#4 - Brian Schwartz - I Want To Mow Your Lawn

Welcome to another episode of The Digital Toolbox Podcast! 

Each episode features a guest in the home services industry, sharing their personal journey and the challenges they've overcome to get to where they are today. This is a very conversational podcast and we do not stick to a pre-written script. We keep it real!

Today our gest is Brian Schwartz, the founder of  I Want To Mow Your Lawn, a registered Non-Profit in New Jersey. They offer essential landscaping to older adults, military veterans, and people with disabilities that cannot afford it or cannot do it themselves. 

On this episode me and Brian discuss various topic including what sparked Brian to start the non-profit, staying motivated during difficult times, and much more!


I Want To Mow Your Lawn Website: https://iwanttomowyourlawn.com/

I Want To Mow Your Lawn Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iwanttomowyourlawn/



WEBPIXEL is a digital marketing agency for home service contractors. We help you turn clicks into customers so that you can stop relying only on word of mouth referrals!

Let us show you how we leverage Website Design, SEO, and Google Ads to make it rain with qualified leads! Get in touch with us today! 

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Transcript

Enmanuel Tejada (00:05.02)
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Digital Toolbox Podcast. I am your host, Emmanuel Tahata. I am the owner of WebPixel. We are a digital marketing agency for home service providers. And our guest today is Brian with I Want To Mow Your Lawn. Brian, go ahead man, introduce yourself. Take it away.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (00:20.918)
Emmanuel, thank you. Appreciate you having me. Name is Brian Schwartz, founder of the registered nonprofit, I Want to Mow Your Lawn, Inc. I Want to Mow Your Lawn has recently become a registered trademark. We are a service that provides essential landscaping to older adults, military veterans, people with disabilities, anyone else in need that truly can't afford it or can't do it themselves.

Enmanuel Tejada (00:50.62)
awesome and Brian let me ask you right away how did you get into that like how what made you start that what's part I want some more you're on

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (00:50.869)
Yeah.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (00:58.934)
Very good question. A lot of moving parts to that. So, you know, my prior career professionally, I was in the advertising, ad tech space, commuting into New York City every day, you know, earning an income. And, you know, the pandemic came around in 2020. Myself and a few others were let go from an agency I was working for at the time.

And it was very unnerving with everything going on in the world in the pandemic and all the uncertainty coupled with millions of people losing their job and seeing things in the news about seniors being vulnerable to the virus. And at the time of me losing my job, I had an eight month pregnant wife at home and a father battling terminal illness. So.

It was a very stressful time both internally and externally going from earning nearly six figures to zero and going to having to collect unemployment, going on a mortgage for barons for nine months. And so tuning out social media was probably one of the better things I could have done to kind of like focus on myself figuring out the next step in my life. And so.

The one thing I did tune into was just trying to see like some of the positives that were happening in that time. I knew deep down I would be okay. And I wanted to like translate that to both my wife, making sure that she had a good, a healthy pregnancy and my father who was, you know, trying to just fight to live another day. And one day just outside mowing my own lawn, I found it to be a form of therapy.

just thinking about the next step in my life wasn't anything groundbreaking. And I just, at the time, set up a website, you know, because I have some of that technical background and advertised on Facebook within a five mile radius to 65 years and older. Because just to backtrack, a few months prior to the pandemic, my grandfather passed away and...

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (03:20.566)
we thankfully had a proper burial for him. And so I can only imagine the stress that other families were going through. And so I just want to offer some relief to, you know, I have a soft spot for grandparents. And so just without any thing in mind, just to keep my mind, my body, my soul stimulated, I, you know, just put out the word offering to help other, help elderly neighbors with their yard work. It just made perfect sense, right? Cause.

gyms were closed for three or four months by that time. And so I was looking for something to do actively and outdoors because we had to be socially distant. And it was just the perfect storm of events, you know, reaching out, helping out elderly. And I got a decent amount of inquiries and it was hard to keep up. And so by the time, you know, like a few weeks in of making that decision to go out and help others,

I found it to be gratifying, helping others, reflecting back, helping others help myself in a way, staying physically active, getting fresh air, meeting other people. And it got to a point where I'm getting too many inquiries. And so I had to think creatively of how to potentially get more people to help. And so I put together a simple press release to a local newspaper. And...

Enmanuel Tejada (04:24.092)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (04:46.518)
that local newspaper turned from one thing into another where you never know who's reading, right? And so I didn't expect anything of it other than hope to maybe find a few more people in the area to kind of help out. And it worked in a way, right? It's like, I started to hear from people that were either furloughed from their job or laid off, had landscaping equipment, a pickup truck. So there was a few of us at the time, just I was distributing out these like leads.

of older home owners. And as we're on premise, I'm learning that some of these people might have served in the military or had these other disabilities. And so as I'm distributing out these leads, I'm realizing we're onto something. One thing after another, more of like North Jersey did a...

publication on both newspaper and online, which snowballed into someone like with CBS learning about this story that happened just to be in the New York, New Jersey area. And I think in a parallel universe, it might not have, you know, resonated. I just think it was a perfect storm of events with job losses and.

the uncertainty with the world and seniors and it just resonated, I guess. And there's a little bit of luck involved and timing. And one thing led to another, you know, we got this national news story and I'm starting to get these inquiries from everywhere. Now, homeowners were reaching out through email, through social media, through our website and through a voicemail system that I had set up.

Enmanuel Tejada (06:33.468)
Wow.

Enmanuel Tejada (06:42.012)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (06:43.318)
And I started to get like these like letters and comments online, like actual physical letters from people that we never even helped. They just came across this new story and they happened to have found some hope and inspiration in it. And I'm like, we're onto something. That was at a time when I was like needing, I guess, to hear some good feedback. And it became like bigger than myself. And so just...

set up a GoFundMe, got some funds to actually create a 501c3 nonprofit. And three and a half years later, we have over a thousand volunteers enlisted just trying to connect the dots between people that are looking for help and people that want to help. And what started, you know, it was just like lawn mowing and we've branched out into giving all these other options. So there's like these matrix of connections to be made.

Enmanuel Tejada (07:40.252)
Wow.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (07:41.078)
It's all just a passion project. We're all just volunteers. I have my blessing from my current employer where I am now to keep this going as time permits.

Enmanuel Tejada (07:53.916)
Wow, that is an incredible story. And there's so much to unpack there, right? So much to extrapolate on. So let's run it back. So you mentioned when you started this doing COVID. And now when you started advertising on Facebook, was that kind of coming out of your pocket to be able to reach those senior citizens in your area?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (08:12.854)
My own personal savings, I have like 500 bucks or so to work with. And I was actually, prior to that, I was doing like some like Instacart gigs just to keep my mind and body like just active in terms of generating an income. And like right out the gates, like it was just a straight like personal investment with zero ideas of where it would lead. Just following my heart, wanting to just get the word out.

Enmanuel Tejada (08:27.836)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (08:42.774)
And I did. Yeah, it was personal funds. Before it was a 501C3. It was not for personal gain. I wasn't charging anything. Occasional homeowners would offer a tip. I just said, no thanks. Practicing social distancing was my response back to them. And it was more self...

Enmanuel Tejada (08:57.276)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (09:12.118)
Knowing that my father was going to eventually not be with us, it also like combined with the world events, it made me think about my own mortality, not wanting to wither away in mediocrity, thinking about myself. So it was a way for me to do something that mattered at a time when people really needed it.

Enmanuel Tejada (09:36.188)
Wow, that's, and that, you know, the way that you speak about it, Brian, that it just shows that this is coming straight from your heart. It's coming, you know, you can look in the mirror with a pure heart and say, yes, I, you know, I did this because I wanted to help. So I really, really respect that. And I want to thank you. And I'm sure the audience is going to want to thank you as well in the comments and wherever they hear this, you know, thank you for what you're doing, man, because what you're doing is incredible. And.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (09:59.446)
Thank you. And again, I just want to like reiterate like helping out a neighbor with landscaping isn't anything groundbreaking, right? So just kind of like using this platform to make those connections a little bit easier and more comfortable, right? Cause people are helping their neighbors all the time. So hoping to work with those people to kind of help them expand to the next block over and the next border and the next state. So.

Enmanuel Tejada (10:07.9)
Thank you.

Enmanuel Tejada (10:25.148)
and then the next country. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. And so let's talk about real quick, Brian also let's talk about, cause I'm, I'm similar to you in that aspect as well. It's like,

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (10:26.838)
Exactly, yeah. Yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (10:37.756)
we both seem, it seems like we both find, not pleasure, but I guess we find enjoyment in doing things like, you know, mowing the lawn or maybe washing the dishes or maybe going for a walk, you know, because it's funny how those things that seem frivolous to us, you know, you just, you know, it was mindless tasks. But for me, it allows me to think, I love washing dishes. I love freaking doing chores because I get to really think. And it sounds like for you, lawn mowing was doing that for you. Is that, was that the case?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (11:04.566)
100%, it's like in a similar way. It's like you're sitting at a fire and cooking marshmallows and you're just staring at the fire. There's like that therapeutic element to that. And for me, it was, you know, adding a little bit of activity, just going down these straight lines, same feeling.

Enmanuel Tejada (11:27.42)
Striping the lawn, baby. Yes, sir. That's awesome. And I'm sure there's a lot of people out there too, right? And even if somebody's listening to this and you may think that, oh, these guys are crazy. These guys like washing dishes and stuff, you know, try to try some time, you know, maybe it's the basic things. I always try to think of.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (11:42.902)
I'm sorry.

Enmanuel Tejada (11:47.548)
Also, when humans didn't have phones, when humans didn't have radios, you know, what were they doing? They were just, it was just themselves that's has they were doing and their mind, they were just, you know, living life. They were just getting by because that's what we're supposed to do as humans, right? We're just here to reproduce and we're here to get by. And our brains are made to not, to fear difficult things. That's why we're so scared to maybe approach a beautiful woman or to, or to do something, you know, scary because our mind wants to protect us, right? Um,

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (12:14.966)
100%.

Enmanuel Tejada (12:16.092)
Yeah, so Brian, tell us a little bit more, man. So how, what's the process like for you to find landscapers that want to pay it forward, right? They want to be able to, they own a landscaping company and they want to help out. How can they do that? What's the process like?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (12:31.286)
Great question. So the first thing I want to touch upon is that when a volunteer or anyone that wants to help comes to our website, we have this intake form and there's different types of individuals that we work with. We work with individuals that just simply have the landscaping equipment and a lunch hour to spare. In the middle of a job transition like myself was, they could be...

you know, groups like families. They can be socially responsible companies that do like one off events once a year. They could be community service clubs like a rotary club. And there's also an option for educational focused institutions ranging from elementary all the way up to higher ed. And of course, landscaping companies. And so,

Enmanuel Tejada (13:24.796)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (13:28.438)
One thing we try to portray is it's to anyone that enlists their service, it's you set your parameters. There's no contractual obligations on both sides. And so we try to maintain those expectations of service upfront when a homeowner or a service recipient comes to us and asks for help, that we try to make it very clear that whether it's a landscaper or just an individual, like,

Again, these aren't contracts. So if it's one time, it makes a difference. So that's why we're trying to build a robust backup system in terms of help. But in terms of process, a landscaper, they fill out our intake form and they let us know about the tools that they have, their availability, their frequency, the types of skills, how they hear about us.

Enmanuel Tejada (14:21.628)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (14:26.07)
Pretty much everything under the sun except for a social security number and their eye color. We can probably actually learn about their eye color because we do ask for driver's license to help us with verification. We don't like have them fill out background checks because we ask a lot of information and it became cumbersome to have somebody go to a third party filling out all this information and they just want to help their community. So it's a balance, right? So we try to ask a lot of information, you know, social profile.

Enmanuel Tejada (14:29.596)
Yeah.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (14:56.118)
And so once we receive that information here on the backend, we review it and make sure everything looks good and they have the right intentions. Because the homeowners that come to us, we did a lot to build this trust to fill out their information. Because as we all may know, especially the older elderly audience tend to get taken advantage of with certain...

offers and services and so they're always cognizant of getting out their information. So we just want to make sure that those that come to us have the right intention. We approve it, they receive an automatic confirmation, they're added to our backend and there's a couple ways that they can get involved. You log into our portal and you can see the latest request nearby and offer to help and that.

homeowner receives that inquiry, they get a chance to review like a profile and schedule a time directly. And that's just one way. There's another way where they register with us and they might not be proactive looking for it. So it's on us to kind of alert them to some requests that we may receive, whether it's through voicemail or our website. And so we have all these little intricacies now to kind of help detect somebody nearby.

Enmanuel Tejada (16:00.284)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (16:23.062)
that in real time came a long way. It was like even just a year ago, we had, I had a, you know, super part -time virtual assistants typing in driving directions. And now we're using like Google maps API to tell us real time, the closest person. So came a long way. And so yeah, a couple of ways to get involved.

Enmanuel Tejada (16:40.508)
Wow, that's awesome.

Gotcha. Wow. And you know what? Let's talk about that if you don't mind Brian about that system in the back end, right? Because I can imagine and even now right when sometimes we DM each other You already have that automatic reply saying that you guys are too busy If you need help go to the website or do this, right? So because clearly you guys are busy, right? Clearly there's more people in the man for help and there are people that can fulfill it, right? So how how you mentioned you started off with VA's and an assistant, but how does it look now? How do you?

integrate that API to automatically calculate nearest landscaper or nearest helper nearby.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (17:21.174)
So we're using Google Workspace, and I've been able to outsource some of the development work out to overseas. And we've been able to add in scripts to our Google back end with different workbooks, kind of almost like a VLOOKUP, but with these sophisticated codings and these different rules. And so if and when a...

you know, as soon as a client fills out an information on our website, that gets automatically not only put into our backend database, but it also gets shared into our collaborative Google Sheet as well. So that if myself or someone else is helping on the backend, we can see in real time that inquiry and the stage that it's at. We got to a point now where that's populating into a specific region and...

Enmanuel Tejada (17:57.468)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (18:19.318)
We do kind of almost like an automatic V lookup to all our running list of volunteers and their addresses. And he uses like the Google Maps. I wish I could tell you more about it because I'm not the developer side, but Google Maps does its magic and finds the closest person up to three closest people. And now we have custom alerts automatically. So it's like already getting to like that

Enmanuel Tejada (18:33.02)
Alright guys.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (18:49.174)
contact stage to learn if and when, if they are available or not, and we update that stage accordingly from there based off response or not a response. And of course, when we reach out with those alerts, like we're just sharing high level details about a homeowner and their situation.

Enmanuel Tejada (18:59.26)
Mm -hmm. So it's not like, it's not like.

Enmanuel Tejada (19:09.404)
Gotcha and it sounds like it's almost like somebody fills out the form and you guys get an alert and then it picks somebody randomly from a region instead of trying to find somebody specifically in that city because there may not be somebody for example in that city but there may be in the city over which is still close enough.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (19:29.27)
Right, and to speak to that point, we have these different columns and it'll pull in, we try to work within under 30 mile radius. So if that person's 31 miles and farther, it's probably not gonna show us. But if there's somebody within 29 miles, it'll show us that next closest person within that 30 mile radius.

Enmanuel Tejada (19:54.428)
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And just in case that first person is busy or just in case they're not signed on for that week, you guys can hand it off. So that's an awesome process right there. That's cool. That is very cool.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (20:05.462)
Yeah, there's still more to be had. Like to your earlier point, there's a massive demand for our service to no surprise, right? With an aging population, inflation costs rising and the supply, always looking for more supply. One thing I wanna talk about also with our...

our prioritization just based off like the number of inquiries. We realized we had to find a way to kind of prioritize those that are most in need. And so we recently got a grant from a local credit union here in Jersey to build like this like predictive analytics, like scoring system. And so there's all based off of like what a homeowner fills out on our extensive intake form.

we're able to attach a certain score. So pretty much the higher the score, the more pressing need, right? So we're getting also details about how in need this person might be. Helps us prioritize a little bit amongst the madness.

Enmanuel Tejada (21:16.86)
God, and what are some of the parameters that kind of measure that, right? Is it like age? Is it disabilities?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (21:25.782)
without giving you the whole secret sauce, yes. It could be ranging anywhere from like all of those play a part and they all have different weightings. If somebody's a hundred years old versus someone that's 50, that hundred year old might just get a little priority, but that 50 year old might have it worse than the hundred year old, right? So there's all these other intricacies. We give optional.

Enmanuel Tejada (21:37.244)
Mmm.

Enmanuel Tejada (21:47.868)
Yeah.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (21:54.71)
things such as income statements, if they have served in the military, if they have uploaded paperwork to verify that, because by uploading it, they take that extra time and that extra thing, so that also might play a role.

Enmanuel Tejada (22:09.276)
Wow, man, you're creating your own Google algorithm, man. That's awesome. So that's super awesome too that you're measuring it by that. Cause I was going to ask you that next. It was going to be the question I was thinking was, and it might be a silly question, but it's like, what if somebody fills it out and then you go to the house and it's like a 20 year old, let's just be lazy. They don't want to mow their lawn. What happens there?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (22:12.694)
Shit!

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (22:33.302)
Yeah, so we ask a lot of information. There's been very few instances where people might lie about that situation, but for the most part, most people are good and they are filling out, because we have disclaimers, pretty much like, is this accurate information? We're asked, there's so many things that we're asking now, like for instance, how many are in the household? Because before we added that,

somebody might've filled it out, but it was for their parent, but it was really like an 18 or 19 year old that might've been physically able to do it. And so that's the last thing we wanna do is like send a valuable volunteer to a home where there might be an older parent and then to see like a 19 year old walking out and not helping, that's off putting, right? So we like to ask about the household information to make sure that we're not being taken advantage of.

every volunteer is valuable. So we want to just make sure we have those things in place.

Enmanuel Tejada (23:35.484)
Yeah.

Yes, 1000%. 1000%. And my next question, Brian, is kind of like...

So is there a benefit for the landscapers or the volunteers? Because I know that with nonprofits, even though they're not able to, like let's say that a volunteer wants to, they can't charge the nonprofit, but if you guys wanted to, you guys could give them like a tax incentive. Is there any incentives at all to bring in more landscapers or more helpers at all?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (24:10.678)
It's a good question and I'm not a financial advisor and I would suggest those that are concerned or would like to explore the idea of getting tax benefits. To my understanding there is. I don't know what it is like when it comes to service and time versus actual equipment. Something tangible versus like actual labor. So that's something that probably it might vary by state and I don't want to give you the wrong answers but at least when.

Enmanuel Tejada (24:29.788)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (24:40.502)
we participated at like a landscaper conference. Some people that have explored the idea of doing this with the idea of getting tax benefits, supposedly one should be doing X number of hours in order to even qualify to receive like a tax benefit. So it's more so about the intrinsic, like the altruistic ability to give back to the community.

Enmanuel Tejada (25:00.252)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (25:09.046)
while spreading awareness, right? Like work with like kind of like a newer landscaper might've been like out of Bergen field or Teaneck, New Jersey a couple of years ago. And, you know, they offered to be of assistance to like an older woman and it wouldn't have been a homeowner or a lead that they would have helped otherwise. Cause this person just couldn't afford it. So while they're on premise with their, you know, billboard truck doing community service,

somebody from across the street saw them and they became a paying customer. So you never know who's watching, right? So that was just like, right? So like we have a profile and so if they happen to have a website, it was like, you know, added link juice back to their website if we're talking digitally, right? We have our active social channels. We like to collaborate. You know, we did some collaborations with.

Enmanuel Tejada (25:44.412)
Mmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (26:06.998)
local landscaping companies and got some added awareness on our YouTube channel. And, um, yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (26:16.092)
Yeah, so that there definitely is a benefit there definitely is a benefit right because like you mentioned the link juice that extra backlink can You know booster outcome in the algorithms of Google right when people will search out for landscapers in their area like you also Yeah, like I also mentioned the You know people can see that right even though they don't know if they're volunteering or not people will see that truck there So, you know, you can get a chance of becoming a client there

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (26:29.654)
There's a, I'm sorry.

Enmanuel Tejada (26:41.916)
And also if they record content and send it over to you, you might even post it on your I want to mow your lawn profiles, which can give them some more notoriety as well. So there definitely is some incentives there for more landscapers. So that's pretty cool.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (26:58.39)
Yeah, and I mean, there's studies out there that like, you know, adding the community service aspects, especially for like landscaping owners and employees, like there's an added benefit to like boosting productivity if you're giving back to somebody as well. So I know there's studies on that.

Enmanuel Tejada (27:22.62)
Gotcha, yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome right there. And if somebody wanted to, I guess, actually I have a good question here, Brian, because I know there might be some people in the audience who may have some confusion about how a nonprofit works versus how a traditional LLC works, right? So I know we're both not lawyers here, we're both not financial advisors, but what was the process like for you to get your nonprofit, for you to become a 301 -23? What was that like? What's the steps for that?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (27:50.102)
To be straightforward, I went through LegalZoom. And so they have a process to fill out information, like what we do, and utilize those funds raised from the GoFundMe in order to kind of like make the process a bit easier versus hiring on a lawyer that I wasn't able to afford. So they had like a simple checkout process to do that.

Enmanuel Tejada (28:12.028)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (28:20.278)
Yeah, I mean, I guess the intent thereafter was to make people more comfortable on both sides, just get involved.

Enmanuel Tejada (28:33.564)
Gotcha. Okay, cool. And what about if somebody wanted to make a donation, right? Because I'm sure we have a bunch of listeners in the podcast What would be the best way for them to do that? What would be the best way for them to reach out to you and and help out for the cause?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (28:48.758)
We have a myriad of ways to help give back, not just financially, but also through in -kind donations of equipment, and just by simply spreading the word. But if we're talking about financial contributions, on our website, we have multiple different ways to contribute to the foundation with a simple, there's a form, as you'll see on most nonprofit charities, the ability to select an amount.

whether it's one time or recurring, it's fully customizable. People can text to a short code and they can get more information through their mobile device. You can text forlawn, the number four, L -A -W -N to shortcode 53555. And you'll get what I just spoke about, the widget about the different options to donate.

Enmanuel Tejada (29:45.116)
Hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (29:45.366)
We have Venmo for charity, we're part of PayPal giving funds. You can select our charity through Facebook fundraising. You can select our charity with GoFundMe. You can select our fundraiser on YouTube. So we're, yeah, I mean, even on Meta, like if you were to share a story and you can select like a donate button, you can do that as well. In terms of...

not direct financial, but indirectly, if you want to sell something on Nextdoor, like one of those like neighborhood apps, they have a feature called Sell for Good with a drop down menu and you can contribute a portion of your proceeds to anything you're selling to a local individuals. In a similar fashion, if you want to sell something on eBay, we're also listed with eBay for charity. So you can select our charity and select to donate a percentage of your proceeds that way.

We have a registry with Walmart. They have like a space for nonprofits. And so like, if anyone were to go to our website, we have a link to our registry with Walmart for nonprofits. We also built our own. One thing I also learned along the way is when people wanted to donate equipment, I said yes to everything first. And it did not make my wife happy with filling up our garage with equipment.

And so that led to me creating an online storage option, kind of like Facebook Marketplace, but for volunteers. So anyone that wants to like lend or donate equipment, they can do so directly on our website. And we call it a pay it forward section.

Enmanuel Tejada (31:27.804)
That is super cool.

pay it forward, that is super cool. So like if somebody wants to throw out a lawnmower, but there's a volunteer in the area, that can go to that volunteer.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (31:40.662)
Yeah, because there's instances where people want to help but they don't have the time, but they have the equipment. They have that lawnmower that's sitting in their garage 29 out of 30 days. So why can't they put that to good use in some other way?

Enmanuel Tejada (31:54.3)
That's a great point. Yeah. And paying it forward is definitely an awesome title for that as well.

That is super awesome. And wow. Man, Brian, what you guys are doing is incredible. I know I keep saying it, man, but I'm just super, super happy that there's people like yourself, you know, that are paying it forward, that are bringing in other people to be able to help. And do is, how do you, how do you provide for yourself and your family as well? Like, is, is, is, you know, I want to more your on the primary income or are you fully focused on that or how does that work?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (32:29.974)
That's a great question. I've taken zero dollars out of this initiative. I've reinvested everything that has been donated to this organization. And this, I'm thankful to do this as a passion, right? Like it helps me be more productive, not just as like a family, like a husband and a father, but like going to work. But my real job, which actually pays my bills,

I have their blessing to do this as time permits. My real job, I am responsible for e -commerce advertising, working for a company called Oral Labs, they're based out of Colorado. And so they're a big manufacturing plant of skincare and oral care products. And so dabbling in just kind of what I've been used to with buying advertisements and coming up with, you know,

focus on external mediums and ad copies. So that's been fun. That pays my bills. And my wife also works in the city on a hybrid role. So that's really what keeps our lights on. And all of this is just a labor of love with hopes to make my son happy and create a legacy.

Enmanuel Tejada (33:55.292)
Wow, incredible. So you've taken $0 out. That is amazing. That's amazing. Everything reinvested back in. I love that.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (34:05.046)
My wife calls me crazy, but at the same time, I think she's like, you know, seeing the feedback and like the impact, she sees it now. And again, like at the same time, like I guess it's a good mentality to have, like I'm not satisfied. Like one part of me is like, I'm proud of how far it's come and like, you know, being able to spread awareness and kindness.

And if the lights were to get turned off on it today, I'm so happy about it'll evolve in some way, shape, or form. But at the same time, I feel like there's so much more to be done. I mentioned there's the voicemail aspect of our system. We've tracked being able to help at least 500 unique homes over the last four years. But that's nowhere near the amount of inquiries that we've received.

If you were to look just at our voicemail system, over 3 ,600 voicemails logged over the last four years. So there's like so much improvement that can be done. And I feel bad because it's probably left a bad taste in 3 ,000 plus people's mouths, right? So that's like, you know, trying to do better.

Enmanuel Tejada (35:26.236)
Yeah, that's a staggering number, right? 500 out of 3 ,000 or so people, yeah. But it's crazy though because, and I get what you mean, you know, being at, feeling good, but also knowing that there's so many people that still need the help. And so you're kind of torn between, oh wow, I actually helped some people, but you're like, ah, yeah, what about the other ones that needed the help, right?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (35:47.83)
So yeah, it's like, I don't wanna feel, it's like a failure, but at the end of the day, it's like, I saw something, like a sign somewhere, it's like, at the end of the day, you do the best you can with what you got.

Enmanuel Tejada (36:02.268)
Yeah, yeah, and I'd rather you know, I'd rather much I'd much rather that than somebody that just doesn't give a fuck and they're like, oh fuck it You know the world will solve itself So that's awesome. And what would you say Brian? Like let's say that that there's somebody out there that's inspired by your story They are like, wow, you know, I really like this. I want to do this for a different home service I want to do it for plumbers or for HVAC or anything else any other nonprofit What are some grants that they can take advantage of that have helped you guys move forward?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (36:11.542)
Yeah.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (36:32.214)
Yeah, so I wouldn't consider that to be a strong area. We've definitely done well with the marketing and processes, but when it comes to fundraising, it's not as easy. Visions Federal Credit Union, they offer grants for local. We're still in the process of potentially being reviewed by AARP, which is for senior citizens. We've received grants from

Enmanuel Tejada (36:59.004)
Mm -hmm.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (37:02.262)
from Walmart for volunteer hours tracked for the individual volunteers logging into their portal that Walmart provides. And they match like X amount of dollars for the amount of hours worked. We have, for instance, like, you know, Apple made like a $50 donation for a couple hours from an Apple employee that did some volunteer work with us.

I think I mentioned to you also, like in our exploratory chat, Google, we have their advertising grants for nonprofits, so we're able to take advantage of that. We even had Google had a Translate designer from the Google team help with our navigation. And so they logged their hours and Google actually donated on behalf of the hours. So.

There's like creative ways, like we have a guy in Colorado that worked for like Motorola Solutions and they matched the hours with a grant.

Enmanuel Tejada (38:08.572)
So it sounds like these bigger companies, they instead of directly, you know, giving you guys a paycheck or money or funds, they do it through services, right? So they'll have some other talented employees do some work for you guys, which will in turn move you guys forward.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (38:23.19)
Yeah, and it's like, I guess like the way that corporate giving world works is like a lot of them like give time off, like a capped time off to do volunteer service. So it's like kind of helps those employees like feel productive and doing something while stepping away for a day or so.

Enmanuel Tejada (38:42.332)
Gotcha, gotcha. And what are some tools that you would recommend to a brand new nonprofit, for example? I know that you talked about the ad, Google Ads, Grant. There's also the Google G Suite, so you can have email. There's also the Microsoft 365 Suite. What are some other tools that you would recommend somebody to take advantage of as a nonprofit?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (39:04.95)
One thing that has actually we found to be so helpful right out the gates is Canva. They have a non -profit offering, premium offering for those to create their own creatives. I mean, I have my own Photoshop, but that could be time consuming. So Canva has been a tremendous ad, a free for non -profits.

Enmanuel Tejada (39:33.116)
Canva yeah, definitely. I believe actually you mentioned the two Adobe has one as well has a nonprofit

Grant as well not a grant, but they just allow you nonprofits to use their software for free so to speak right And anybody that's listening to this right that's looking to start off a nonprofit definitely look into that right? There's a bunch of tools out there that you can leverage To allow you to push your nonprofit forward right like MailChimp for email marketing Google or Microsoft for setting up your professional emails?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (40:06.038)
We use Aweber for our newsletter and they have a nonprofit discount. So there's a lot out there like that offer nonprofit discounts for sure.

Enmanuel Tejada (40:17.532)
Gotcha. That's awesome. Boom. And one more time, Brian, how can people get in contact with you? I know we're about to wrap this up. I know you have to get back to the kids. How can people get in contact with you if they want to be a partner with you? And then how can they get in contact with you if they're an elderly person, they're listening to this and they need help with their lawn?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (40:37.11)
Yeah, so our primary website is I want to mow your lawn .com. Very straightforward. And so they can either if one's a homeowner or offspring of that homeowner or a case manager, we have an intake form where you fill out the information on the home and we match them up with somebody nearby. And of course, if someone wants to partner with us, you come to our volunteer section of our website.

Fill out your information, upload a profile photo, let me know, let us know what you can do or what you can't do. There's also an email on our website. You can just contact me, Brian, at I want to mow your lawn. I'll do my best to get back to you.

Enmanuel Tejada (41:23.036)
Perfect, awesome.

And again, huge shout out to you, Brian. Huge shout out to I want to mow your lawn. If anybody is interested in becoming a partner, definitely reach out to Brian and his team. If there's anybody here that's elderly, that was in the military or that has some sort of disability and they're not able to take care of the lawn, definitely reach out to Brian. Slots are slim, but please do understand that Brian is working his butt off to expand this thing. And the MOOC providers that joined the program, the more reach that we'll have across the United States and throughout the whole world eventually.

Awesome Yeah, that is awesome Brian and again Thank you so much for what you're doing Brian any closing thoughts on here advice you would give to the audience any closing thoughts You would give out?

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (41:55.958)
That's the hope. Appreciate it.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (42:05.558)
Oh, he's put me around the spot. Any closing thoughts? No, I appreciate you reaching out and it's pretty, like, I appreciate your, you know, grind and keep doing what you're doing. I appreciate you reaching out and giving us some time to share the word. But yeah, um, whether you, with whoever's listening, if you want to join us, great, but I encourage you to get out there and, uh, do something that matters.

Enmanuel Tejada (42:30.332)
do something that matters. That is the message for the rest of the day. Well guys, your hider here from Brian.

do something that matters, right? Whether it's helping your neighbor or whether it's helping a family member, just help somebody, right? There's no better feeling than paying it forward as Brian likes to say. And that, with that right there, that closing thought is gonna wrap up this episode of the Digital Toolbox Podcast. Make sure you guys stay tuned. Make sure you guys follow Brian. Make sure you guys follow I Want To Mow Your Lawn. And have a blessed day, guys. Peace.

Brian @ I Want To Mow Your Lawn (43:00.662)
Thanks for that.