Martinka Consulting's Getting the Deal Done Podcast
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Martinka Consulting's Getting the Deal Done Podcast
Business Lessons from Non-Profit Work
•John & Jessica Martinka
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Since 2005 I (John) have led 19 Rotary projects titled, Improving Education Through Technology.
The Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club along with the Cisco Networking Academy at Newport High School partner to donate computers and setup Wi-fi networks in schools, the last 16 projects in Antigua and Barbuda.
So far we've donated over 10,000 computers and setup Wi-fi in scores of schools in Antigua.
This episode discusses the project and five lessons critical to both charity projects and business.
John Martinka Jessica Martinka
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Welcome to the Getting the Deal Done podcast. I'm John Martinka, and today we are going to talk about for a few minutes giving back, doing charity work, and business lessons attached to that work. So on our podcast channel, and especially on YouTube, you can see the many, many dozens of podcasts I've done in Antigua, West Indies, and uh beautiful setting. And for those of you who are watching this on YouTube, uh, that's my background from the hotel we stay at when we go to work in the schools. So our project started out in 2000, well, actually before 2005, but our first project was in 2005 in Slovakia, where we thought we were pretty cool delivering and setting up about 120 computers. The project was titled 100 Computers for Rotary's 100th year. And we did that two years, up the computers to about 300 the second year, went to Turkey, which was a pretty much a disaster because the government didn't like letting government employees didn't want to take responsibility for anything coming in the country. Uh, because if it went wrong, they'd get they'd lose their job, so easier to say no. About that time when we realized we weren't going to go back to Turkey, we got an introduction from my friend Steve Lingenbrink to the Rotary Club of Antigua, again in the uh East Caribbean, West Indies. And Rotary just about that time also started saying, go narrow and deep. You know, don't just give things, you get training and sustainability involved. And it was a perfect partnership in Antigua. It's lasted for uh 17 years now. Computers do wear out, so there's a constant need. And this is interesting. The first year we went there, we did not work in any government schools. The government, lower-level people said, we don't need your help. So we delivered hundreds of computers to private primary schools. Ah, word spreads. Teachers talk, and the public school teachers were starting to say, Why aren't we getting computers for our school? We need a lab. So now we work in both public and primary and have a great relationship with the Ministry of Education. Uh, we have delivered to Antigua well over 10,000 computers, including in 2024 and 25, 1,500 laptops each year. Uh laptops are a lot easier to ship and uh and get and take up less space, etc., etc. So we can do more for the same amount of shipping cost. We have worked in scores of schools plus nonprofits. Uh we take students along and they earn their way to go through volunteer hours, they pay their own way, they stay with host families, and they get the experience of a lifetime that they have used on college essays and leveraging into jobs and a lot more. And uh they set up Wi-Fi networks in the schools. So, this is a business podcast. So, what are the business lessons? Five of them here. You you need a plan. This is a process. Whether you're the kind of person who says, I need a written plan, or I need I have the plan in my head, or whatever it is, you have a plan. And if you haven't documented your plan, you're you still have a plan. It's what you do as you wing it. Uh you need a budget. Well, let me go back to plan. We have a plan. We plan out everything, what we're gonna do, uh, who's gonna do it, uh, timelines, etc. We have a budget. I put the budget together. Uh we watch our expenses very closely when we are doing a rotary global grant. They they make a uh quality of earnings report, seem mild in the way they go through all the receipts and the expenses. Uh, we do have some flexibility. We can move things from category to category. We just can't add new categories without approval. In other words, if we said we're spending $10,000 on uh computer supplies and we only spend eight, yes, we can move it to another category, but we can't come in and say, oh, we're gonna buy school supplies, because that wouldn't be part of our grant. Uh we have funding sources. We have the Mill Reef Fund uh based in Antigua that supports us and has supported us very generously for many years. Why? Because they see that we get things done, they can see the results, whereas when they give the money to the government directly, they never see where it goes. And it's uh uh it was a big concern of theirs. There's teamwork. You have to have a team. You can't, no one can do it on your own. And this is a big lesson in business because owner dependency in a small, mid-sized business is a big wart, big red flag. Uh, you need a team. I've got my friend Jeff Mason, who is with Newport High School, is uh heads up their CTE program, teaches uh Cisco networking and other things. Uh we have the Rotary Club of Antigua, my Rotary Club Bellevue Breakfast Rotary. Uh uh we have the Ministry of Education that works with us and the Rotary Club of Antigua. And of course, I'm the project head. So you do need a leader, you do need an operations manager, Jeff, and you do need a team of people that all have roles to make it successful. And then, fifth lesson: production. Production has to go smooth. You have to have good operations. Uh, when we're on the ground, we have teams, they go out every day. There's an adult team leader, there's a student team leader, they have a plan for every day. They go, we go over it, we send them out with the right supplies, the right equipment, and voila. End of the day, a school has been wired for Wi-Fi and we and may have anywhere from 20, 40, 60 new computers. And uh and as I said before, yes, this is an ongoing thing because computers were out, but also we haven't gone beyond the uh tip of the iceberg on getting computers for every classroom on the island. Uh but that's another story. The business lessons today are have a plan, make sure you have a good budget, know where your funding's coming from, which in case of business is making sales, getting customers, have a team, and make sure your production is as efficient as possible. Business lessons from giving back. This is John Martinka, the Getting the Deal Done podcast. Thanks for watching or listening.
