Episode 3: Democratizing Philanthropy: How Collective Giving Turns Small Donations into Big Impact

Written By Genevieve George

Generosity isn't reserved for the ultra-wealthy. Whether you have $50 or $5,000 to give, your dollars can go further and your impact can grow exponentially when you give collectively. In this episode, Lisa LaFrance, philanthropic advisor and founder of LaFrance Project, breaks down how pooling resources through giving circles is changing modern philanthropy and creating significant change in local communities.

Listen in as Lisa shares the surprising statistics behind collective giving, how democratized philanthropy puts donors in the driver's seat, and why supporting grassroots organizations can be more impactful than writing checks to large institutions. You’ll discover how giving circles create networks of learning, engagement, and community transformation—all while making your charitable dollars work harder than you ever imagined.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How collective giving has mobilized over $3.1 billion from hundreds of thousands of donors since 2016.

  • The difference between giving circles and traditional charitable donations.

  • Why donor-advised funds represent a major untapped opportunity in philanthropy.

  • How technology and data may reshape the nonprofit sector in the coming years.

  • The 3 “Ms" of meaningful nonprofit engagement.

  • How group decision-making offers education, transparency, and deeper engagement.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

  • “The wonderful thing about collective giving is it democratizes philanthropy. The people that are contributing to the pool of funds have some say in how that money gets distributed.” - Lisa LaFrance

  • “Trust-based philanthropy is really about developing really strong relationships between the donor and the nonprofit, so that you can have a really open conversation and communication.” - Lisa LaFrance

  • “If you give that $500 to the American Heart Association, it's great. But if you give that $500 to a small nonprofit that's just building—that maybe has a budget of a hundred thousand dollars—really impactful for them... You've changed their balance sheet significantly.” - Lisa LaFrance

Resources:


About Our Guest:

Lisa LaFrance is a philanthropic advisor and founder of LaFrance Project, where she helps individuals, families, and businesses create meaningful, purpose-driven giving strategies. Drawing on her background in investment management, nonprofit leadership, and community engagement, Lisa champions collaboration, transparency, and education as pathways to stronger, more effective philanthropy.

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Read the Transcript:

Lisa LaFrance: The wonderful thing about collective giving is it democratizes philanthropy. The people that are contributing to the pool of funds have some say in how that money gets distributed.

Welcome to The Wealth Development Studio. I'm your host, Genevieve George, Senior Financial Advisor and Founder of Pelican Financial Planning & Wealth. Our goal for this episode is to provide clarity about today's financial topic, inspire you to be brave with your questions, and gain confidence in your financial future. So take a deep breath, grab your favorite cup of coffee, and step into the studio. Your dose of financial empowerment begins now.

Genevieve George: Today, we're diving into a topic that proves generosity isn't just for the ultra-wealthy. Whether you give $50 or $5,000, your dollars can go further and your impact can grow when you give collectively. Joining me today is Lisa LaFrance, a philanthropic advisor who advocates for collaboration, transparency, efficiency, and deeper donor engagement within the philanthropic space.

We're talking about how smaller donors can make a big difference by pooling their resources and how collective giving circles are changing the landscape of modern philanthropy. Thank you so much for being here, Lisa. How are you?

Lisa LaFrance: I'm great. Thank you, Jen, for having me. Yeah, the collective giving movement has become huge.

I was just looking up some statistics before we hopped on here. And from 2016 to 2023, I think it was roughly $3.1 billion was mobilized in collective giving. So it's clearly become a force for philanthropy. And as you were alluding to that, $3.1 billion is made up of literally hundreds of thousands of people.

So some people are donating maybe $100 dollars, some are $1,000, some are bigger, but it really is what's making philanthropy accessible to anybody.

Genevieve George: I love that, and it's really giving a capacity to help a donor that maybe can't give tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars yet.

That's what I always say. It's really helping them still be able to participate in moving the needle in the philanthropic space and being able to drive some change there. Can you talk to me about how the giving circles differ from traditional giving? If I have $500, what should I be doing with that, and what's gonna make it have the most impact?

Lisa LaFrance: For me, giving circles are so much more even than just donating to a charity in your community. There are different ways of looking at giving circles, right? It can be a wonderful social network that also supports the community. It can be a way to support the community and you happen to be able to meet some wonderful people.

So it depends. Are you joining this group because you really want to get involved in philanthropy? Are you joining because you really wanna meet some wonderful, like-minded people? Either reason is, and both reasons are great. And I think that what happens is when you join one of these groups for whatever reason, you start to really learn a tremendous amount.

And it's an opportunity to figure out what's really happening in your community. We live in Palm Beach County, and I even saw something online recently when we were talk—there was some talk about what's going on with the federal government shutdown, and somebody said, “What are you talking about? Palm Beach County doesn't have anybody on the SNAP program.”

It's yes, we do. It has so much need and until you get involved in these kinds of, or organizations and really see what's happening, you might not appreciate that. And what I also love about that dichotomy, if you will, and dynamic, is that we have so much need, but we have so much wealth. That is true that we do have a tremendous amount of wealth in this community.

So for me, that's a tremendous opportunity, an opportunity to unlock that potential philanthropy. Back to the giving circle specifically because that is an important component of what we're talking about. And I think that frankly, as I'm talking right now, I'm realizing our giving circles are really setting a tremendous example for the large philanthropists.

I firmly believe in the work that a lot of our smaller grassroots organizations are doing. It's innovative, passionate, it's purpose-filled, and I'm not saying that any of the larger organizations aren't as well. But when you, for example, to get to your question, when you have $500, if you give that $500 to the American Heart Association, it's great, but if you give that $500 to a small nonprofit that's just building, that maybe has a budget of a hundred thousand dollars, really impactful for.

And you start to, as you mentioned earlier, that donor engagement of feeling like you really are making a difference for that nonprofit and therefore for your community is a really powerful thing. And then take that to the next step. If you have $500 and you pool it with another hundred people or however many—20 people even—and then you give that money together to that small nonprofit.

You’ve changed their balance sheet significantly and what that means too, and you and I both have investment backgrounds. We can talk about that a little bit, but just to build some momentum for that small nonprofit, not only literally like financial momentum, but it starts to give them credibility.

It validates their program. Oftentimes, I like to support pilot programs that will be proof of concept. So you know, they just need a little money to show that they're their idea work. Then once they do that, then the bigger, all the bigger people follow. And that's a fun thing about this kind of philanthropy too.

You're like a venture capitalist, you're discovering some new solutions and hopefully proving them correct and hopefully attracting more money to follow into that space.

Genevieve George: Yeah, I love that. And you really hit that with the math there, being from a financial background, when I was first approached about collective giving.

The circle I was contributing to was a thousand dollars. I gave a thousand dollars, but so did a hundred other people. A hundred thousand dollars to these organizations, whether they're larger or grassroots, like that is still so impactful. It is making a change to how they're offering their services or providing a new program within the community, which is so necessary.

Talk about rate of return on your giving leverage. I'm willing leverage, I couldn't help but wanna do that because like I said, I'm not in a position where I can give a hundred thousand dollars yet. That's what I keep telling this. I'll get there one day.

If I can make my giving go that much further and even if I was to give that thousand dollars to one of these organizations directly, are they grateful? Sure. But I didn't make a drastic change with it. It's just supporting what they're already doing. But when you can make those larger, make your dollars just a little bit further for these larger gifts, it's incredible to see what has really come from that.

And you and I have gotten to experience some of those new programs coming about from some of these giving circle grants going out, which is amazing.

Lisa LaFrance: And I'll say too that we talk about this as a learning opportunity and a way to understand what's happening in your community. And I have come to support some of several organizations now independently of the giving circle.

And when I look at the ones that I'm supporting, three out of eight that I support on a monthly recurring basis 'cause I really believe in monthly recurring giving as well, are ones that I met. My giving circle. And that's a win for them from the giving circle to now me as a private donor who's really engaged with what they're doing, not just financially, but strategically, quite frankly, I'm always there for them to bounce ideas off of or maybe help them with some marketing ideas.

So truly partnering with the nonprofits that I've come to know and love is another way that I find the engagement most meaningful.

Genevieve George: Well, in that engagement too you're able to bring your. Business professional expertise to that organization as well. Once you are more connected and feel more engaged with that organization, you can share some of those really great ideas from the non-philanthropic space that would still benefit what they're doing with their mission and their organization, which is awesome.

I've seen you do that as well, which is so wonderful to see the evolution.

Lisa LaFrance: Yeah, what, it's funny because they talk about time, treasure, and talent, right? Three Ts, and what I've come to find and feel over the last few years is I've gotten to know the nonprofit leaders really, really well. I have great relationships and they're really important relationships to me, trust-based relationships.

I know a lot of things I don't tell people. I feel like people look to me for just even sometimes emotional support. So it's you can do this. Keep going, 'cause this work is hard. I know it, I feel it's hard for me sometimes, and I'm not even in the trenches like these people are every day.

And so I'm just here to motivate them. And so I realized that for me it's about 3M. It's about money, methods, and motivation. And that's what I can give to the people in the nonprofit space that I'm championing.

Genevieve George: That's amazing. You mentioned too—education. The component that comes with, as a giver, I'm gonna receive all this additional information about what the needs are in the community.

And I have found that to be really powerful for myself because I am busy, right? I'm running a business and I want to do more, but I don't have time to really dive in deep and study each of these individual organizations and figure out where I can make my dollars go. So I found that to be a really great resource too, because putting it into this pool of funds with other donors, there's usually some resources around figuring out where we're gonna distribute those dollars.

Can you speak to maybe how those pulled funds decide where and how to support these organizations?

Lisa LaFrance: Yeah, sure. I think that will get to the other really wonderful thing about collective giving, which is it democratizes philanthropy. And so in most giving models, the people that are contributing to the pool of funds have some say in how that money gets distributed.

And there's a lot of different models for collective giving. Some like the larger ones that you and I have been involved with have a very rigorous grant review process. It's a several-stage vetting process because they're giving away large amounts of money. So, of course, it's prudent to do that level of due diligence.

Some that are smaller, they might really just have somebody come in and give a presentation, and then the whole group decides, how do I wanna give the money? But to that democratization point, this means that everybody in the room that's given any amount of money has a voice in who's actually receiving the funds.

And so it's quite possible that some of those people have lived experience or have some firsthand or secondhand knowledge of the real problems that are happening. And so that's really informing where the dollars go, and I think that's really powerful and should never be overlooked when we talk about the power of collective giving.

And what else? What was the the question?

Genevieve George: Yeah, how are the groups deciding where the dollars are going to, what organizations. So I feel like you touched on that. I really love your term democratization of this giving too.

And I feel like I see that in multiple ways, like you and I are—we have been a part of Impact100 that allows us to come to the table and like actually vote on where those final dollars are gonna go. But some other giving circles are already focused to a particular area of need. And so you're deciding that on the front end, right?

If I am a staunch supporter of the arts, right? I can go to a giving circles solely for arts purposes, but there's so many out there, right? So many ways to be able to drive where the dollars are going without necessarily driving the exact final choice there.

Lisa LaFrance: But the important thing too, andthis was what I wanted to say, and so I'm glad you, you brought it back around to me because it's, and it's true of giving circles as well as nonprofits, and it is my biggest passion for the rest of my life, from my also investment background to create a more efficient information flow for these nonprofits.

And so the example from the collective giving side is, I lived in Palm Beach County for four years before I even knew there were collective giving circles or what any of them did. So I feel like we need more awareness, more visibility. So that when people come and say, I do wanna be involved, that it's not hard, right?

Everything should be easy these days, and I actually am optimistic that with all of the incredible advances with technology, that that will be the case. So not only can somebody move to a community and with a couple little questions into whatever their AI friend is of the day, find out like, “Oh, you can give to an Impact Chapter. You can give to a 100 women who care. You can give to the children's network. You can give to there and on.”

Like you said, there are a lot, but how do you even know? And then you take that to the level of the nonprofit community, especially here in Palm Beach County where there are literally thousands.

The number people will often quote is 8,000 or 9,000, but that includes a lot of private foundations. It includes a lot of nonprofits that are in the system, if you will, that actually are not really operating. I have boiled that down to more like 2000 that are actually operating public charities.

That's still a daunting number. You can't research 2,000 organizations. You are not do it, but someday you will. Someday you'll be able to, I feel like, yeah. With data and the tools that are being developed to analyze data and different models. I'm actually reading a book right now.

It's called something like Leveraging Technology to Rethink Philanthropy. Okay. So I think there's a really in—we're on the precipice of perhaps a real revolution, evolution change in how this sector is seen and that maybe it finally will be seen. 'Cause people won't make decisions if they don't have information. So yeah.

Genevieve George: And one of the things that you did recently was you hosted a group of us to watch the Dan Palotta’s TED Talk, and that talks a lot about that not making these organizations seen. Because we've limited them on what they can put out there and how they can market themselves to get in front of more people, to make sure that people are aware of what they're trying—the problems that they're trying to help with and all of that.

So that was really powerful to me. Brought that all together and had just an incredible presentation. But maybe you wanna talk to that, 'cause that definitely applies to this as well, what you're saying. How do we get more information out there for that person that just moved and needs to know how to get involved in their community.

Lisa LaFrance: Yeah. Yeah. That's such a great point, Gen, and I don't even know how much I've really tied that all together with the visibility and the paradigm that exists in the power dynamic between traditional donors and nonprofits that says all of your money as much as possible should go to program, which means that overhead and marketing are shunned, frankly. And how does a nonprofit grow if it can't market itself?

Genevieve George: Yeah. Or pay its employees a fair wage, right?

Lisa LaFrance: Yes. And we're seeing a lot of that strain right now. I can't tell you how many of my nonprofit friends are looking for to hire development people and development people last, I think, on average, less than a year in their jobs.

It is because not only are they not paid that well, this is really difficult work. So there's a real mismatch between how their skills and talents are rewarded and the efforts and the things that they're doing. And I'm not taking any credit for that insight. That was something frankly Dan Palotta said in a TED Talk 13 years ago.

And I think it's now becoming, people are really willing to listen and hear that. And frankly, I'll give some of that, a lot of that credit to MacKenzie Scott, who has really said, okay, trust-based philanthropy, unrestricted giving. You guys know how you need to spend this money to have the most powerful outcomes. You need to be scaling, then that does mean marketing, by the way, and I just love that shift that we're starting to see in philanthropy.

Genevieve George: Yeah, I love that. I love that. What is your advice? While we're waiting for the tech to catch up, to inform our neighbors how they can get involved. What is your advice for somebody like you? You were in that position like moving to a new area, trying to figure out what the needs are and where to go to see if they can participate in collective giving in their area.

Lisa LaFrance: The first thing that comes to many people I know that are moving to the area are seeking out networking groups, right? And so one of the things that I did as leader in a leadership role at Impact was I got involved in local chambers because a lot of people that move into a new community, especially if they have a business, that's their first stop to try to get to know what other businesses and the market and all the different components of how to build their business through a chamber of commerce.

So join your local Chamber of Commerce. You will see me there dancing and singing about philanthropy and collective giving.

I think I'm trying to advertise more. I'm definitely very active on social media. You could probably, anybody could probably go into any of their social media platforms that they prefer and type in Collective Giving Palm Beach County. Hopefully, I pop up. I don't know. But I'm here and I am here to help people really, honestly, just 30-minute free consultations, anybody that wants them, because this is my passion, my mission.

I'll tell you another funny thing about the fact that I didn't know, and a lot of people didn't know, tools that actually exist. So as I started to dig into this idea that we don't have enough information flow in the nonprofit sector, and I said, why isn't there a database of every nonprofit where there's certain criteria I could just plug in and it'll say, okay, here are all the arts organizations in Palm Beach County that are more grassroots, less than a million in budget or whatever.

Just whatever you wanna put in to the filters and couldn't find it. Talked to community foundations, talked to all kinds of people that, oh, it doesn't exist. Then I said maybe I'll just create it. But that was gonna be a very intensive project. And then finally, I just talked to the right person who said, oh no, that does exist.

It's called Cause IQ. Here's a little ad for Cause IQ. And I actually now use that tool all the time to research different nonprofits. And it's a really powerful way, not only to see what's happening in the financials of nonprofits, but you can also see some of the information about who's donating to certain nonprofits, so you can triangulate the ecosystem, if you will.

So I really get a lot of insight through mining into that information.

Genevieve George: Cause IQ?

Lisa LaFrance: Cause, capital I capital Q.

Okay. And there's a free version. There is a more robust paid version. And I will say, speaking of robust and going back to my quantitative hedge fund days, the data is not great. The data can be really stale.

990s get filed with a tremendous lag. Some of the folks I was looking up recently, information is from fiscal year 2023. So you are not always getting, but then you just pick up the phone and say, all right, where's your latest 990? And maybe if it isn't filed yet, that might be a little thing to note.

So there's a message to all of you get your 990s files, right? It makes you seem like you'r—

Genevieve George: You're saying that. And I'm responsible for one that has a 1115 deadline. So well for that.

Lisa LaFrance: There you go. So good timing. Yeah. So there’s more information out there than you think, and people like me are here to try to spread that word and help get that information out to anybody that wants to know more.

Genevieve George: Yeah, I love that. And would you say the efforts like, you and I know each other 'cause we live in the same area and we're involved in the same organizations, but would you say there are abilities to utilize giving circles outside of the local area as well? Are there global issues that can be addressed  through a collective giving?

Lisa LaFrance: I'm sure there are. I have not personally researched that. But another tool, another thing I will give a plug for is Grapevine. Grapevine.org hosts a tremendous number of giving circles. And so you can go on there and you can research different issues, and I'm sure that there are folks focused on global but it is true that a lot of our, the giving circles, the ones that we know most are quite locally based, but there's plenty of global issues that are important and need addressing as well.

And I'm sure there are people working to put that kind of collective giving approach together as well.

Genevieve George: That's great. Yeah. For me personally, it's all been very local to my area, but if somebody is maybe doesn't live full-time in our area, they may be looking for a broader range of organizations to support.

Lisa LaFrance: If you don't live here, I am a pretty much a proponent of local-based giving. Again, I'm not saying that if you have a passion for global issues, that's great, but if you are locally based, I think if that's your passion is place-based giving, you can give in the different communities you live in.

I spend time in Nantucket. I've talked about getting some giving circles going there, and I have a few friends that have contemplated it. But I give to the community foundation in Nantucket and that's how I support my Nantucket community. So you can support—and that's another great thing about giving circles because it is a relatively lower entry point, you can actually be part of multiple giving circles.

I think I was part of seven different giving circles at one point, and that was just supporting different communities that I really cared about, had lived in, had friends in, and that was what made me wanna give there.

Genevieve George: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Now, in your view, do you see—I feel like giving circles have really opened up the ability for more people to participate in philanthropy. Do you see that evolving over time or how do you see the philanthropic space changing in the coming years?

Lisa LaFrance: Well, I guess I'll start with giving circles 'cause that's what you've asked. And then maybe pull out to a more macro answer. But a lot of what I'm saying also, here's another resource: Philanthropy Together. Sara Lomelin has been another one of idols, if you will, and she talks about the democratization of philanthropy through giving circle.

She actually gave an incredible TED Talk on that as well. So two TED Talks to check out: Dan Pallota’s TED Talk and Sara Lomelin’s TED Talk. And if you look at data, they've done a lot of data and research and have presented that information, the statistics I quoted earlier were based on a Philanthropy Together study.

They expect this to continue to grow exponentially. Like that 3.1 billion that I told you is expected to—we're thinking another 3.1 billion will be mobilized in the next five to six years. So it's a huge new opportunity, not only for all of us who wanna be part of giving, but also to the nonprofits out there to start thinking about how they wanna access those dollars.

The other thing, and I don't have a good answer for this, Gen, but I know you and I were talking about this before we came live, and that is these donor-advised funds that so many people have put money into over the last several years that have no actual funding requirement. So unlike a traditional private foundation that is required to pay out 5% per year, that money can just sit in a donor-advised fund.

And then there's many donor-advised funds that are locally based at your community foundation with a philanthropic advisor who's local, who can advise you on how to give that money based on where your passions are. But I know for me personally, because I invest a lot through just indexing and Vanguard, I did my donor-advised fund at Vanguard.

There's nobody at Vanguard is calling me up and saying, you should donate to this and that educational nonprofit in poverty or just in general,

Genevieve George: They're not motivated to tell you to reduce the amount in the account.

Lisa LaFrance: Thank you. Thanks for pointing out that conflict. That doesn't exist with money managers telling their clients to give money away, but there's a huge opportunity there that I think we need to think about how to tap into that.

And then I think just more generally, hopefully the paradigm is shifting between the donor and the nonprofit to a more trust-based relationship because I think both sides feel like we've been doing so much for so long and we're not quite moving the needle enough. And so what are we doing wrong?

How do we need to change this? And I think everybody's ready for maybe something that is different.

Genevieve George: That is an excellent segue into my next question. Can you tell us about what you're doing with LaFrance Project and how people, how you're working with individuals and companies to further their giving?

Lisa LaFrance: Yeah, absolutely. So when I started the LaFrance, which by the way, I have to just take it a step back because as you pointed out, we had this incredible event at the Kravis Center in January of this year with Dan Pallota. And at the end of our q and a with him, he gave us a call to action. He said, “You communities need to stop working in silos. You need to start collaborating so that we're not duplicating efforts so that we make the nonprofit sector more efficient so that more people will wanna give to the nonprofit sector.”

Because I'm a hedge fund manager, like traditional hedge fund manager who's made billions of dollars, and now I'm sitting here in Palm Beach and I'm looking at the nonprofits and I'm thinking, I don't understand what you guys are doing and it a hot mess. So I don't know. I'm gonna wait until you figure yourselves out. So that is on the nonprofits to stop being, just creating new profit, new nonprofits all the time. Let's think about, could we maybe we have an idea, can we bring it to an existing nonprofit and maybe become a program of that nonprofit instead of competing.

Collaborate. It's just so much more efficient and direct service oriented. So I thought, I can't start a nonprofit.

Genevieve George: I just told people to not do that.

Lisa LaFrance: So I decided to start a for-profit business. I am an entrepreneur. I have started, helped to start a for-profit business in my past, and the idea is to do philanthropic advisory work at every level.

So whether that is creating giving circles. Or helping, like you said, businesses. There's a really wonderful movement within the business community for cause-based marketing. And there are several local businesses that do it really well. They don't spend money on marketing traditional marketing, advertising, billboards, but you see them at community events very visibly.

I personally think that's quite brilliant and powerful. If I have to decide who I'm gonna go get my legal services from, and I see that these lawyers are supporting these different, nonprofits that I love, that gives them a certain credibility and validation that is important. So I think there's a lot of opportunities.

Genevieve George: And it makes you feel like—that attorney has similar passions to you, right? So you're already gonna feel slightly warmer about that.

Lisa LaFrance: Exactly. Our values are aligned. And so I've already met many people in the community like that, but I'd like to help others that aren't already doing that to figure out how to do that.

I also think that we talked a little bit about this earlier, that the people that maybe wouldn't go to a community foundation, maybe because they, maybe they're in that, that middle range between, okay. The best way for me to give is through a giving circle, or I have a family foundation. Maybe it's somewhere between that, where I have some significant difference I can make, but I don't know where to begin. I can help you figure that out. And it comes down to—it's psychology. So it's what you have to give, where your passions lie. And so of helping people tap into the things they care about deeply and then helping them find the organizations that are aligned with those passions create the whole purpose-driven perspective for philanthropy that I think is most meaningful.

Genevieve George: Yeah. And I think that comes up too in my space when I'm working with financial planning, we wanna make sure, you're building your wealth, but we wanna make sure what you're doing with it aligns with your family values. And you know that comes into play too.

You should be talking with your advisors, your professional team, including Lisa, to make sure that you're doing everything you can with your giving. And that aligns with your full financial picture.

Lisa LaFrance: And everybody has different values and I'm not here to say any is right or wrong.

I think for me personally, having some means is not worth anything if I don't do something good with it. And I'd rather, and whether this is helping family, helping your children, helping your community, doing it while you're still alive is fun.

Genevieve George: Yeah. Yeah, you get to see the benefits that you're providing in action rather than post-mortem where you're not seeing it, but.

Lisa LaFrance: Exactly. I understand legacy and building legacy and all that, but I think there's probably a combination of the two too, that most people a balance. Yeah. And I think it comes from people worrying, oh, I'm not gonna have enough money, so they don't wanna spend the money.

There's plenty of people that can afford to do more in terms of giving their money now, either to their community or like I said, to family or to wherever you, whoever you wanna support. I'll tell you another funny thing though. It's not really funny. It's a tricky thing. It's a challenge.

Whether it's philanthropy or family, I've heard recently, and then it resonated with me sometimes the best ways, and this happens in the literacy space, I've been researching literacy quite a bit. I'm very passionate about that and feel like we need to be moving the needle more in literacy. And a couple people have said to me, the best way to help kids is to help their parent.

And unfortunately, I think in philanthropy and in families, we wanna help kids because we feel like they're innocent and they're in a situation, not of their own making. But then when we start saying, let's help the families, the parents. We start to think, “Oh, they've screwed up somewhere along the way. So I don't know if I wanted.”

But we have to get rid of that mindset. We have to have a holistic approach into how we're helping these kids. We have to realize we have to help the families too. Yeah. Not just to help the kids.

Genevieve George: Yeah. And that comes with furthering your education about what the needs are and what will have a good impact.

Because if we like, to your point, if we're only helping the kids, but the families are still struggling, the families are still gonna struggle. They're children, right?

Lisa LaFrance: They were children once too. They probably had challenges as children. So it just keeps on perpetuating. And as you alluded to, this is a relatively new thing that I've learned and realized, and this is also something I wanna share with people in terms of getting involved with collective giving, getting involved in philanthropy at whatever level means you can do, even if it's volunteering.

Becoming more aware and learning every single day where the societal problems really are. I've been doing this for 6 or 7 years now, and I'm still learning. I'm still like, that thought I just had, that was based on some conversations recently and it was like, wow, okay. So I love that. I just wanna say I love that part of the collective giving experience as well and being involved in this work is.

My thinking is just constantly evolving and it's really an intellectual joy, frankly, to keep feeling like that is happening.

Genevieve George: That's great. Yeah, and it just keeps your excitement moving forward, right? That you're continuing to learn and evolve both in your own giving for your clients and see that in the community, the evolution in the community, which is really awesome.

I'm gonna change gears for a second here. But one thing I like to talk about on the podcast is I like for guests to share a real financial mistake, either that they made themselves or that they've seen somebody else make or go through. And the idea there is that openly talking about these challenges might help one of our listeners avoid some of the same pitfalls.

So do you have maybe a story that you would mind sharing with us?

Lisa LaFrance: So immediately, is it okay if it's philanthropy-based as opposed to investment-based?

Genevieve George: Yes.

Lisa LaFrance: Again, this has been the journey, right? Six, seven years learning, and I think this happens a lot. So I'll be real open about this. People that have a for-profit business background that start to get involved in the nonprofit space can think they know more then they do, more than even the nonprofits might know from a business perspective.

So I've had to really learn. I don't know what I don't know these people do know, but I have made the mistake over the years of saying to a nonprofit, I'm gonna pay for you to do this because I think you should be doing that.

And I didn't say it like that. And then, okay, so they took that. Frankly, actually the nonprofits I work with and the relationships I've developed with them are strong enough where they were actually able to say to me, “I think we could use that money in a better way over here.”

And that was an example of me realizing I don't know. This is that trust-based approach. I don't know how they can best spend their money. They know how they can best spend their money.

Genevieve George: Yeah. Because they're in the weeds of knowing what the needs are for their organization, for the causes that they're supporting and it, but it is easy from coming from the outside to to be able to say, Ooh, we could do this different, learn better. And I'm not great about keeping my mouth shut on those things either.

Lisa LaFrance: But I'll tell you actually, there is a flip side to that coin. And I think at the end of the day, the real message is that that trust—the trust and trust-based philanthropy—is really about developing really strong relationships between the donor and the nonprofit.

So that you can have a really open conversation and communication. So I just gave an example of, I said, I could do X for you. And they were like, no, we don't want you to do that. If that nonprofit comes to me and says, “we really wanna do this marketing thing, but our board doesn't really want us to spend money on this marketing thing,” then I can fund a marketing thing for them.

But it's not what's good and what's bad. It's about conversation. And letting the nonprofit kind of work through and tell you what they need. And I think a lot of great learning comes from that too.

Genevieve George: Yeah, I love that. We're gonna put it in the show notes as well, but how can people connect with you to get some guidance on their giving?

Lisa LaFrance: lisa@lafranceproject.com or you can go to the website, lafranceproject.com. There is a place to sign up for our newsletter. Our newsletter, I like to think, is pretty full of good information. Not only about what's going on with the LaFrance project. But for example, we shared in our latest newsletter about a grant opportunity through the Jewish Federation.

So we're trying to just push some information out that will help everybody in whatever it is they're trying to accomplish, either with giving or with running your nonprofit and raising money. And then follow me on social media. I'm very active on social media. I talk a lot about my philosophy of giving.

How I apply—we didn't get to go too much into this—but I'm gonna start going more into this on my social media and probably in some articles I'm gonna be working on about how do we think about nonprofits in through sort of investment lenses. In different ways, like I think about diversification and how do I diversify a literacy portfolio.

We could go on and on, and I have a lot of ideas, but if you follow me on social media, if you get my newsletter, check me out. And also, as I said earlier, I'm happy to do a 30-minute consultation to talk to you about your goals. And your philanthropic—even if you don't have any clue, I can help you figure out a clue.

So please do reach out because it's really just about all of us coming together, and the more of us that start to engage in this community, the better the whole community becomes.

Genevieve George: Yeah, I agree. And definitely go follow Lisa on social media. She has this wonderful interview style with a microphone.

There's a drop-the-mic opportunity. Mine is like behind the screen, so I should have brought it as well. But it just really focusing on giving people a voice and making sure that people are heard in what the needs are in the community and why it is so powerful to share that information. So I'd love your social media.

Lisa LaFrance: And it's content.

Genevieve George: Yeah, it is fun.

Lisa LaFrance: Because it's hard, so you have to make sure you find the fun.

Genevieve George: Well, I just wanna say that Lisa, thank you so much for being here, and I love how this conversation reframes giving as part of the bigger financial picture.

So often we think meaningful philanthropy is something that we can't do until we have more. Through that collective giving, making your dollars, no matter what the size, they can have a real measurable impact in the community. So it's a great reminder that thoughtful financial planning isn't just about building wealth, but it's about building purpose, and I just love everything that you shared with us today, and I'm excited to have another conversation about it.

Lisa LaFrance: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Gen. I love you and I have had these conversations for years now. It's nice to bring it out to the world and share that and hope to bring more people and inspire more people to be part of all the great work that's being done.

Genevieve George: Yeah, same. Same.

That's it for today's episode of The Wealth Development Studio. Remember, financial clarity is powerful. Do you need help with your financial plan? Go to pelicanfinancialplanning.com to schedule a call with me. Until next time.

Genevieve George
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Episode 2: Building a Business You Can Sell: How to Prepare for a Successful Exit