A Formula for Community Change with Dana Koller

Hi. This is Paul Zellizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact, your profitability, Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I was joking with our guest. I get to interview a lot of my friends here in New Mexico doing awesome, awesome stuff.

And today, it's another New Mexico rock star in the impact space, Dana Koehler. And our title today is the intersection of technology and coworking, a formula for community change. Dana Koehler is the president and CEO of Cactus Brewery, a highly community active brewing company and the executive director of UN seventeen. UN seventeen is on track to be the number one resource within New Mexico to help guide businesses and governments to accomplishing the 17 goals of sustainable development set by the United Nations. With a proven track record of success and quality business management, Dana is turning his attention to encouraging the largest shift in making New Mexico's private sector the leader in the SDGs, the sustainable development goals within The United States. And I wanna just add, when I was starting to ramp up on this podcast, like, two, three years in, and people in New Mexico were hearing about what I was doing, and people they were like, you gotta meet this guy, Dana. And people were saying to Danny, you gotta meet this guy, Paul. And we finally met.

Well, let's just say recently, we had an NM Climate meetup at UN seventeen. We had 38 people there for our third meeting. Dana was so gracious to host us. About 60% of the group had never been there. And people were like, oh my god. This place is totally awesome, and I can see why NM Climate would wanna be meeting at UN seventeen. There's the sustainable development goals on the wall, and it was just awesome. So, anyway Thank you.

Meet my friend, Dana. Dana, thanks for everything you do.

Absolutely. Well, thank you for the, invite, Paul. Appreciate you.

Yeah. So let's a little bit about, like, why this idea of UN seventeen, and I know it ties into some things you've done prior to that. So what would somebody wanna know about your background and how that led to UN seventeen being created right downtown Albuquerque, 30 quarters of a mile from my house. Right?

I appreciate you asking. It it's a big story, but I'll try to keep it fairly simple. I mean, it all derived you know, I've been an entrepreneur. I'm 42 years old now. I've been working for myself since I was very young. I'm an 18 like, around 18 to 20 years old. And as I became more and more successful, you know, I really wanted to start applying my business practices to meet the goals that we're talking about, you know, very similar to what the United Nations has set forth with the 17 goals of sustainable development. And just realizing the challenges that that come with it, right, and and and the lack of support that might be that that's out there or not out there, I should say.

And so so I was really inspired to kinda generate an environment where like minded business people like myself can come together and find the support needed to get to the next level. So we started you know, I started Cactus Brewing Company about thirteen years ago. It started as a dream out of a two car garage in the back of my dad's house and, like, just a few tables, and it was popcorn and beer and kind of grown from that. But during that process, you know, I was always, you know back then, it was, like, thirteen years ago. We were having big discussions about water security in New Mexico and clean water and what does that look like. And do we have enough to grow Albuquerque? Do we have enough to grow Rio Rancho? Those type of things. And so as a brewery, you know, that's an important Turns out water

is helpful to a brewery. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. It does help. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So so that that was a big focus of mine, and then that kinda led to, you know, not only recycling and reclaiming water, but rainwater harvesting, which also led to you know, as we went from just beer and popcorn, we started introducing foods, and I'm a big proponent of whole wholesome foods with, you know, no preservatives and healthy organic. And so as we moved into that direction, that was another big, you know, realization of how what what a lack of that we have in in New Mexico just in general, especially for restaurants.

If you want to you know, for people that eat organic, you already know as as just an individual driving from store to store how difficult it could be to find your favorite products. Right? Now magnetize that by 20 times probably for a restaurant. I mean, you only have a few distributors that will deliver food to your restaurant. And still to this day, after thirteen years, I ask my distributors, so how many because I bug them all the time for their ingredient list. You know? What what's in there? What am I buying? And they're like, you know, you're the only business owner and chef that will ask me those questions. Everybody else just like is like, that's what I want. I need to get it and just deliver it to me. Yeah.

So, again, you know, I just you know, without drawing that story out too long, I mean, I just feel like it's important to kind of, you know, follow this timeline to, like, you know, we're trying to make good decisions. We're trying to really put health in the forefront of our minds, and and there's challenges in the way. And so I started jumping on a lot of calls and video podcasts and, you know, the, you know, the SDGs has, you know, a lot of different resources. But what I found with those resources is that it's a lot of conversation, which is, you know, the starting point. I mean, conversation is super powerful. But then where did then where's the action, and where does it lead to? And and that's where I started UN seventeen, where I realized that we need something on a local level that's a little bit more has a physical presence too so that people can ask the questions, like, how do I put my foot, like, one foot in front of the other to reach our goals? You know? I mean, we've been talking about it for years. What do we do next before we lose our it it loses our attention. You know? And so that's where, UN seventeen came into place.

It's a brick and mortar space, but, also, we're starting to develop other media outlets to really gain a lot more traction in our goals.

Beautiful. And just winding back just a little bit. We're gonna focus on you on seventeen in this episode. But just to say out loud, Cactus Brewery is awesome. You're talking about the healthy ingredients, some of the best pizza with lots of organic toppings available, sitting out under these beautiful big tree shades, not the easiest thing to come by in New Mexico. And it just keeps getting more awesome. You recently did a crowdfunding campaign and to make it even more awesome. So just put in a plug in for Cactus Brewery.

If you are looking for a place to hang out in New Mexico, if you're gonna come visit, put Cactus on your radar. It's a super awesome place. So I'm not upset about that. Any anything well, tell us about your crowdfunding because people are always asking about raising money. So just a little side note, tell us about that crowdfunding you just completed.

Absolutely. I I appreciate that. Well, I I you know, it's funny. I talk about Cactus Brewery and UN seventeen side by side a lot, and not just because I I own and operate them, but because the history of both is is kind of what encouraged one over the other, you know, in a sense. So, like, you bring up the crowdfunding. I mean, I was so excited about that. We, you know, we have really good credit at the brewery, and we have the opportunity to lend from our bank our our local banks with no problem. However, we found a a company called Honeycomb that we partnered with.

And the idea is that instead of lending from a bank, a community can pull their funds together. They basically put all their money in a pot, and we usually you know, you set a goal. So our goal was between 30,000 and 60,000 with our sites on 40,000 is really what we wanted. But and we ended up raising, I think, it was 45 or 46, so a little bit over what our goal was, which was fantastic. But, again, what it does is once the money is is pitched in by the community, it gets packaged into a traditional loan, and then we get to pay back the community. And so the money stays more localized. What I found you know, it I feel like, you know, if you go back in history, it's one of the things that made The United States as great as it is, is that people had the opportunity to own their own land. And so for peep my customers to walk in and feel like they have even though it's not true equity, you know, they feel like they have ownership.

They're invested. And and I just feel like that is so powerful and such a great practice to get into. And if we were just within that practice more often, I think it would be really great that if you can own a little piece of every one of your favorite places, you know, and your chances of taking care of that place, whether it's picking up somebody else's trash or introducing it in the right way or just speaking highly of it, it's just so much more powerful, you know, when people take ownership. So it really worked out great.

Thanks for sharing that story. And our subtitle is a formula for community change. I love this story, and I this was the first time from you, Dana, as I heard about Honeycomb. So listeners, I'll put a link in the show notes. But to literally put your money where your mouth is, it's easy to say the words community, but in this case, you made a choice to not do the simple path. It would have been a lot easier. Right? Fair to say you go to a bank. You say, can we have a loan? You have good credit.

You get a loan. And then done. Right? But you didn't go that way because this was a very intentional leaning into community and baking community even deeper, in this case, to cactus. We're gonna go into UN seventeen story in a second, but I wanted to tell that story because I just love the choice you made there. And it was more work to do it that way. Right? But you did for you did it because you wanted to pay community in in a much more tangible way to where you were going with Cactus. Is that fair to say?

Absolutely. I mean, not just a little bit more effort, but also, you know, we chose to pay 3% higher than what we would have been on interest in order to pay our customers back. And, again, you know, we're proud of that. You know, it's something that, like, the end result is much bigger than a financial decision.

Yeah.

And the end result is as you keep repeating is is the community.

Yeah. So So we're more work, and you're paying more money because this was really important to you. And I I'm listen. I really wanted you to understand that about Dana. When Dana talks, again, a lot of people use the word community and mean it, but don't always find such tangible ways to bake it in. And we're gonna talk about how you do that at UN seventeen as well, but this was just such an obvious story. I wanted to I wanted to highlight that. So thanks for sharing that with us.

Absolutely. Cool. So let's go to UN seventeen. So you mentioned it's a physical building. So let's start with the physical building. Like, if I am somebody who's never been to UN seventeen and I hear about this building, like, brown me, what what do I see? What am I looking at?

So I would say that we're one of the most unique structured organizations that's out there currently. We're what's considered a five zero one c seven. And, you know, as we talked about, you know, sustainability and building community and all these things, I mean, the fact of the matter when you're looking at a business, you know, to do that, you know, these are all extracurricular activities, honestly. I mean, they're things that don't tend to, have an immediate return. And so I needed to find a unique way. You know, a five zero one c seven is considered a nonprofit organization. So UN seventeen is a is a true nonprofit organization, but it's also membership based. So it's supported by its members, and the idea is for its members to to be able to grow along with its mission statement.

And easiest way to simplify its mission statement is to encourage social enterprise through the private sector. So it's all about what we're talking about. You know, how do how do businesses grow but simultaneously build their community up alongside them? Yeah. And so but as a nonprofit organization, you know, we needed to find a unique way to be financially stable. We didn't wanna be an organization that was always begging for grants or, you know, hindered by, you know, the stress of overhead. And when I was studying nonprofit organizations, you know, the number one thing that kept being, you know, told to me is that 80% of your time is gonna be to find financial resources. And I just I wanted to flip the story on that too. You know? We wanted to change what that looked like.

And so in New Mexico, you're able to have a full liquor license attached to your social club as long as it's a membership based. And so what we did is we opened up this beautiful bar within it, and we really encourage both, you know, alcohol and nonalcohol beverages. We have a full espresso machine. But, you know, I look at social health, especially being a person that grew up in the service industry. You know, social health health is just as and and as we found out from a recent, you know, pandemic, right, and COVID. I mean, social health and being in front of people and having conversations is so extremely important just as is as important, if not more than physical. So so, anyway, sometimes I digress.

I apologize. Paul, I get I get excited. I hear pretty excited. I can tell why while I've been in the building. I know why.

So we, open and operate as a a social club, if you will, or a bar, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. But that you know, the the gen the sell of beverages is essentially our opportunity to generate revenue without thought. Right? And then we get to take anything that's left over, and that's what gets to fund the true mission statement of the organization. So, luckily, we get to offer this great social wellness aspect of, like, you know, people coming into a building more intentional than just, like, you know you know, having a blast at at a drinking establishment. You know? Like, people walk through the door knowing that they're gonna meet other business owners knowing that the intention is the 17 goals of sustainable development. And and so the conversations that get to be had there are truly incredible and and something to be proud of. So that's what you can expect over there at this little tiny building in Downtown Albuquerque.

So, yeah, there's so much I could say. So it it's an old house. Right? What what year was it originally built? You you told me,

but I'm sure. So we feel like it so we know for a fact 1921, it was was rebuilt. We're trying to find out find documents that dated a little further than that, but it's definitely over a hundred years out.

It's over a hundred years old, and it's like this very unique building and, like, it's it's in downtown. It's not a % surrounded by four and eight and ten story buildings, but that's most of Downtown Albuquerque. And here's this, like, great building, no signage. It's a social it's kinda like a speakeasy model in New Mexico. If you go this route, you can't put a ton of signage. Right? Is that my understanding?

Yep. You're absolutely right.

So it just looks like this old house that's a hundred plus years painted this cool, like, blue gray. It's one of my favorite colors. I love that color. Right? And and you walk in the door and, like, what do I see when I walk in the door of you in 17? Like, give us some give us some sense. Dana has a a very particular eye, just a gorgeous aesthetic. Right? So it it doesn't look like any hundred year old house that you would expect to see. Is that on the inside. Is that fair to say?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I think it's very fair to say. I mean, what we wanted is is exactly your excitement that you're sharing. When people walk through the door, we wanted to take them out of their normal day to day life. You know? We wanted them to immediately remove whatever's on their mind and immediately place their mind in the space and get them to be more present. And so when you walk in, you're absolutely right. I mean, we chose kind of this old nineteen twenties theme to complement the year that the house was, you know, born, so to speak, or built.

And then we coupled it with some, you know, fun aesthetics that are more modernized. So we kinda mix this this modern lighting with this really old nineteen twenties look so that the place not only felt big, but you just had a lot to look at. And I think what's so fun about that, like I said, I mean, no matter how long of a day you might have had, you know, you walk into the building and you're forced to let it go, and you're just waiting for what's next. And, usually, that what's next is a stranger walking up and greeting you before the staff does because they're so excited to meet others in the space. So it's really cool.

And these strangers that you're talking about are just I mean, New Mexicans in general are just relational, quirky, wonderful humans. We have we have a disproportionate number of them, in my opinion. But, also, this is a building that's dedicated to the sustainable development goals, and I'll put a link to the sustainable development goals. There's 17 of them as Dana said. It's called UN 17. So this building is dedicated to this purpose and things in the Sustainable Development Goals would include things like clean water and, you know, engaging young people and supporting them in a vision of the world they wanna live in and climate and empowering women and helping communities that have underrepresented communities or communities of color and sustainable agriculture and renewable energy. All those are the on the sustainable development goals. You can go read the link in the show notes, but you get a sense.

So this building is dedicated to that. So this in addition to New Mexico just being more relational, quirky, awesome humans, the building draws in people. On any given night, you don't know if it's like somebody is doing awesome tech stuff for women or youth empowerment or something on clean water, but that's the focus of this building. So there's a higher proportion of people doing impact work just by how this has been conceived and marketed, but it's not just one of them. So it's not a building dedicated to the empowerment of women. It's It's not a building dedicated to climate. It's all 17 goals with the encouragement to collide with other people doing other impact work, all live real time, and you might be there playing poker with people like that. Or you might be at a you might, I'm sorry, as a NM Climate meetup on or you might be, like, at a fashion show, but all these activities are for the group of humans who do impact work in this awesome 1921 or earlier house that's totally gorgeous.

Right? Is that is that beginning to give people a sense of what the magic that's happening in their data?

Yeah. Absolutely. You hit it right on. I mean, we're really trying to encompass, you know, culture. So we have dance performances. You know, fashion is a big one. Right? The fashion industry is always trying to find ways to be a little bit more aware of, you know, the the amount of supplies that they use and how do they recycle and how do they become more sustainable. And so, absolutely, you're you're you're right on.

I mean, we've had business coaching events, multiple business coaching events, individual coaching. You know, the sky's really the limit, and that's what's so great about those 17 goals if for those of the listeners that aren't familiar with it. I mean, it's essentially a humanitarian effort so that everybody can live a healthy and happy lifestyle. And that's so I mean, there's really nothing to argue about with that one. Right? I mean, we wanna we want people to be healthy, happy, and have the resources to live to their highest and best potential if they choose to do so. And, essentially, that's what this place is for. You know? Eventually, it'll be you know, I wanna be the person that, of course, you know, got it on its feet and but I want it to be run, and I want the excitement to be carried on by the people that attend the space and that are there and by its members and everybody around it.

That's that's sort of that called distributed leadership. Right? So we need somebody to get the ball rolling, but you wanna give access to what's happening there to a wider circle of leaders so it can impact more people. Is that fair to say?

Yeah. And I think it's what we kind of were scratching the surface on as we were emailing back and forth, getting ready for this great conversation as, you know, there's a hybrid model that's starting to be created on how we get things done and how we come together as a community. You know, there's so much social media out there and people on their phones, and, you know, we have an older generation trying to figure out, you know, what's the success for the younger generation. So all these things are starting to come into play, and I think I think an organization like UN seventeen here in Albuquerque that we've done is is the hybrid is becoming the hybrid model. And it's a design and a floor plan for people, not like, you know, we have for example, you know and, again, not to give a bad name to any organization that's already out there, but, you know, chamber of conferences, there's a lot of networking events. And, you know, I've been going to these things since, you know, I started my first first time working for myself was in real estate. I had a real estate license, and all I did was I was a part of every single membership group that existed in New Mexico. I think at one time, I probably had 20 memberships, and I went to a networking event every single evening.

And it just it's outdated. You know? It worked then, but the follow through, the follow-up, and the built the community never, you know, had as much meaning as what we're trying to do. I think people are becoming I love the your podcast name, Au Auarepreneurs. I mean, the word aware is just so important. Right? And and, like, people are just becoming more aware of their surroundings and becoming more aware of how they they spend their time. And so their time is more intentional these days. And so we're we get to be that innovative space that that encourages that Yeah. That intention.

You know?

Absolutely. In in a moment, I wanna hear more about the tech and the hybrid part of it, but let's just stay with this just for a second Sure. And just say so it feels different. I've I'm I was laughing when you're talking about going to a lot of events. I I also go to a lot of events. I mean, a lot of events. But these days, I'm more enjoying going to and and creating. And listeners, you're gonna hear some awesome things about in person live events with climate and underrepresented founders.

You're yeah. Just a little tease there. Some very cool things are happening in Albuquerque to be more coming soon. But that's I'm the same way. Like like, transactional models of doing business just they don't feed me, and there's enough happening in New Mexico now where I don't have to go to transactional business network. And I I think a lot of us are finding that. That's not true in all cities. Part of the reason I have Dana on the show is because I wanna help people realize what some of those new models are, and I love UN seventeen.

That's why we did NM Climate. I was the one who reached out to Dana and said, would you do this? That was not an accident that we wound up there. I'm very much a part of a new wave of folks who are saying transactional business networks don't work for a lot of us. I'm an introvert. If there's meaning and purpose, I love being in a group, but if it's about just shaking hands so you could sell more buildings without or sell more of anything, solar panels included, to kinda random strangers who just happen to be in the same room because everybody wants more business. Now I I'm good with people growing businesses, but that transactional way of doing business, I think I'm on trend for a lot of us that that's not interesting, and it's it takes a lot of calories to kinda force myself as an introvert to go into those environments where somebody's gonna shake my hand, doesn't really care about me, but they're supposed to ask, hi, Paul. Nice to meet you. What do you do for work? Because that's that's just the formula, but all they really care about is selling me their thing, whether it's whatever their thing is, a product or a service.

Right? Is it a house Mhmm. Or they're a consultant or an accountant. They don't really give a damn about me. They just wanna shake my hands and get to the part where they tell me what they do, and they hope I'm gonna buy a thing. You're smiling. Dana, you've you've been to a few of those. Right? Yeah. Absolutely.

But it's I have no interest in that anymore. Right? And I don't think I'm I don't think I'm that unique. Is that fair to say?

Absolutely. I mean, we can use as as a perfect example of again, it kinda becomes outdated. Right? At one point, somebody had the brilliant idea of putting name tags on everybody, which was really cool, right, at first. But now it's I I even do it myself. I'm totally guilty of it. You walk in, and you're looking at people's name tags, and you're like, who should I be talking to?

Right.

And instead of just introducing yourself to a person that you've casually ran into during this event. So so it shifted. Right? Like, the the intention of the name tags was meant for one thing. But as the years came on, you know, grew, it's, I think, a distraction more than anything else in this day and age.

Yeah. So I I I don't know. I hope this isn't too crude, but I said to my girlfriend recently, one of my contracts is I have a contract with New Mexico Angels, and it's the largest network of private investors in the state. And and she was asking about how does that work, and, you know, she's in a very different field. So she was just super curious. And I said, well, sometimes people approach me like I imagine I I hear a lot of women talk about how men sometimes approach them, and it's like, all they're interested is sex. Right? All they're interested is is a very limited transactional way of relating to this person. People can do that around money as well.

Like, a man you've had that experience, right, where there's been a male human being approach you, and you can tell by the very vocabulary he's using and the way his presence and his energy. All he wants is sex with you, but he's not coming out and saying that, but everything is wired and directed to try to steer it towards that outcome. How does that feel? It's you. Right? And I said, yeah. That's how it can feel as somebody who's connected to capital. Right? Some not all, but sometimes entrepreneurs and business people just relate in that same kind of way except change sex out for money. Right? That's how a lot of these networks can feel. People are just trying to find the fastest route to separate you from your money, and it feels terrible.

Right? And I love what you're doing because this is baking intentionality. Yes. We wanna grow our businesses, but there's a reason to the businesses that choose to go to you in 17. Of course, I you know, I'm in a relationship because I'm a relational human. I have physical touch needs and desires. All that's good. But it it has to be more meaningful for me both when it comes to money and relationships. And not everybody feels that way, but those of us that do, you're creating a space for that to happen.

Yeah. And thank goodness, you know, we live in an environment, a world that complements that. Right? I mean, now, you know, we have a world economy. I mean, you're not subject to just a local environment, and you're not subject to the people that are just in front of you. I mean, you can really, you know, depending on how intentional you wanna be, you can reach out and you can find the people that you truly wanna surround yourself with to to accomplish your goals and get to the next level. And I think that that's that's an important realization too. Right? You're not subject to just the immediate environment around you. So it's cool that we have such a large economy these days and a diversity of industries.

I mean, we live in a day and age too. I mean, again, like I said, I'm 42, but, you know, my generation understands that even at the at this later age, we can drop what we're doing today and literally become an entire different person and then a new whole industry and become experts in a short period of time and and and reinvent ourselves. It's just a we're we're very, very lucky. I think, you know, if you were to go back twenty, thirty just twenty years ago, admit but definitely thirty years ago, I mean, I don't think that it was that easy. You know? I don't think I think they were still teaching, go to school for four to six years, and when you get a job, keep it forever.

Absolutely. So you've been hinting for a while that the first part of our title is the intersection of technology and coworking. You've been hinting at the technology and scaling beyond who's in the physical building. So in a moment, I wanna come back and hear that story and how you're doing that. Before we do that, I just wanna take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Are you passionate about making a difference but feeling stuck on how to take your mission driven business to the next level? You don't need a lengthy coaching program. You need targeted advice from someone who understands the unique challenges that social entrepreneurs face. With my strategy session package, we'll focus on your most pressing decisions, whether it's clarifying your value proposition, optimizing your marketing strategy, launching a new product or service, or adjusting your pricing to align with your mission.

These sessions are perfect when you know the direction you wanna go, but you need someone with the experience to help you get there. If you're ready to unlock your potential and amplify your impact, book your strategy session now. The link is in the show notes. So welcome back, everybody. I'm here with my friend, Dana Koller, and we're talking about the intersection of technology and coworking, a formula for community change. And before the break, I was saying, Dana, we need to hear about the scaled part of it. Right? So you in '17 remind us when you started.

So you went '17. Well, it's gone through just like any other

Yeah. You had a little COVID dance. I I remember the COVID dance. Yes.

There's ups and downs. So, yeah, I was I I had the concept just before COVID was taking place or maybe about a year or two before. And then I I rented a building outside of Corrales, which, you know, for those that are not too familiar with New Mexico, you know, you've got Albuquerque and the surrounding areas, and pretty much they're all Albuquerque in a sense. You wouldn't know if you drove from Albuquerque to Rio Rancho or from Rio Rancho to Corrales, and they're kind of all connected in some way. So

But anyway, we start Northwestern part of Alb the Greater Albuquerque Metro.

Yeah. Yeah. So I would say about seven or eight years ago is when the momentum to understand like, the idea was sparked. Right? And and I tried to open a space. Unfortunately, the place that we rented did go into foreclosure during COVID, and we were forced out of the lease. So that's when it was actually a a gift in disguise. Although that was very hard to go through, I found the place in Downtown Albuquerque, this hundred year old building that was just begging to become UN seventeen. And that place was very rundown.

They were actually about to bulldoze it. But because I lost so much during COVID, that was the only way that I was gonna bring it back to life is to buy something very dilapidated. So I rebuilt it. It took two years to rebuild, and then we we we opened officially two years about two years ago. Nice. So now we're really I mean, we were introduced in the space truly three years ago, but our licensing, everything kind of went in just roughly, I believe, two years ago. And so now we are really, really starting to feel that.

Couple hundred members, events, many nights of the week. Right? So that's the physical building. And we've Mhmm. People can go to the UN seventeen website, take a look at that from poker night to fashion night to meetups, All that, you know, you get a sense of that on the website. So let's start to talk about some of the scaled oh, and we and people always ask about the revenue. So, again, Dana already covered that. How you stay afloat is through memberships. Right? People pay to be member very affordable memberships.

But largely, it's because the events that happened there, like, when we did the and I'm climbing meet up. 38 people were there. We got a generous sponsor to get some food in the room, but people paid for their own drinks, whether it was a mocktail or a coffee or they wanted a beer. They paid UN 17 for their drinks, and it turns out 38 people buying drinks over the course of people didn't wanna leave. It was supposed to be two hours. I don't think I think we were there more like three and a half. Right? It turns out that 38 humans buy a bunch of drinks, and that keeps that keeps you in 17 quite economically sustainable. Is that fair to say?

Absolutely. I mean, that's what it's all about. Again, generating a financial revenue source that allows us to be sustainable without even thinking about it. That way Cool. Instead of us focusing on that 80% of the time, we might focus on that only 20% of the time and have 80% of our time focused on the outcome. Outcome.

Beautiful. So we don't need to talk more about that listener, but just think of that happening the majority of nights, not every single night, but the majority of night, either poker night, a meet up, something a fashion show, and the people who are there purchasing things from UN seventeen, and that's how they sustain this beautiful, unique, physical building. So now there's efforts to use technology to scale, whether that is some things you've hinted at in terms of content. We've talked about AI. Like, help us This this hybrid model, something super cool and super place based in Downtown Albuquerque and has a building, and people are meeting in the room, but there's also this tech and, like, going out into the world. This is super fascinating. And this is a newer part. It's always been part of the story and the intent, but it's coming online.

So this is a pretty exciting time in the UN seventeen journey. It's like you hit that sustainability, found a business model. You're not stressing. You're not chasing money all the time like many nonprofit directors are, and now you can kinda build out into the wider world. Tell us a little bit about that.

Exactly. Well, thank you so much. I I I really am excited about this conversation because anybody out there that is looking to do this a similar thing or just start something new, whether it's a meet as simple as a meetup group, you know, like New Mexico Climate, for example, that you guys are really pushing and creating. It's it's fantastic. And I think that this floor plan that we're creating can help any truly any organization like that or or networking group that wants to effectively make change. So to jump right into it, like we were mentioning before, we've all been a part of big networking events or chamber of commerce, and I'm even a part of other nonprofit organizations. I'm on the board of a lot of nonprofit organizations.

I won't even ask you how many because it's a ridiculous number on top of running Cactus and UN seventeen. Like, it's way too many, Dana. You do way too much good things. Oh, I appreciate that. I know. I'm starting to, hopefully, like we said before, put together these floor plans where other people can, kinda jump in and carry a torch if you will. But Glad to do.

But I do enjoy what I do. I I can't you know, it doesn't it definitely doesn't feel like work. I feel like we're making change, so it's great.

Yeah. But but it to that point,

I mean, I I'm still a part of a lot of organizations that they've been around for a long time, and they're very strong. You know? They have buying revenue coming in, but it always amazes me still how difficult it is to truly get a sense of that ownership we were talking about. Right? And and move from conversation to action, you know, is is so important. And I think that's a big piece of what we're missing. And I think it starts at a young age. I mean, I don't wanna go too philosophical here and get off track. But at the same time, you know, there was this wonderful book I read it, and it was so long ago that you know, I apologize that I can't reference it exactly. But, you know, they were talking about how, you know, as you're growing up, a normal child will probably hear 2,000 nos before they hear one yes.

Right? Or 10,000 nos before they hear one yes. And it's kind of the same thing about, you know, when you know? And, you know, I'm a stepfather. I've done the same thing to my kids. You know? You talk about, you know, the kids are like, hey. Can we go to the park today? And you're thinking in your head, we might be able to, but chances are, you know, maybe. Give them a maybe. And it's always putting the carrot out there, but never really a full commitment. And and so we grew up that way.

You know? I think that the majority of us have. And so it's been and especially in New Mexico, you know, we have that, land of Manana. You know, you hear that a lot. And I think that everybody is now aware of that, and they're trying to break it, which is great. You know, I'm hearing that term more and more, and I don't think I'm hearing it because they wanna accept it. I think I'm hearing it because people are like, yeah. We wanna change it, which I'm excited about. So, you know, it's how do we how do we get from conversation to an end goal, right, and get more commitment to take place and break the habits of of always just saying maybe and it being acceptable to walk away.

Right? And so with the new technology, it's allowing us you know, there's incredible access to being able to build stories with AI video, even AI podcast. You know? And at first, I didn't know how I felt about that. But then I realized, you know, people are gonna just like they can differentiate an image from the real thing, you know, they're gonna be able to do that with video and audio too. But, also, you know, it definitely doesn't have to be a bad thing. I mean, just with anything new, you know, there's checks and balances. But what I think is great I'm gonna use a an event that is gonna be kind of the floor plan the floor plan for this at UN seventeen as an example. So we're creating a wine night called behind the bottle, and it's an opportunity for people to basically become as educated as a wine sommelier this year. So we're gonna try to launch it in March.

And any normal wine night could be like a networking. Right? You show up, you do a tasting, you hang out, and you leave. And that's kind of what I've been talking about as far as networking and chamber of commerce is. You know? Like, we show up, we'd kinda do our thing, and then we're out. There's that community is limited to its ability, right, to make change or to get connected or to really feel ownership. And so how do we go a step further? So this this wine night behind the bottle is gonna release a podcast every Monday that educates our people about the wines that we'll be tasting, about the history of them, the winemakers, and it dives in. And it's something it'll be clear that it's a kind of a plug and play. Right? It's gonna be clear that it's not something like this value that you're adding, Paul, like the for me and you to sit down and be authentic and really have these deep in-depth conversations.

It's more about kinda scratching the surface, but the idea is to keep them in the conversation longer. Get them already committed to the event that they're about to show up to. And then when they show up to the event, you know, they already feel acquainted with what's happening, with what's going on. They have a place to start. Right? On top of that, the night we will invite people to actually curate the event with us. So we're gonna create a board of directors just like you would in any corporation or organization or nonprofit where just this one event alone will have actually a board of directors that is encouraged to even get more involved. Now not to say that every single person that joins it is going to be required. There's no requirement.

It's just an opportunity to go a little further, right, and help us make the decisions. And what's the education next? What models do we choose? Now we get to place that order, and we go into the next week. So this happens to be a week by week, but I basically what it comes down to, I believe, all more than anything else is finding really unique and fun ways to keep the conversation going more often and stronger so that there's an end result and and finding a way for all the people involved to feel like they had a hand in that end result

and

that they have the power also to to, yeah, be a part of that end result if if they so choose to do so. Right? I think that we're seeing that you know, I know that you recently had I think it was just your last podcast, a big conversation about climate. Right? And and, like and I think, you know, there was a

spreadsheet with, Christy Dropman, the, also known as Brown Girl Green, and it was about sustainability Exactly. Right. Right. And diversity in the climate space. Yes.

So, yeah, I got to hear her kind of express in different ways throughout the podcast, which was so great that you know, because it's so true. It's what I was dealing with too that we have great conversations. Where do we where do we get our hands dirty? And so these this is kind of the hybrid that I've been talking about is that I think these tools will allow us you know, like, the Slack apps and different apps even offer that. Right? Just allow us to build a a stronger community that keeps you engaged a little bit longer. And and so that's what we're doing. Yeah. It's really cool. And I think that, you know, having a physical space again, feel fueling that social physical social need, but then having the ability like this podcast to to to share it nationally or internationally and and then just get the feedback from everybody.

It's just so awesome.

I was before right before I was interviewing you, I was doing the what I call the meet and greet from this is a leader from Sunrise Banks. They're doing super cool work around using inclusive finance as a lever for change. They're in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and, yeah, they're just doing awesome things. I'll put a link when that goes live. This won't go live first, though. So I don't I don't know. We'll have to figure that out. But, anyway, David was telling us about what we're doing.

And, he's like, yeah. I only wish we had a little bit more capital. And I said, well, how about $58,000,000,000? Right? And that's the size of the New Mexico permanent fund. And and I did an interview with, Andrea Romero, one of our awesome representatives on that permanent fund. It's called the social entrepreneur tipping point in New Mexico. But what's happening is that people are are are looking at us, Dana, because we're such a small community, and yet you're doing UN seventeen. And we got Andrea who's, like, not only one of our state representative, but is now doing this, like, really incredible probiotic egg startup, and it's a cultured egg, so it's like growing eggs. Chickens are really horrible for the environment in many ways, including the way the way we do chickens in The US especially, but in a lot of industrialized economies, they concentrate heavy metals, they pollute the water, they're breeding grounds for horrible, horrible, horrible bird flu kind of things, you know, as well as like bacteria.

They're they're just not sustainable in any shape or form. So she's working on that problem, and she's one of our representatives. It's making decisions about what to do with the $58,000,000,000. Anyway, he was like, you guys have what? He's he's in a big city like Minneapolis. He's never heard of anything like this now. He's all excited. Everybody that I know is doing impact work in New Mexico are telling these stories, and they're, like, you have to understand, listeners, if you don't know this, New Mexico only has, like, about 2.4, two point five million people in the entire state, a state the size of Colorado, and yet we have UN seventeen. We have NM Climate.

We have Andrea Romero as one of our state representatives and working on a probiotic, like, climate friendly way of getting eggs for people who wanna get eggs. Right? There's something happening here that is not common, and and UN seventeen is certainly one of them, a physical representation. But what I love about what you're saying, Dane, is you're you're helping a population that has the inclination. We have this relationship. We want to I think all humans do, but certainly in New Mexico. We wanna be a part of the converse. We want to have democracy and and shared positive impact, but some of us might not know how to use technology. So you're building on top of what happens in the physical UN seventeen space, helping people lever technology and learn how to use it for these purposes to kinda unleash technology for good by modeling how to use it in building the possibility of we can do this in ways that thirty years ago, it would take a lot of time, energy, and money.

We we knew how to do this thirty years ago in New Mexico, but we didn't do it often because it took a lot of time, energy, and money to get it done right, and I put right in quote marks. Is it fair to say that what you're doing is kinda taking that appetite that New Mexico New Mexicans have to to work towards positive things as a community and using technology to help us, a, learn that it's how it works, b, not have to have all of us build it ourselves. Like, we could plug and play into things that are already up and running by UN seventeen, modeling it and having that infrastructure. Is that anywhere in the neighborhood of what you're describing?

I think it all is. Yeah. You know, it's it's it's shared knowledge for sure. I think I'm I'm excited about a new generation of of individuals that don't see hoarding knowledge as a as a a financial benefit or a to have leverage over somebody else. You know, I I think that we're starting to get into a day and age where people realize the value, the added value of sharing knowledge above and beyond, you know, trying to make themselves, you know, again, have, like, a better in you know, like, a hand up above and beyond somebody else. And so I think, you know, that that kinda hints to a little bit of what you're talking about. But, also, you know, again, a lot of the things that we want to do to make a difference are extracurricular. Right? They don't pay us.

They're not there's no instant gratification. And so, basically, it's base it it it becomes this dream of how can we make my life or others' lives or the world a better place. Yeah. And that's where the conversation gets started, which is great. Right? But the deep the the unfortunate thing is because it's extracurricular at the moment, it's almost like, you know, it has to be subsidized, essentially. It has to be subsidized. And so we might have the time to talk about it today, but tomorrow might be different. You know, we might have to feed our families tomorrow financially, and so that changes things.

And so all of a sudden, the ball's dropped. And so, basically, what I'm saying is that this is an opportunity utilizing technology and use utilizing these bridges of communication, allow us allows for somebody to pick up the ball and run with it when I drop it and vice versa. And as long as the ball keeps moving, we're gonna get you know, it's like building the snowball. Right? Let's roll the ball down the hill and see how much snow it collects.

Yeah.

And I think this is the the technology that's coming out right now has much more opportunity for us to do that than ever before. And so I look at just like solar was subsidized for so many years until it became financially feasible for somebody to actually purchase. Right? And now it's it's a great added value. So I look at this technology, the AI technology in particular, as the subsidy in a sense. Is this financial it's saving us time, like, an enormous amount of time. You know? It's so, you know, Google has this algorithm now that it's called notebook l m, and I could basically go I was and I'll use the wine night as a just to keep us on track, right, as a as an example. If I wanted to give you an example of four to six wines that we're gonna taste on Thursday, I can literally go in, find YouTubes that the winemakers could have made, find articles that they did, and I can basically copy and paste and plug those all into this this system, and it'll and I can tell it, hey. Give me you know, instead of, like, 1,700 pages of information, take the most valuable and give me three pages that I can offer my guests.

Right? And so it's just so incredibly powerful. And, again, it keeps that conversation rolling where it we may have dropped the ball because of what was happening. So it's the subsidy that that gets us there. You know? And then the what's what's interesting, and I think we all experience this, like, when you know you have momentum, when you know you have the support, and when you know things are moving in the right direction, it's like you absolutely you make it a priority. I mean, you definitely will not go anywhere. Yeah. Right? And it's the same reason that, you know, I would say most businesses, you know, I should probably be an entrepreneur, and I start so many of these so many businesses should know this right off the bat. But, you know, they say within five what what is it? Like, 80%.

I don't know what

the actual percent down in the first three years.

Yeah. The first right. And then and then after that, it's what whoever's left another 80%.

Oh, yeah. The the number of people that

take it to

a decade is pretty small. Pretty small.

Yeah. Yeah. And I kinda contributed to the same thing. It's like, do you have I would say the majority of those businesses would have made it. Like, I've helped so many people. I've done free consulting over the years. I've helped a lot of people pull businesses, not just here in New Mexico, nationally and even in Costa Rica. I've had helped people pull their businesses up from from, like, I mean, really bad debt.

Like, you know, I mean, like, legal problems, like the kind of debt. Right?

Yeah.

And and pull it back up and and make them super successful businesses. What I see is that those 80% that fail are really literally, like, one step from success. But because they've been fighting the uphill battle for so long, they just couldn't see it or they can't see it and they can't feel it. But most of those businesses are actually doing something of value or actually doing it right. They're just missing it by, like, a hair. And they just needed somebody to grab the ball for him. Yeah. You know? So so this is I think yeah.

I want you in '17 to be, you know, the ball that keeps on rolling. Awesome.

Dana, I could hang out with you all day. And, fortunately, sometimes I get to do at least some parts of day hanging out with a beer at Cactus Brewery or at one of the many events we go to, but our listeners are busy. I know you're busy. I wanna respect everybody's time. We'll certainly have links to Cactus Brewery UN seventeen, some of the other things we talked about in the show notes. If there was something you were hoping we were gonna get to, we haven't touched on it yet. Were there something you wanna leave our listeners with as we start to say goodbye? What would that

be? Well, I just truly hope that, you know, the message I I hope it built excitement for anybody that's listening that, you know, that is in the situation of of, like, really trying to get something rolling and just inspire them to keep putting one foot in front of the other. You know? And don't be scared to to be honest about where you're at because there's somebody probably right around the corner in the same boat or or willing to pick up the ball for you. You know? So I think we really covered it. I'm so excited to to share, you know, the history of what we've done and why I've done it, and I I just hope that it was well received. I appreciate you.

Cool. If somebody wants to get ahold of you, Dana, what's the best way to do it? So both on un17.org. So that's gonna be un-17.org.

Or if you -17.org. Or if you happen to see cactus brewery, k a k t u s is the German spelling, but, basically, every email still kinda comes to me. I'm I'm actively owning and operating both, so you can easily find me. But I'm absolutely 100% happy to, you know, sit down and and introduce anybody that wants to be introduced to the space, and I'd be more than happy to take as much time as needed. So I encourage people to reach out.

Cool. Dana, thanks for everything you do for New Mexico, and thanks for being on the show today.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Cool. So listeners, let's do what we do. Tell your friends. If you live in New Mexico or you're coming to New Mexico, go check out either UN seventeen or Cactus Brewery. Just fabulous venues, each very different flavors, but awesome flavors. And reminder, we love listeners suggested topics and guests somewhere at least a third, and we're getting close to many months. A half of our guests come because you say, here's who you should interview, Paul. So please, if you have an idea for a show, please go to the Aware Printers web page website and on our contact page.

It has three simple guidelines. Try to be really transparent about who we interview and why. Lastly, I wanna say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.