Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Residents of Northern Kentucky! Based in Union, KY....The Good Neighbor Podcast helps the residents of Northern Kentucky get to know local business owners as people. We allow the business owners and influencers in NKY to tell the stories of how they started their business and why. We hear about their families, their personal interests and why they love living in and serving resident of Northern Kentucky!
Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Small Donations, Big Impact: A New Way to Give in Northern Kentucky
Ever wondered how you can make a significant impact on your local community without a massive time or financial commitment? Join us as we welcome Bob and Woody Mueller from Mueller Financial in Florence, Kentucky, who unveil the transformative "Give Where You Live, Northern Kentucky" initiative. Inspired by a similar concept and supported by Horizon Community Funds, this program is like speed dating for philanthropy, making giving back fun, accessible, and impactful. With just a $100 quarterly commitment and an hour of your time, you can be part of a vibrant community effort to support smaller, often overlooked nonprofits in Northern Kentucky.
This episode paints a vivid picture of how "Give when you Live, NKY" is fostering deeper community ties and delivering direct impact. Bob and Woody share the joy of seeing donations put to use and highlight the simplicity of the process, where every penny goes straight to the chosen nonprofit. Imagine contributing to meaningful causes while enjoying a relaxed, engaging environment with fellow residents. This initiative promises not just the pride of helping local organizations but also the rewarding experience of being part of something bigger. Tune in to find out how you can be part of this incredible journey and make a real difference in your community.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Murphy.
Speaker 2:Thank you, charlie. Yes, I am Mike Murphy, host of the Good Neighbor Podcast, and we bring in local business owners, influencers, friends of mine. Sometimes they're strangers and I'm meeting them for the first time with you, but certainly we want you, the listeners out there, to know the good things happening in northern Kentucky. So one of the great things happening in northern Kentucky we are kind of going to spend a little time talking about today. I brought two gentlemen into the broadcast booth today to talk about something called Give when you Live, northern Kentucky. These are two friends of mine. I've been involved for a while with Give when you Live and we're going to talk about Give when you Live, what it is, who's involved and how you can be involved. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce two friends of mine, bob Mueller, woody Mueller of Mueller Financial here in Northern Kentucky, in Florence. They are the ones that brought Give when you Live the concept to Northern Kentucky, and so let's get into it. Let's talk about Give when you Live, Bob and Woody.
Speaker 3:welcome to the show. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having us. So, Bob, just briefly tell us who you are and what you do for a living, sir.
Speaker 4:Okay, I'm Bob Mueller, mueller Financial. I've been a financial planner for 35 years, mainly here in Northern Kentucky. Really enjoy the people here. I started in Chicago and they decided I want to come over to Northern Kentucky and that's where I planted my roots here and then, from that point on, I brought on some other colleagues, one being my son Woody. He can introduce himself to you and tell a little bit about what he does. And we're a financial firm in Northern Kentucky, out in Florence, kentucky.
Speaker 2:So with that we turn to Woody. Woody, do the same man. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Thanks, mike. Again thanks for having us today. I'm really excited to talk about Give when you Live. My name is Woody Mueller. I'm a partner with Mueller Financial. We're a father-son team in Florence, kentucky. We do financial planning, investment advising, and I've been in the industry for about 12 years, been with Mueller Financial for 10 years, have a blast growing the business with my father and helping people along the way, and part of the fun of our job is to get creative and find awesome things like give where you live. That we'll talk more about today, so I'm happy to dive into that.
Speaker 2:So you say, helping awesome people, and there are many ways to do that. And, aside from the financial advising services you guys provide, you have found a great way to help people here in Northern Kentucky, specifically nonprofits in Northern Kentucky. So Give when you Live, northern Kentucky is, it's a group that I've come to call. When describing it to people it's, I say you've heard of speed dating. Well, this is philanthropy. And so they say, oh really, well, what's that look like? And so from there the conversation just flows.
Speaker 2:You know, that's how I piqued their interest, and I think maybe you guys are the ones that taught me that five years ago, because I myself have been involved in Give when you Live, northern Kentucky for about five years now, I guess. And it's such an incredible concept that everybody needs to know about it. And when people hear about it they say how can I be involved? I want in, what do I do next? So that's why we're here today. So with that in mind, woody, if you wouldn't mind being sort of like the mouthpiece on the subject, as our intro here, what is Give when you Live, northern Kentucky?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. As you mentioned, I mean great way. To sum it up, mike, it's speed dating, but for philanthropy, you know, we try to make it easy. There's so many big nonprofits that that attract a lot of money, have a lot of eyeballs on them and do a lot of great work. But sometimes the smaller local nonprofits can get overlooked. And that's where Give when you Live, northern Kentucky comes into place. We wanted to find a way, a unique way, to help smaller grassroots nonprofits here in our own backyard, and I got to give the credit to Bob. He saw the concept being done in another part of the country with a former colleague of his, and we just reached out to him and said hey, can we replicate this here in Northern Kentucky, because the work you're doing is incredible? And he gave us a green light, said go for it, knock yourselves out. You know, I hope it works and we hit the ground running and we have a wonderful partner.
Speaker 3:Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky is a foundation that helps facilitate Give when you Live, northern Kentucky, but in essence, what it is is a group of members in Northern Kentucky that commit to $100 per quarter for the year, so it's a $400 commitment.
Speaker 3:We get together for one hour each quarter in a fun, you know, kind of laid back atmosphere and we all support or put our support behind a specific nonprofit in Northern Kentucky. And when we attend the meetings we all throw our names into a big hat of the nonprofit that we want to support. And of those several names we draw three out and the people supporting the three nonprofits get three minutes to stand up and talk about why their nonprofit should be awarded the funds that night. And of the three we do a question and answer session. We all as a, as a group, gets a vote on one of those to to win the funds that night. So if it's a hundred dollars, we have 50 people in the room. It's $5,000 that is being awarded that evening to a local nonprofit. No grant writing, no questions asked goes right to them and it's it's just so much fun. I don't know, bob, if you want to elaborate on it. It's just an incredible group that we have.
Speaker 4:Well, I think some of the small groups, a lot of these. You hit the nail on the head because some of these small groups we feel like kind of get overlooked. And there are a lot of people in Northern Kentucky who are active in philanthropy who may have never heard of these organizations. But all of a sudden we've got organizations we've given several thousands of dollars to, like the Go Pantry they were just written up in the newspaper recently Samaritan Car Care Center amazing organization, I want you, woody, to expound on that a little bit and Lifetime Learning Center. I mean, those are maybe three of the several that we've given and I believe in the last five years correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's around $120,000, $130,000 we've given out in funds from this little. I will call it the little engine that could.
Speaker 1:We just keep on trucking along doing our thing.
Speaker 4:It's really easy. It's an hour long and a fun place and these little I don't want to say little, but these sort of more obscure nonprofits that do fantastic work in the community they're now receiving these funds and the impact is amazing. And maybe, woody, you can now receiving these funds and the impact is amazing. And maybe, woody, you can talk about those three and then, when they come back and talk about the impact, how that comes into view inside the meeting.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah. So the goal of this group is to see change in action and to see our dollars put to work in our own community and a couple that we highlight that really do some great work. One is the Samaritan Car Care Center that Bob mentioned. There are people in our community that have to choose whether they put tires on their car or feed their kids or feed their kids, and a lot of times it's single moms that are trying to get a leg up in life and get their career straightened out and they just can't afford car repairs.
Speaker 3:Samaritan Car Care Center is one of the beneficiaries of Give when you Live, and what they will do is they'll work with a co-op of other mechanic shops that will discount their services and their prices. They'll raise funds independently, they'll have these people put some skin in the game and put some money into the pot as well, and as a team they get together and they repair cars for these people that need help. And again, a lot of times a single mom is just trying to get a leg up and they can get a car repair done so they can get back to work and and really help their family. That's a really impactful one that that we, that we've come across.
Speaker 2:And that's just one example of many deserving deserving groups. When you attend a Give when you Live meeting, you're there learning about all the various different nonprofits in Northern Kentucky that may happen to be represented that night. They may or may not win any money that evening, but along the way you, as a person living in and around Northern Kentucky, get to hear these great stories of these very deserving nonprofits and you feel hopeful in terms of the fact that this is happening in our community. So therefore, you can't help but want to help them out. But let's be real. Each of us has a finite number of minutes in our day, hours in our week, et cetera, and we have limited financial resources as well money to bless these local nonprofits with money that they don't have to spend a lot of time working for, writing grants and applying and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like any given meeting. They're walking in not realizing that one of them is about to win the lotto yes, that one of them is about to win the lotto yes. And it's humbling when they win the money because they can't believe that they just were gifted this money yes, and they had to put so little work into it. Then people say well, it's a shame. Only one can walk away as a winner at any given meeting, and that's true. But my goodness, you know, at any given meeting, and that's true, but my goodness, people realize, and you know, we talk amongst ourselves and we're all friends and we all get to witness what happens, all the goodness at any given meeting. Nobody walks out of there a loser. Every single person in that room is a winner, for various different reasons.
Speaker 2:They are the best way to experience that is to come to one of our meetings. And so if somebody wants to come to a meeting and experience it themselves, they don't have to make a commitment to join, quote, unquote or have to part with any money. They can come and figure out how they can be involved in this group at whatever level makes sense for them. So if somebody wants to come join us, can they come join us?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We encourage visitors to come and just check it out. You have to see it in action. We can talk about it all day, but if you want to feel some excitement and optimism and hope, as you mentioned, mike, you got to be in that room. It's incredible, it really is incredible. And just to hear the stories of these groups that are Bennett, that walk away with the check, you know, some five or six thousand dollars that they might never see in a given year, you know, with, with not having to write a grant for it, it is. It is life changing and they're doing life changing work in the community, with, with not having to write a grant for it. It is, it is life-changing and they're doing life-changing work in the community too, which is incredible.
Speaker 4:And the. You know you're talking about everybody walking away as a winner. The nonprofits that that night may not have won. They really, again, they did win because they're now networking and talking to other nonprofits and other people in the, in the within our group, at Give when you Live, and they're creating interest for those people that come and volunteer and the other nonprofit groups which is amazing. So it's a beautiful relationship building experience on top of giving money away in a philanthropic manner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a ripple effect that you don't see. That's it. That continues on and on and on. We see what happens that evening. We don't always get to see and witness all the goodness that propagates outward from that, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:So one thing that, as I've been out in the community talking about Give when you Live, one question I'm asked is you know, there's misconceptions. Some will say to me well, I can't join your group, I don't represent a nonprofit, or I'm not a head of a nonprofit, and so that tells me I've explained it wrong. I'm so sorry, you don't have to be the head of a nonprofit to attend a meeting. Who can attend the meeting? Anybody? Correct?
Speaker 2:And I think that as we go through life, as we live life, we just sort of find, I guess, causes that are just kind of instinctively one that we want to support or maybe one that has touched us. So if that kind of sounds like you, if you have experience with a local nonprofit, or maybe if you've just wanted to volunteer or you've wanted to give to nonprofits but you don't know where to begin, you don't know how to attach your donations to something that is kind of close to your heart or just kind of what is important to you. This is a great way to come into the group in a non-threatening environment. It's just so much fun. I mean it really does feel like a reunion amongst friends. You learn and then you can either give that night or you can say, okay, now I get it, now I understand it.
Speaker 2:And then we want people to not only come and consider joining us and whatnot. We want people to go out and kind of spread our gospel, so to speak, kind of as we're doing today. Correct, so there are places people can go online to just kind of take a peek behind the curtain and learn a little bit more. And these places online give a schedule, sometimes a location of a meeting, but certainly all sorts of information, phone numbers, things like that. To lead back to us what's one of those places that you would send them to if they say are you guys online? Where can I go?
Speaker 3:We absolutely are online. We're highly visible online. Our main website is nkygivesorg, so again nkygivesorg, it'll have an explanation of who we are, what we're about, a brief video about Give when you Live, and it also gives the meeting dates the annual, the meeting dates quarterly on the website. And then you can also find us on Facebook. We post pictures and videos of the events on Facebook on our Give when you Live NKY Facebook page. You can find us there as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's the standard go-to for me. People ask me. I say, look, it's a very cool thing and it could take me a while to explain it. The best way to explain it to somebody is to send them to the website in kygivesorg, and there's a nice little video there too that just kind of in a quick, concise manner, explains the concept.
Speaker 2:But I don't want people to think that this is going to cost them a lot of time or money. It's very quick and easy and it's very affordable, and when you see the people that you're helping, you think my God, this is too good to be true. It's not, and it's because of you guys bringing this to northern Kentucky that these nonprofits have been blessed to the degree that they have been, but there are more out there ready to receive their blessings. Yes, absolutely. Not only are you guys going to continue to be a part of that I know I will be too, lord willing and we just want more of us in the community to come join our group. Yes, be a part of all this. All this goodness. I guess you know it's great for the community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and Mike, I'll say that you know you hit the nail on the head with this is we try to make it so noncommittal, we? We? We almost make it too easy, too easy. It really is an hour of your time once a quarter and no more, no less. Hour of your time once a quarter.
Speaker 4:We watch that time pretty closely, we do.
Speaker 3:We time our presenters to make sure they're on target. You know, we know that people are busy and time is precious, so we don't ask for a lot of time. It's a hundred dollar commitment per quarter. Come, just come, see a meeting in action, I promise you'll. You'll enjoy what you see and really for me, the most impactful part is having the previous winner from the previous quarter come back. Yeah, all the group how their money was spent in our community. That is the most. That is incredible. That's the best part for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. Yeah, when you see how they've been able to quickly use that money and 100% of the funds that we collect go directly to that nonprofit yes, 100%, so they're able to quickly use it and it impacts them and they're happy and excited to come back and share with the group at the next meeting what they've done or what they're doing or very quickly plan to do with the funds that they've been gifted. I say blessed with because that's just, I think, a nice term to use, because it's true. So I also want to say thank you to Woody because, generally speaking, when we show up at these meetings, they're always in a fun environment. Maybe you know if you want to enjoy a glass of bourbon or a beer or a wine or a soft drink, a root beer, whatever, you're just kind of hanging out, networking, meeting with people, and then when we get the formal part of it started and, as Bob said, we move quickly, woody is the one who, along with Nancy Grayson at Horizon Community Funds, we shove the microphone in their hands.
Speaker 4:They go to the front of the room. They're the best speakers. They go to the speaker, they know what to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so they keep us honest in terms of the time they do they do.
Speaker 2:Here's what's next. Here's what's next, yeah, so come join us and see Woody in action, and Bob and I will. We'll be glad to hang out, meet you and explain a little more, but you just come and have fun and watch. You don't have to do anything other than just enjoy it and feel proud to be a part of something so good and uplifting. It's something that's impacting the community to such a large degree, but in such a simple, easy way, and we've been doing it quietly for too long. We want to shout it from a higher rooftop, and so we need people there to kind of help us propagate this message throughout Northern Kentucky, because it's too good of a concept not to share. And again, everybody wins. You walk out of there feeling so good about yourself and so hopeful. We all need that these days, and Mike can I add something?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:I think you mentioned this you don't have to be a subject matter expert in local nonprofits to be part of this group.
Speaker 3:If you come and your name is drawn and you either don't like public speaking or don't feel confident speaking. We have something fun where you can pass your pitch to somebody else that you've met that night in the room. Maybe it's another nonprofit that that you know takes your interest and you want them to present on your behalf. You can pass your pitch to them, they'll take it and they'll pitch for you and so you don't have to get up and speak if you don't want to.
Speaker 3:We're not. We're not pushing you. We're not pressuring you to do that. So very, very low key.
Speaker 2:That's a that's a huge point, because that alone could stop people from coming because they think I'm not a public speaker. I am terrified to speak in front of groups. I don't want to get pulled up to the front of the room and talk about a nonprofit or make a mistake or misrepresent them or fumble through my words. That doesn't happen in this group. It doesn't. There's always somebody there to carry the torch on your behalf.
Speaker 2:So many different ways, and I just sort of look at it as whatever is supposed to happen at any given meeting is exactly what happens. We don't always know what that is until the meeting's over, but we're all glad that we just witnessed what we witnessed and we can't wait for the next meeting because you feel so good. So, yeah, we just want beating hearts in the room, standing next to us and cheering on the good work being done in northern Kentucky. Yes, so thank you, gentlemen, for being such a big part of it. I'm proud to know you guys and I'm proud to be a part of the group myself are out there listening to this. Wherever you are, please go to nkygivesorg and learn more about Give when you Live, northern Kentucky, and come join us. And if you have any questions and you just want to pick up the phone and ask a question. Gentlemen, can they call you or do you want me to take the call? How do you want to handle that one?
Speaker 3:We're happy for you to give us a call. You can reach us at our office, or actually my personal cell phone. You can reach me as well 859-992-4153. Give me a call, shoot me a text. I can answer any question you have. We're happy to talk all about Give when you Live.
Speaker 2:And Woody, I think your number is probably on that website too, isn't it?
Speaker 3:I believe it is yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's hope your phone starts ringing off the hook, brother.
Speaker 3:I'm happy with that.
Speaker 2:If you want to forward your phone to mine, then I'll take it All right. Well, woody Bob, thanks for joining us today. Thank you for having us Letting people know more about Give when you Live, northern Kentucky, fantastic. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to before we sign off today?
Speaker 4:Well, I don't know, woody, what do you think? I think you've covered most of it.
Speaker 3:You've done a pretty good job. Go to the website and look at the next meeting date. In December we're going to have kind of an end of the year celebration. It's going to be a lot of fun. I don't want to give you the wrong date, so check it out on the website sometime in early December, 6 pm. If you sign up, we'll put you on our mailing list and give you all the information. But we did it last year. It was a lot of fun Networking, just letting loose a little bit. So we'd love to have you as a visitor for our December meeting.
Speaker 2:Their evening meeting, so you can do it after work. Absolutely Okay, perfect, all right. Well, gentlemen, that's that, and I thank you for joining us and letting us know more about Give when you Live, northern Kentucky. I hope and pray that we can have double the people at this next meeting than we had at the previous. The more people we have, the more money we can give and the more humans we can bless here in Northern Kentucky. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Mike. With that being said, I'll just let everybody out there know we'll be back with another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Until then, be good to your neighbors. See you next time. Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Union. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpunioncom. That's gnpunioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.