Give Amplify Connect

Empowering Change with Radical Generosity & Shared Resources

• Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation • Episode 18

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What if charities and non-profits could operate rent-free, channeling more resources towards their mission? Join us as we welcome Diana Davis, the Executive Director of the Jerry Forbes Centre Foundation, who shares her inspiring journey from the corporate world to spearheading a transformative model of shared workspaces. Discover how the centre's rent-free, collaborative environment is allowing organizations like Paralympic Sports of Alberta to thrive by redirecting financial savings into their vital programs. Through Diana's insights, we unlock the secrets behind the Jerry Forbes Centre's success in fostering an organic, problem-solving community that redefines efficiency in the nonprofit sector.

We also shine a spotlight on the empowering movement of Radical Generosity, a concept that gained momentum during the pandemic and continues to inspire community support through small acts of kindness. Our conversation dives into the Jerry Forbes Centre's pivotal role as a social service hub, where supporting the centre is akin to backing multiple organizations. This episode promises a profound look at the synergetic power of shared resources and the community.

Episode Key Messages
Overview of Jerry Forbes Centre as a charity for charities
• Mission of saving operating costs for nonprofits
• Benefits of shared resources and collaboration
• Real examples of success among tenants
• Challenges faced in fundraising and community awareness
• Introduction of the Radical Generosity movement
• Invitation to tour the centre and support local nonprofits

About Our Guest
With a career spanning various industries, Diana Davis has taken on management roles in accounting, business operations, and entrepreneurship. She joined the Jerry Forbes Centre Foundation (JFCF) in 2016 as part-time Finance Director, and in June 2019, she assumed the role of Executive Director following the departure of Max Scharfenberger. Since stepping into this role, Diana has been responsible for overseeing the Foundation and the Centre, collaborating with the Board of Directors, handling tenant applications, and managing property operations.

Outside of her professional life, Diana treasures spending time with her two adult children and her granddaughter. As a lifelong animal lover, her home is shared with a pair of cats and an energetic Belgian Shepherd. She also spends much of my free time with her horse, a passion that has been a cornerstone of her life for over 40 years.


What is Give Amplify Connect?

There’s a story behind every action. Give Amplify Connect is a podcast from the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation that gives a voice to the Alberta-based charitable organizations creating community impact, changing lives, and making a difference. Driven by honest conversations with host Kristy Wolfe, it’s a chance for passionate changemakers to share their story.

Learn more at wolfepackwarriors.com

Podcast music used with artist permission
"Okay" by Ellen Braun


Diana Davis:

Understanding that this one building reaches over 500,000 Albertans and engages over 17,000 volunteers. I mean, that's amazing.

Introduction:

Welcome to Give Amplify Connect, the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation podcast that dives deeper into the stories of the charitable organizations in Alberta that are making a difference. Host and producer Kristy Wolfe sits down with the leaders of the nonprofit world to learn more about their purpose, hopes and dreams. Settle in for an honest conversation with Kristy about the impact people are making in their communities and how they keep moving forward.

Kristy Wolfe:

With me today is Diana Davis. Now Diana is the Executive Director of the Jerry Forbes Center Foundation, and she's going to start by telling us a little bit about the Jerry Forbes Center.

Diana Davis:

All right, thank you, christy. So our mission is to provide a safe, professional, rent-free workspace shared workspace for charities and non-profits. It's a place where they only have to pay their proportionate share of operating costs, so typically that's a 40 to 50% savings for any charity. Along with that, encourage a culture of collaboration and support so that these organizations can be even more impactful in the communities and the people that they serve.

Kristy Wolfe:

And there are currently 25 charities housed within your space there, sure is there's 25 charities located.

Diana Davis:

It could be a single office or it could be 20 offices, but we're in a building that's 93,000 square feet, so it's a pretty big building.

Kristy Wolfe:

How did you get involved with the Jerry Forbes Center?

Diana Davis:

involved with the Jerry Forbes Center. I've been kind of an independent contractor with a fair amount of experience in management, operations and finance, and I joined Jerry Forbes Foundation in 2016 as a finance director and then was asked to become their executive director in 2019 when the previous ED resigned. So that's how I got involved in this and I've been here ever since.

Kristy Wolfe:

When you think of Jerry Forbes Center and how you've been involved, are there things about it that have changed the way you look at charities? Like the whole vision of what you're doing is amazing to me, and I think it's incredible and I have to assume that's made a pretty big impact on how you thought about charity.

Diana Davis:

Absolutely. I had previous to this, I'd always been involved with for-profit organizations, so you're always working for, you know, to make that bottom line big. This was my first non-profit nonprofit and it has been very enlightening. I have so much respect for the people who choose to work in this industry. They're skilled professionals and they could easily make more money in the private sector, but they have chosen to work for a charity and that's kind of I think that's kind of made me a better person, because I think differently about what I'm doing every day. It makes me work all the harder to find ways to save on operating costs because I know that's going to lessen any impact on them, and I've heard some incredible testimonials from our charities about what they've been able to do with the funds that they have saved because they're part of the center.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, and let's talk about that for a second. So the fact that it's a shared use model means that people have the space and then they're sharing the bills, basically, and the operational costs, so that that is where they're getting the savings, because I really want to drive this point home with people about what an incredible idea this is.

Diana Davis:

And some of it's really simple, like if you have 25 organizations, you're probably going to have 25 printers. For example, we have six, so you have a tremendous savings right there. Not one of the charities has to have their own front-end administration. The front-end administration is handled by Jerry Forbes. So we have Jamie Badry, who is an amazing person, but she takes care of the front-end and a whole bunch of other things because, of course, we multitask. That's an amazing opportunity for the charities to save money in that regard.

Diana Davis:

When you share space, I mean it's like sharing anything. You're sharing the cost of repair and in this case, they're just paying their proportion of share. So one little office. You know you have a major problem with a washroom or whatever and you have to pay for the plumber to come out. Well, now you've got 25 organizations helping you pay for that plumber to come out. You know what I mean. Like it's. It's amazing me when these charities come and tell me that they're coming to the center and, for the the cost of an office and a hundred square foot storage locker, that that's what they were paying for in parking where they had to have their offices before. Like that's amazing.

Kristy Wolfe:

When I think about people talking about making donations. There's still a lot of conversation around. I don't want it to go to operating costs. I want it to go directly to the client and the reality is every charity has all of these operating costs and many of them you can't even predict. It's just going to be things that come up. So taking that off of a charity really sets them up to put more of the money that they have into the programs that they're creating and working with clients.

Diana Davis:

Yeah, One of our tenants, Paralympic Sports of Alberta. They were able to expand their programming across Alberta because they were able to save $12,000 per specialized programs for their staff so they could work more effectively with children with diverse educational and behavioral needs. That's not pennies of money that there's. That is tens of thousands of dollars that these charities are saving.

Kristy Wolfe:

And then that can be used in different ways. Absolutely yeah.

Diana Davis:

The opportunity to be in a building with like-minded individuals. It creates those opportunities where they can consult with each other. They can collaborate. It's organic because you are walking beside people who are working for a charity or a nonprofit. They all have the same problems fundraising, volunteers, all of that and so it's very organic that they can collaborate and work together.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well and, quite honestly, often charities have a minimal staff and so you don't always have somebody in a similar position that you get to bounce ideas off of and start that way. I know you've mentioned two of the organizations already and I will put a link in the show notes to your website and where all the different 25 different nonprofits are, because you'll really begin to see that there are a lot of crossover between the different programs and I was hoping maybe that you could talk about how some of those organizations maybe have partnered or done some of that collaboration. Is there any stories there that are coming to mind?

Diana Davis:

Off the top of my head. There's one where one organization had a volunteer coordinator and another operation had an IT person and they just exchanged services of each of those people. They each needed one, but they just exchanged services of each of those people. They each needed one, but they just exchanged services. So they didn't have to go outside and get a third party to come in. They didn't have to try to fundraise to get the salary to be able to bring a person on, they were just able to exchange. That kind of opportunity is not going to happen with a charity stuck in an office tower.

Kristy Wolfe:

It's the water cooler talk and that opportunity to just like, as you're talking about an issue you're having, people are starting to problem solve and brainstorm, and that's a big part of you bringing all of these organizations together. Is that collaboration piece in the conversation that I am so excited to hear more about it?

Diana Davis:

You know, one of our larger tenants is Santa's Anonymous and often they get toys that are not, say, ready to be given out because they're like summer toys, so they don't give summer toys out at Christmastime. But then we have another organization that can take some of those kind of toys, so they just take a skid of these toys over to the other one and they're able to distribute them in July and August to the children that they're serving and getting involved with them. It's amazing.

Kristy Wolfe:

Oh, I can imagine Listening to you tell all these stories and talking about how you are supporting 25 organizations to decrease their costs. How does that happen? How are you fundraising? How are you getting people aware of the reality that running a business, running a charity, costs money? And how do you keep it rent-free?

Diana Davis:

People kind of have to look at us a little bit differently. We're actually a charity for charities, so we're providing this building, these people, the operations, the workspaces. We do have to do fundraising and we have to do some serious fundraising, but it's kind of difficult. I have to ask you, Christy, why did you support us? Why did the Wolfpack Warriors Foundation decide to support the Jerry Forbes Center Foundation?

Kristy Wolfe:

no-transcript. Salaries are a part of charities, that operating costs are a part of charities, and if you don't have those pieces covered, there's no way that you're going to be able to run those programs. So the vision of what the Jerry Forbes Center is doing was something that is different than the charities that we've supported and felt like something that we would really like to amplify and let other people know about, and Diana and I have had this conversation a little bit, but in Calgary I have organizations that are talking to me about these same ideas that you are doing in Edmonton, in the Bow Valley, in Canmore and Banff. I have organizations that are talking about doing similar things, of how you could bring charities together is something that all of our board members were like on board to have that further conversation around amplifying, around connecting different organizations together. You are doing what we are trying to do with the whole idea of Give, amplify, connect.

Diana Davis:

I really, really appreciate that and, of course, we are so excited to have you guys supporting us, because it has been a tough road to to fundraise. I can't tell you how many times we have been told that an organization can't support us because there's not a direct connection to a child or an adult in need. As I said before, like we are a charity for charities, most of our organizations are kind of social services. They're all dealing with different people from diverse with diverse needs, whether it's children with learning issues or people with food security, that sort of thing. It's in that social services. So there is a connection with many of our organizations in the communities that they're working in.

Kristy Wolfe:

When I look at all of the organizations that are there. I personally even outside of what I've done with the Wolfpack Warriors I've worked with a number of those organizations. Around my own experience as a teacher with my own children and Puff funding and getting seeking supports for early education I have paid attention to a lot of those organizations and the different things they're doing across Alberta, and so I think this is incredible just in that, if you are looking to find a way to support multiple organizations at one time, thinking about what the Jerry Forbes Center is doing is one way to support many organizations when you almost can't make a decision about who to support.

Diana Davis:

It's not easy there are a lot of parodies. Yeah, no, it really is. And we do understand that. And you know, with what people are facing now, with inflation and the whole, you know, like the cost of living, it's difficult for them to, you know, continue to support some of the charities that they have been. So we do understand that. But I mean there are other ways that people can, I think, give and it's, you know, maybe it's more of themselves.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, this seems like the perfect time to talk about radical generosity and what the Jerry Forbes Center has started to roll out. So will you explain Radical Generosity please?

Diana Davis:

I would love to. It's a movement really, and it started back in the pandemic when everybody was shut in doors and couldn't do anything and we weren't, you know, seeing each other and kind of losing that touch. And we were getting these kind of losing that touch and we were getting these seeing these acts of generosity in the community that were just like a heartfelt desire. You could tell a person that was doing it was just a heartfelt desire to support and uplift others in a terrible time, you know, of isolation. And so we finally put a name to it and Radical Generosity was born. We do see ourselves as leaders in the community and we feel that promoting positive impact of acts of radical generosity helps build stronger and healthier communities.

Diana Davis:

We've been defining this whole mission, I guess, over the past couple of years, and how we describe it is we use radical because it's generosity in each person's own way, and so we encourage people to think about what they can do in their own small way to make a difference. And it can be anything. It's just gestures of kindness in your daily interactions shoveling your neighbor's walk, stopping to give a warm coffee and donut to someone down on their luck. Get your co-workers or social group to build an initiative around radical generosity. So it could be a fundraising campaign, it could be a volunteer activity or it could be a neighborhood cleanup. We have designed a special line of merchandise that we offer for sale and the proceeds support the Jerry Forbes Center Foundation. It's a where-live-it kind of thing. So, diana, there's a ton of information on Jerry Forbes Center Foundation. It's a where live it kind of thing.

Kristy Wolfe:

So, diana, there's a ton of information on Jerry Forbes Center. We're sharing it through the Wolfpack Warriors, but if there was one thing that people could do to help you through Give, amplify, connect, what would that be? We?

Diana Davis:

love, love having people and organizations come for a tour. When you start to walk through the building and see the different organizations because they've got their banners up right and kind of their key mission statements on their banners of what they do You're walking through the building and you're meeting some of the people that are involved with these different organizations you get a really good sense of what the center means to the community and, plus, understanding that this one building reaches over 500,000 Albertans and engages over 17,000 volunteers, I mean that's amazing. I mean that's amazing.

Kristy Wolfe:

I came for a tour before Christmas when I was up in Edmonton and you're right, I had an idea of what I was thinking it was and it still blew me out of the water To see it in action and to see the people moving around and to see and have those conversations about where you lock stuff, where you store stuff, where the offices are, who's got what spot, and also the communal spaces of coming together and having that space for collaboration. So I also would highly recommend a tour. If you are around Edmonton and you'd like to see how the Jerry Forbes Center is doing that, definitely reach out to them. I'm going to end this, diana, on talking about an organization or a person that you have worked with that inspires you.

Diana Davis:

Well, there's a few. One have worked with that inspires you Well, there's a few. One of the people that is actually one of our tenants, cindy Gordon. Cindy is the executive director for the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, which is one of our charities, and she has fully embraced the spirit and purpose of the center. Her organization had been located in an office in an office tower. She knows how isolated she felt in that tower and what it was like not to be around like-minded people. She was one of our first tenants and has been instrumental in building the culture of community within the center, and she inspires me. She's very insistent on making sure that we keep our foot on the gas to move the center forward.

Diana Davis:

Another person that inspires me is actually the chair of our board, brian Farrell. He's been with this organization for a very, very long time and has been a driving force to get the center open. There have been a number of obstacles that the center has had to face and continues to face as far as funding, but, no matter what, he is one of those people that never, ever gives up, no matter what the odds are. And, of course, I am so grateful to the Wolfpack Foundation for doing this work, for doing these types of interviews with hardworking people of charities and nonprofits. I really appreciate the opportunity that you have given us today and also for your investment in us to help maintain our center.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, that sounds like the perfect spot to end. Diana, it has been a pleasure hearing you talk about the Jerry Forbes Center, and I can't wait to share this with some of my people in Southern Alberta to see if they can get something going too.

Diana Davis:

We would love to have them come and visit us.

Kristy Wolfe:

Thank you for joining us today. The purpose of the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation is to give, amplify and connect. Visit our website wolfepackwarriors. com to learn more about this initiative or connect with us about a registered charity that is important to you. Don't miss the next episode, or connect with us about a registered charity that is important to you. Don't miss the next episode. Follow Give Amplify Connect on your favorite podcast platform to hear from other Alberta-based nonprofits about the work they are doing. On a final note, remember to take care of yourself and your pack.

Introduction:

Okay, you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. Hush my darling gonna be okay, you're gonna be okay. Hush my darling gonna be okay, you're gonna be okay.

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Kristy Wolfe

Host