From Marketplace to Movement \ Jen Collins, Co-Founder Procure Impact Episode 40

In this episode of the Sustainable Hospitality Podcast, host Amy Wald interviews Jen Collins, co-founder and president Female founded, Procure Impact. You will hear about Jen’s journey from basketball player to hospitality finance and social impact. We will introduce you to the groundbreaking company Procure Impact's whose innovative model connects social enterprises with the hospitality industry.

Jen explains how Procure Impact serves as a bridge between high-quality, scale-ready social enterprises and corporate buyers, offering a tangible way for hotels to achieve social impact goals through procurement. Our discussion covers various impact communities they work with, including trafficking survivors, veterans, and adults with disabilities.

Learn about the "Dignity of Work" campaign in partnership with the American Hotel and Lodging Association, aiming to create 100,000 shift hours for underestimated populations. Jen also discusses partnerships with major hotel brands and the importance of impact tracking in the hospitality industry.

Dive into this episode to learn how hotels can easily incorporate social impact into their operations, from VIP guest amenities to art curation, while maintaining product quality and enhancing guest experiences. Jen's passion for creating meaningful change through business practices shines through, making this a must-listen for anyone interested in sustainable hospitality solutions.

Key Takeaways:

●      Aiming at 100,000 shift hours of work through the hospitality industry

●      How Procure Impact bridges the gap between social enterprises and corporate buyers, particularly in the hospitality industry. 

●      How The company offers a marketplace of products made by individuals who've experienced barriers to work, including trafficking survivors, veterans, and adults with disabilities. 

●        Hotels can easily incorporate social impact into their operations by purchasing items they already need, such as coffee, amenities, and art. 

●      Procure Impact provides impact tracking, allowing hotels to measure their social impact in terms of shift hours created. 

●      The "Dignity of Work" campaign, launched with AHLA, aims to create 100,000 shift hours of work through the hospitality industry. 

●      Major hotel brands and management companies are embracing this model, including Sage Hospitality, Davidson, and Four Seasons. 

●      This approach can increase revenues by appealing to socially conscious guests and decrease expenses by improving employee loyalty and inspiration. 

●      Procure Impact offers customization options, allowing hotels to brand products and create unique guest experiences. 

●      The model aligns with the hospitality industry's values of creating spaces of belonging and providing opportunities for growth. 

●      This initiative allows hotels to fulfill their ESG commitments, particularly in the often `   challenging area of social impact.

Show Notes:

www.procureimpact.us

Book:  Tattoos on the Heart 

Newsletter: https://www.greenluxeinc.com/newsletter

 Hashtags: 

Separate with commas 

#SocialEnterprise #HospitalityImpact #MidLifeSherpa #HumanTrafficking #MakingSpaceForOpportunity #SurpriseandDelight #GuestSatisfaction 
#ESG

Transcript

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Sustainable Hospitality Podcast. I'm Amy Wald, one of your hosts, and don't forget to make sure you sign up for our newsletter. You'll find the link in the show notes where you're going to get the most important and practical sustainable hospitality news, some of our greatest takeaways from our episodes, And of course, those sustainability solutions for your hospitality and tourism organization that you need to know about. But today on our episode, we have Jen Collins. And Jen is the co-founder and president of procure impact. Procure impact is a bridge between high quality, scale ready social enterprises and corporate buyers, giving corporations a tangible and measurable way to achieve their impact goals and objectives by shifting a percentage of their purchasing power to products produced by impact driven enterprises. They are the first of its kind social impact at scale solution. We're going to touch on what exactly that means. What is a social impact at scale solution? Why this is perfect for the hospitality industry and who some of those adopters, early adopters are. how it can really help fulfill that S in your ESG commitments. And of course, we're gonna talk about Jen's incredible journey. She played basketball. We're gonna touch a little bit on that because I know all of you will wanna hear about that. I will, big basketball fan. Without further ado, Jen, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you? Oh, thank you, Amy. I'm so excited to be here. I, yeah, I love your podcast. I love all the work that you're putting out into the world. So I'm really excited for our conversation. Oh, thank you very much. Ditto. I had the honor of meeting you at the Forward Conference and I cannot wait. This to me is it could not be more perfect. I know you work in many industries, but I think that this is the most perfect fit for hospitality. So we're going to talk about that. But Jen, will you start out with. Telling us about your journey. How did you ideate this and how did all of this come together? Was there a catalyst? Sure. Yeah. So it's a bit of a long story that I'm going to try and make short. My personal journey starts in Baltimore. So I am born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. I'm an only child and I was raised with my dad being my primary parent. My dad was a teacher and a coach in the inner city when I was younger. And then we moved out to the county when I was a bit older. And I played basketball myself. You mentioned that already. You were able to see the Jordans I like to sport at Forward. This, you know, being in a computer box podcast, I lose my shoe game a little bit. But yeah. It's always a really joyful thing to be able to wear sneakers at every conference I go to. But I did play a lot of basketball growing up, and I grew up with a basketball coach as my guiding force early in life. And so... Spending time in predominantly Black community in Baltimore and then in some different socioeconomic scenarios when I got a little bit older was a lived experience. It was my lived experience and so it was very natural lived experience for me. My dad had a player who went to Cornell and went to the hotel school at Cornell and he opened the door for me to follow in his footsteps. I ended up going to the hotel school at Cornell and went on a real estate and finance journey at the outset of my career. So I spent about 20 years really focused on the ownership side of the hospitality industry. So I worked in New York City for 11 years. I worked at companies like Tishman Realty and Construction and Westbrook Partners, which is a private equity firm. I moved down to DC to work for LaSalle Hotel Properties as an asset manager there in 2010. And I was there for seven years. And then I pivoted into the world of social impact after taking a year off in between. I left LaSalle in 2017. I did a whole bunch of things that's probably its own podcast in and of itself, but I did a lot of traveling. I had been doing some humanitarian work in East Africa that I was able to spend a lot of time in Uganda, along with a bunch of other places. Kind of re-engaged in what I'll call vocation for compensation at something called the Beck Center for Social Impact and Innovation. which is on Georgetown's campus, I was invited to lead a body of work on how our low-income neighborhoods are developed and invested in, or not, as the case may be. So I was really able to, my whole time in my year off, I was trying to figure out how my head and my heart could work a little bit more closely together. I had felt, and this is a common thing, but I'd kind of felt up to that point that there was like work gen, and then there's kind of like personal gen where I was doing a lot of teaching and coaching and inner cities. And I felt a little bit bifurcated at the time. And so I was looking to, for my head and my heart to work a little bit more closely together, which I was able to do with the Beck Center, with the body of work I was leading. I was also able to learn a lot from my colleagues there. So I was working with impact pioneers, people who were frameworking around and figuring out ways that public-private partnerships could happen, that for-profits and nonprofits could work together, what social impact means, how you actually live it out in business practices. and through other ways. And so I was able to just learn a lot. And then having a hospitality background was constantly thinking about the braiding together of these two worlds, which is an opportunity that I now have at Procure Impact. I met the founder of Procure Impact, Lauren McCann, a couple of years ago when she reached out to me on LinkedIn And I just believed so fiercely in this idea, in this business model. I knew that the hospitality industry would be incredibly interested in something like this. I was unfamiliar at the time with the whole breadth of the world of employment, social enterprises, which we can talk about in a second, but those are our vendors. And just how wonderful they are, the incredible work that they were doing. And so Lauren's idea for Procure Impact stemmed from her personal journey story to the work, which is extensive. But she had put together a large portfolio of social enterprise vendors And Procure Impact is a bridge between products that are made by employment social enterprises. So they employ all individuals who've experienced a barrier to work and corporate America. And we're really deep in the hospitality industry. So I agreed to meet her for coffee because I was such a big believer in this business. And I was trying to weasel my way onto her advisory board. And so we met for coffee and she was like, you can... You know, you can be on the advisory board or you can kind of get in this work and and help us open some doors in hospitality, which she was trying to do at the time. And and then in short order, agreed to come on full time to help her build the company as co-founder. what a perfect background you have that really, I'm such a believer, and I think probably a lot of us are though, that every turn you make and step you take really ends up leading you to, especially when you have something purpose-driven, to that big moment. I think this is so perfect. I agree with you. It felt bumpy along the way for sure. And I just want to be, if anybody's in that confusing bumpy stage of their life, I feel like I'm a midlife Sherpa to a lot of my friends who are who are in transition and thinking about it, but thinking about making a change and what does that look like? It was bumpy, but it really, it was a journey that, I mean, I'm so uniquely suited. Everybody we have at the company, quite frankly, is so uniquely suited with their gifts to bring it to this idea. Lauren has a background in manufacturing and then she has a background in philanthropy where she was able to spend the close to decade needed to really form relationships with our social enterprises who are now our vendors and with her background in manufacturing she was uniquely suited to understand that going around and site visiting these social enterprise vendors these are legitimate shop floors these are not you know just makers kind of kumbayaing in a basement So the idea stemmed from a personal why that she has, but also just from the business knowledge of these social enterprises are not seen by many as vendors. They're seen primarily for the social work that they provide and the incredible work that they do in helping underestimated communities really thrive. But she came up with the idea. She's like, we need a bridge. We need a a B2B bridge. These social enterprise vendors don't know Hilton. They don't know Marriott. They don't know the owners and the management companies that really govern the hospitality world. And the hospitality world, man, I mean, does the hospitality world understand shift hours and the value of providing opportunity for shift hours and for work? I mean, the hospitality industry gets that more than any other industry that exists. And so there's such a vision and values alignment in what we do and what the hospitality industry does every day that it's really fun. But yeah, the journey was... complicated and confusing. And there are some bathroom floor moments thrown in there. Absolutely. But it is really fun to see now, you know, at LaSalle, we work with over 20 different brands and operators, and now many of them are partners with Procure Impact. So it's a really beautiful way to, to just be able to have my friends in the industry partner with us in a different way than I've partnered with them in the past. So let's talk about what social impact really means. I think sometimes this jargon and words can be confusing to navigate, especially in the hospitality industry when they are staying in their lane, they're just trying to get their daily objectives and tasks done. So what does that look like and how can it be realized in business? Well, social impact, especially in the hospitality industry, has been very complicated and confusing to date, which is another reason why our business model just makes a ton of sense, because we provide a really easy, simple solution for social impact at scale. Historically, you know, ESG is now a bit of a trigger word, so I hesitate to use those initials. But if you're looking at environmental, social, and governance, on the environmental side, there's been a fair amount of initiatives in the hospitality space. In large part because they're trackable. And so it's easy to track, you know, going to it's easy to track some carbon footprint statistics, some reducing carbon emissions. It's easy to track what you're doing from a real estate perspective to be a better steward of the environment. Social impact to date in hospitality has been a lot of volunteerism. And a lot of, you know, some philanthropy. So it'll be, you know, they'll run campaigns for a certain amount of your check will go towards whatever charity that a hotel or a management company is trying to support at the time. And all of those initiatives are great. But they don't necessarily provide social impact on a broader scale. And they also, in terms of volunteerism and things like that, can also take away from... normal business working hours so it requires some change management and some commitment that can be really tough especially given the staffing shortages that the hospitality industry is realizing right now especially coming out of the pandemic and so our our business model is incredibly simple our social enterprise vendors are all individuals who've experienced barriers to work So all of our vendors are what are called employment social enterprises. We work with about 12 different impact communities, everything from trafficking survivors to veterans, refugees, adults with disabilities, opportunity youth, women in recovery, et cetera, et cetera. So the through line for our vendor communities is that they've experienced a barrier to work somehow. And so we have a really simple, beautiful online marketplace that connects products made by our social enterprise vendors to corporate America. And again, we're working really extensively within the hospitality industry, mostly because our vendors are making Things that the hotel industry buys already. So there's very little change management that needs to happen. Think coffee, things that fill a marketplace or a grab and go or a provision station. So we have popcorn and stroopwafels and brownies, things like that. We also have really interesting items for retail stores. So my earrings are made by trafficking survivors in Fort Worth, Texas. We have really beautiful handbags made by Women in Recovery that do really fun things with upcycling material. Like they have a collaboration with Southwest Airlines. So they have that blue leather. that southwest is kind of known for and they upcycle that into toiletry kits and makeup bags and tote bags and things of that nature so really fun things uh for a retail store and then we also do a lot of vip guest loyalty amenities so little chocolate boxes that are made the chocolates made by adults with disabilities and we can brand it westin or we can brand it by the name of the the particular hotel as a way to really surprise and delight your loyalty guests, provide an incredible story because you're empowering and employing underestimated populations who really just need opportunity. They don't need charity. They need opportunity. So you're providing shift hours of work for them, providing an incredible story and a way for the hotel to really live out its values. All of our hotel partners are trying to create spaces and places of belonging. That's what the hotel industry does all the time. And so we are an inclusive business model in action that doesn't require a lot of change management because, again, all of our products are made by individuals who've experienced barriers to work. But all of the things that they make are things that the hotel industry is buying anyway. they need opportunity, not charity. That's so powerful and it's so true, right? So when you're saying barriers to work from whatever, they're recovering from something, they maybe aren't qualified. What are some other things that create barriers? So we have Grace and Bakeries on our platform. Grace and Bakery is what's called a second chance hiring organization. So they employ mostly returning citizens. They're in Yonkers, New York. They make amazing brownies and blondies. A really fun story or case study of our business model in action. We didn't negotiate this partnership, but it cast some vision on what's possible is that Ben and Jerry's, so Ben and Jerry's ice cream, every ice cream flavor that has a brownie in it is a Greyston bakery brownie. So that collaboration took Greyston, I think from like a, $3 million social enterprise to like a $15 million social enterprise in a few years. They've employed well over 3,500 returning citizens through their business model. And, you know, Ben and Jerry's has to buy, get their brownies from somewhere. So it's It's an amazing collaboration. One of our social enterprise vendor, we have a huge art social enterprise vendor, and they employ all artists who've been impacted by disability or who are transitioning out of housing insecurity. They have a partnership with Bank of America. Bank of America shifted the art in 3,000 of their branches to art lifting artists. And so that's another example of their business model in action. So we've put art lifting art and artists in the Dream Hotel in Nashville and the Hyatt Regency in Irvine. And it's just a great way. I mean, you have to buy your art from somewhere. And so, again, we're able to just provide really meaningful art curation in addition to a lot of the products on our marketplace. we're also able to do like art wrapped notebooks. So you can pull the art down and productize it and put it into a notebook that you can use for a conference or a sales giveaway or something of that nature. And it has the story of the artist and the artists are really using their art to heal in many ways. And so things like that. So we work with returning citizens. We work with individuals who've been impacted by disability. We work with those transitioning from housing insecurity. We work with trafficking survivors. We work with opportunity youth and adults with disabilities and refugees. So again, about 12 different impact community, those in recovery, about 12 different impact communities that we work with. The through line is barriers to work, but they've all experienced barriers to work for different reasons. And it's like you're saying, these are all items that hospitality groups are already purchasing. They're already purchasing. And the product quality of them is at or above market, usually above market. I mean, I can't tell you how many compliments I get on my earrings. The chocolate truffles, I talk about this a lot publicly, but our chocolate truffles that are made in, they're made by individuals with disabilities in Fairfax, Virginia and Cameron's Coffee and Chocolates was started by a solutionary mom who has a daughter who's differently abled. And they figured out early on that Cameron loved to bake. And so her mom went on a world tour to figure out how you make the best Belgian chocolate truffles. And I challenge anybody to find a chocolate truffle that is better than what they're producing. So Our products are, are incredibly well-made. The stories behind them are inspiring and, and they're just, they're really fun. I mean, we have raspberry gummy fish on the platform. We have sour gummy candy. We have chili picante plantain chips. We've got Stroop and waffles that are delicious. We just brought them to a conference where we, My co-founder and I were, and there's a guy at the conference who admitted to us, he's like, I think I've had 12 Stroopin' Waffles just today. And so again, from little things to big things, we did custom candles for the Four Seasons in Atlanta. So we also have really big range on what we're able to produce. We're working with Marriott Courtyards and Hilton Garden Inns and select service, branded properties, everything up to you know, Four Seasons in terms. So from a luxury perspective, are able to really produce some very high quality, beautiful things. So we worked with the Four Seasons in Atlanta as they were relaunching their spa to come up with a scent that they liked as their custom candle. We worked with them on the packaging, on the label itself, on the vessel. And now they're ordering more and diffusers and that all gives shift hours to trafficking survivors. So all hand poured with love and just really beautiful products. So it sounds like whether you're looking for solutions for your in-room minibar or your gift shop for a corporate client, for loyalty, you can check every single one of those boxes and customize it. So there's no reason anyone listening should, this is your one-stop shop. You should be going anywhere else. And we know from statistics that, from consumer behavior that the consumer today wants to know their money is being spent somewhere that is doing good, giving back and making people's lives better. So as a business, it's really an oversight if you're not jumping on this train. Yeah, I'm a former hotel asset manager. That's how I was trained. That's how I rose up in my career. So it is a really smart business. It's a really smart business solution. Really simply put, we help you increase revenues and decrease expenses. On the revenue side of things, your guests are more discerning, as you mentioned, Amy. Guests are calling for this. Guests are making buy decisions based on companies who do work in this way. Guests want to know where their money is going. And guests want to be a part of it. And so you're enabling your guests to be a part of life transformation, to be agents of hope through stuff that they're going to buy anyway. So why not take home bath bombs that are made by women who've experienced barriers to work? as a much more interesting take home to your loved ones from your travel than, I don't know, whatever sort of tchotchke thing that you would buy in a gift store or what have you. On the expense side of things, employee loyalty and inspiration skyrockets when you do business in this way. So we have general managers who call me frequently who are really short staffed and they want the inspiration that comes with knowing where their money is going. So I have general managers and other purchasing agents call me asking me for stories all the time because they have to pull night shift audits that night because they're so short staffed. So the employee loyalty and inspiration that comes with doing work in this way. We've heard of hotels that have little scavenger hunts and we've brought on hotel partners that are super competitive with their spend. Everything on our platform is tied to shift hours of work created for underestimated populations. So we do the impact tracking for our corporate partners or for our hotels. at point of purchase, we're able to tell you how many shift hours of work were created for your purchase. And we can track that by brand, by management company, by ownership group, or simply at the hotel level. And so it's fostered a lot of really fun competition in between hotels that are part of a management company, or just hotels in general that are really hoping to achieve some big impact goals, but everything they're doing is tied directly to impact hours and shift hours of work. So it's also, you know, you asked before about social impact at scale and what that means. The other great part of our business model is that we do do the impact tracking for our hotels. And that has historically been very complicated and confusing on the social impact side of the equation up until now. but we provide a really simple metric and we do the impact tracking for you. So we're able to tell you at point of purchase, but then throughout the life cycle of your property, how many shift hours of work you're creating. And how is that delivered? Is it per purchase for an organization or let's say you form a partnership and you're doing a yearly procurement? Yeah. So however, they would want that? The answer is yes. So at point of purchase, the hotel as part of our marketplace and our tech, you're able to see at point of purchase, you get an impact receipt in addition to that's on your actual receipt. So at point of purchase, you're able to see, you know, your purchase created 4.7 shift hours of work, then we negotiate partnerships with management companies and ownership groups. So you know, Sage Hospitality was an early partner of ours. They are a founding member of the Dignity of Work campaign, which I know we'll talk about in a little bit, but they have a specific amount of shift hours that have been pledged with us towards individuals who've experienced barriers to work. And so on a monthly basis, we provide impact reporting to Sage that will show them how many shift hours of work have been actualized for calendar year 2024 what hotels have ordered. We also provide the breakdown of what impact communities have been empowered through the spend. So it'll show you 16% of your spend went to trafficking survivors, 24% of your spend went to adults with disabilities and so on and so forth. And so we do the impact reporting at what we call the enterprise level or at like Sage Hospitality from a membership or a management company level. But then we can also show at point of purchase for each property based on the actual purchase, they'll be able to tell like 3.7 shift hours here, 10.1 shift hours for this purchase, et cetera, et cetera. And then we can roll it up. That's amazing, especially as it's becoming more and more common to do materiality assessments for hospitality, double materiality. This is literally taking care of all of that in a sense. It's so visionary. And the fact that you can get that at the point of sale, that is something that you're going to start to see more and more and more, I think, as we move forward. Yes. It's really important. It's really important for accountability. It's really important to set some goals and really know what you're achieving. And it's very real. I mean, we're able to show how many thousands of shift hours of work have been created through our company to date, which is thousands and thousands. And that yields, you know, Cameron's Coffee and Chocolates that I was just telling you about, they're hiring thousands. three additional people this summer. So that's three more adults with disabilities who have employment opportunity because of their relationship with Procure Impact. So, and that has everything to do with the entirety of the hospitality industry pledging to do work in this way. I mean, the impact is not this like amorphous, confusing thing. It is, we can tell you, your spend and you, you hospitality industry, your spend has created At least three. I mean, this is just three jobs with Cameron's, but three more jobs at Cameron's. So three more adults with disabilities have employment because the hospitality industry is shifting spend in this way. So, yeah, it's it's simple. It's important, but it's really important to. to um to be able to provide the tracking uh for accountability the other thing that we're able to do with uh with partners is that we provide the messaging assets that they need to message because it's really important for them to understand you know what does it mean to partner with procure impact who are the people behind the product so we've put a lot of time effort and energy into putting together a whole collateral library of storytelling and messaging assets that our enterprise partners can use to really help train their teams on what it means to be partnered with Procure Impact, but then also to storytell to the guests. We have downloadable one pagers available on our marketplace that will show you You know, if you buy for Women's Bean, if you buy, you know, whatever vendor you buy from, you can have downloadable shelf talkers and one pagers so that the stories of the people behind the products are known to the guests and the teams. But storytelling to the guests is also incredibly important. And that is such an important aspect. Yet another benefit that you are providing with this incredible company and and service and product. because that is such a missed opportunity for a multitude of reasons god forbid somebody would you know have one of these delicious food items or buy a beautiful pair of earrings and not know the story behind it and so to be able to provide that for them is so incredible you've so you've talked about sage and four seasons and a few are there any other really cool partnerships and um you know you know, different instances where hospitality is jumping on board? Sure. I'm so proud of the hospitality industry. I mean, so proud of the hospitality industry. Again, it's very vision and values aligned, but the hospitality industry has a ton of competing priorities. So it doesn't necessarily mean that Anybody is going to shift the way they do business in this way. But we have seen such an overwhelming response, positive response to our business and what we're doing. So one of the unique things that we've done that's been a really powerful campaign for us is we partnered with the American Hotel and Lodging Association, so AHLA. which is the trade association for the hospitality industry. They've been such an incredible partner of ours. We're very vision and values aligned with a lot of what they're doing. They, they have a whole no room for trafficking effort that is substantial and should be applauded. But they're also, and they're also, I mean, we, you and I met at Forward. So they're trying to really elevate women in hospitality. And so there's just a lot of vision and values alignment, but One of the other things they do is they host what's called the Responsible Stay Summit once a year. And it was in D.C. this past year. And we partnered with them to launch what's called the Dignity of Work campaign. And so what we started to see in 2023, given our impact reporting, is that management companies and ownership groups started making goals based on the impact reporting that we provide. And so what we wanted to do was really harness the power of the movement that we're creating and launch what's called the Dignity of Work campaign, which is to get 100,000 shift hours of work created through the hospitality industry by pledging impact hours and then therefore actualizing impact hours and creating a movement to shift spend into the hands of our social enterprise vendors. So we launched with eight founding partners at the Responsible Stay Summit, which was at the very end of February in D.C. with AHLA. And we had about 35,000 hours pledged at the time. Sage was a founding member. Davidson was a founding member. Pyramid Global was a founding member. 21C was a founding member. We had eight. So we had... eight founding members of this pledge. And we launched at about 35,000 hours. We're now up to just shy of 60,000 hours pledged. So we have 13 partners. I am so impressed with the way the hospitality industry has stepped up and agreed to and pledged and committed to doing work in this way. So we launched that campaign. It's going really well. We are in deep conversations with many other groups. And I can see the promised land. I can see the 100,000. So I have a pathway to get there. But anybody who's interested in joining this campaign and joining this movement, it's a joyful movement. We do the impact tracking for you. We co-host the website for this campaign on the AHLA Responsible State website. So it's there where we're able to show you how many hours have been pledged and then every month as hours get actualized, we are showing the progress towards the goal as well. Then we're also showing similar to our impact reporting at our partner level, we're also able to show for the campaign itself, the percentage of the spend and what impact communities are really being empowered. 14% trafficking survivors or 10% refugees, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a really fun campaign. It's really fun to get the pledges in, to see people really commit to doing work in this way. And it's been a really helpful way for management companies and owners to set their own impact goals internally. So some have had a per hotel goal. Maybe they commit 10,000 hours at the partner level. Then they'll put an impact goal per property. Some are really gamifying it between their hotels. There's a lot of competition going. We try to reward and thank from our social enterprise vendors. We started to send video thank yous so that they understand where their spend is going and the people behind the products. Some of our Procure Impact staff are also sending thank you videos to just keep the traction and the momentum and the joy up. Because I mean, I cry every day at work, all happy tears, but the stories that we hear and the lives that are transformed, it's a very real thing through doing work in this way. And so we just act as a bridge between the incredible work that these social enterprise vendors are doing and and hotel partners that are really agents of change and transformation and hope through buying stuff that they were buying already anyway, but just making the very simple shift to maybe buy their coffee from one of the vendors on our platform, or maybe they buy their VIP guest loyalty amenities. have a really robust gifting operation. So we'll work directly with sales teams or corporate gifting. Like Housekeeping Appreciation Week is coming up in September. We did a lot with Housekeeping Appreciation Week last year. I would envision that we do a lot of gifting for Housekeeping Appreciation Week this year, things like that. So just ways to surprise and delight, which the hotel industry is always looking for new and different ways to do that. But we can do it with real meaning. So it's been fun. Yeah, it's so nice to see that they are embracing this because if there is one industry that can really create impact, I really believe it's hospitality. I know you believe that. So, Jen, how can we get a hold of you? I hope that people will be filling out their order forms. I know it's not like school and filling it out. Old school, new school, smoke signals, whatever. No, it's great. I'm really simply Jen at ProcureImpact.us. I'm a one N Jen. So it's J E N at ProcureImpact.us. Please reach out to me. I would love to talk to you about partnering, getting access to our marketplace and, um anybody who's interested you know please reach out that way I'm sure we can put my um my contact information in the show notes uh procure impact is also we're on social and linkedin and things like that so um pretty easy to find uh procure impact on those channels as well and um yeah just so grateful amy to to be able to raise awareness and and just share some stories about what we're doing because it's really fun You are making such a difference in the world. And see, it makes me want to cry. And, you know, in people's literally everyday lives, it's hard to be able to say that you can do that. And so, gosh. The other thing we've noticed to that point is, you know, this is, it's not charity. This is not an us, them thing. This is, I'm going to cry when I say this, like, it's a very us, us thing. You know, we hear about, you know, I spoke at Forward. We met at Forward. I can't tell you how many conversations I had at Forward where people were coming up and sharing their personal stories with me. Maybe they're in recovery, or maybe they have a sibling who's incarcerated, or they have a nonverbal child. And just the honor of being able to hold those stories is such a blessing of this work, but it also makes it incredibly sticky. Sales kind of happen just organically because chances are, you know, I typically ask when I when I speak to for people to raise their hand of like, do they have a personal connection with one of the impact communities that we work with? And inevitably, it's over 90% of every room has a personal connection to these communities. So again, this is not like a charity. This is empowerment at a very human level. This is, again, stuff that the hotels have to buy all day, every day. But it's giving opportunity to yourself. It's not looking down. It's giving opportunity to those who have experienced a barrier in some way. And the hospitality industry, goodness, is like, this is what the industry has done since the beginning of time. You have general managers who started as doormen and sous chefs and It's still an industry where the American dream really lives in the industry. And you can rise to whatever level of leadership you'd like to rise to from very humble beginnings without a whole lot of education. There's one of the founders of one of our vendors. They're called Homeboy Industries, and they're out in L.A. They do all gang rehabilitation. And Father Greg Boyle is his name. He wrote many books. One of them is called Tattoos on the Heart. Huge, huge, huge book recommendation for anybody who's a bibliophile like me, clearly, in the back. But Tattoos on the Heart. And in Tattoos on the Heart, one of Father Greg's many quotes that I love says, hospitality longs to find room for those who have been left out. And that is like, that's what we do. But that's what the hospitality industry does, has done since the beginning of time. We are, again, creating spaces and places of belonging. You're hosting people when they're away from home. You're practicing hospitality, which there's just so much dignity in all of that. And yeah, Father Greg, we're really proud of him. He actually just won the Presidential Medal of Freedom a couple months ago. So he was here in D.C. and just so great to see his love and action really rewarded at kind of the most senior levels that can be in this country. He is one of close to 200 vendors that are in our database. And I could bore you with stories for days. But Homeboy is just amazing. If anybody's out in LA or anybody's listening from LA, they have a cafe. Highly recommend. Amazing site visit. We're able to talk to really inspirational humans. And the other thing that's kind of... hanging out there for me is I'm thinking about if you are working in the hospitality industry, but let's say you don't have the capacity to volunteer right now in your life, you're a busy mom or dad or single mom or dad or whatever it is that is creating constraints on you to maybe go fulfill some community give back. Now you've given your employees the ability to feel good about things they're doing as well. So it's, it's just, it's such a win, win, win for everyone. Um, I have to, one last thing we have to talk about basketball. I'm a big basketball fan and, um, The Boston Celtics just won. They did. NBA team. So I got to get your take on that. Who were you rooting for? Well, I, to be honest with you, I'm rooting for women's basketball. I've always been more college than pros. Cause I don't know all the stories of, of grit and determination. I'm just like clearly in what I'm doing in my life, I'm just a sucker for a comeback story. Um, But I actually I had the the the happy accident circumstance to meet Caitlin Clark randomly in a D.C. lobby of a hotel a few weeks ago when they were in town. And I do not get starstruck at most anyone. But I was like. Um, I grabbed, I was annoying and grabbed a picture with her and I'm just, I'm so grateful for what she's done for the game. And the girls are really fun to watch. I mean, they're just, um, they're playing at a level that's highly entertaining and, uh, are, are just capturing the hearts and the interest. I mean, they're, they're providing entertainment and, um, And they're elevating the game in ways that is really inspiring and fun to watch. We need to get the pay equity up there for them. Yes, I was going to touch on that. I was not going to have that kind of oversight. Yes. The NBA playoffs were just a few days ago. I had to mention that, and I'm a big Celtics fan. If you're a big Celtics fan, then you are incredibly, incredibly happy. That was an easy series to watch as a Celtics. You weren't too stressed out with how that was going to go. But are you kidding? Watching Caitlin and being able to now look forward and see the incredible impact she is going to make and has already made is it's such a crazy time to be alive for women, I think. It's so fun. We're for profit. We're women owned. We did a capital raise last year. We ended up oversubscribed. It was in a very difficult fundraising environment. It's a fun time to be a girl for sure. Yeah. Well, we cannot thank you enough for your time and your efforts. And we know you have some travel coming up in July, some well-deserved time off. We hope that you get to relax and recharge. Well, Amy, thank you for, again, everything you do and for helping us raise awareness about our company that we just we adore. And again, so proud of the hospitality industry in shifting their procurement spend. So thank you so much for everything you do and for inviting me on to talk today. It was a pleasure and I can't wait to run into you again, hopefully in the future. Everyone, thank you again for tuning back in, but we need your help. Please like and subscribe and leave us a comment so that we can continue to bring you these incredibly impactful and insightful conversations. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Let me know who you'd like to see on the show, what kind of topics you would like to see. We love to get listener feedback. So thank you for your support. And we will see you next time on another episode of the Sustainable Hospitality Podcast.