Inside one of the world’s greatest fundraising operations

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0:53 Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. I am thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Reed Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Masad, and more. Will be there with us October 20th through 22nd in San Francisco. If you're building something great, or you want to build something great, We want you there with us too.

1:20 Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. I will tell you I sweated to the whole thing. I died and you know I know my board asked me lots of questions. Are you sure you want to do this? And I had asked a lot of questions about risk. The risk that the mission would go wrong, or the risk that you couldn't raise the money to match it? Where was the risk for you and this? All of the above I mean the risk was about

1:52 Life. Rick Shadiak is no stranger to high stakes. As the head of AllSAC, the fundraising organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, every dollar he raised helps save patients, support families, and finding. Cures. On this particularly sweaty day.

2:13 Rick was watching a brave group, including a former St. Jude patient, get launched into space. To inspire more donations. This space mission was one of the countless scroll stopping media efforts Rick used to get more attention for Saint Jude. And how he achieved the astronomical fundraising number. Of two point seven

2:35 billion dollars. in one year. If you look at the data and the data is telling you a story, if you believe in that story, then you make investments that way. As data got better and better, we said, this is not hard, guys. We have to meet people where they are. Where are they? They're on TikTok.

2:57 They're on Instagram. And you know, people will laugh at this. People still Watch CNN. especially people of my generation, okay? And they will respond to direct response television ads. So let's think about who our target audiences are. The CNN audience is very different than the TikTok audience, obviously, but again, let's meet people where they are. Mm.

3:22 You gotta have incredible talent at every position. It's like just huge push. There are fires burning when you're going out. Can we believe it? And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what to do. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. It just seems absolutely nut-ball. Ten years later I'm like, well that's just how you do it. We have it made. Just how you do it. This is masters of scale. I'm Jeff Berman.

3:59 Your host. This week on the show, recently retired CEO Rick Shadiac Junior reveals how he transformed the Alsac fundraising organization into a data driven media savvy. Powerhouse. It fuels the growing global mission of Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. This is a conversation full of inspiration and actionable insights for anyone who wants to scale their ability.

4:28 To both do well. And Do good. Rick, welcome to Masters of Scale. Thank you for having me, Jeff.

4:38 I'm thrilled to have you. I've been looking forward to this conversation uh for a long time. And I my guess is that most of our audience uh is familiar with Saint Jude's. But my guess is also a lot of them don't really know what St. Jude's is and does. So can you just give us an overview of what Saint Jude's is? Sure. So St. G. Children's Le Research Hospital leads the way the world understands.

5:02 treats and defeats childhood cancer. It's that special place where doctors all across the United States and literally the world send their toughest cases for kids with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. It's a very unique place, Jeff, because no family will ever receive a bill from St. Jude, not for treatment. travel, housing, or food, because we want mom and dad to focus on helping their child survive cancer. But our name is intentional. Notice we're not St. Jude Children's Hospital, we're St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. So about 50 percent of what we do is dedicated to finding cures for kids with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. Most people don't know this, but the cure for leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, was discovered at St. Jew Children's Research Hospital in the 1970s. So it's an amazing place. The other interesting part of this is I am not the CEO of St. Jew Children's Research Hospital. I'm the CEO of what's called ALSAC, which stands for American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities. And uh Danny Thomas, who was the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, was Lebanese. And uh You have to go all the way back to the nineteen thirties and he was down on his luck and he made a prayer to to Saint Jude, who's the patron saint of hopeless cases, and he basically said, Should I get a real job or should I pursue my passion, which is comedy? And uh

6:16 Truth be known, he got a a job the very next day uh as a singing toothbrush on the radio. Yeah, folks, they didn't have TV back in those days, okay? Got enough money to pay for his wife's medical bill. She was pregnant with what would turn out to be Marlowe Thomas. And then Danny Thomas remembered his pledge. He formed American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities for the sole purpose to build St. Jew Children's Research Hospital. And now that we built it, we've actually grown it substantially, and we are responsible for maintaining meaning it meaning that for about 89% of all of the operating and capital costs of St. Jude have to be raised from the public. So Alsac is solely responsible for raising that money. We exist for no other reason other than to raise the money to support and capitalize St. Jude. Rick, it's an incredible backstory. How did it scale? What was the founding vision and then how did it evolve over time? Yeah. So so uh you have to go back to nineteen fifty seven, which is when AlSAC was actually formed, okay, because Alsac needed to raise the money to build St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. They opened their doors on February fourth, nineteen sixty two. So it took about five years to raise the money. Interesting part is

7:24 They raise to build it, but they didn't raise enough money to operate it. So some of the very early founders were actually writing checks out of their own checkbook to keep the operations going at the institution. Jeff, I'm proud to tell you one of those persons was my father. Now he wasn't one of the ones writing the checks because he was a department of justice lawyer. They didn't make a lot of money. They still don't make a lot of money. But dad was one of the things that we're going to do. the early founders. And then there were several CEOs. You know, I want to give my father a lot of credit because he was a CEO there for about 13 years, and I think he really professionalized the organization. But during the Great Recession, that was when I started and we decided to do a few things very, very differently than we had done in the past. My background is as a lawyer, so you know I needed to learn how to be a CEO. So what what I really wanted to do is early on, I attached myself some of the best brains in the whole world. I then went out to Google and to Facebook and they embraced St. U Children's Research Hospital. And you know, I learned from them this one piece of advice that I got from our friends at Google that said, Rick, You guys have got to get outside your rivers of thinking. In philanthropy, everybody kind of just does the same thing. Do something different. The fact that you're even here tells us that you're probably gonna think differently.

8:35 Rick, before we get to your move into the CEO seat and your your journey and how you evolve the organization, just if you would take us from nineteen fifty seven, we're gonna do this, raise capital, open in sixty two, but have no no no funding for operations to what you inherited in two thousand nine. Yeah, you know, I would go back to say Why was St. Jude Children's Research Hospital put in Memphis, Tennessee? And you know, I think that's part of what underlays the beauty of this mission. So folks, for those of you that don't remember the 50s and the 60s, Memphis, Tennessee, and much of the South was segregated. Kids who look different than you and I, Jeff, black children throughout the South are literally being turned away from hospitals simply because of the color of their skin. Okay, our founder, Danny Thomas and that first generation said that's completely unacceptable. He chose to put it in a segregated city. He chose to open the doors from day one.

9:30 to kids of all races, creeds, and religions, and he took the economics completely out of the equation because everybody was going to get treated the same, whether you were the richest person from Saudi Arabia or the poorest person from the heart of the South. And that's been our ethos. Now he got a lot of pushback. I mean the early designs of St. Jude, he got in trouble for not having separate bathrooms. and separate water fountains. Yeah, folks, that was the reality. Unfortunately, I think we sometimes forget that wasn't that long ago. So slowly but surely the organization was starting to build. And then in the 1970s, this amazing doctor, the first CEO of St. Jew, Dr. Donald Pinkle, who came from New York. Okay, he found the cure for leukemia. And what did that mean? It meant that more than fifty percent of the kids who were being diagnosed were actually surviving childhood cancer. So it was a remarkable discovery, and I think that set us on the path to just absolutely tremendous success. And then kids started coming from all across the United States because of the uniqueness of what we offered. We struggled for a long time. I mean we had debt and we raised barely enough money in in some years, probably not enough in other years. So you came in in two thousand nine after a storied career as a lawyer. How did you come in and start working with the team to define where you were gonna go during your tenure?

10:49 Well the first thing I had to do was to lay out kind of an operating vision. So I work with our board on this and I said, guys What do you want here? Do you want to run this mission for the long term or do you want to try to extract every possible dollar out of this? What does that mean? Okay. So when people come to St. Jude's, a typical kid that has cancer, they're with us for two and a half to three years. And on top of that, Okay, we treat these kids for life. So I said to the board, look, we've got to think about how we're gonna fund this mission, not just for one year, two years, three years, but for decades into the future. If we're going to fund research that you all are telling me, you very bright scientists, I'm just a dumb lawyer, okay? If you guys are telling me these are gonna be 10 to 15, 20 year projects, okay? This is running an organization for the long term. You need to let me invest back in this organization, okay?

11:45 And the board ultimately agreed that we were operating for the long term. So what that meant was that I was able to make investments. We always had a budget. I had to meet that budget, okay? I had to keep the cost down. But if I was particularly efficient in a year, I would then go back to the board and say, I want to make some additional investments to drive more revenue longer term. So we went in on direct mail and also direct response television and we just grew exponentially as a result of that, acquiring new supporters, getting our mission out. We invested in marketing. We didn't have a chief marketing officer at St. Jude Children's Research. Yeah, I'm guessing f most people don't think about not for profits as needing a marketing function. So you you all didn't actually even have a CMO at the time. We did not. And I said, This is not gonna work. I've seen the power of storytelling. I said we have to invest in it. We've got amazing stories. Look at these kids. They're young kids and look at how courageous they are, tenacious that they are. These are amazing kids. People will relate to them and want to help them. So I hired an amazing chief marketing officer. It's one thing to understand the power of storytelling. It's another thing to understand

12:55 what direct marketing is, how it works, what's going to be effective for you. How'd you get smart about it? I did something that most people when I've told other for profit CEOs about it, they're like You did what? And I was like, well, I made everybody in the organization not only responsible for revenue, but for our brand goals. It's amazing to me that more organizations don't work this way. How did you see that that was something that you needed to do? Well, I saw that we were operating in silos, and I don't like silos. Okay. So the way to get out of the silos was hey, if you're responsible for both brand and revenue, you guys have got to work together and you've got to cooperate. And we just kept building and building and building and and it worked. Were there moments where you saw something click where you're like That's what I'm talking about. That's what I want to see. Well, yeah, you know, especially as as we march through time, performance marketing will tell you how often were you getting calls, how often were people hitting the website, how effective was your email, how effective was social. Did that TikTok video actually generate any revenue, or is it just cute?

13:55 It was measurable, right? And you would see the upticks. You know, and there's different reasons for doing things, right? Sometimes you are creating awareness. Sometimes all you're trying to do is get an email address, right? So it really depends upon what your marketing goal is. And then there are bigger campaigns that go off the charts too, which we can talk about, like when we made the really Important decision, risky decision to take our mission to space. How do you take this mission to space? What does that look like? It was a crazy story. So I know somebody you know, Ross Martin. Ross Martin, just an amazing guy, the president of Known here in New York, and a marketing company. Ross is a is a friend of both of ours, and Ross is an amazing guy. He's a great supporter of St. Jude. So Ross asked me if I would be interested in meeting a gentleman by the name of Jared Isaacman. Jared was a young entrepreneur who started a company called. called Shift4 Payments, a digital payments company. And Jared had entered a deal with Elon Musk and SpaceX to

14:55 purchased several missions to space. And Jared wanted to approach it very, very differently. He was all about democratizing space and he wanted it not just to be a rich person's game, but he wanted regular people that could go up into space. So he was looking for a charitable component behind it. We talked I will tell you Jeff, you reminded me of a young Danny Thomas. Okay. He's like a visionary, truly a visionary, and you could just tell how big his heart was. Okay. He cares deeply about kids, especially kids with catastrophic disease, and he was looking for a charitable partner. He asked me lots and lots of questions about St. Jude and I asked him lots of questions about going to space because I was concerned and he was interested in potentially having a patient or one of our doctors or scientists go into space. This is a big idea. And then he said with one of the other seats, I want to make it so that anybody can get a ticket for two dollars or a dollar More like a lottery than an auction. More like a lottery than an auction. That way it was democratized, right? And we entered into a partnership and he said, Rick, I'm gonna give you a hundred and twenty five million dollars. He personally 125 million dollars. I want you to match it. Okay. And I said, Jared, we'll match it.

16:03 And truth be told, we did match it, Jeff. We raised$250 million to support the mission of St. Jude. A young former patient of St. Jude, who was a nurse practitioner by the name of Haley Arsenaux, went up into space with Jared Isaacman and three other people. And I will tell you, I sweated to the whole thing. I died, and you know. My Lord asked me lots of questions. Are you sure you want to do this? And I had asked a lot of questions about risk and Yeah. Where was the risk for you and all of the above the risk was I mean the risk was about life. Yeah. Okay. If we didn't match it, we didn't match it. I was gonna do my darnest to match it, and we did, thank God, and thanks to the support of the public. But I was much more concerned, much more concerned about the safety of the crew. And and Haley, who I've known since she was a patient when my dad was the CEO there. So I've known her for a really long time. But she was this total space enthusiast, so she knew the risks. And so when they splashdown, I was like, man, I was so relieved. I can't even begin to tell you. And then so we got a ton of publicity out of it. And the cool part too also was that it introduces the new audiences. Space enthusiasts are very different than some of the other people. A lot of people that participate charity are a little bit on the older side because they have the ability to do it. Space enthusiasts are younger.

17:18 people too. And uh so it was a beautiful way for us to spread our mission to a a much broader audience group. Still ahead. Rick's advice for how business leaders can have a bigger impact on issues they care about. Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the rapid response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada.

18:07 It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There can be two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future?

18:31 That is human centered. I'm Rana El Calyubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future.

18:51 and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Welcome back to Masters of Scale. You can find this conversation and more. On our YouTube channel.

19:12 Across your tenure, two thousand nine into the twenty twenties, the ability to collect data, to analyze data, to act on data changed. radically. And you all saw a massive increase. You drove a massive increase in fundraising during your tenure, right? I if I remember right, you were in the six hundred something million range in two thousand nine and North of two billion. 2.7 billion. 2.7 billion. So approaching three billion now. I mean that's that's a huge increase over that time period. So I mean I have perspective. Yeah, and I and I want to get to the impact piece next, but I'm curious, how did that ability to better collect, better analyze, and better act on data Help drive from that six hundred plus million up to nearly three billion. Look, Jeff, what I would say is a good CEO is not just strategic.

19:59 A good CEO is strategic and opportunistic. Okay. So if you look at the data and the data is telling you a story, okay, if you believe in that story, then you make investments that way. We saw opportunity, whether it was with corporate partners or on the acquisition front. And at the end of the day, as data got better and better and we were able to analyze that data. We said, this is not hard, guys. We have to meet people where they are. Where are they? They're on Facebook.

20:29 They're on TikTok. They're on Instagram. We need to be there, okay? And you know, well, people will laugh at this. People still watch CNN. Especially people of my generation. And they will respond to direct response television ads. So again, let's think about who are target audiences are the CNN audience is very different than the TikTok audience, obviously. The Facebook audience is kind of hybrid, right? But again, let's meet people where they are and give them content at points like as we sit here today, we can serve up very personalized content because we know that You clicked on a video because you wanted to learn about brain tumors and you were particularly impressed about this patient's brain tumor journey.

21:15 I know that because I saw you click on that. I can serve you up content that's about another brain tumor patient. So the content gets more personalized than I think ultimately means that it will drive you to more action. I mean so that's how things have gotten smarter. You know, as I was leaving, we were building our own CDP in partnership with Salesforce. And then we also were building an enterprise content asset management system so that it allowed us to understand how you were interacting with our brand and content that might be meaningful to you. And then we embraced AI. early on. You know, when I got there, I said, guys, we're going to do a dual transformation, okay? We're going to keep operating our core business, but we're going to go complete digital transformation. Keep doing the core. So we did it together, a dual transformation, and then we just kept on investing in digital. I was really proud of our board because our board got the idea that you needed to make investments in your tech stack in data and analytics because they saw that was where the world was going and even as I sit here today, they saw the wisdom in that and are continuing to make those investments. Let's talk about

22:18 Impact when you are able to increase your fundraising How does that change the impact you have? What's different now than when you came in? Every day I wake up knowing that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in US kids today. Okay. It's one of the leading causes of death by disease around the world, but there are other challenges around the world. So in the United States, even though we've made incredible progress doing part to the work at St. Jude, it's important to note that

22:45 We used to have Roughly eighty percent child mortality for cancer, right? And now it's down to about twenty percent in significant part due to the work that you all have done. That is correct. So twenty to eighty in sixty plus years, right? Take the acute lymphoblastic leukemia where the cure was found in St. Jude. When St. Jude opened, it was a four percent cure rate. So think about that. Ninety-six out of a hundred kids who were diagnosed would pass away so bad that Parents were told celebrate half birthdays because your child wasn't going to make it to the next birthday. Okay. It's 94% today. And that initial cure, over fifty percent, was found at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. So that that's some of the impact. But what I also then think about is 20% isn't good enough. So four out of five survive, okay? But if you're the mother or the father of the one,

23:32 The one really matters. Yeah. Okay. So we've got to do better. And there are certain cancers that don't have cure rates, right? There are certain cancers like certain brain tumors that just just they're death sentences. Okay. So we have to solve those problems. But then let's broaden the aperture and let's talk about the globe. So four and five kids around the globe in low and low middle income countries. will pass away from cancer. four and five kids, so the survival rate is twenty percent. Well St. Jude has a plan. in this decade to try to raise survival rates.

24:03 from twenty percent to sixty percent. So there's about four hundred thousand kids around the globe that will be diagnosed with cancer. And so twenty percent survive. St. Judas going to be providing free I said free cancer medications to 12,000 of the 400,000 kids around the globe over the coming five years. This is going to be quality. cancer medication on a regular schedule. Unfortunately, in some of these low and low middle income countries, they have to buy drugs on the black market. That will not happen anymore because we'll get quality assured cancer medications delivered for free. So our doctors genuinely believe that this is going to exponentially raise survival rates around the globe. At the same time, we're educating and training. the clinical global workforce on the best ways to treat childhood cancer and other catastrophic diseases in Alsac the organization that I that I had the privilege of of running for almost 16 years. We're educating and training folks on how to raise money and how to market so that they can support the clinics in their countries.

25:09 Jeff, this allows these kids to be treated in their own countries. They don't have to come to the United States so parents don't have to make those difficult decisions about leaving other kids behind or not having work and things like that. So I mean we think that there's a lot of benefit to providing this care within their countries. And what I've seen, because I've traveled all around the world. When we can do this, it will raise the standard of care in even the public hospitals because they all try to emulate what we're doing in some of these clinics. I'm super optimistic about this. I've seen it work, and that's why I'm optimistic. And I get further optimistic, Jeff, because the public embraces St. Jude, right? So when you can say You've got 11 million supporters, not billionaires, but regular people that give you$19 a month that want to be your partners in hope. that believe in helping kids all around the globe, that they believe that kids ought to have a chance to grow up like you and I did, to be lawyers and things like that. And now to have two lawyers talking about marketing, which is kind of ironic when you think about that. Okay. And then and and and curing cancer. And curing cancer. Okay. There you go. Okay. So there's there's some things going on here, right? But

26:18 That's what makes me so optimistic, even in this world that we're living in today. And then I the other thing I would just say to you is what I also thought about was the fact that we brought 11 million people and a million volunteers to support a cause. So what does that mean? That means more and more people were learning to Live. charitably. Notice I didn't say give charitably, live charitably to love a stranger. What is a charitable gift? It's a demonstration of love of someone else. Right? And these are people that might not otherwise think that way. If they're giving you a dollar of their hard earned money, that's a demonstration of love for someone else, okay?

26:59 And you know, I don't think it's just a coincidence that the National High School Honor Society, those kids name St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as the number one place to work because they see the good that's taking place. So what I think we've done is we've created a movement where people want to get behind this idea. that every child should have the opportunity to grow up, to be healthy, to live out their hopes and dreams. So I'm hopeful that as we can bring more and more people into this idea of living charitably People might say he's this guy's crazy, man. No, I think but we can actually change the world, man, and we can make it be more about love and caring for others. And that brings us right back to that founding story, right? That's why I think it's all so consistent. We opened our doors in a segregated city to address racial health care disparities, and today now we're doing it on a global scale. to address global health care inequity. Rick, this sounds like a dream job.

27:54 Why in the world would you leave it? Well, listen, man, sixteen years at the helm was a was a long time. I think an important part of leadership is knowing when to step aside. I'm sixty eight, I don't mind saying that. I still have a lot of energy in me. Yeah, and and I got a lot of passion. And now what I want to do, man, is I want to take what I've learned at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and bring it to other causes. Okay. Convince other businesses. Let's think about ways that we can use corporations and and business. To do good. Okay. And I will tell you, in the world that we're living in today, there's going to be increased demand for services from not for profits that unfortunately are they're not going to be able to be met. Okay. Uh because there's going to be a lot of competition for dollars. I hate to use that word competition, but the pot isn't growing. Okay. It's not growing unless and less people are participating in philanthropy. I want to take what I've learned over this period of time, help other not for profits and help businesses understand the importance of doing good. This is a subject I really

28:52 appreciate talking about with business leaders. The idea that businesses, corporations exist only to serve their shareholders is only about fifty years old. The history of corporations is they do serve a public benefit. And stakeholders, whether that is customers, whether that is team members, employees, whether that's broader society, historically have been a a key part of corporate missions. As you talk to business leaders, what do you find is effective in helping them understand their broader responsibilities to stakeholders? It's an interesting question, Jeff. Couple of years ago the business round table said that it wasn't just about profit and returning a value to shareholders, right? And so I think people recognize that. I think there's been some retrenchment. But when I sit down one on one with CEOs or CMOs,

29:40 I hear them say I want to do good. I hear them recognize that their customers want them to support causes that are important to them. I hear them recognize that consumers will switch brands if a brand is supporting a cause that's important to them. I hear them say to me Rick, you know, it is important. Our employees St. Ud Children's Research Hospital. They're passionate about asking at the register to give a donation to St. Ute. They're proud when we present you a check for$18 million. They fight. to go take that trip to Memphis, Tennessee, to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. So I think they see the value, Jeff. So they see the value from a business perspective, and then they see the value in helping others. And then I'll just tell you man, I hope that you get to do this sometime. When you come to St. Jude. People always say it's going to be sad. It's a magical place, okay? It's a place where, yeah, the kids are really sick, but it's incredibly hopeful. It's inspiring. And then when you look around and you see how big it is now, and then you go, wow, this is all operated by the public. The public has created all this good within these walls, right? All these opportunities for these kids within these walls.

30:58 They come away changed. What I would say to my employees too is even ones that are hardcore, they're not mission driven, okay? Just let it into your heart a little bit. If you let Say Jude or if you let a cause into your heart, even if all you do is wear a baseball hat that says Say Jude on it or or Habitat for Humanity, whatever your cause might be. Let it into your heart. It's going to change you as a person, but you got to let it in.

31:23 You gotta let that guard down. Let it in. Well, I'm gonna treat that as an invitation to come to Memphis and see you. Rick, as we sit here in June of twenty twenty five having this conversation, we are seeing my words, not yours. And assault on science. We're seeing People from other countries who want to study and do research in the US being turned away, removal of funding from universities that do really important research, scientific leaders being purged from government roles. I'm not asking you to be Certainly not partisan, not even political, but as you think about

31:59 This literally life saving work. But St. Jude and other organizations do. How do you think about navigating this moment and helping make sure that we're able to continue succeeding on this critical mission?

32:15 I I think we're at a really important point. in our history. I'm hoping that we're just in a short period of time and that some of this will reverse itself. I genuinely am hoping for that. But hope's not enough. We have to see actual action. What I think that we all need to do is stress

32:35 The impact. That science Has had Especially lately. And you know, again, just take cancer. If it remains the leading cause of death by disease in US kids today. pediatric cancer. That means that there's still a lot of questions that need to be answered. And the only way we're going to get answers to those questions is if we continue to research. So I hope that the powers that be will realize that there are some very important things that need to continue to be invested in.

33:09 These are dollars that are going to renowned institutions, and there's a return on that investment. So it's not just a giveaway. There's services that are being returned in exchange for the grant money that's being received. I think that science needs to do a better job of showing the impact of those dollars and an accounting of those dollars. So I think that if cooler heads can prevail and we can all sit in a room and have a conversation about $100 million is a lot of money, okay? but here's what the$100 million is going to drive. Here are going to be the measurables or the key performance indicators that we're willing to give to you. Here's what the overhead dollars are going to be or the administrative costs are going to be. I think that we can then have that conversation. Let's prioritize if there's going to be cuts. It's hard to argue about a balanced budget, right? All of us that run businesses, we have to meet our budgets, right? So there's sympathy there.

34:05 But let's prioritize things, what's important and what's not. In the space that I'm so passionate about pediatric cancer, only four percent of the federal budget goes to support pediatric cancer research. But just to be clear, that four percent number, that's not of the overall federal budget. That's four percent of which budget is that. That's the National Cancer Institute's budget. Gotcha. So you know, but for St. Jude and other institutions that are devoting dollars to studying pediatric cancer, we wouldn't be as far along as we are today. But St. Jude is the leading funder of pediatric cancer research. So I'm just hopeful, Jeff, that when Very smart people. And there's very smart people on both sides here, okay? That the administration gets together with various institutions, including St. Jude, and say, Okay, here are the dollars, but here's what you're gonna get back in return with some measurables, I hope and pray that cooler heads prevail. the CEOs who are engaged in this conversation What's the one piece of advice you'd give to them about how to

35:04 define and approach their company's role in public service. What are you passionate about? What do you care about? Do you care about

35:14 Justice? Do you care about hunger? Do you care about kids with cancer? What are you passionate about? What do you think your customers are going to be passionate about? But ultimately, I think for us CEOs, we have to make a decision about what we're passionate about. I care about kids with cancer. I care about kids, period, okay? And there's an authenticity to that. And I think the public is really good at figuring out who's a phony and who's real, right? So if you're passionate about something and people can see that you care deeply and and you're real and authentic about it, same thing is true with a company. Okay. I think they're gonna get behind it. I think your company's gonna become more successful when you do good. And there's so much data that supports what I'm saying about how consumer behavior will be impacted by your partnerships with causes that are that are are doing good. So I would urge you all, what are you passionate about? partner with an organization that's doing that.

36:07 Rick, thank you. Thank you for being on Masters of Scale. Thank you for having me, man. I've enjoyed it. The way Rick Shadiac Jr. was able to scale the fundraising efforts for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to two point seven billion dollars is a remarkable example for all of us. When you have an ambition worth fighting for the ceiling on what is possible, maybe much. Much higher. than you'd imagined.

36:30 I hope you're feeling as inspired as I am, and we can put that feeling to work. In a time when so much feels uncertain and unstable. It's An unbelievably valuable reminder. That what we do control.

36:45 Is our attitude. And our effort. I'm Jeff Berman. Thank you for listening. Masters of Scales await what original.

37:25 Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our senior producer is Trisha Bobida. The production team includes Masha Makutunina, our senior talent executive is Stephanie Stern. Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastanelli and Brian Pew. Original music by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Le Tal Melad.

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