Welcome to the inspire people impact lives podcast. This podcast is for people who are looking to get more out of life by making an impact on those around them. Each week we bring you local influential business and community leaders delivering powerful messages to help you live a more inspiring and impactful life coming to you live from Northwestern mutual Middleton. Here's your host, Josh cosmic.
Welcome to another episode of inspire people impact lives. Quick shout out to longtime listeners. Please make sure you're subscribing to reaffirm that we have the top leaders in Wisconsin. You know, we want to make sure that all people in Wisconsin can hear this podcast here. The messages is the people that were getting out. So help us on the apples, iTunes algorithm, subscribe, share as much as possible. Also, quick shout out to our driving out childhood cancer event.
That is Thursday, June 6th to have sunshine fun and raise a bunch of money for some kids that need our help. Go to www.drivingoutchildhoodcancer.com again, www.drivingoutchildhoodcancer.com so I'm super excited. Today we got Michael Johnson. We're going to be talking with someone extremely skilled at building and scaling organizations leading with passion. And one of my favorite words, as you all know, inspiring people to make an impact with their actions and their wallets.
Yup. Yup. So Michael Johnson, president and CEO of boys and girls club of Dane County has led the agency on an amazing journey of change, transforming the organization from a local children's charity to agent change for all children, all families, while driving high standards of excellence in financial transparency, community engagement and governance, all with the goal of making a significant measurable impact in the lives of children and their families. Listen to this.
In eight years as their CEO, the club made really significant accomplishments. They developed a bold five year, $15 million plan that resulted in more than doubling the number of children and families being served in south central Wisconsin, tripled the number of employees and grew their operating budget by 318% during Michael's tenure and raised over $25 million to do the good work. That's incredible, man. So Michael, welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.
Absolutely. So would you say just happening, cause I know you've got limited time today, so I'm going to get as much impact out of you as possible. Are you, are you living the dream right now?
I am a, I think I have one of the best jobs, uh, in Wisconsin and it'd be to get up every day to be able to raise resources for kids and the work we, grassroot community leaders and business leaders. I don't think there's a better job, at least in county in Wisconsin then that of the CEO of boys and girls clubs. It's awesome. And the work that you've done has been incredible.
And I know a little bit about your story and growing up in Chicago and, and, and uh, and uh, around drugs, gangs, violence, stuff like that. Do you want to tell us a brief dated version for our listeners where they can, I mean, one of the reasons why I took on his job, uh, at boys and girls clubs that grew up in a boys and girls club grew up in one of the toughest public housing developments in the United States, grew up in the abla homes and also could bring grain, um, as Chicago.
These were neighborhoods that were infested with gangs and drugs and prostitution. And if it was not for boys and girls clubs, I wouldn't be standing here at a and interviewing with you today. And it really didn't hit me until my principal would ask me to give a commencement speech at the elementary school I had graduated from. And I remember walking in and being with them and I was so excited and fired up to talk to these kids.
And I had wrote, literally, there's 30 some page speech and I was about to give to a bunch of eighth graders as I walked in this building, they still had our eighth grade, eighth grade graduation pictures on a wall at a 23 young men that had graduated with me as a today. Only four of us are still alive. Wow. So the four of us got together and said, we say, why did God give us grace? And there was four things.
We were all members of the boys and girls clubs and after school programs, we were all connected to a community of faith. We all had mentors that were involved in our lives and we all came from single family households. So 20 some years later to be, to come back and lead our organization that was so instrumental in my life, uh, gives me a sense of purpose to be, to get up every single day and make a difference in young people's lives.
So, so you're wise was so strong, so grounded and because of that influence that you had, there's no way that you couldn't give back or pay it forward. Yeah. You know, I'm fortunate that I work in an environment that this doesn't feel like a job. It almost, almost like a ministry. You're getting up and you're changing people lives and you're organizing and bringing people together. You know, I'm fortunate to work for an organization that was small and Nimble, Nimble.
Uh, when we started, we were about a million dollar organization back in 2010. Uh, we'll hit 6 million. Uh, this year we started with 18 employees. Now we're, uh, upwards of about 175 people. We went from serving 1800 kids to 7,000 young people just in Madison out of Fitchburg to Sun Prairie to Waldo county. So we're expanding our footprint. Uh, we're now, we're the largest public private partnership in the Madison School district. A lot of people don't know.
We have full time employees, almost two or three full time staff in every single high school in Madison, in Verona. Uh, we provide tutors that's in the classrooms, uh, helping kids every single day, making sure that our kids can graduate from high school and gone to college. And now we're trying to figure out how do we make sure the kids are prepared for careers and to be able to lead that and to help transform young people's lives. I don't think there is a better assignment that's out there.
And uh, and that's why I'm excited about being here.
It seems like it's God ordained, right? As you call it a ministry. And I know that's what you're now trying to preach, but you know, God shines through your and these lights on down. You're able to change people's lives. So we heard a little bit about your beginning and now we know where you're at.
Was, was there anything else about you that the led you away from the drugs, the violence, the prostitution, all that you mentioned to, to rise up to you said before the show, and he didn't mention this to on air, but I'll mention it as first person in your family to graduate college. Like was there something different about you or some outlook difference that you had the allowed you to look a little bit further outside of it?
I actually don't think it was for me. I think it was, uh, you know, I had a mother who may and she loved, she loved us. My mother had schizophrenia, single mom who pretty much lived in Mississippi, uh, navigate to Chicago to look for a better lifestyle. And we ended up, you know, living in the projects. I entire, uh, the latter part of her life and pretty much at the beginning of my life, my first 23 years I lived in the projects.
There was a guy by the name of Peter Goshi [inaudible] who was a local businessman who owned a grocery store, hired me at 13 years of age and he literally became, my mentor, became my, my surrogate father exposed me to how people live outside of the projects. And I remember Peter Taking me to Glenview, Illinois. And I remember standing in his house for a week. It was like, oh my God, people got their own bid rooms. They got a swimming pool in the back yard.
And I remember him coming to me saying, you know what, Mike, if you go to college, go to school, work hard, train for it. You can provide the same kind of lifestyle for your family, but you gotta work for it. And he hired me and he began to give me that exposure, that exposure made me not want to join gangs, made me not want to sell drugs, made me want to do something positive in life.
And it was hard cause that a lot of friends that were making money selling drugs, uh, it was almost cool to go to jail and say, you know what? I did time in Cook County jail or I went down to Stateville or I was part of this gang or that gang. And I was tempted. But then when I started seeing my friends being murdered and those dark hallways of our buildings, uh, being stuffed trunks of cars, I didn't want that to be me.
And, uh, and I always dreamed about like, I thought I would be dead by the time I was 21. I would always dream about like, who would kill me, what was my funeral look like? And you shouldn't have to think about that stuff when you're 16, 17 years old. You should be thinking about how you could become the next teacher principal or entrepreneur or minister or the CEO of a company.
And Peter gave me that inspiration and I'm thankful that I had a mother thankful that I actually grew up in the environment that I grew up in because it gave me some, uh, it made me appreciate like where I'm at now in life and to be able to be in a role like this at boys and girls club and it'd be the pay it for, for so many young people that come from challenging circumstances. Um, it's rewarding to be able to get up every day to be a service to them.
Yeah. I just wanted to take him out. I mean, there's so much there. Uh, mean wow. Were like, it was being able to see outside of those walls and not be stuffed in a trunk of a car and be able to think about college. Think about beyond that, but, but only give a shout out to people are Rosa Peter Goshi though. She, Peter Goshi, the, the mentors, the big brothers, big sisters out there, the people volunteering at the boys and girls club.
Even if you're not formally with a charity and you're taking time in the world of a child like this, the shutoff for you, like keep doing what you're doing because without Peter's vision and you being able to see his life, yeah. You might've been one of those people and stuff in the trunk of a car. That's uh, so all of you out there right now that are mentoring a kid may or may not think that it's worth it. This is living proof sitting in front of me that it's worth it.
Yeah. I mean, I remember at dinner with Pete about a year ago and he said, you know, Mike, I want impact as many kids as you are right now, but the fact that I impacted your life and now you're impacting the lives of thousands of people, when it's time for me to go to those, uh, drill those pearly white gates, I could say, you know, if I did one thing in life mentoring you, it was something that I thought I was gonna I thought it was going to make a difference in your life, but in reality it
made a difference in my life. So I would just encourage people to continue to do stuff like
whether it's formal or informal matters, no death. So, uh, I want to skip a little bit forward now because I've always observed and admired your ability to organize and fundraise. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and just seeing how you do that and how influential you are on social media, um, what makes you so good at that?
Yeah, so I would say you try to learn from other people. Um, you know, one of the things I learned from Pete was about, I also worked for a guy by the name of Paul Vallas who just ran for mayor of Chicago. It used to be the superintendent of schools. So I got an opportunity to work very up a up close with him for eight years. And he's one of my mentors as well. And a fundraising is about relationships. You know, I don't ask people for money that don't know.
I'm always try to make sure that we delivered it for people who do invest in our kids. That when we tell people that we're going to do something, that we actually do it and deliver on the promise till you got to train for it. Uh, early on in my career, I went to the center of philanthropy, the number one philanthropy schools in the United States to learn about, you know, fundraising.
I used to be really, really afraid to ask people to invest in our young people because it felt like to me it at the early stages of my career, it felt like sales job. And this is not selling our kids. This is about investing and the future of young people. And I think I'm also fortunate to be to work in the community that care about young people, care about our kids and their development.
And so it, I'm not going to say that it's easy, but boys and girls clubs and delivering services for young people and accept folks to invest in them. It's not like selling a car. And so it's easy for me to ask somebody for $1 million or half a million dollars or over my, uh, nine year tenure raise 20 plus million dollars, whether it's through special events or individual contributions or roll up campaigns at local grocery stores or businesses.
It's about making sure that the quality of life for young people and then what's the economic return of our young pig. Kids are graduating from high school, going to college, finding careers that's um, that's going to produce productive lifestyles for them. And they become, you know, tax paying citizens. That's how we grow as a community and grow as an economy and our local nonprofits is part of that equation.
So what I just heard there as you believe so deeply in your mission that you have no problem asking for whether it's $1 million, half of it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what the number is. Yeah, you believe so deeply in what you're doing and your quote unquote
why? Yeah,
it's not sales. It's just the mission. If you're passionate, if you're passionate about it and come out experts say that you are the average of the five people you hang out with and the books that you read. We'd like to suggest the podcast that you listened to as well, so hit that subscribe button and add Madison's top leaders to your circle. We'd also encourage you to share this podcast with as many friends as possible. Our mission is simple to inspire people and impact lives.
If you know of a friend or colleague or could benefit from listening to some of Madison's top leaders, give us a share. Now back to our guests.
If this just a job for you, I would encourage people, typically folks who are thinking about lead organizations. If this an organization, if you don't believe in the mission, if you're not passionate about it, it's going to show and it will have an impact in terms of how you raise money, uh, for your organization. And so for me personally, I have a personal conviction and tie to the work that we do at boys and girls clubs.
So it's easier for me to talk about like we're going through a strategic planning process right now, uh, with our board, with our management team, and is going to call on us to raise significant resources in our community to fulfill that plan. And when you have that now with that, it can't just be a plan.
You got to have experience, you got to understand the data, you got to do research on donors and you've got to also present a strong case for why people should invest in your programs or your kids. Then also share, here's what the economic impact will be to the community and hell, here's how we're going to make a difference. And it even plays out into grants that you get from organizations.
If you go and commit and put things on paper and say, Hey, give us a grant of the next five years are going to do x, Y, andZ , and you'll accomplish none of those things, then you lose credibility in the marketplace. So we try to under promise and over deliver so we can sustain long term support for our kids, that boys and girls club.
Oh, that's awesome. So the other piece on the fundraising fundraising side that I noted for myself, just seeing your action over the past on let's say 10 years or so, um, you do some quirky stuff to raise money. So, so, uh, one of those that stuck out to me or is trapping her, locking herself on a roof and not coming down until a certain amount of money was raised. So you come up with these ideas, are they given to you and what makes you, uh, get into this kind of a quirky situation? Yeah,
I think a lot of it is, some of it is a crazy ideas that you learned from other people. If ice people give you and I sort of want you to, out of two years, I stayed on a roof over it may calves. The first year we did it, we were trying to raise a half a million dollars for kids in this community and uh, and that was a big number. So I pretty much got on a news Topi I was 900 come down at until we raised a half a million dollars. Over 400 people came and visited me on that rule.
Over a 72 hour period, we posted photos of people every time I was social media saying, hey, the marriages came by, his local community leader came by. That first year was 107 degrees on that roof. It was so hot. I remember the mayor came over after he left, he sent the nurse up there. I was sweating bullets and I ended up, there's this article of me on the front page of the Isthmus newspaper back in 2013 and has a bunch of kids in front of me.
Somebody brought me some gate array and I don't know if they spiked it or they put too much powder in it, right when we want to take the photo. I threw up on the kids. It was so embarrassing. So I asked the, uh, I asked the photographer, I said, man, please don't put that in the newspaper. And, and they didn't do it. And uh, and that weekend I think we raised $150,000 over like a 48 hour period. We've done everything from jump out of burning buildings.
One year we swam across Lake Manona at nighttime between rowing and rowing and swimming with about 15 people. We did it overnight. And so whatever it take to bring resources in for our kids, you know, we'll do it. I'm pretty sure we'll come up with some additional crazy ideas and, uh, whatever it take to bring exposure to the work that we do.
No, it's so much fun. And so getting those say, local celebrities do show up to, they show up because you put it out there or did it? So did you have people on your team?
Yeah. So, so it was a combination of us reaching out to people on social media, emails, some I think. And will you look on people's news feeds? Some came because we invited down some saw it and was like, I want to be a part of that, you know? And so, uh, I mean there was days that we were posting 150 pitches a day, you know, or social media. So it's work and part of it is, is just building awareness around your brand and the work and what you're trying to accomplish.
And we were trying to do it within a 72 hour period, but it was also fun because there was the, I mean one night I remember I tried to go to sleep and there was a bunch of Uwu students came at like three o'clock in the morning and one at the party. There was another group that came out and like, we're going to do our yoga class at five 30 in the morning right out here. You know, in the parking lot. There was another group one night, one year we played spades all night and cards.
And so it's like we're having fun. Oh, we're fundraising for kids in our community. And uh, and that's a great way to be, to raise resources. It's tough when you don't enjoy raising money and you're not winning and Achy. It could take a toll on the morale of your team. I always tell my folks, hey, we put in the sweat equity, we work hard and we do what's right for kids, our community of step up and invest in our young people.
And I think that's why we've become one of the fastest growing boys and girls clubs in the United States, I think is one of the reasons why we get great results for our kids and the Madison School district, our kids, that GPA is a higher, their tenants is better. They take more rigorous courses in 90 something plus percent low income. First generation college students are graduating from our high schools here because of the investments that we've made.
And it's not me saying this, this is the university Wisconsin that does a study every, get it validated the worst work that we do
when our school. Another Kudos. I'm into some amazing work. So for those that don't know, Michael is also a family man. So how does your wife deal with these excursions that she knows that you may be gone three nights or a week, whatever it may be, just to raise money for the kids? How do you guys work on that as a couple?
So I would tell you, man, I've been married now 16 years. I'm very fortunate to have a spouse that is smart, intelligent, beautiful, and uh, I've learned over the years just do what my wife tells me to do. I've also learned that there's a balance between work and spend time with your family. And I would tell you my first probably five to seven years, I was a good husband, but there was times I was there and not there.
I've learned over time that when you're with your family, sometimes you got to put things away and spend quality time. Did your kids grow up so quickly and you gotta be with them? Man. Like my son is now going into high school. I remember the day that he was born. Uh, my two younger girls, I'm mckayla mccaya. One is five years old, the other is eight and a and just spending quality time with them.
It's important for me so I try to make sure that I'm not just physically there but I'm mentally there with them every single day. And so I recently had left Madison, came back to right now upstairs in a studio apartment by myself and my family came down and stayed with meters this week cause they on spring break in Ohio and I just like God and I'm driving back every weekend to be with them.
And when you go from being with your family every day to live in and a in an apartment, may you realize how much, what kind of influenced your family have you? My cell was making fun of me. He came into my apartment, he said, dad, you got a rocking chair, there's no pictures on a wall. He was like, man, this is what it is.
This way, it feels like the big old man live back itself and a, and just having them here with me this week managers made me appreciate like how much I love my family and the role that they play, not only in the role that I play in their lives, but the role that they play in my life as well. Some fortunate.
Such, such a good answer. What you're saying there is quality over quantity. Absolutely. Because just if you think about it mathematically, me being in financial planning world, that's where my mind goes between sleep and work. You're already on a limited time. Just mathematically. Yeah. So you've got to make the most of it and be where your feet are. Absolutely. We've got a few minutes left and or we could go for another couple hours I'm sure.
But so what has made you a better leader over the years from where you started? Let's say your tenure from starting, taking over as CEO of boys and Girls Club to where you are today. What's changed in you as a leader? In what, uh, we're continues to evolve.
I will say early on in my career, I wasn't one of these guys that always like gotta be in the office, has gotta be out gotta be being with people.
And um, I would say I probably worked people, um, a lot harder than I should over the years as I've matured in my role, I've, um, I want to make sure that people who weren't with me that they spent time with their families and I think you'll keep them longer, have also over the years implementing like employee engagement surveys to make sure if you got a strong team around you, you're going to get things done.
So every year or every two years, I do a, uh, employee engagement survey to make sure that we're hearing directly from our workforce, particularly when you grow to that many, uh, people. Um, and when you're the leader, sometimes you can get removed from the folks that's working directly with kids. So I've learned to appreciate, uh, both great feedback from people, but also constructive feedback or foes that makes you better as a leader.
And I've also, um, recognize, recognize that in order to truly transform a community or an agency of kids' lives, that you have to have a team, not only at the senior level but the middle level management and also people rent directly with whether it's your clients or your kids and making sure that they get the support that they need to be a successful. And then I would say finally, um, uh, planning is very, very critical.
I am really, really big on spending time, the proper time planning and strategizing and then executing on those strategies.
That's great. That is great. So I want to respect your time. Uh, we're definitely gonna do this again. Absolutely got a lot more to unpack with each other. But, uh, uh, what's the, what's the favorite book out there? I was under these two questions now. Was it you, I know you were looking for one before the show, so all either all time favorite or current book you're reading?
Yeah, it's a, it's fact. Can't believe it's 1240 already got it went by fast. Uh, there's this book by this guy named Michael Roberts. Michael Roberts is a, a guy to Saint Louis that, uh, uh, I was sitting as itself may multimillionaire. He was on his show. He was not seeing the, and they did a story called billionaire brothers. Uh, I remember meeting Mike in Saint Saint Louis when I was a vice president for the white MCA and tried to get him me. And as a supporter, he turned me down.
And, uh, so he has this book called action, has no season and a, there's really some great concepts and thinking around some of the pieces that he had in his book, Mike Has Become a mentor. I've actually brought him to Madison, uh, twice here. Here's a guy who, uh, father was a mail man. They were, he wasn't rich but wasn't poor. Live in a, uh, a lower middle class community.
And here's the guy who now own TV stations all across the United States on hotels all across the United States, um, own, uh, businesses outside of the United States. And he is just somebody that you, that is rare to see a African American male who grew up in north St Louis run a now billion dollar enterprise is a pretty darn amazing.
And I'm also reading books about, you know, leadership I think is always good to uh, you know, uh, I remember meeting the CEO of General Electric when I took the job then, you know, Cincinnati and I'm sitting there like, oh my God, I'm sitting in a room with the CEO of General Electric. And so, you know, cause you know, their former CEO, you know, always had, you know, leadership books that was out there. So yeah.
So I was just, you know, encourage people to, you know, take is me, uh, read as many books as you can, participate in any professional development opportunities that's going to continue to sharpen, uh, uh, your needle and a, and then utilize those things that you read and learn and try to implement them, execute them at
all. Right. Last thing, we're good outta here. How can our audience get in touch with you? Or if they want to either impact the boys and girls club work with you or do something in that partnership. Was that elsewhere
right now? Uh, organize and, uh, we just made the, the prior to big, no, not probably. We've just made the biggest ambassador we've ever made in the history of our clubs. We just purchased a brand new facility out in Sun Prairie, but trying to open it up by September. Um, we pay one point $2 million for this facility is on cost us somewhere, you know, upwards of a half a million dollars more to put a new elevator and sprinkler system, gymnasium.
It, we need people who can give of their time, their talent and their treasure. So I wanna ask people, reach out to me directly at m Johnson at BGC d C. Dot. Org or call our offices at (608) 257-2606. Or you can look me up on Facebook. I respond to this about every message. If you want to volunteer, you want to help us raise money. Our Son pray project write down is our, uh, our biggest commitment. And we need people that can step up and help us with that project.
All right, everybody, you heard him? Uh, and we'll have that insurance.
Well, thank Jason and I miss that. Well, thank you so much for your time today. We're going to do this again for sure. All right. Thanks for listening to another episode of inspire people impact lives. If you've been inspired today, please share this episode with as many people as possible so that together our impact is exponential.