheon, but

it's really about celebrating women's leadership. This year, we're still not ready for luncheons, so instead, I'd like to invite your listeners to send three of their lunchtimes in June, the first three wednesdays of June, so that is June second to ninth. In June sixteen, UM with us for

an hour and fifteen amazing speakers to be inspired. Coming out of COVID, I think a lot of people are reassessing how they spend their time, how they use their resources with their views and goals are and these speakers will help share their their has to leadership, their visions for the future. And they come from over Why are they have different industries certainly some three fashions, but sports and the Miller terry and philanthropy and politics in academia. Um,

and they're there to inspire all of us. I have to say some of the people of the lineup, among my favorite Cynthia Marshall, the CEY of Dallas Mavericks. I've talked with her. Uh, She's pretty phenomenal and came into the Mavericks at a time that was tough, you know, but really has uh reinvigorated uh that association. Uh, the CEO of Abercamie and Fish. I mean, it's really an interesting lineup. Tell us what the goal is of of

hosting this this luncheon in this series. Our goal is really to provide three master cosses on women's leadership and on everyone charting their course for the future. M We know that many of the business leaders who are listening to this show are very focused on achieving environmental and social and government goals for their companies. Many employers and

businesses are focused on diversity and equity and inclusion. So we'll incorporate all of those themes, but we'll also hopefully share some insights that everyone can benefit from as we um as we think about the future. Yeah, no, listen, there's I feel like it's safe to say we've done a fair amount of a vets here at Blueberg that we're talking about what happens in the workforce, how work is shifting, the impact on employees, but thinking about you know,

the dual crises of the last twelve thirteen months. Of course, the hardship impacted by the pandemic, the inequities that were revealed once again because of it, George Floyd, and the inequalities within the work floor workplace. So it is interesting to kind of have a deep dive into it and the situations, the problems, the stresses that are facing people at this point, women in particular, and how they find

their way forward. Absolutely, I think that we in turn to cover all of those topics and also to do that in the context of what we do. We talked about big numbers in our last segments, and it's hard to imagine seventy million of anything, but I don't think it hard to think about being part of instilling dignity and hope and self esteem to children, to families, to individuals who are in need. And so that's the context

with which we do our work. In our vision is of a more effitable world and which everyone has the things that they need to have a fresh start and to overcome adversity. Well, one of the things I did want to ask you is, you know, what's the impact that you've seen as a result of the work that you're doing at delivering good. We see the impact every

single day. It's certainly tremendous that we are able to be effective and an efficient business solution for excess inventory, and we're very proud of doing that and having a thirty six year history of doing that. But we are also focused on the individual. So just in the last few days, we met by zoom with people who have received things like new coats during this winter and especially

we've been focusing on homeless and disadvantaged youth. And every one of these young people has a dream, but they may not have had family and other supports around them to enable them to read this dream. And just having a coat so that they can get on the school bus to return to school after a year, or to keep the things in their backpack dry when it's raining. And these are among people who we met who told us that it is a vote of conscience. It enabled

them to feel like somebody cares. And these were new coats with tags, not something that was a castaway as a discarded item um, and we are about giving them

hope so that they can fulfill their dreams. Well, it's interesting too, and maybe the last year has also kind of reminded all of us that it doesn't take much for many Americans who are just living on the edge financially and just kind of getting by that there isn't you know, a rainy day fund so that when things go bad or something goes really bad like I did

this past year, that they can easily tap. And it reminds us that many people, as I said, on the edge, and it doesn't take much for people to just all of a sudden tipped down into poverty. It is very true. We work with many shelters and we have met many individuals who have been living in those shelters and they will tell us one health crisis of a number of their family. They may have been formally employed they're no longer able to hold their jobs and take care of

their family, and there's there's so many different circumstances. We work with many organizations who work with children in the foster system, and their lives may be abruptly disturbed when they are removed from the family situation and they don't have anything to take use them. So you're right that these can be catastrophic events that happen overnight and every day of the year, there's something that we do do about it. Sometimes people wait until the end of the

year in the holidays, and that's great. You see tremendous generosity. But believe it or not, today our team was planning back to school. Kids are going back to school, which is fabulous. There's gonna need to wear them out. They didn't stop growing during COVID, so we're in the midst of a campaign right now to make sure that kids

have what they need to go back to school. Well, it's an impressive work that you guys are doing and certainly important work and really appreciate getting an update update on what you're doing, so Lisa, thank you so much. Lisa grow Rich, she's president and chief executive officer of Delivering Good. As we mentioned, they do have an upcoming Women of Inspiration roundtable series supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, which is of course the philanthropic philanthropic arm of Bloomberg LP,

the parent company of Bloomberg Radio. You can find out more at Delivering slash Good Delivering hyphen I should say good dot org so you can find out more information. And just a reminder of how we wrapped up this trading day. It was an interesting day, chock full of news, retail news, JP Morgan news, a lot going on, and yet markets just finishing off. The lows down about eight tens of a percent, about the SMP and the down

NAZAC down almost six tenths of a percent. DAL off two sixty seven points though, and we had the NASTAC off about seventy five points.