We hear what to expect with Lead By Impact, Michael's story and why the show was created.

This show is for those who are looking to step up and make a difference in their local community, by living their mission. We share the stories of the people, groups and organizations who prevent children, women, men and families from being stuck in complex and challenging situations.

Michael shares how he has a Masters in Clinical Psychology, and worked at a variety of residential facilities for mental health and for substance abuse.

At his most recent residential facility he worked in, they worked to help clients with Schizophrenia, Bi-polar, PTSD, etc. It was a 90 day treatment program where they had day treatment groups, one on ones, and case management. The goal was to make sure the clients had the resources they needed before they left the facility, such as a case manager, housing, income, food, clothing, shelter, psychologist, psychiatrist, and medication so they were supported and had stability when they went back into the community.

Unfortunately many clients continually came back.  he asked his manager if they could do research to understand what was happening and make the appropriate adjustment if it wasn't working, or bring it to the county and state to show efficacy and obtain more funding. Management said no and he left the organization. He realized that his mission was not being fulfilled, to make sure generations were being forever changed to have healthy families.

He took time to self reflect, learn more, and talk to the people and organizations who are doing mission driven work. He then learned that he was focusing on symptoms, but not the actual root of the problem. He realized his mission was to answer the question, how do we prevent these issues from happening in the first place?

During that time he was also working at an improv theatre company called Leela. He utilizes improv is a tool to create a particular experience that can help develop deeper learning on a variety of topics such as communication, creativity, social intelligence, etc. He then was able to utilize the tools of improv and psychology to work with larger organizations such as Drop Box, Kaiser Permanente, Salesforce, etc.

During that time he learned how these organizations worked, particularly the systems and operations. Including financial models and it's components. Understanding your market, the community of people you serve, what are their needs, how to speak in their language, and providing a service that looks to solve that need.

Now he is bringing that work to nonprofits who struggle with funding to help them create sustainable business models. Nonprofits use grants, fundraisers, donors, government funding, which are not a reliable source of income. Which leads to a cut in funding and a programs, even shutdowns.

Those who the program were looking to serve are now stranded which impacts the community. For example, let's say funding is cut from a program that prevents people from being homeless. This will raise homelessness in a city which correlates with an increase in substance abuse, which increases the rate of violence. Also it increases community health issues. This is the domino effect of cutting funding from nonprofits and social enterprises.

Now he works with these organizations who are looking to prevent these issues from happening to have sustainable business models so they can have impact on their local communities. These organizations are looking to put a stop to these issues, and you can to.

The podcast is about sharing the stories of these people and organizations that are creating huge levels of impact. Showing everyday people that they can do that to, they have the power and ability to make real lasting change.

What can you start doing now? You can start talking to someone in who does the work you want to do, volunteer, do research, just go do something. The main thing you can do is go live your mission!