Oscarlyn Elder (00:05):
A call to entrepreneurship comes from ambition, the thrill of the challenge, a sense of leadership, and often from a desire to better one's community. On that last score, how do philanthropy and entrepreneurship intersect? How can one person's journey fulfill both callings? And if an entrepreneur does fill the call of philanthropy, how can they be effective in their efforts? I'm Oscarlyn Elder, co-chief investment officer for Truist Wealth, and this is, I've Been Meaning to Do That, a podcast from Truist Wealth, a purpose-driven financial services company. We explore all the ways you can put your values to work in your financial journey. Today we have a wonderful example of an entrepreneur who has spent a lifetime putting his values into action in ways that have impacted many lives for the better. Ed Satell is the founder and chair of the Satell Institute, a CEO member organization dedicated to corporate social responsibility.
(01:11):
Ed started the institute in 2016 when he was 80 years old and fully endowed it with a $15 million contribution. And since then it has worked with hundreds of nonprofit organizations and their for-profit funders creating unique partnerships. We're also joined by Regina Black Lennox, who is the executive vice president of the Satell Institute. And Tony Conti, the institute's executive vice chairman of the board. Regina and Tony have been working with the institute and Ed since the beginning, so they have a lot of insight into its principles and practice. Thank you all for being here, and I should also mention that if our listeners want to take notes on today's episode, we have a worksheet available that they can download and print. You can find it by selecting this episode at truist.com/dothat.
(02:13):
Ed, welcome to I've Been Meaning to Do That. I'd love to start off our conversation with hearing about your story. You've done a lot of things over the years, but what would you consider your origin story as an entrepreneur to be? How did you get your start?
Ed Satell (02:31):
Well, I was attending college and I saw an ad, it said, "Earn $75 a week," and that was more money than I had heard of, and the job was a job of the times. It was going ahead and teaching young women who had graduated from high school to save a little money during the period between her graduation and her marriage. Remember back in those days, the average age of marriage was 18 and we would encourage them to take some of their money and use it for fun, but take some of their money to put it away for their future. So what we were selling while we were selling cookware, we were really selling "Plan ahead for the future." And that is how I began and we had reverence for the customer and then when we hired people, we trained them. We worked very hard on training and taking care of them.
(03:31):
So if you want to be an entrepreneur, in my head, you had to earn the reputation with your customers, and you had to earn the reputation for the people working for you. Because they could go to another job easily and their loyalty was worth a great deal. And the loyalty comes not from talk, not from other kinds of things, but by doing the good job for people, and doing things that they find worthwhile. And building that was fun.
Oscarlyn Elder (04:02):
Yeah. So what's really interesting about that story, Ed, is you were a salesperson, you were selling cookware, but also you led with financial education. So your role, when you started out the story, I thought you were going to actually tell me you were in financial services, but you were selling cookware. But you really... It sounds like your approach is really based upon sound financial education fundamentals. You were trying to help people launch effectively into adulthood.
Ed Satell (04:32):
You can't be successful if people don't feel their needs are being filled, and they'll go someplace else if they feel their needs are being filled better someplace else. So we always had a drive to do whatever we were doing to be the best at it and give the best services.
Oscarlyn Elder (04:50):
Ed, are there other values that are essential to you as a person that you'd like to share with folks?
Ed Satell (04:56):
Well, the essential parts, you know philanthropy and entrepreneurship have something in common. They're both problem solvers. When you're an entrepreneur, you've got to solve problems. If you're doing the same thing everybody else is going to do, why do they need you? But you discover things, either it's training or development or product or what have you to make the community a better community. And it's the same with philanthropy. You want to give to organizations that help the community better. And every nonprofit has a problem they're trying to solve. It's either poverty or it's loneliness or it's the arts or it's theater or it's education or it's a medical problem. But there's all these humanitarian problems that nonprofits deal with. They don't deal with them all. They choose one and they become good at that, and the only way they survive is if people contribute to them. So they have to have a good offering. So I think entrepreneurship and philanthropy is something very important and common, they're both problem solvers.
Oscarlyn Elder (06:10):
So Ed, before the Satell Institute, before you established your foundation, your private foundation, corporate trust, how did you go about living your values in your company? What did that look like for you?
Ed Satell (06:25):
A few things. One, we had to have great products, and we had to have great training, and we had to have employees that were loyal and believed in what we were doing. Those are three terrific principles. I became a young member of something called YPO, Young Presidents Organization, which was a major step forward for me. Because I was then meeting with all these other people who were young presidents and going through the different problems they had. And we would talk about it and we'd bring in speakers, we'd bring in people that could offer solutions to things that we were dealing with. And learning from others who were doing the same thing, not the same business, but were in entrepreneurship was a fascinating thing for me. To have an opportunity to learn from those people that were already doing things. Secondly, through them, I learned about the boards they were serving on and how good they felt about giving back and why they were supporting these organizations.
(07:30):
And some of the people I was close to there invited me to join a board. So then somebody else recommended another one, and suddenly I was on four boards. I was on the board of the International [inaudible 00:07:46], for international students. I was on the board of the World Affairs Council. I was in [inaudible 00:07:52] medical research. And I stopped for a minute and say, "What are you doing? You're just joining boards because people are asking you to." So I thought about it for a few days and I developed a philosophy. There were five areas that I was interested in. If the people came and it fit one of those five areas, I would be interested. And if it wasn't one of those five areas, it'd be for other people to do things.
(08:16):
And the five areas I chose, first was disadvantaged children. I believe that every child is entitled to a happy childhood and many don't get that. Then the second group I took an interest in was Children of Promise. The third area I took an interest in was basic research. The fourth area was the community. I lived in the community I loved, Philadelphia, I emigrated there from Massachusetts, fell in love was Philadelphia and helped with community things. And the fifth thing was my own heritage and those were my five areas of giving. If it was outside that, I left it for others. It was inside that, I then had great interest in it to make it a better community.
Oscarlyn Elder (08:59):
So Ed, what I hear in your story is that there was a time kind of early in your efforts where your effort was maybe more scattershot. Folks were coming to you asking you to do things. You were engaged in multiple boards, and it sounds like you had this epiphany. "Limited resources, like have resources, have limited time, limited energy, and I need to have a philosophical view that I can exercise around where I'm going to spend my energy and my time and my financial resources." And then you develop that framework and put it to work in your life.
Ed Satell (09:38):
And I ended up supporting a lot of nonprofits and got a lot of joy out of it. And even more important, our people liked it, our employers liked it, they stayed longer. It was easier to hire them because they believed what we were doing for the community. So some of our self-interest was being supported, some of the community's self-interest was being supported, and some of our employees interests were being supported. All in a wholesome kind of way because having a better community is a lot better than having a lesser community.
Oscarlyn Elder (10:20):
Let's arc over to the Satell Institute. You were 80 years old when you... I am guessing-
Ed Satell (10:29):
80 years young.
Oscarlyn Elder (10:30):
80 years young, and I was about to say when you had the vision for the Satell Institute, but my guess is that you had the vision, you probably had long held the vision. You can tell us if I'm right or wrong about that, but that you started, you founded the institute in 2016 when you were 80 years young, which is incredibly inspiring. So a couple of questions about the Satell Institute and about you, like why not just retire? What at 80 compelled you to go, "I'm going to invest more of my financial resources and perhaps more importantly than the financial resources, my time, my energy, my very being in so many ways into building this institute"? Where does that come from?
Ed Satell (11:14):
I was in YPO when oftentimes people would ask me for help, but YPOers are very impatient people. They want to hear about it in five minutes, and do it. And it took more time. I was not able to be as helpful as I wanted to. Regina actually said to me when I was thinking of retiring, said, "You always wanted to help YPOers do better and give back more to the community." Said, "Maybe this is the time." I called, set meetings up with donors, with heads of nonprofits, with other community leaders, and I talked about the idea.
(11:52):
And by the way, Wharton came, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School. They came, they wanted to become part of this. We discussed it over a period of six or nine months, having meetings every month or two. And out of this came a series of ideas. One of the ideas was I would endow the organization because I hated when rich people came to me and asked me to support a charity that they wanted to support when they could do it all themselves. Or maybe they had a sick child and it was a disease situation, they could do it themselves.
(12:26):
Instead, they went to everybody else. And I didn't want people thinking I had my hand in their pocket. So I set up this endowment where we paid all the expenses, but it was a CEO organization and I wanted to separate the doers from the talkers. To do that we said that you have to give a gift of minimum of a hundred thousand dollars over four years and to become a member. It's just as expensive to handle a thousand dollar gift as it is to handle a hundred thousand dollar gift. We needed to be efficient. And I also insisted on the nonprofits getting four-year gifts. So it was 25,000 a year for four years minimum, they could do more and many did more, but that was the minimum. And the reason four years, no company can work in a one-year financial cycle.
(13:19):
Certainly your bank cannot work on a one-year financial cycle and neither can nonprofits. So if you give them a gift one year, what their assets are, the programs they run and the staff that runs them, what are they going to do the next year if they don't get the gift? So we pioneered four-year gifts, and to the best of my knowledge, we're the first one to go ahead and make that an absolute requirement. So that became three components. We would put up an endowment which would pay the expenses so we didn't have their hand in their pocket. Second, they would give a hundred thousand dollars to a nonprofit, but they chose the nonprofit, not us.
(13:59):
And that gave us enormous diversity. We didn't realize it at the beginning, but I said as soon as we got 30 members, we would hold the conference. And I wrote to everybody and we told them about the conference and told them who was going to be there. And they were the leading business people, many of them, the leading business people in the community. And when they got to the meeting, they all said, "I can't believe who's here." But they said, "This is a room we want to be part of." And what came of that? Learning from each other, that was a major thing. It wasn't me getting up and talking and telling them or somebody else telling them great things. It was them learning from each other. "What are you doing for the community? How's it affecting your hiring? How's it affecting your retention?" And they learned that they could hire better talent because young people want to work for companies that give back.
(14:53):
So that's how we grew and developed, and we grew slowly at the beginning. Last year is by far our biggest year, we now have given over 125 million to nonprofits that our members chose each one where it goes. And we have a goal of opening chapters in all 50 cities, major cities in the country. And if we do that and have the membership like we've gathered in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and what have you, we will have $2.7 trillion we'll be giving every four years. And I believe that those who are taking a lot out of the community should give back to the community.
Oscarlyn Elder (15:34):
So Ed, I want to recap for our listeners, the Satell Institute in order for a for-profit CEO to join, for business to be able to join. Part of your foundational values is that that business has got to commit to funding a multi-year agreement, at least a hundred thousand dollars over four years to a nonprofit that business chooses. So what I'm hearing in that is, "We believe in long-term commitments. We believe in agency of the business to choose the partner that they want to fund." That's really important. I also heard that your institute is really focused on peer learning and sharing that that's a critical element, bringing folks together, that is ultimately essential. You believe in doers, you believe in people who are solving problems, who want to solve problems. Talk is cheap, action is where it's at. So your organization is really focused on helping to facilitate those actions, if you will, the support of the business community to nonprofits.
Ed Satell (16:41):
That's a huge element. Yes. I'll just add one thing, that our members are allowed to invite other CEOs as a guest to our CEO conferences. So they get to meet everybody first and they get to hear the talks and the idea exchange, and then they can choose to become a member or not a member.
Oscarlyn Elder (17:04):
And for a nonprofit CEO to become a member of the Satell Institute, in essence there has to be a funder on the business side. Am I right about that?
Ed Satell (17:15):
That's correct.
Oscarlyn Elder (17:16):
Like if I'm the executive director of a nonprofit and I want to be part of this incredible peer exchange and opportunity. Then in essence I need to have a funder who's committing at least a hundred thousand dollars over four years and kind of together they have membership in [inaudible 00:17:34].
Ed Satell (17:33):
And a genius in that area is Regina. Nonprofits come and say, "How can we become members?" And she teaches them how to go to their board members or how to get board members who will sponsor them. And she's terrific at that. And now non-profits are just as important as the for-profits-
Oscarlyn Elder (17:52):
That's right.
Ed Satell (17:52):
... In bringing in new members. So they're all participating together.
Oscarlyn Elder (18:03):
I want to bring Regina and Tony into the conversation, and you all have been involved with Ed and the Satell Institute since the beginning. He's done a terrific job of explaining, I think the framework of the institute and how folks engage. Regina, can you start to unpack for us what has been the impact of the Satell Institute?
Regina Black Lennox (18:25):
It's one of my favorite questions, Oscarlyn. It's been really exciting to watch it develop, and Tony has been by our side this entire time using his great connections in our region to spread the word. And as the word has spread, leaders have begun to understand the importance of that four-year commitment. If you ask me the single thing I'm proudest of, it's the fact that today nonprofits tell us all the time, two things. Number one, that the Satell logo has become a good housekeeping seal of approval, if you would, which is very unexpected and very wonderful. And number two, that four years, a multi-year gift is becoming not an anomaly, but it's becoming a norm. And that's hugely important for our non-profit friends, as Ed said so eloquently, they have to have multi-year funding to be able to have great projects.
(19:18):
We have so many impacts. If I started telling you all my impacts stories, literally we'd be here all day. I'll share just a couple. Our CEOs I love dearly because they are... At the same time they're great leaders, they're also great learners. In fact, we have an expression, "Leader to leader and learner to learner," and that's really true. They take away things that other CEOs say, they come back and ask great questions, and if it really resonates, they implement it within their own organization. And we have many stories of that. They share these at our nonprofit leadership summits. They share these at our CEO conferences. This is a part of what makes Satell impactful in our region, that there is not just learning, but then it becomes action oriented. Tony, I'm going to toss it to you to give your take on that because I know you have a close community take as well.
Anthony Conti (20:12):
Thank you, Regina and Oscarlyn. It's fascinating when you listen to Ed's story and you project it forward to the principles of the institute. Because so much of what Ed talked about his experiences have been, from cookware sales to YPO, are the key principles that have evolved and grown to make the institute successful. Ed mentioned the first conference, the 30 executives and people saying, "My goodness, I'm happy. I want to be, I need to be in the room." Well, so much of what the progression of the institute is built upon from the corporate side are the CEOs recognizing the value of being in the room with each other. Regina, our last conference, how many CEOs attended that conference?
Regina Black Lennox (21:18):
Over 500, Tony. It was phenomenal.
Anthony Conti (21:22):
And Oscarlyn, as you know, as one of our speakers, you could feel the energy and the enthusiasm in the room of corporate and nonprofit CEOs. In so many ways that unique spirit comes from the experiences of Ed and gets translated into actions through CEOs. And as we all know, when you want to get something done in the corporate space, you need the CEO engaged. When you want to make an impact in the community, you need the corporate space to be willing to lead. The Satell Institute has created a forum, a vehicle for that to happen. And that all comes back to where I started, which is Ed's history, his vision and his commitment.
Oscarlyn Elder (22:17):
With that, Ed, I'm kind of interested in... Given all that you've done in your lifetime and you're creating a building impact still. I just heard you throw out a number over 2 trillion as far as the financial impact that you're looking to have in the coming years, which is incredible. You have very clear goals about how you want to escalate the impact here. If someone's listening today and they're a bit overwhelmed by, frankly, your success at doing this. Because I think sometimes we see someone who's built something and we immediately think, "Oh, that's too much. I couldn't do that." "We're in awe, but folks may be overwhelmed." I'm kind of interested in the advice that you would have to someone who's listening to your incredibly inspiring story.
(23:05):
What would you tell them is the first step? Like if they do want to make a larger impact, if they're thinking about whether it's forming a private foundation or if they're thinking about... Perhaps they're an entrepreneur who has an expansive business, who's thinking about shifting the culture of the business [inaudible 00:23:26] to include elements of corporate social responsibility. Or perhaps it's an early career individual who's just finished college and is in a first job.
(23:36):
And so it's a wide variety of folks, but I'm kind of interested in hearing what's your advice regarding that first action? Because you're a doer. You are a doer, so action is important to you.
Ed Satell (23:50):
Well, it is, and action leads to positive things. And if you want to have a future, you need to be involved and learn from other people. We're going to open chapters in cities around the country, and if somebody's interested in that, and it takes local people in each area. For instance, we've started a chapter in Pittsburgh, which is going very well and has attracted some fabulous people. And for people interested in that, and they're a CEO, we can help work with them, so you get introduced to other CEOs. There's always opportunities, every day there's opportunities.
(24:29):
You meet people who are sick, you meet people who got disadvantaged, you meet people who lost a home. You meet people under all sorts of circumstances. And America has become the greatest country in the history of the world. And that's because we're in the best country in the world for free enterprise. So many people who have freedom to go ahead and start something and do it.
Anthony Conti (24:53):
Oscarlyn, may I just take another lens on the question you asked Ed?
Oscarlyn Elder (24:58):
Sure.
Anthony Conti (24:59):
If I step back and comment on the many, many things I've learned from Ed, one of the things that I think as it relates to what could you do if you were outside with an interest.
(25:11):
If you think about it, Ed started doing good as a high school college student, and he never stopped doing good even when he got to be 80 years old and 88 years old. And the messaging, the messaging that comes through is no matter what stage of life you are in, whether you are young, middle, or even older, don't ever underestimate the impact you can make if you're committed to do something good. And that's really what Ed has demonstrated, no matter what stage of life he's been in. So when I think about your good question to Ed, that's what I learned from him. No matter what stage of life you're in, you have the potential to do good if you intend to do so.
Oscarlyn Elder (26:08):
Yeah, I think that's very powerful, Tony. And let me turn to both you and Regina to ask. We've talked a lot about the history of the Satell Institute, kind of where you all are today. Ed, I'll draw you into this as well, but what does the future hold for the Satell Institute outside of, again, I heard that $2 trillion number that came from Ed. So that tells me what's in store is that you are really looking to grow. But within that future, what are the challenges that you see and how are you thinking about tackling those challenges?
Ed Satell (26:44):
Everybody has a capacity. Not everybody has the same capacity, the same financial capacity, but we can all work to have a better society, a better community for our children and our grandchildren. I think most people want that. They have to also learn the thrill of doing that and how good it feels. And that is the spirit that I carry.
Regina Black Lennox (27:11):
Oscarlyn, I think your question was a great one about where the institute is going, and I think Ed is answering it as he says. The spirit that he carries, he sets a big vision. And Tony, you alluded to this as well. He really sets that big vision and then we figure out ways to make it move forward. The current vision is national expansion. Well, since the very beginning with our founding research director from Penn, Peter Frumpkin, we've had a guiding phrase, "Think local, but act national."
(27:44):
So we're now moving on that act national component. We're now looking to do that expansion. We have wonderful regional vice presidents who are going to carry on Ed's vision. They're going to put their own stamp on it. They're going to look at cities and regions that have different challenges than our home port of the greater Philadelphia area. And that's going to be the biggest challenge. How do we become important? How do we become relevant? How do we align with other regions, other cities, other needs? But Ed has always had one mantra, CEOs trust other CEOs, might think it's that trust that will carry us.
Anthony Conti (28:26):
Oscarlyn, so much of the elements of the Satell Institute success as it began in Philly, really are applicable really everywhere in the country and certainly in every major city. What we've learned is the way you develop, city by city or region by region isn't necessarily exactly the same.
(28:46):
So the learnings that we've experienced, we believe now really help us be positioned to be able to take on this huge vision that Ed has created for us. And when we started Oscarlyn, we were very low profile. Ed's principle was built on, "We're not going to talk about ourselves until we've done enough that we're really proud of what we've done." And for... I'm going to suggest Ed and Regina for the first two, maybe even three years, we stayed very low profile until we got to the point that we felt now we have the right credible story to tell. Now we're at a point that we can build on that.
(29:32):
And accomplishing the visions that Ed creates is not necessarily an easy thing to do because his visions are big, big, big. But with Regina's help and with the cadre of our staff. But more importantly, I think, or certainly just as importantly, our members, because we are a member-led organization of CEOs, that vision can actually come to fruition. We're seeing it happen day by day, week by week, month by month.
Oscarlyn Elder (30:05):
That's fantastic.
Ed Satell (30:06):
I'm very happy that that's what's happened. It's the members talking to other members is what this is all about. And it's the feelings that I just talked about that they talk about. Every generation must fight for freedom and to have more. So thank you for what you do and you bring things to people's attention and you do terrific work. So thank you.
Oscarlyn Elder (30:30):
Thank you. I'm going to leave this conversation with, I think a few key thoughts. The first is, number one, have bold vision. So Ed, just repeatedly throughout this conversation, I am struck by how your action is often really fueled and based upon a bold vision that reflects your values. So we believe here that values are essential to understanding your purpose, are also very clearly essential to the vision that you've established. And then importantly, it is great to take action, to be a problem solver, to be that doer, but take action. So have the vision, establish the goal, and then go after it. And then the other element that's really resonating with me is that a framework continues to help you on the journey. So having a framework that guides your action, that guides your decision making, all of that that's rooted in your value system is just critically important.
(31:38):
So I hope our listeners can take away those thoughts and apply it to their lives. Again, I feel like it's very applicable regardless of what stage of life you're in, regardless of whether or not you're the CEO or you are starting out your first role out of college or out of high school. I think there's something in this story and Ed's story, the Satell Institute story that we can all take away, and in taking that away, hopefully take action and work to make our communities better. We've got a tradition on this podcast of asking our guests what they've been meaning to do and what they'll commit to do in the future. Regina, anything that you want to go public with that you've been meaning to do, that you're going to tell us about and then maybe mark off your list in the near future?
Regina Black Lennox (32:29):
I love it. My to-do list is headed by getting Ed's story into a book. I'm pushing him all the time, but I think that it's a great thing to get it down, to get into a book, so that it can inspire others, and I'm really committed to that.
Oscarlyn Elder (32:45):
Fantastic. Ed, Regina and Tony, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your journey with us. And thank you also to our listeners for joining us. If you like this episode, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and tell friends and family about it. If you have a question for me or suggestion for this podcast, email me at dothat@truist.com. I'll be back soon for another episode of I've Been Meaning to Do That, the podcast that gets you moving toward fulfilling your purpose and achieving your financial goals. Talk to you soon.
