How Dr. Jonathan Donath Facilitated over $29 Million in Charity Through Daily Giving

Welcome back to another episode of the What It Takes podcast. Today I have a very exciting guest, Dr. Jonathan Donath. Yeah? Yeah. Donath. Okay. Dr. Jonathan Donath is a doctor. He has a full-time chiropractic chiropractic practice. >> Very good. Yeah. And he started this non-for-profit called Daily Giving, which to date has distributed a little over 29 million dollars. That number itself is mind-boggling. Today we're going to talk about what it's like running a practice full-time, what it's like running a non-for-profit full-time. You're distributing close to 10 million dollars a year, which is mind-boggling. Fundraising, we'll talk about all that. Welcome to the podcast. How are you? Thank you for having me. >> [music] >> Okay, so for those listening who don't know who you are, how'd you get into like Okay, obviously you went to college to become a doctor. How'd you get into both of these worlds? Let's go ahead. Introduce yourself. Okay. Um Jonathan Donath, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Wow. Well, you don't want to be there today. Yeah. Okay. >> you know, it's like it's like everything. It's like when I go to Israel, my patients are like, "Oh, be careful." They say. >> [laughter] >> Like it's like in Minneapolis, like you know, you know, you live there, it's fine. It's you know, it could be 5 miles away and it's fine. But essentially, uh yep. Quick story, I I went to high school in Chicago, Skokie, Illinois, cuz there's no Jewish high school there At the time there was no Jewish high school in Minneapolis. What's the community like? It's really There's I'm assuming there's like >> 500 from families, maybe more now, I don't know. Like I don't know exactly, you know. My parents have lived there since 1978. My father's been a professor at the University of Minnesota. He just retired. So, Where'd they move to? They still live >> They still They're still there. They're moving to Teaneck this year after living there since 1978. So, nice to have my parents coming east. Um me and my three siblings live in New York and New Jersey. Okay. And um went to high school in Chicago, then did you know, a year and a half in Israel, then went to Yeshiva University for 4 years, then I went and became a chiropractor, did 4 years of chiropractic school. And then I started my practice. Uh Why chiropractor? Good question. Um I had I thought I was going to go into business, and then I went to Camp Asc as a counselor at Camp Asc, and >> Same. You did Asc? >> Yeah. So, I spent two summers in Camp Asc, and that really really changed what I wanted to do. I really wanted to help people, and then I decided, okay, I want to be some kind of doctor. I'm come from a family with a lot of doctors in my family. Um and then I was deciding what kind of doctor to become, and it was a it was a hard decision. Uh I did a lot of I I spent time at different doctors' offices, and I really when I spent time in a chiropractor's office, um I found it so interesting that patients were coming in pain, and just with people's hands or even maybe some machinery, whatever, but basically with hands and not with medication trying to just cover up with symptom, but they were trying to get to the root cause of the problem. So, I love that like watching people come in literally in pain and walking out in less pain or no pain. Without heavy medication or heavy machinery. surgery, and um I've always been a really big sports fan. And I really wanted to help athletes and treat athletes, and so in that world you kind of do, you know, there's the orthopedic surgery, which takes like 12 years after college. Um and this was 4 years after college, or I you know, you become a trainer, but then you're not a doctor. So, I it's kind of That's how I settled on chiropractic. I really liked the idea of um one day I want to make aliyah, and I and I and um and being a chiropractor in Israel works as well. Um so, yeah, it just kind of checked all the boxes. I wanted to treat athletes. I wanted to help people. I wanted I liked that it was a people come to the chiropractor and they have a personal relationship cuz I am the medicine. Meaning so, they come, let's say six times or eight times, I get to know my patients, and then maybe they don't come for 8 years, and they come back with another problem, and then I help them again. So, it's a really nice prac you know, profession where you get to help people. Like sometimes if you even if you're like a neurologist or an orthopedist, you might treat someone once, and they never see them again. You don't necessarily develop a relationship with them. And I'm a relationship kind of guy. I like going deep. And so, it kind of checked all those boxes, and it's been wonderful. This is my 20th year in practice, and it's been uh it's been a real bracha. Um since this podcast um revolves sometimes around careers, where does chiropractor fall on the salary spectrum from doctors? It's it's it's >> Not only your own practice. Yeah, I I would say that >> a 5-year doctor, 10-year doctor make? Much lower than a medical doctor, in general. 100? 150? 200? 250? >> yeah. I think the average chiropractor probably makes the average chiropractor makes between 100 and 150 um a year. >> 10 years experience? Yeah. And I think that >> Wow, that's awesome. >> Yeah, that's it. Then you have then you have, you know, people have their own businesses, they they understand they how to make money, and you know, and then make a a lot more. Um But but but if you're an associate, if you're working for another chiropractor in the business, you're not, you know, probably 100 to 150 is is on or even 150 would be on the very high end if you're working for someone else. Really? Yeah, but that's it. >> to make good money, you have to own your own practice. >> Like I just found out this week I I found out like a judge certain judges make like under 150. I was like stunned by that. I was totally stunned. Like I even like 125, 130. I'm like, "How do they make a living?" you know. So, it's like anything. There's there's There's chiropractors that make millions and millions of dollars a year. So, it just depends on if >> If you want to be a business person you are, and >> Right. how you know, do you want to do you want that kind of life where you have many doctors working for you, stuff like that. You know, you could be a psychologist, and you could just treat see one person at a time, or you could have a psychology practice with like eight doctors working for you and make millions of Right like so, it's like anything, very similar to that. Um are there chiropractors that have large practices with multiple locations that they still see patients? Cuz I find it as a business grows, me as a recruiter, I used to do recruiting placements. Yeah. And now I'm running a business, training my team, hiring, recruiting, marketing, finance. >> Exactly. Very similar. Chiropractors, like if they knew in chiropractic school for years, you're you're studying and you're learning, and no one's really teaching you about business. And I actually think that one of the great things I I got I don't [clears throat] know, I don't say lucky, but fortunate is I kind of always had a business head. I was going to go into business. Then I decided to become a chiropractor. So, it really helped me a lot because I'm a business owner. Like at the end of the day, I have a practice. I run my own business. Like no one's No one teaches you this stuff. So, you you know, it's like I'm an entrepreneur. Like I didn't know I was 26 years old. I started my practice from scratch. And that put me where it is today. >> A lot of people nervous to start their own business. Yeah, I was, but at the same time, car At that time, 20 years ago, chiropractors maybe were making I out of school, this is like after 4 years of college and 4 years of chiropractic school, How much was that? I probably could have made like $40,000. So, I'm like In my in my head I'm like, how bad like on my own, starting from scratch, like I refuse to believe I can't make $40,000 on my own. That was kind of that Right? So, I was less nervous because it was like, okay, you know, let me see. Let me try just work for myself. I worked for a different chiropractor every summer within chiropractic school. Um so, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about what I wanted to do, what I didn't want to do, and then I started my practice, and uh thank God, Hashem blessed me, and it was really kind of from the beginning I got a lot of good advice. Um chiropractors told me I asked every chiropractor I went to go see. I said, "What would be one piece of advice you'd give me?" And they almost all said the same thing. True. >> not take insurance. I would be out of network for insurance. Because if you're in network, so people want to use their insurance. So, they go on insurance pays so little to chiropractors, it's like such a joke that you have to see tons and tons of patients. So, maybe the insurance company will send you patients, but then what are you getting? $20 a visit? So, how much time can you spend for $20 a visit? A minute? 2 minutes? 3 minutes? Right? >> So, I want to have a relationship like so, I I So, I'm out of network, and I said, "Okay, I'll start. See how it goes. If in 6 months I'm I'm not making a living, then I'll I'll start accepting insurance." And that was like the best thing I ever did because you know, at the time, again, I'm used to not making money. I was like >> [snorts] >> I just came out of school. I you know, I was 26 years old. I had no salary. My wife was a preschool teacher. She made just enough to like cover our expenses. It's much harder, and this would be a good for your podcast, for your listeners to understand, like there's something called handcuffing, right? Like Golden handcuffs. >> Right. Like if you if you if if you're if you come out of school and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I need money." and you're working for someone else, and you're making 40, then 50, then 60, then 80, then 100, and you're like, "You want to start again from scratch." and you have three kid little kids, and you're like like, "Wait." You're stuck. Cuz you're taking a big risk. >> Health insurance. >> so much easier for me when I didn't need the money, you know, um my son was Get out. >> Yeah. So, I always remember how long I've been in practice. Wow. >> Yeah. Um How'd you get patients? That's I mean, Yeah, what's funny is I'm sure we'll get to later, but I really feel looking back cuz I had never ever intended on starting my own non-profit. But um I look back now at every skill that Hashem gave me. Like every every good middah is because was needed for Daily Giving, but it also really has served me in my chiropractic practice. Cuz as a chiropractor, you know, most medical doctors, they're on insurance companies. Right. And so, I remember one time my son needed a pediatric pediatric um ophthalmologist. That's me. Child eye doctor. They're >> Why is that a special >> They're rare, right? So, I think it was like a 3-month wait to see them. And then we went and we saw this guy, and he had zero bedside manner. Like zero. And you're like, you just don't feel comfortable. You're like, I don't I mean, but what do you have a choice? You wait 3 months, you're going to listen to him, right? So, chiropractors, if you're not a good you don't have good people skills, and you don't have something that they feel like, "I want to come to you." Like they can go to 10 other doctors that take their insurance. Now, they don't realize they're going to get 1/10 of the service and 1/10 of the the skill level, but that's the only way that person could get people is through being on insurance. Right? So, if if I if I specialize in 10 different things, and I'm constantly doing training to get better and better, and be able to get people better in four visits instead of 30 visits, Right. then they come to me because I have those skills. Bedside manner is such a big thing. What'd you say? Bedside manner. Having a good like being a normal human being. >> Yeah. But on the flip side, I feel like somebody's going to school for 10 to 15 years, Yeah. it's going to make them a little coco. >> [laughter] >> So, it might affect their brain. I'm kidding. There are many nice doctors out there. I wanted to become a pediatrician. Wow. Me, too, at some point. But I went to college one semester, Yeah. failed miserably. >> Just no zitzfleisch for those who like ADHD is the English word for that. Um but maybe one day if I retire and I could afford it then I learn how to focus a little bit better, maybe I'll become a pediatrician one day. What would you say was the biggest mistake you made earlier on in your chiropractic business? Um biggest mistake I made Some of the mistakes that if your son or child wanted to get into the business, open their own practice what advice would you give them? I'd say don't take on too much overhead too quickly. Staff? Staffing. >> Rent? Like having a nicer have a bigger office, nicer right right you know, it was it was very easy in those early days when I started like getting it and started getting and I would I was in kind of the days where when I started I kind of got search engine optimization and like Google pay per click. I used to pay like 10 cents for the word attorney at disc, now it's like I pay like $7 for someone to click on herniated disc. Right? So I was like splitting just like a couple hundred dollars on marketing and I was getting patients worth thousands. So it was like I was like starting to get that and very early on and that was really really helpful and I learned over time that you need to spend money to make money. And someone one of my mentors early on said if I give you a dollar if you give me a dollar and I hand you back a five, would you do it? I'm like of course. They're like well if you give me a hundred and I right it's the same thing 100 500 1000 5000. So I I got that early. So that was very helpful that I was able I was I was willing to spend more money. I understood what the value of a a patient was to me like a lifetime value. And so I would be willing to spend a couple hundred dollars on marketing to get that patient to walk through the door because I knew that once they met me once I show them I know what I'm doing I can get them out of pain that they value me and they're going to come back they're going to refer their friends and family and it's got real real serious value. So that was really great. That was that was that would really help me but at the same time, you know, taking out overhead the hardest thing in any business I believe this that you can tell me what you think of your business is employees. I mean you know, just through the years it's like there's a lot of drama. A lot of drama and having the right employees and having that peace of mind is is like it's you can go on vacation for two weeks and the business is still running. Right now my my my office is open right now. My doctor's treating other patients right now this minute. Like it's amazing and I trust him and he trusts me and it's great but finding the right people it's like it's difficult. That's what you do. You need more people like you. >> [snorts] >> Um For marketing you hired somebody or that's a project you took on to learn it and then gave it over? Yeah, I always did my own marketing for my practice. In daily giving in my nonprofit I certainly did it for a long time. We just hired a director of marketing last year. Thrilled to have someone else now. Shout out to Barry Mitzman from Las Vegas. Oh wow, I remember that. She she posted that doing their marketing. She's amazing and so it's so great having you know, I'm like self-taught marketer but I market my practice for You know, you're one in a million. Our doctors like doctors like you normally don't exist. Yeah, I I I think it's I think it's rare and I just kind of had I just kind of had a business mind so it was really helpful in my in my practice. I've met people I remember one time I was in chiropractic even before I was in practice I met this guy you know, there's not that many from chiropractors. I remember in chiropractic school there was a from I was like you know, my fourth year and he was a first year student and the biology teacher asked me to like tutor him and I got to know him a little bit and I'm like this guy does not have the people skills. As a chiropractor you're just not going to be successful if you don't have good people skills. It's just you tell him. I told him. I I said I it was very difficult but I was like I I know I'm doing this guy a favor. He's not he's not a hundred thousand two hundred thousand dollars in debt yet. Like you go down that road there's a lot of chiropractors that fail. They don't do well. It's like it's like you know, so you you could be you could have no bedside manner like I said as a medical doctor and still be highly successful financially. Maybe you won't be you know. Right. So Are there certain paths in medicine in the health care medical sector that you don't need a good bedside manner? I mean look, I think a bedside manner is important for everything. Right? >> Billion percent. You know, but it's not as like Yeah, but there are some brilliant people. Yeah, there are people like I I mean I know some surgeons personally that are have great bedside manner but then there are also surgeons that have terrible bedside manner, you know. Where you have less interaction with the clients or the Sometimes exactly sometimes that's why they did it. I'm trying to think of one doctor recently that was just telling me he likes something because he specifically oh, I know. Um a friend of mine's an ER doctor. Okay. And he's kind of he's a real introvert and he told me I I do I do night shifts. He's like I love night shifts and he said it's actually a lot of the doctors and the nurses on night shifts they all like the night shifts because purposely they just don't like dealing with the people as much. So it's just quieter they just don't have to deal with all the stress of the families like at 3:00 in the morning it's like they got it. They know what they're doing but they don't have to have all the extra of like dealing with the patients and the families of patients. Which was I was like it was really interesting to me like that you could be an introvert and not like people and be a doctor. It's funny that they would pick medicine. I feel like if you're an introvert there's there are other industries that have less interaction with people. Software developers like minimal. Yeah, but I think it still feeds that part of you that wants to be we all want to be meaningful. We all want to be help we want to help. So even if you're just cuz you're an introvert you're not like there are right? It's worse when you have like teachers that hate people. That's not good. Right. We we all know people like that you have through the years you you're like you know, why did you go into become a rebbe if you don't like children? How did the school hire you as a rebbe if you know? Um What was the path growing your practice? I mean you start off on your own. Yeah. What was rent like then? Uh boy, good question. Rent rent was like I remember I had a great this woman I I was pregnant my wife was pregnant with our first child and I was like I said he was born in the first night of practice so I was like looking I knew I wanted to start my practice from scratch and I found we had a childbirth class at this like center. Okay. And in the center I remember walking in and there was a huge tray of business cards of all these different practitioners in the center. Okay. And it was just a warm place and just not a very typical like office-y thing and they had and I remember going through and they had medical doctors, neurologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, physical therapists um nutritionists there's like just a whole plethora of different doctors and I remember going through I'm like oh shoot there's a chiropractor I was like I was like upset cuz I was like wow this place would be so great to start my practice. So I I asked the person like who's in charge and I talked to them and lo and behold the chiropractor that was there was only there twice a week from Tuesday Tuesday and Thursday mornings from like 9:00 to 2:00. And the rest of his time he had a practice in Manhattan. So I was like can I rent his room the rest of the time the rest of the week and they're like yeah. So I shared so it was amazing I shared this one office with this other chiropractor and I said so I started at 3:00 on Tuesday and Thursday which was the greatest brocha of my like one of the greatest brocha ever because to this day I don't start work on Tuesday and Thursday until 3:00 p.m. So you're in that same place? I no no no I moved like But the schedule stayed. But the schedule stayed and then you know, in 2020 four or 25 I stopped working on Tuesdays completely to do daily giving full time. Um yeah, so today here we are on a Tuesday I'm I'm off you know, even my practice is open but I this is This is coming out in two months but it's being recorded on a Tuesday. Yeah, exactly. When was there a time that you feel like why did I get into business open my own practice versus becoming a W-2 employee? When your office manager calls up and quits and because they have a family issue and they're like I'm just sorry I just can't I just can't come. I can't come to work anymore. I'm done. That doesn't make sense. Family issue you need to quit your job. Listen again in 20 years a lot happens right? So you know, just just drama drama from you're just you sometimes you're like wow I just want to work for I just want to get a paycheck. Right. Or when you when you're going on vacation and you're like okay it's not just the vacation cost $5,000 it's the lost week of work. >> [snorts] >> Um and till I had a doctor like it was many many years it was just me. I was the only doctor. How long? Um I think probably like took maybe 10 11 12 years somewhere in that range when I started when I hired my my next my first doctor and then I've this is I'm on my third doctor and he's been with me for like over five years six years. Um When you say third doctor you now have three? No no no not now just different you know, like they you know, had a year or two they stay on maybe they start their own practice maybe they move you know. Do you see them as partners? Or as employees? My current my current doctor even though he's salaried and he doesn't own equity in my practice I see him as a partner and I think he feels that and it's really great. We have a great relationship and I think that's part of it is cuz now I really do see him as a partner whereas the others I definitely saw as employees. I don't I I have a lot of our cards at home with them because because I can trust him and I know that when I'm gone he's taking care of my patients in a really high level. Um and I can depend on him. It allows me to travel, do things for daily giving. I go on trips to Israel. I've been I've been to Israel like since October 7th like five or six times. I do a mission every year where I take philanthropists to Israel to see the stuff cuz we give money to. So it allows me the freedom. I was just telling him yesterday actually I I actually gave him a raise yesterday. Yeah and I and I sat down with him and I said remind and because there times where he's not Jewish um [snorts] and I said to him I gave him the raise and I said I just want you to know I and I've said this before that I I mean this in my heart that I want you to know I hope you feel meaning besides treating my the patients in our practice I hope it gives you satisfaction knowing what you're allowing me to do for the world. And and you know, save lives and give so much money to poor people and do all these things I hope you like take satisfaction of it because it's because that I you have you that I can depend on you that I'm able to go out and do these things to help. We'll get to that. $29 million today is just a mind boggling number. When did you feel like in your practice that you Wow, I made it or I'm getting there? Uh I don't know if you ever feel like you made it, you know? We're from Jews, right? Like tuition costs so much money, you know, I'm I'm never at the point where I was like, "Okay, I have enough." What about when you were able to afford like your first nice vacation or buy a nice watch? Yeah, um yeah, to me I'm I'm I'm I'm kind of lucky to not really need Skoch miss like I want to just be okay. Like I want to be able to What do you mean? Like a miser. Oh, yeah. I mean, look, I'm sure we can get we can get that later, but definitely like the biggest I I remember I specifically remember the biggest check I ever wrote for tzedakah and like having my best month ever. Like I mean like no question. And then every time And then I I did it many other times and every time cuz we're like I have my own business. Like I don't I don't I'm not salary. There's There's good months and there's bad months. There's months where I I barely cover my overhead and there's months that thank God we're They're like plentiful months, right? >> Right. And so um I definitely see that correlation. I mean, I I am like look, I've become such a proponent of the brocha of giving. Like the the biggest I give a you know, there's a I give a TED Talk on it. Like the biggest brocha of giving like the cheat code to life is giving. It's one of the biggest cheat codes and that it's like my passion right cuz I see it. I know it. I get people talk to me about it and and I've become more of a giver. I wasn't always I had my own practice. My wife didn't work out out of the house. Um no one's saving up for my kids' college. No one's saving for retirement. So that brings like pressure. And then I'm also the grandson of four Holocaust survivors. So then you've got my parents grew up in a home where like you know, money was always like you right like it's a mentality. If if you're a Holocaust survivor like you don't have enough. So my parents grew in a house where they their parents felt they didn't have enough. So then I grew up in a house where like Does that mean saving or putting away for later? >> Right. So saving. So I was like saving. So when you But when you always feel like you have to save when there's enough to save, where does tzedakah fall in? So I always gave tzedakah but did I really Did I Did I give 10%? I'm going to be honest. Like I don't know if I've ever talked about this on a podcast before. Until a couple years ago now I literally every single time I get paid I'm paying Whatever I'm paying myself I take 10% put it into Pledgeur Pledgeur or you use a donor advised fund or there's a lot of great ones whatever and I put it 10% in it and it I it feels so great. First of all, I'm giving so much more money. So like even though I tricked myself into feeling I'm giving lot I did. I gave lots of money to tzedakah. But when you when you make a decent amount of money, 10% is a lot. 10% is a lot to give to tzedakah when you make a a decent salary. And my big I do want to say I I tell you when I when I when I treat young people I even said this to a non-frum patient recently, but especially like a like if I I talked to someone who just got married and we were having like a really open conversation. I said, "I have one piece of advice for you. You're just this your first job. It is infinitely easier to start taking 10% now and putting aside now than when you're making a lot of money and you haven't been in that habit and you have lots of expenses with your children and everything else and your overhead is just is now you're 20 years old or 21 whatever. You have your first job. If you start putting 10% now and then as you get raised whatever, it just it's just part of it. You'll be used to it. It'll be the biggest brocha of your life and I wish someone had given me that advice. So I'm I'm really glad to say that I I I really feel it so much that like the brocha that happens when you give ma'aser is so great and then I think that I think that if all Jews gave if all even frum Jews gave actually gave ma'aser there wouldn't be any any poor frum people. >> no problems. We'd cover all the problems. Right. But it would be enough to cover everything. So that I am very passionate about that and just getting people to give and give people put actually put ma'aser aside. And the easiest way to do that is there's so many I remember like five years ago I looked into donor advised fund and there was like a $25,000 I think it was $25,000 minimum to put in these at the time whatever I looked into. I was like, "I don't have 25,000 Maybe I give that in a whole year or two year whatever at the time." But I was like, "I I don't have that kind of money I could put aside." So then I was like, "Oh, I don't have it." And then that caused me not to give as much. When these donor fund and and Pledgeur OJC and when when they when they they're doing such a good service cuz now it costs nothing. You can open up and give 20 put $25. And my kids I I actually I want to when when my kids have started getting job whatever, I want them to have their own cards and start it. There's no minimums. Um and just do it because when you put the money aside, guess what happens? It's You already put that tzedakah money aside. Now it's like where do I want to have the biggest impact? >> purposes it's already counted as if you gave it as tzedakah even though it's just sitting in your OJC account, your Pledgeur account. >> Yeah, but I'm not even talking about taxes. I'm talking about much higher Yes. Yes, the benefit of the taxes but it's it's so great because every time you get asked, you're not like again? Somebody's again? You know, you're like, "Okay. Is this a good use of my tzedakah money or do I want to give to something else?" And And some And even if it's not sometimes Okay, so I'll give $36, $72 whatever. Like it's there. I'm excited to talk to you today about United We Are HealthShare. If you are spending thousands of dollars every single month on health insurance, this is an alternative for the frum community. You should go check them out. It's not health insurance. It's a health share program. Me and my wife and our family, we switched over about two years ago. We've saved thousands of dollars. Our our premium or or the cost is $500 a month. They don't use the word premium because whatever those terminologies meant more for health insurance. But for the first 10 listeners who are watching this video and going to sign up using code blackbird, you're going to get your third month free. So that's something I'm very excited to share with you guys. Make sure to go check them out. United We Are HealthShare. See you next time. So for those listening who don't know what the word ma'aser means, it's tithing. Tithing. Tithing. I didn't know how to pronounce it. Tithing or tithing. 10% of your income to charity. Now for everybody who's listening who's a frum Orthodox religious Jew to me my impression of ma'aser is it's not even ours to keep. Doesn't belong to us. Belong to God. He gave you $100. $10 belongs to him. He gave it to you. Go give it out to charity. It's not even yours to keep. >> That's right. And it boggles my mind. I mean I I don't know when I started giving ma'aser tithing. Um it's just I like to me I'm I I I try to already give a fifth chometz. Yeah. Um it's very There are months where like we're not sure if we could cover our credit card bill. And my wife spends $200 a week on groceries. Like we're not big splurgers or spenders. My wife is very She looks for what's on sale. It's nerve-racking. Yeah. But I try to push myself cuz giving brings in abundance. Yeah. It's just if you give you get like it's just You'll see it. Try it. If you're listening >> Yeah. Try it. That's right. It's just go in. Just do it. >> You're You're getting pumped up. >> Yes, do it. This is I'm telling you I'm so passionate about giving. And um but I but I but I wasn't always like this. I wasn't always like this. I just um When did it happen? When you give it like Um How did you morph into this like Well, I'm in the world now of giving and so like >> [clears throat] >> Do you want me to tell the story of how Daily Giving started? Let's go into Daily Giving. How did the idea come to be? The idea came to be I was minding my own business. Like I said, I I had a very busy practice. Um I was getting home >> find you? If somebody What what specialties of of of in chiropractic? Yeah, do you focus on? Are you good at? Do people come to you for? Where are you located? Just a plug. That camera right there. Thank you. Um I practice in White Plains, New York. I have one office. Okay. Um and I treat pain. I'm a pain specialist. So car There's a lot of different specialties among chiropractors, but if you're in pain whether it be neck pain, back pain, headaches, TMJ, plantar fasciitis in your feet, tennis elbow, frozen shoulders, if it's pain not caused by cancer, not caused by diabetes, not caused by something And by the way, we as physicians are trained to recognize like on the way here I got a patient who I've been treating for many years and he called my cell phone and he said, "I'm having tingling um you know, pins and needles in my legs." Which is not an uncommon thing. You know, I treat Right. Exactly. Right. So I asked him another question. I said, "Is that the only place you have it?" And he says, "No, I actually have it all through my all through my body." I'm like, "All through your body?" I was like, "Your shoulder? You're getting tingling? Your hands?" He's like, "Yeah. I'm getting it all over. And you helped me so much in the past. I just want to come for one of your treatments." And I'll tell you what treatment in a minute. So I actually started talking within seconds. I'm like I You have to You have to go to your primary care doctor first. You got to get some blood work. Um you might need to see a neurologist. You know, I'm not trying to worry you. I explained like there's a lot There's a million You got Lyme disease. There's There could be a million different reasons you have what you're what you're describing, but it's not your your your former your herniated disc in your L4 L5 that I've treated successfully for many years in the past and you come back and you had it whatever would not cause your hands to go numb and tingly, right? Would not cause your shoulder. So I was like, "We got to do a little bit more exploring." So, you know, go to your primary care primary care doctor first thing and get the blood work. Um see if he thinks you need to see a neurologist. If they clear you, come back to me." Right? So um you know, we're responsible, right? We're We're Some doctors are not We're portal of entry doctors which means you we have to be responsible to diagnose. When someone's in pain, we have to rule out cancer. Cancer can cause pain. We have to rule out cancer. Like so in my patients my my practice when patients come in, everyone's I have cancer it's like in my head I rule out cancer. Right? So like you don't think of that. I don't tell my patients that. I'm not like worrying them, but in my years of practicing I've had many patients who I had red flags for cancer and I would send them for MRI and sure enough I was right or whatever. Um and then some sometimes I don't suspect cancer, but I send them for MRI cuz I treat a lot of bulging herniated discs. That's my main specialty. I treat a lot of sports injuries. I treat a lot of athletes. I treat professional athletes. It's been really like a fun thing. Um but my main main specialty I wrote a book on it is on bulging herniated discs. Really severe problems. Like people who are suffering with sciatica and they're considering surgery, I prevent surgery. I'm the guy you want to go to if you want to prevent neck or back surgery. That's kind of our reputation. People come from all over the world for us to treat them for severe neck and back problems. And we also treat people who just like their back goes out and then they come in and then we get them better really quickly. Um so that's that's kind of in a nutshell. Thank you for for asking. That's what we do in our practice and um our reputation we we get people better fast. We're honest, we have integrity. If we can't help you, we send you out send you elsewhere. What's the name of your website? It's joint effort chiro.com. It's a long domain. Yeah, but people Google us and they find us, you know. >> Right. JEC. Joint effort. Yeah, but Jonathan Donath Chiropractic >> Joint effort chiro. Play on words. >> .com. You like that? You like that? >> Yeah. Um okay, so how did Daily Giving come to be? Um Daily Giving came to be um 7 1/2 years ago. I someone one of my friends told me about a near-death experience video that he watched on YouTube. And even though I'm kind of I was kind of always intrigued by near-death experiences, in my head I don't I don't think I ever watched any or heard about it, but like it always like intrigued me. So when he said there was a rabbi who had a near-death experience and he's got an incredible video on YouTube, you should watch it. I was like, "Hmm, I was intrigued." Okay. And then I went on it was like 2 hours like 2 hours. So I start watching. 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there. I guess it it kept my attention and to this day it's I could not recommend it more for for people to watch it. It's actually changed my life a few times. I watch I I hadn't watched it First of all, it had this very big impact on me that led me to start Daily Giving. But then I realized like 5 years in I had never watched it again. Just that one time. I'm like, "Let me watch it again." Blew my mind the second time and then I had another realization the second time that also like changed me. So you could Google or go on YouTube. It's Rabbi Alon Anava. Um there's many he's he's told this story many times about his near-death experience. But basically Rabbi Anava who has a long beard and looks like a rav cuz he is a rav and he lives in Safed. Um he has hundreds of thousands of followers now and he was a secular Jew. And he says, "I wasn't just a secular Jew." He had tattoos, he had piercings. >> 105,000 followers on YouTube. Right. That's 2,000 videos. Yeah. So I'm just Yeah, you could look up his you you his videos, but um the video is of his He's had actually multiple near-death experiences, but the first one um I could I could send it to you put it in show notes if you want, but essentially um he said I was a secular Jew. He's like, "I wasn't just a regular secular Jew." He's like, "I davka ate cheeseburgers on Yom Kippur." He says, "I had I would have a a pig barbecue and I would waft the smell to my neighbors on purpose." He's like, "That's the kind of Jew I was." Oh my god. >> Okay. And he was a criminal, he went to jail at one point and whatever. >> name is Anava, which in Hebrew translates into hum- hum- uh humility. >> That's right. So um he died of a drug overdose. And this 2-hour video What? >> he came back to life obviously, but in this video he explains and I'm I'm just giving one part of the video, but basically he was in this black abyss of complete pain and suffering. What felt like 2 billion years he describes. 2 billion years. He says it was eternity. He's like, "No, if I say eternity, it doesn't even it doesn't even like paint the picture properly." He said it felt like 2 billion years. I was just stuck in this black abyss of nothingness of pain and suffering. And the message I got was, "You don't have one single mitzvah to elevate you. Nothing." Nothing. And the message he got before coming back to life was, "We are here for a short time in this world and we need to take action to help others." And as soon as I finished that, I literally cuz I told you I watched it over a couple weeks, but I I finished it and it was in the parking lot of my of my shul in White Plains. I walked into Marv and I put [clears throat] a dollar in a stucka box like we've all done thousands of times in our lives. And at the [snorts] moment I put that dollar in a stucka box, I had an epiphany. Now I've heard the word epiphany before. I had heard of I never I I never had one. I didn't know I think till you have one I don't think you really know what it means, but I would say that whatever the definition of epiphany is is that's what I had. Like this this a lightbulb moment that no matter how much money I give to stucka I still get a mitzvah, a good deed for this $1. What a deal. I was like, "It's the greatest deal ever." I was like, "How can I guarantee I give plenty stucka, but how can I guarantee that I do the mitzvah of stucka every single day? Right? What if I'm not in shul? What if the whatever? Like right? So that's the idea I had and I remember being so like it was in my head it was like a billion-dollar idea. I was like, "What if I could build a platform, right? To automate giving so you can give a dollar stucka every single day. Okay?" I ran home. I started Googling it. I could not find anyone who's automating daily stucka giving. Called up my website guy Shaul and I was like, "Shaul, what do you think of this idea?" He's like, "It's a great idea." And then the crazy thing is I said I saw this video of Rabbi Anava and he knew who he was. I had never heard of him. He's like, "Yeah, I'm a huge fan of him." So that was like another like, "Oh, like I'm right something here is happening." And I called up through my other best friends. We started meeting. I don't know the first thing about starting a nonprofit. So we started having meetings and how we're going to name the organization build the web Shaul was building the website. We have to get you have proper 501c3. And then my next idea was like, "Okay, I listen to a lot of shiurim on TorahAnytime." So I was like, "If Rabbi Pesach Krohn if I can get Rabbi Pesach Krohn who just every shiur he's talking about how wonderful TorahAnytime is cuz he's broadcasting his message throughout the world. It's like if I can get Rabbi Krohn to talk about Daily Giving on TorahAnytime, I'm going to blow this thing up." So I got Rabbi Krohn's number and [snorts] I remember calling him the first time like my heart was like beating out of my chest. I'm like, "I'm going to speak to like the like the voice of TorahAnytime." And Rabbi Krohn picks up and has beautiful conversation with him cuz Rabbi Krohn is one of the most special human beings in the world. He's He's just amazing. He should live and be well. His birthday was yesterday on Tu BiShvat. Oh wow. Okay, I didn't know. Um so um I told Rabbi Krohn the idea and he's like, "It's a great idea." He's like, "No one's doing this?" I said, "Rebbi, no one's doing this." So he says, "Okay, you need to have a rabbinical council because you need to have recognizable recognizable names that people can trust what you're doing because otherwise people think you're taking this money for your kids' college fund." I was like, "That's a really good idea." So we uh we formed a rabbinical council of tremendous rabbonim. Can you share or not? >> Yeah, sure. Uh Rabbi Hershel Schachter, shlita. Woah. Rabbi Moshe Twersky, shlita. Okay. Rabbi Pesach Krohn and uh Rabbi Shimon Greenburg, shlita, who's my rav in White Plains. And um to this day though that's the rabbinical council and uh one of the ways we've grown I'll get to in a minute. I don't know if we even described what Daily Giving is yet. >> Yeah, yeah. I'm curious, what are their responsibilities and time involvement being I guess which charities to distribute to? >> when when there's a whole we'll get I'm sure we'll get to it like how we pick the charities, but then you know, we go to the the rabbonim approve all the charities. Now they might not have heard of the charities. So we go to them with the with the different things. They want to know which rabbonim are involved with those charities. Like there's lots of different things, right? So um but let's say halacha questions or certain things like for example again, so let me just say what Daily Giving is and I'll say halacha to it, right? So what we did is we automated a platform to try to get people all over the world to give $1 at least $1 of stucka together every single day. And every day we give the entire amount of tzedakah to a different incredible Jewish nonprofit. And [snorts] we like to say it's a diversified portfolio of tzedakahs. We give to over 100 different tzedakahs. Um about half are in America and more than half are in Israel. And we give to orphans and widows and poverty and cancer and special needs and substance abuse and mental health and kiruv and Torah and life saving and for $1 a day you get to feel like you are helping. First of all, we're giving over $24,000 every single day. It goes up thank god every day. But we're giving that's over $8.8 million a year that we're giving out a year now. And by the way, we don't take a penny. 100 cents of every dollar goes to tzedakah. We fundraise separately for overhead. So people say, "Oh, you don't have overhead?" No, of course we have overhead. And I we have five full-time employees, right? Like we we give out more money than most than many many size mid-size Jewish federations, but we're doing it at a fraction of the cost. But even if there there is cost we fundraise completely separately for our overhead so that when people give, they know that their full dollar is going to the tzedakah organizations. >> These five employees um do what? Marketing? >> Um we have a COO who's Remember, I'm still a full-time doctor. So even though I'm the president CEO like and I'm you know, I fundraise and oversee everything, right? But my COO is like he's the quarterback like every day. Like there's people don't understand. There's 100 organizations we're giving to. We had 700 organizations apply last year to get onto our to get our free money. Right? Do you understand like like the the operational nightmare of doing proper due diligence and going through that and then you know, then we have 20 we have over 24,000 givers from 51 countries. Guess what? They have questions. >> [snorts] >> Right? Or people want to know. So like I don't know how many I don't even know the number now. 20, 30 requests come in a day with questions. So we have a team of some are volunteers, some are paid to like answer the questions. Right. We give out tax you know, tax deductions. We We have to self-audit every year. When you're giving out more than a certain amount of money for your 501c3, you have to self-audit. So Roth and Co. It costs like over I don't want to say what it costs. It costs a lot of money to get that piece of paper every year that says you're kosher. You gave the money you said you gave out. Right? This is just some of the then we we do marketing. We have a whole you know, we have director of marketing, right? We grow. We want to grow. We don't want to just be stagnant. Right? Then we have the whole technology side. Right? We're in some ways a techno like technology. There's a lot of technology involved. Like when you have 24,000 givers on a monthly subscription Oh oh oh so let me say tell your givers this, right? This is this is actually why I started this cuz a halacha question is we can't charge your credit card every day. If we would charge your credit card every day, two things would happen. One, it would really annoy you cuz your bank statement every day would say Daily Giving, right? For a dollar. But 30 cents when you charge a credit card, there's two fees. There's the percentage that every credit card charges and then there's a depending but usually it's like 30 cents per transaction. So if you charge it for a dollar 30 cents is gone. So now you have now you have 30% overhead when you're trying to do that. So so the so the rabbonim told us I'm the shaliach every day. >> this happen? This This is before when we were starting. We had to decide how to do it, right? Yeah, we had to Yeah, we had to we had to realize we have to charge So when you sign up, you have two options. You sign up for a monthly option or annual option. And every day I'm your shaliach, I personally hit the button, wire the money to the different tzedakah every single day. >> [snorts] >> Um one organization every day. A different organization every day. I mean, yeah. >> It started I think we started in 2019 with 36 organizations. Now we have over 100. And so last year last year we gave out over $100,000 to over 70 organizations. Um this year we just in the in process like like I said we had like 700 so we've been we've been adding slowly we've been adding more. We're still in that process right now. We're not taking any more applications right now. Um we're closed for applications cuz it's just it's been it's been quite a quite an overwhelming We have a small team. It's a really small team to do all this proper due diligence because we pride ourselves in picking the most amazing tzedakahs. Now it doesn't mean we say no to amazing tzedakahs also. It doesn't mean it's like you can only let's say You know, for example, we give Eim Time and Bonei Olam and Pua. And we also give Right, so that's three three organizations that do something with infertility. So there might be other organizations that are great that do infertility but like we already have We want to have a diverse portfolio, right? So and we give to many many more organizations than poverty, right? Like we want to give like the majority of tzedakah to like social welfare things, people widows, orphans, people who just don't have enough money to make ends meet. Right. And we have a couple organizations that um specialize in helping people get jobs. We got We got Misameach, we have L'man Achai, we have Pamonim. Right? Good stuff. >> Um right, so like it's a really and then like we have something like Aleph, for example. Oh wow. >> Right? So like Wait, Aleph? Aleph helps prison. It helps families that say they There's a big tzedakah in Israel called Aleph. Yeah, right. So it helps let's say someone God forbid goes to jail. They spent all their money defending themselves. The wife and children, usually it's a man, right? The wife and children are left with nothing. They can't afford send to summer camp. Like Aleph steps in and like helps the family. No one does like Right, like that's different. People don't even know it exists. One of the greatest things about Daily Giving besides the tzedakah besides the dollar you're helping everyone is you learn about new tzedakahs you never even heard of. You're like, "Wow." You know how many wows we have? We have a lot of wows. Where you learn about an organization and you're like, "Wow." Karen Or in Israel helps blind children with multiple disabilities. So take like Camp HASC We give to Camp HASC also. Ha Ha Ha Ha Lifeline gives Ha Lifeline, right? But Karen Or helps These are like the Hel- the Helen Kellers of the world. I don't know if you know that Google who Helen Keller was, right? But like she was blind and deaf and like mute So like how do you learn to communicate if you can't see and you have multiple disabilities? They're teaching these children cuz you can In Karen Or's in Israel uh and and by the way other other places in the world come to learn from Karen Or. Like how to deal how to teach a blind child who is also autistic and also has multiple What are other things? How to how to communicate hit a button that means yes to the mother and a yes and no. Do you know what Do you know what the difference is if you can communicate yes and no? Like can you imagine your child's five and you have you have no idea what they want? None. They're changing like it's a trajectory completely changes just from like a yes or no. I'm getting chills, man. >> Right? So you could have you could have like Victor's Helping Hand. I don't know if you know Victor's Helping Hand. Like so someone God forbid dies and like the what they didn't have life insurance. The the mother can't does How's she going to pay her mortgage or her rent? They just step in and they'll pay like for 6 months their rent or their mortgage. You know, there's a process and they and they and they and and they do and they run it on a shoestring budget. Like shoestring like someone covers their overhead and like all the money people donate goes to these things. This is just a couple examples. >> and your database of charities that you give to, >> Yeah. can you please make a directory as a resource for somebody going through anything Yeah. and then you can make a drop down. Okay, what what challenges are you going through that you need help with? Okay, here's three organizations that help with that and then food or rent or That's a good idea. We have like so we're very transparent. We pride ourselves on transparency. So if you go to the website >> doing, which one. Right. So now there's 100 but there you could people do ask me all the time, "Hey, could you help with this?" And I'll know cuz I know every tzedakah that we give to. >> organization I talk to for blank? Which organization this? Right, so it's it's it's a very it's a really interesting point you made and I'm going to I'll discuss it with my team but like right now it's alphabetical and it has a paragraph. So you can go on our website and you see all the organizations we give to and there's and you can a paragraph about each one. And you going to show it? That's the calendar. So that's the calendar but there's also that calendar shows every day who got the money, how much they got and you see it going up as more people and that's what we gave out. It's really fun to look at as it just grows and grows, thank God. But also there's another button that has beneficiary organizations and you can read about each one. Um but to your point it's a good point. We can set it up alphabetically. We could put it into categories and then people can look at the categories. They might Yeah, if somebody needs help in whatever situation they're in, there are so many organizations you don't you're not even aware of. Like you need a wheelchair for Shabbos. Yeah. Right. Right, yeah, so Like for cholim or you know, etc. >> Right. Right. So so exactly. It's a it's a it's a nice it's really nice point and I think that I forgot to tell another really central thing that we do is that every day all our givers get an email that tells them who got the money that day, Okay. >> how much we gave them, how much we've given to today so like 29.3 million whatever I think 29.3 million dollars. We gave $24,105 to whatever it is that day, a a paragraph about that tzedakah, a video about that tzedakah. Like Misameach L'eim, one of the organizations one of the This is many years ago called me up and said, "We couldn't figure out why one day there was like eight different sizable donations came through our website. We could not figure out. We were asking all these people did did someone do like a parlor meeting we didn't know about it?" And we realized that was the day that Daily Giving gave and sent an email to all their givers and eight people were so inspired by what they did they went on our website and they donated sizable chunks of money. Like I grew up with single parents. So my mom we used to get stuff from tzedakah like for Yom Tov, Purim we got gift cards to gift cards to Wow. >> toy store. Yeah. Just even just just when you say that I I immediately go to we give to Links. Links is for kids who are you know, orphans. And we give to My Extended Family which is like a big brother and sister so if a single single mom they don't know what to do. People volunteer to like pick up their kids and do carpool or like do some homework. You have like an 18-year-old that's really good at math and they volunteer to do some some chesed. Do you know every organization exactly what they do? Of course. 100 different organizations? Of course. Wow. >> Yeah. Wow. It's impressive. I don't know if I had that much brain space. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm looking at >> It's what's really nice is that people are starting to understand that because we do this due diligence like people take giving tzedakah seriously. So they don't know not everyone is wealthy enough to have their own gabbai tzedakah. So people are starting to look at Daily Giving as their gabbai tzedakah. So they're like actually we have people there was a woman like just a few weeks ago. She's an anesthesiologist in Florida and she's like, "I want to give 10%. I don't Honestly, I don't even think that woman was I don't know I don't know if she's even religious or not, right? It was It was just Right. amazing experience. She says, "I want to give 10%. I don't know who to trust. I trust you. I like the organizations you give to." She gives $30,000. Just sent in $30,000, right? And I see that happening more >> that long, 30,000 days? I see that I see that um I see that more and more. No, she plans She told me she plans to do it next year also. But what do you do when you get a sizable donation? She plans to give 10 $30,000 next year, too. So 30 grand a day 365 Do you divide it by 365? >> Correct. And that that would be how many dollars we add. Well, I'm looking now. Last week Today Today's February 3rd. Yeah. Um January 31st you gave to Karen Or $22,091. Friday, January 30th you gave to Karen Na Shvi'is which Dude, Love Karen Na Shvi'is. people farmers in Israel who are not religious are stopping to work their farms for a year. Yeah. Let me see you stop working for a year and be calm and like Close your Close your business for a year. Close your restaurant. And then you're later just opening up and yeah. The Chazon Ish said if you want a bracha go to a farmer who kept shmitta. >> Yeah. So $24,078 to Karen Na Shvi'is. Just life or yeah. Just one life. >> Just one life, okay. >> Helps with families who families who uh they they get pregnant and they financially they they want to keep the baby but financially they just don't have the means. So Just One Life comes in they provide them diapers >> Everything. Everything for the first like 2 years or something. There's an organization That's I saw the aviation division. That was last week Tuesday. Guard Your Eyes Ezri Mitzion. This is like So 24,000 20 Yeah, on average 24,000 a I'll give you an idea. Ezri Mitzion we also try to pick things >> 100 grand in a week. Yeah. >> It's amazing. Yeah. The satisfaction rate for people who sign up for Daily Giving they they all pretty much everyone says it is my favorite tzedakah inside a week. Because even cuz most people are not going to stop giving to Camp HASC or to give for their kids' yeshivas because they're giving a dollar a day to Daily Giving. Right? And so but the greatest thing we're doing is the achdus. Yeah. >> What what more could Hashem want than all his children every day coming together to give to our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate? >> You're bringing closer Mashiach. That's the goal. That's I really like I want to I I say that with like full meaning. Like think about what more could Hashem want? We have completely secular Jews that give. We have the most Chassidic Jews every everything in between. I remember once I was in once at a Project Inspire Shabbaton and um this gentleman came up to me who was who who his English wasn't even so good. His Yiddish He was his Yiddish was clearly his first language and he showed me the email that he was a Daily Giver with the biggest smile on his face that he was a part of it. Like it just you know, >> [snorts] >> it's we help everybody. Um and it's yeah, it's uniting. It's uniting all Jews and like that's what I that's what we're all about. That's what Hashem wants. He wants his brother He wants his sons and daughters to get along. That's it. What do What do we want as parents? How much pleasure does it give when our kids get along? How much does it upset us when our kids don't get along? You think Hashem is not the same way? So we and it's it's not easy. If you think about how hard it is to get people Jews to do anything together. Like sign a piece of sign sign for free. Just sign a document, whatever. You can get 24,000 Jews to sign a document. That's not so simple. Right. You have 24,000 Jews of all type from 51 countries they give tzedakah together. It's Yeah. So what was it like in the beginning? How did you find the right people to join the rabbinical board and yeah, what were those early days like? The early days were a challenge. It's still a challenge. But different challenges now. Different challenges, but um the rabbonim we asked all said yes, they wanted to be at the beginning. >> who to ask? We wanted to pick rabbonim from different slightly, you know, slightly different worlds. Um you know, you know, you know, I don't know if I should say that. Different some different worlds. I mean, we we probably should have had a we could have probably at the time and we still might pick up bring a Sephardic rabbi on, you know, a dati leumi rabbi from Israel maybe on, a Chassidic rabbi on, like Right. >> so we we didn't pick we didn't get all the diversity of the rabbonim on there, but you know, certainly names that people trust. Um and you know, that's worked. But but what was really hard at the beginning is that the months leading up to Daily Giving What was day one? When did it When did it launch? January 1st, 2019. Okay. And leading up I was so excited. I actually remember the Rosh Hashanah before. Yeah. So we're talking like September or October, right? Like leading up to 2000 in 2018. >> How long were you planning for this already? That was in November. >> Like 6 months. It was like took about 6 months. We probably could have gone live like end of November we were ready, but we're like, okay, tax purposes like let's just just wait till January 1st, 2019, make it clean. And that's what we did. And I was so excited because everyone I told the idea to they're like, that's a no-brainer. Of course I'll sign up. Everyone. So I thought I thought we'd have thousands of people within days. I thought in the first year we'd get like 10,000 people to sign up. I really did. I was so naive. And it was such a rude awakening that within like a week after just telling every person I personally knew and like maybe 100 people signed up. >> sign up? Maybe like 100. The first week like maybe 100 people signed up. >> That's not bad. It isn't, but When your expectation was 10,000 you're >> is that I know I know a lot of people, right? So when I sent this out I sent this out to 500, 1,000 people, whatever it was, and like 100 people signed up. And fine, okay, I understand like not everyone's going to do it not everyone's going to do it now, that's fine. But then it was like, okay, what now? Okay. >> What now? So again, I had a, you know, a little bit, okay, talk to trying to get rabbonim to talk about us, but like it's very hard when the rabbonim see like there's like 100 people. Like they don't Right. They won't like, okay, >> much of an impact. >> Not like that, but everyone's like it's like the everyone told me later like this is the oldest trick in the book. I had like 15 executive directors of nonprofits tell me they're like, we'll be honest with you. Like now that like it's it's take a like maybe like year three they started telling me this. They're like, by then we were giving like $5,000, $6,000 a day. And it was real money. And they said, when you first called us and said what you want to do and like will we be on board to take your free money? We're like, sure, okay, but then we we was like this this guy's out to lunch. Like everyone knows that if we could just get all our donors, our 3,000 donors, our 7,000 donors, our 2,000 donors to just give $30 a month, that like will cover our entire budget. If we could just do that. Right. And so many, many organizations try that. Trying to get their donors to just give like sign up for $30 a month plan. And everyone has said was an epic fail. And so I think one of the things that we did that was so attractive to people is the intention always was we want to give like we want people to do the mitzvah and feel like they're doing the mitzvah of tzedakah every day. So that every day is a different organization and we tell them the amount of people in the in the years of doing this that tell me how much they're like CEOs are like, I get 10,000 emails a day. I can't get through all my emails, right? But I always open my Daily Giving email. Always. Because it makes me feel good. People want to feel good. At the end of the day, giving makes you feel good. It makes you feel really good. Life is hard. Life is hard and we're hard on ourselves. As humans we are very hard on ourselves. There's so much negative self-talk we all have. And then all of a sudden Daily Giving you look at your email which is half the day is telling you things you don't want to hear. And I was like, like, thank you for your donation. You're like, oh, yeah, I gave today. I feel good. Right? So it feeds that part of us. Giving the biggest beneficiary of giving is yourself. Not that you should give because I'm going to give so that I Right. >> it'll happen, but but becoming a giver is so important. That's why Hashem made it so hard for us. That's why there's such s'char to give tzedakah. Because we work so hard for money. There's like there's like an element and then there's always the question, do do we have enough? There's so many barriers to give. Can we even trust the organization? Do we have enough? Right? Like you know, how do I decide what's the best way? There's and then and then by that time we're like, okay, I'm not going to give. You know? And it's and it and it benefits us so greatly. So I think that's why Hashem made it so hard because it it benefits so much for us. It's like emunah. Like once Mashiach comes and like it's like, oh, we don't have to like, yeah, emunah is that leap of faith. It's the same thing. Like once once Mashiach comes like, okay, there's no doesn't matter where you can't you can't you can't you can't oh, now I have emunah. No, it's obvious now. Same thing same thing with giving tzedakah. Like it's it's hard. It's really hard for us to do and the benefits are so good. What um what type of pushback did you face if any? Um you know, I just slightly pushback slightly to answer your question before to just finish like what was like the hard I think the biggest challenge was getting people to sign up. So after that first couple weeks it was like no one was signing up. And I had I had I got this idea in my head that like I need to grow by at least one person every day. At least as long as I could just have momentum and someone signing up every day and the numbers go up. Just do that. And so every day by like 9:30 at night if no one signed up I'd look through my phone and I'd start calling people. Sometimes people I haven't spoken to since high school, sometimes whatever. And I would call them and I would tell them about it. And they're like, oh, great, it's a great idea. I was like, can you sign up? They're like, yeah, I'll sign up. I'm like, can you sign up now? Like today before midnight, you know? And they're like, why? And I'd tell them and like they would. And I I would get them to. And it was just every day. Every day. One at a time. One at a time. One at a time. And then um and then we get a couple breaks. Like, you know, uh Rabbi Krohn would talk about us. We got Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein to talk about us. I remember the the first time Rabbi Wallerstein spoke about us. He has like a weekly shiur. And I don't know, maybe we had hundreds of people sign up at the time. And he gave us I think it was like a Wednesday night shiur. And I remember then it goes on Torah Anytime, right? So then it's like not just the people right like he's got a huge amount of people following. And I remember like my phone just going new giver, new giver, whatever. New giver, new giver, new giver. And I was like, it was like one of the the excitement I had. It was like new giver, new giver. And I think like 115 people signed up that night. In one night. Now if you you understand like that's a lot till this day. If 100 people sign up in for one thing it's a lot. Right? Because it's just so hard. So but like people might listen to this podcast and be like, oh, it's a great idea. I'll like, oh, I'll sign up. And even if they 100% mean to sign up if they don't pause this video and sign up immediately there's like a 99% chance they won't do it. Now maybe they'll hear about it a year from now or 6 months from now and be like, oh, yeah, I wanted to and then they'll do it. That's possible. Like even marketing, right? Like they say you know, marketing sometimes people need seven or eight touches before they do it. But that's what we see. I remember the first year I went to AIPAC um and I went there and I brought I printed 1,000 business cards for Daily Giving and I gave out every single one. And I did not like put them on people's chairs. I only handed them out after having having a full conversation with someone. I'd be like, here. >> 1,000? >> 1,000. There was three >> How many did you give out? I gave out 1,000. You had 1,000 conversations? >> Yeah, in 3 days. To feel comfortable to give them a card. Yeah, 1,000 conversations. No, so I'd go up to a table full of 10 people and be like, can I interrupt you while you can I just entertain you while you're eating your lunch? And I would go around, right? And I would give my, you know, whatever my spiel. And they're like, wow. And then I had at least 100 I'm telling I'm at least 100 were like, no-brainer. I'm in. I'm in. This is awesome. Give them a card. At least 100 of the 1,000 said that. Guess how many people signed up? Out of the 1,000? Oh. >> And over 100 that were like 100% I'm doing it. Uh now that you said that I'm going to think 10. Six. Six people? Yeah. I've learned so much over the years. So now like I go to Camp HASC, I'll go to Camp HASC. Six people? >> Yeah. So now like >> Not even like I'll be in person, I'll talk to them someone and then they're like and I know I know it's like someone was like, wow, that's a cool idea. That's a really smart Do you push them to do it now? >> I push them to do it now. I'm like, no pressure, but I'm just telling you the answer is very strong when it comes to tzedakah. That's just What Okay, what type of pushback did you get? I don't think I got a lot of push I don't think I got a like too much pushback. Um there were there were people that said it's not going to work, but you know, like that didn't that didn't oh, the even you asked me earlier in the conversation like I think that one of the skills that really served me well as a chiropractor in building my own business was not being afraid to fail. And not being afraid not just failure, but not being afraid to hear no. Okay. So when I was deciding what kind of doctor I wanted to be I was thinking about orthopedic surgery and I had the grades to get into medical school and I thought about it, but I was like, wait, that's so long. It's so many years, right? Um and when I decided to be a chiropractor I remember calling my uncle up who's an infectious disease doctor and he's like, >> Interesting. >> And and and he was and he was much older and and like again, chiropractors evolved a lot through the years and so much so much more research being a much more well-respected than it used to be. But just it was so interesting cuz he was he like, you sure you want to be a chiropractor? Like why don't you go be like a PA or something which is again physician's assistant which is a great job. But like I wanted to be a chiropractor. I wanted to help people. I knew what it was going to be like, you know? I didn't do it because I didn't have the grades to get into medical school. Like and there are chiropractors that go to chiropractors cuz they don't have the grades to get into medical school. So what I what I realize now is that every skill that Hashem gave me like the the the the stick-to-itiveness, the relentless pursuit that when when when when people say no, I'm not interested or they or or they say I don't believe in chiropractic like like chiropractic is a religion they don't believe in. Like whatever. Okay, say what you want. Like I'm not going to like get bent out of shape. Um but that was that was so integral to starting Daily Giving cuz there were so many times in the first couple months that I just wanted to stop. But I remember the moment that I had that epiphany and like you know, no, I I think you know, and and I think that Hashem wanted this to happen and I'm just going for it. I'm just going for it. I'm going for it. And then it it took a it took a long time and then slowly and then COVID hit after right after our first year. We got a thousand people to sign up in 2019. Like literally almost the number of a thousand. And then February March of 2020 COVID hit. And even the people that I would call like there was one rub that I called that I asked to be on the only one rub said no to be on the biblical council a really really famous rub. And he he said he didn't get it. He he lives in Brooklyn. He's like every day at minion there's like 10 people come up to me who like I give a dollar to. So he's like I don't get it like people I give way more than a dollar a day. Right. >> Not realizing that there is a whole spectrum of spectrum of of of Jewish guy that's not giving a dollar not giving stuck every day. So I could completely understand where he was coming from. But then all of a sudden what happened? Literally shuls got closed down. Okay. Schools got closed down people's regular daily reminders get stuck up close. You you said when we started that you'd ever imagine a shul that you couldn't go to a minion. Right. That's something like that's impossible. It would be impossible in our minds before COVID right? And so that really that year was like amazing because people are like wow. I can remind I give it stuck every day. I'm not going to minion every day and it's my reminder and even to this day like we give people think oh I give stuck every day. Really? I'm not to your shabbos do you have your wallet on you? No. So you might give six days a week cuz you're a minion in the morning and you really might be giving stucka but I'm not to your shabbos you giving stucka? We give for you even on three day yom tifs. Now we don't give on yom tif right? >> advance? No afters. Afterwards. After yom tif? And every day when I'm when I'm hitting the button I'm like this to be yosef mitzvah stucka for all the daily years for that day. That's what I do when I give a stucka every day. You know so the rubanum said like that's how you should do it. Have have in mind that you're giving stucka to be yosef mitzvah stucka for that day. So we got you covered. We got you for the dollar a day. We got you covered. Right. Of 365 365 mitzvahs for 365 dollars. It doesn't get any better. Right? And by the way Hasidim are the biggest givers. They really are the biggest givers. I've learned that. I've seen that. Um Hasidim at much like you know modern orthodox and yeshivish Jews give a lot of money. Hasidim give more. That's what I that's what I that's what I've seen. Okay. Many it's like in the yeah everyone gives stucka everyone gives a lots of stucka. But I'm just saying if I'm going to if I'm going to talk about a group Okay. I find that Hasidim give the most. Many Hasidim give >> What do you think the reason would be? give 20%. If you need to think of a reason. The reason I think it's more ingrained like we all have our we all grow up a certain way. There's only certain certain things. I think it's obviously it's obviously more ingrained as a very important thing that we need to do. Right. Right? So everyone talks about you should of course you should learn Torah every day but like what about stuck every day? Right. I mean not every day. Doesn't have to be doesn't have to be every day. That's what we're doing but like that doesn't have to be every day but Hasidim just it's it just and also I see cuz Hasidim have more of their all Hasidim have donor advised funds. They all have these donor advised funds. They all do. You go into the modern orthodox world and yeshiva world it's not all. It's growing. It's a higher percentage but Hasidim all. Really? For me it's just an easier way to track my charity. Tax purposes using I use OJC. Maybe they'll sponsor who knows. It's a no brainer. Right. Yeah. The sponsorship? No I'm kidding. Yeah. Uh it's just you could put in $5,000 into your OJC account on December 31st and it didn't even go to charity yet. You didn't pick which charity it went to. It says if for tax reasons it's as if you already give it to a charity. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. It's amazing. Um you can set up monthly distributions or whatever. Um >> [snorts] >> as we're getting closer to the end of this amazing conversation um how would you say how would you differ growing your chiropractic trademark versus growing another profit daily giving? I mean some of the same skills were involved in terms of like the just stick-to-itiveness and the relentless and not failure not being an option. Mhm. >> there's that famous like comedian that said like someone asked this famous comedian how did you make it to this level and he said the biggest the best advice I can give you is failure cannot be an option. Like if you go into it with with the there is no second option. Right. That is that's a very important skill to have for an entrepreneur. All or nothing right? So I think that's really really important and that helped with my practice and helped with daily giving. It was all or nothing. I was like just the failure was not an option. Um so that was say your question again did I answer your question? >> you see any differences growing the two different businesses? Any differences? Um One had more challenges in a certain area. Yeah I think they both have challenges. You know I think that >> a lot more overhead than in the chiropractic Yeah I mean yeah there's more I mean there's more overhead for a global non-profit giving right now. Like right certainly a lot more overhead but um finding good people like good people. Like I have such an amazing team at daily giving. Um you know and I think it's really important also just for the nature of your podcast and who you're who you're who you're asking. I I think that I think what a lot of entrepreneurs do is they hire people they like that actually have a lot of similar skills than they do themselves and that's a big mistake. Right? So um my CEO Friedner for example we could we we could not be more different. And it took me a little while to realize like it's like the perfect it's like a match made in heaven like >> So how what He's a systems guy and I'm not I'm like a vision guy like and he's and and like so we were >> you hire him? Um I had a great consultant who taught me this. How do you show there? >> And and really balance each other out to not not and that's been like we actually do personality tests a lot of our employees before even before we hire them. For the chiropractic or both? >> No not for the chiropractic practice. I know I probably should but it's not it's a smaller operation. You know like really my focus is more on growing daily giving. My practice thank god is busy enough where I have referrals and people come in every day and I don't really focus on growing it. It just thank god it's it's busy enough. Okay. Um with daily giving we're constantly looking to grow and constantly looking to you know to get more people to to join. Um and so we we do this particular one is called a PDP. It's like a 10 minute personality test and it's like amazing what you could learn from that. So you could so before when we when we're going to hire someone we look at it what are the skills needed in that in that for that position. And then we give the people in um interviewing that we're really serious about hiring cuz it costs money so we're not going to like give it to everyone but we have them take that test and then we could see you know are they a good fit for that position. Someone could interview really well so someone could have great things. They could even have done that for another company or non-profit right? But then you realize that that's not like we've learned the hard way. We don't have an office. All our employees are remote. If you have a remote office and even though there's accountability people have bosses you need self-starters. Right. You need people that like when when no one's checking on them they're like okay and they and they finished one task like they're they're looking for the next task to do not being wait to be told what the next task is. So you learn these things over time like what you need and it means different if you're a remote office versus an in-person office all these different things. So um these are the things you learn over over years. Like I've learned so much. I'm constantly learning which I love Right. >> cuz I'm I'm just one who likes to learn in general. I love reading books. I love books. To elaborate on that me during creating almost five years I've worked we've worked with every size business. One of the biggest mistakes hiring managers make is not knowing what they want. What sorry not knowing what they need in a employee for a certain role. They'll be like yeah we need a bookkeeper. Okay fine but do you need somebody who a certain personality somebody's extremely detailed but might be a little bit more slower or someone who's crazy fast and might be able to fix their mistakes a little bit down the line. Like figure out this personality test. I like what you said. First you figure out what you what type of person you're looking for and you put that criteria into the test and build a test around that and then you give it to the employees. Really helps a lot. Yeah people people don't realize. Um [snorts] and just cuz again it's I I love this I love this one um saying that I've used this many times but Rabbi Paysach Krohn has a has an equation. It's SW cubed over N. So it's SW three times SW cubed over N. It means some will some won't so what next. Cute. Isn't that great? And I think it applies when I go speak to like when I go to camp Haskel speak to the 20 year old counselors and stuff like that. Like it just it's just an amazing thing to get that into your head. It doesn't matter what you're doing in life cuz we all have to sell something. We're selling ourselves an interview. We go to interview for a job or we have our own business or whatever it is. You're always selling yourself. Not always but like there are times in your life you're going to have to. And some will like what you have to sell what you're selling what you're doing what you're whatever it is. Some won't like it. But so what? Like you have to be strong in here and if you get bent out of shape every time someone says no to you you're going to have a hard time you know? So Oh yeah I think my final question um what are things what are some things employees should think about that should make them last a very long time as an employee instead of jumping around? When when you're looking at employees you fired many people over your career. Yeah. You had your practice for over 20 years. What are some things some qualities that you've noticed in your employees that have been with you for a very long time that just I think that you want employees that feel aligned with your mission. Right? So if it's my chiropractic practice I want employees that like helping people that have empathy. Cuz if they have empathy they'll come in Took some time though. >> It took some time. You're right. If I think about it it took some time. Even an office manager you're looking for certain skills in office manager but that office manager is front facing with people in pain every day and if they don't have empathy and they don't know that a smile on their face. Right. So I always always though even in the beginning I always hired people with people skills and warmth. That was more important than if you worked in another doctor's office before. I could train you to do what I need you to do in my office. I can't train warmth. I can't train empathy. I can't train people skills. So that was that was always but I did make a mistake of I could have been better at focusing on that even more. Meaning yes you're you have good people skills but just cuz you have good people skills doesn't mean you have empathy and that you're warm. So that's something that I learned over time. And with daily giving I think that what we're doing thank god as you've been able tell is like it is really truly amazing. Um [snorts] and actually I look at it now as a little bit like it's a nice cuz now that I'm not naive and I and I understand how hard it is to get >> of it. 24,000 people to give stucka like no matter what I did, Hashem wanted it to be successful and it wanted to take off. Nothing I did could have Right. It wasn't me, right? Like I realize now like what a nice it is. And that's what one of the great things like it really is it's a nice. And so but we're also just scratching the surface. Like I truly believe like the the night I had the idea this I'm like okay, if 1% of all Jews sign up for daily giving, that's 52 and a half million dollars a year. Right. Like I refuse to believe I can't get 1% of the Jews sign up for daily giving. So we're we're we're only at 24,000. Like we haven't even started, you know? >> didn't scratch Yeah. surface. Good stuff. Okay. Uh sign up today at dailygiving.org. Yeah, thank you. You could do it's monthly, you pay $31 or yearly It's 32.60 a month or 380 for a year and that literally all that extra, you know, dollar or you know, the dollars goes to is to pay the credit card fee and the platform fee. Meaning it does not go to pay any of our overhead, doesn't pay for marketing. Everything we do, every employee, every dollar we spend, we fundraise completely separately for that. So whatever 32.60 allows us to give 31 a dollar every day for you, the full dollar. Wild stuff. So sign up today. That's number number two. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I definitely did. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and I'll see you next time. Thank you so much. >> [music]