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- [00:00]
Heidi Johnson
It's contagious. And if you're around it enough, you can catch it. And, and my kids have caught it. My husband is in the major support role. I couldn't do any of this without, without his support, trust me. He's like, wouldn't it have been better if you were like a shopaholic or I don't know, any addict, anything other than philanthropy? Like this. This one's tough. You can't save the world, Heidi. I'm like, oh, but you can try. You can check. You can help one person and you can do a lot. You can do a lot.
- [00:29]
Jay Frost
Welcome to the PM Podcast, brought to you by Donor Search, the show that takes you inside the lives of thought leaders, innovators and change makers in fundraising, philanthropy and civil society. I'm your host, Jay Frost. Heidi Johnson is a nonprofit founder, storyteller, and the creator of Charity Matters, a platform and podcast highlighting everyday heroes who make the world a better place through service. After a personal tragedy, in 2002, Heidi founded the Spiritual Care Guild at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, which became a national model for pediatric chaplaincy. Today she inspires others by sharing stories of purpose, resilience, and the transformative power of giving.
- [01:14]
Unknown
Let's start with where you are, which is what's been happening. And you're sitting in your home so you're safe.
- [01:20]
Heidi Johnson
Sitting in my home, so we're safe. And we were evacuated the day we were supposed to talk. So it was really crazy. We were back here the day before. Maybe we were maybe talk on Thursday. We were safe. We snuck back in on Wednesday afternoon. We evacuated at 6am Wednesday morning. We right above the Rose bowl, which has become the staging area for the National Guard, all the firefighters. And it was initially the supply distribution for victim fire victims. But they were concerned our neighborhood were in the canyon and we're only one way out. And so they were, I think they evacuated us as a precautionary measure knowing that we would all get bottlenecked in this canyon that we live in. So evacuated at 6:00am and then at 4, 4:00, you know, we watch the news all day. My in laws, all of our families evacuated all over, you know, the Pasadena area. And we're all different, different people's houses. And we're seeing that there's no fire trucks. And so my husband says we gotta go back in and water the house down. And so we snuck back in around 4:30 and we could, we got in because the resources were so scattered that there wasn't police roadblocks. Or anything at our, you know, to get up to our house. And it was a ghost town. Everyone was gone. And we watered down our roof and our house and our canyon and hosed everything out. But then as it got became dusk. We have a street video camera and we live on a cul de sac with 10 houses. We know all of our neighbors, cars. We started seeing very people that are not. Do not live in our neighborhood, in our neighborhood that were showing up to loot because it was all. It was vacated. And I don't know if you watch college football, but the Heisman house, Do you remember that? See the ads of the Heisman house? Anyway, it's a cross street from my house, so it's a. It's a. It's a. It's a red brick. It's a mansion. I mean, it's in a total state. I don't live in a state, but it's a crazy state. So I live in a neighborhood that has some significant homes. And. And so we called the police and they ended up arresting looters blocks, just blocks away from our house while the fires were going on. I mean, meanwhile, the town is burning and they're. They're looting evacuated homes that have not burned. So we stayed. So we stayed.
- [03:55]
Unknown
Oh, you didn't. You didn't evacuate.
- [03:57]
Heidi Johnson
We didn't. We didn't. We evacuated and then we came back and we stayed.
- [04:01]
Unknown
So you. I'm trying to understand the mechanics of this. I have not lived through a wildfire. You just took essentially your garden hose and you're watering your roof.
- [04:12]
Heidi Johnson
Yes, and our landscape, our trees and the sprinklers are going on completely with our hillside, which is ivy. So we're watering. So everything's wet. And then we're trying to spray our trees and spray everything down. So if an ember. Embers are flying three to four miles. So because the winds were 80 to 90 miles an hour, this was our fourth time evacuating, first time from this house. So I consider myself a professional. Very calm. Photo albums were all downstairs in baskets. Easily went into the car. Everything was so swift and easy. Paperwork. You know, on hindsight, I thought of a couple things. Like, I didn't take sentimental things off the walls that I probably should have that I wish I'd taken. But. But the reality is that so many of our friends have lost everything, and. And the sadness is just palpable and real. So we're the lucky ones. But we went back and then we were. We were literally two miles from fire. We were. We Were good. And we already. All of our stuff was out and our kids were saying, safe. And so we were. Our pet was that we were okay. So if we had to get up and go, we weren't going to wait for the flames to come down the street. We just wanted to make sure everything was secure. But then when we realized no one was holding on the fort in our neighborhood and there was no one in our neighborhood, it was a ghost town. Then we were like, we gotta stay.
- [05:34]
Jay Frost
Wow.
- [05:35]
Heidi Johnson
So we. So we stayed. And I'm glad because they ended up arresting people that were robbing our neighbor. And my. My dad's house, he's in La Canada by jpl. They had. My dad was evacuated. Four homes on the street were robbed.
- [05:52]
Unknown
There's the fire, which is a danger, and then there's this. This kind of carnage that happens sometimes when things are out of control, but that's a threat as well. So if you're there in the house, no garden hose is going to help you from looters. Did you feel that sense of danger, as much being there as if you were away?
- [06:12]
Heidi Johnson
I didn't realize it till we were here going, wait, what. What's happening? You know, I felt safe because, you know, we. My husband has a concealed carry permit, so he is very trained, and he. I felt very safe. I wasn't worried. I mean, we were not going to. We were not planning on shooting anybody. Let me just be clear about that. But. But I felt very safe. I felt okay. Yeah, I felt. I felt protected. But it was a little wild, Wild west, which is just not something we're used to feeling ever. Right. We always feel that there's a phone call away, there's someone there, and that. That wasn't really the case.
- [06:52]
Unknown
Well, with so much demand for so.
- [06:55]
Heidi Johnson
Much to make, the fire and resources were just stretched. Right.
- [07:01]
Unknown
So now I know that before the fires, when we talk, we're going to talk about all these other things, and we will. But it strikes me that there is a connection here. You just said that you've. You're now kind of a professional dealing with these things which are happening so often with the virus, the fires, for example. But there are other things, too, for people who aren't familiar with California's landscape. Everything from mudslides and Montecito to. I mean, lots of. And plus, you're in an area not just of earthquakes potential, but tsunamis. So there's a lot going on there. But you've been through this several times in. In at least two different homes. So you're kind of mentally prepared, I guess, for these. These things. But I wonder if your experience with all the other things that you've been doing for years also kind of prepared you to be able to leave things behind, to be able to prepare for that kind of change.
- [07:58]
Heidi Johnson
I think it's really interesting because when there's that moment that you. And the first time I evacuated was in Altadena in 1993, and we lost 93 homes in our neighborhood and two on our street. And I was 26 years old and a newlywed, and my husband was out of town. And I remember then I used disposable cameras to take photos of everything in the house before I left, just to date it. And I remember then having that moment where I looked at everything that I just received, right. As a newlywed, we had almost no furniture, but looking, and realized there was really nothing that was that important. There was a couple things, right? The photos and a couple things, but the thing. Things just. It didn't matter. And it was interesting this last time, just, you know, last week, two weeks ago, I had that same moment when I look at everything now, being, you know, 33 years married, looking at everything in the house, all the things we've acquired, all the life we've built, and there was really nothing but making sure that we had our papers, we had our photo albums, because my children's childhood is in photo albums, not on a phone. And that we had our. That we were safe and really. And nothing mattered. And my son was with us this time. My. And he's 30. He happened to be here, and I have an old car. And he. He was like, mom, we got to get the car out. And I said, it's just a car. It's just a car. It's insured. And he said, mom, they didn't make a lot of these cars. It's an old car. I said, I know it's a car. It's okay. It's fine. We're gonna be fine. And I was very calm and no panic. And there's just a sense that kind of comes over you of what matters, right? And. And it becomes abundantly clear what matters. And I think in the work that you and I do, we're reminded what matters every day, which is. Which is a blessing. It's one of the paydays we get in this work. But it becomes really clear in those moments that the things just. They're things.
- [10:06]
Unknown
Was that something you always had, though, or was that something that was kind of born in you As a result of some of the experiences you had in the past.
- [10:15]
Heidi Johnson
I think it's evolved. I think it's evolved. But I do think when I had that epiphany this last week about my 26 year old self and my 58 year old self having that same thought, it was really interesting to me that I remembered having it and then I remember doing it. It was like this flat, like here I am again. So at 26, I was so busy acquiring, right? It's all about acquiring. But yet in that moment I still remembered that it didn't. That it didn't matter. And, and so I don't know if I've always had it, but I definitely think the more you go through things, the more you realize what matters, right? It's the beauty of aging, right? The gifts we get with age.
- [11:01]
Unknown
And we haven't talked about people because in this case, the people that matter to you, we're all safe, both family and neighbors. But people are clearly core to who you are. Not just your work, but the whole journey you've taken. Can you take us way back? And I mean way back to before the incident which kind of inspired much of the work you do. Who were you then? Who were you growing up?
- [11:29]
Heidi Johnson
I was. I say I'm a. I was. I'm a salty sailor. Means a Catholic schoolgirl. I was, I was a really, really fun, full of energy, a little mischievous, a little naughty, always pushing the envelope, which I think were early signs of leadership. I like to think always the instigator of some great plan to have fun and do something. Always, always had an idea and a plan, always leading it. But I grew up in a really happy, big, large Irish Catholic family and, and we had a wonderful community and a wonderful family, an extended family. My dad's one of seven, so aunts and uncles and cousins and, and I grew up in Pasadena where I still live. And it's a wonderful community that is incredibly philanthropic. I have aunt that's a nun to priest, so I mean, I grew up with family that just gave back and, and we were joyful because of it. And I didn't really realize it at the time. You just are where you are and you don't even realize it until you start pulling away from where you are and seeing what you, what you had and have.
- [12:42]
Unknown
It sounds pretty happy and also kind of protected.
- [12:45]
Heidi Johnson
Yeah, very much so. Yeah, very much so. Yeah. I was very, very blessed. I had, you know, a stay at home mom and I had a working dad and it was, you know, I Grew up in the 70s and the 80s. So it was also a different time. You know, my mom went to work when I was in eighth grade and it was like the time of kind of women's lib. And you know, it was just a different time where kids rode their bikes till the street lights came on and, and, and we had to solve our own problems and our parents weren't kind of in our kitchen about what was going on and we were, and, and doing our own thing. And it was wonderful. It was wonderful.
- [13:21]
Unknown
So how, how old were you when all this changed?
- [13:26]
Heidi Johnson
I was 35. I was 35 when. 2002 when everything kind of came crashing down. Everything. The bubble burst and what, what exists in a family and a community doesn't go away when you have tragedy. But that still remained. And those, those pillars held me up through all of that. But it really was the moment that defined everything.
- [13:56]
Unknown
Can you describe that for those who don't know your story? What happened?
- [13:59]
Heidi Johnson
Yes. So my parents were celebrating 60th birthdays with all their best friends, four couples going to Mexico, going down to Puerto Vallarta at friends house and having the time of their lives. So happy, having so much fun and really enjoying each other. And I was also celebrating my husband. It was my dad's birthday. It's also my husband's birthday. I was away with my husband and friends for his birthday and we got that phone call in the middle of the night that they. Everyone warned you about that you never want to get thing that there'd been a horrible car accident and my parents were hit by a bus. They were hit by a tour bus and literally killed. Every couple lost a spouse. Three dead, one brain dead, my father in a coma, my mother killed instantly. And everything just changed completely. And dealing with getting bodies out of Mexico, processing the reality that my father was in a coma, we had to save him. And my father's fantastic and great and we married in 85 and wonderful and bins every day and he's terrific. But processing a group death, multiple deaths, losing your mother, and then really trying to focus on your dad, it's all you can focus on. And, and really it was a month when we, My husband went to Mexico and saved my dad's life and got him out of there. Um, and my dad's friend that didn't, didn't get medevact, who listened to the doctors and state is the one who's, who's brain damaged and still alive. And we sat with my dad, you know, for a month by his bedside and he ended up, you know, waking up and realizing his wife of 36 years was gone. All of his best friends were gone, funerals had happened and, and he came home Thanksgiving Day in 2002 and it was, it was the most joyful Thanksgiving ever. It was the most surreal thing. But we had survived this incredible loss that just changed our lives completely. Completely.
- [16:21]
Unknown
So he was recovering in the states at that point. He was medevac?
- [16:25]
Heidi Johnson
Yes, he's medevac. My husband went and got, and chartered a, he says credit card, Russian roulette to charter a medvac, you know, and got the private medjat to get him out.
- [16:37]
Unknown
Yeah, I can't imagine what that experience was like for you and your family as you're waiting to see, first of all, whether or not he will recover while grieving the loss of your mother.
- [16:53]
Heidi Johnson
It was the test of faith. You don't know you have it really until it's been tested. My dad used to tell us all the time when we'd say, we don't want to go to church on Sunday. What are we doing going to church? And he'd say, you're making a deposit in your bank and there's going to be a day when you need to withdrawal and you're going to be happy you made the deposit today. Come and make the deposit, you're going to church. And I remember thinking, oh, this is a big withdrawal. We're taking it all out. My dad died twice while recovering and it was literally. And we had media and press and reporters and other friends, funerals and trying to support them. I mean it was just, it was a lot. And I had an 18 or 13 or 18 month old, a 4 year old, a 6 year old, three little boys and my sister was pregnant, my middle sister was pregnant and she gave birth the day after the funeral that my father was not at. So then we were also. When my dad woke up, he was wheeled down. Literally he woke up as his granddaughter was born. The first time he was wheel he was awake and able. It was a circle of life moment. It was, you can't make this stuff up. I mean it was just an unbelievable experience. It was, it was unbelievable.
- [18:22]
Unknown
It must have been very disorienting for him. And he's coming out of a coma to find that so much time. It's not just the loss that he's, he's experienced, but also, you know, this new life. I, I don't know how you put those things together at a moment like that.
- [18:37]
Heidi Johnson
For my dad, my dad, I said to My dad, dad, you need to go to grief, you need to go to grief counseling. We need to get you to get some help. My dad looks at me and he says, you know, and he's very old school and he says, heidi, every day I put on one sock and then the other and then one shoe and the other, and I stand up and take one step and then the next, and then I repeat it. And that's what we do. And, and, and that's what he did. And he, you know, we all climb out of this and that's really obviously what the book is about. And, and I'm watching it and living it again in a different way in my community with the loss of the fires being people helping one another, seeing how my dad climbed out, seeing, you know, reliving almost in the way the loss and tragedy and what, how you have a, a decision point. Kind of at one point you can, you can be a victim and you can, you can sit in your pain. And there's a moment to be in your pain for sure, but there's a moment when you have to recycle it and you have to make a change to recycle it and turn that pain into purpose. And that's, I'm seeing beautiful, beautiful signs of that in my community, which is just, that's the healing process, watching it happen.
- [19:53]
Unknown
And for you, it sounds like you were grounded, so you were able to do some of that. You also had the family support, you also had the responsibility, it sounds like, of making sure that you were present and on even keel for young children who had no understanding of life and death. You know, they're probably just trying to figure out, where's a cup of milk, Mom? So that put you in a position where for many people, they have to put the feelings aside. Did you have some time where you kind of bottled it up or did you face it right then?
- [20:26]
Heidi Johnson
I faced, I remember saying to the, to my four and six year old boys, mommy's going to cry a lot. And when I cry, I want you to stop. I don't want you to say anything. I just want you to hug me until I stop. Don't tell me I'm going to be okay. And told my husband this as well. Don't tell me I'm going to be okay. Don't say anything. Just wait till it stops and then we'll go on. But know I'm going to do this and that's what I need you to do. And it's like putting a band aid on mommy when you know, when she does that. And that's what everyone did. I said, that's what I need. And so they just would do this. They would just all. Whoever was around, whatever would happen, you know, it's usually the car, the shower, the pillow. Those are the triggers, right? Those are the three places you're alone that usually it all comes out. But those moments, they would just do that. They knew that was kind of the instruction and they would do that. And then I would say thank you so much for helping me. That really helped me.
- [21:24]
Unknown
That's incredible presence of mind to know what you needed. Because a lot of people don't know what they need and so they can't articulate it. Wondering if somehow where in all that is the inspiration for what you started to do with the spiritual care work within, I guess within hospitals initially or.
- [21:45]
Heidi Johnson
So it's, it's so, it's so. It's so interesting, Jay, how these little threads come together in our lives, right? And when you, when you rewind your tape and you can see the quilts, the little threads coming together to form the pieces of the quilt. And that's really how I feel. This is kind of all happened in when you Hindsight is 20, right? So. And what happened was a year after the accident, almost to the day, my parents accident was November 9, 2002. November 9, 2003, I was invited down to Children's Hospital Los Angeles by my friend who is a Catholic priest. And he said, I need help. I'm the only chaplain here. We have 300,000 children going to the hospital. I can't greet helicopters, I can't do blessings for surgery. Please bring friends. And I said, john, I have, I have nothing. I have an empty tank. I'm grieving, I have three little kids. I'm philanthropic, but I have nothing to give. And that's really what's so interesting to me too because when you feel you have nothing, you think you can't, but it ends up filling your tank, right? So down I go, not knowing my tank was ready to get filled up. And in the hospital halls we meet a woman on. We meet a woman who's a patient with her 12 year old child and she sees Father John and she comes running across the hospital and she's so excited and he's like, whoa, whoa, who? Oh, calm down. These are my friends. And she tells us her story and quickly. She was stay at home. She was a single mom new to Los Angeles. She had one child and she taken him to school and he was run over in drop off line and carpool line and was not supposed to live. And they were hel to the hospital. And Father John greeted her at the helicopter and he sat with her for eight hours. And during the surgery and gave her hope and gave her faith and prayed with her. And the little boy survived. But he visited her every single day for a month, every day. He was her only emotional lifeline. And I had everything. I had everyone holding me up. I had a bribe of people. And she looked at us and she looked at Father John. She was, father John, he's going home on Thanksgiving day. And that was a lightning bolt. And call it, you know, aha moment, God, my mother, whatever you believe. It hit me there was no going out of it. A calling, you know, the nuns would say, it's a calling. Whatever you want to say. In that moment, I knew I was doing going to be starting a nonprofit to provide more chaplains, which Father John wanted at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. And that's exactly what we did. And so those 10 girls and I in that hall, we got to work and we started something called the Spiritual Care Guild. And we built a department in a hospital that had one chaplain. We now have 30 some chaplains of REL. Some religions. I don't even know what they are. We have a $10 million interfaith center. Our chaplains are part of the medical team. They do rounds. And we're now a national template of pediatric chaplaincy. 20 some odd years later, where hospitals complete all over the country, follow what we do. At Children's Hospital Los Angeles, you gave.
- [24:56]
Unknown
One really vivid example of how one spiritual counselor can be so important to one person, especially a person who's alone and may not have at that moment known what she needed either. So she had that double gift. How important do you think chaplaincy is in a world where there's an increasing disconnect, at least in the United States, between whatever faith we might hold and the kind of organization of that belief system, whether it's going to a church or whatever, it's often we don't have those connections. It sounds like you had them in your home and you recognize them, you were able to take advantage of them. Other people may not. Where does the role of chaplaincy kind of spiritual guidance play both in this kind of. This world of medical care, but. But more broadly for people who need someone to talk to at a time when they might not know what they even need to talk about or that they even need to talk at all?
- [25:55]
Heidi Johnson
Right. Well, the chaplains are all religious, they go through training, they go through this clinical pastoral educator, this whole process. And you know, they go through school to become a chaplain. And really they're trained listeners. They are not preachers. And I think that that is really. A preacher tells you what to think and believe, and a chaplain listens to what it is you believe. And it's very different. The chaplains are there to hear what you're going through at that time and whatever that is. And we've certainly had situations at Children's Hospital where you may be one faith and a different chaplain shows up. Some people say, I only want to speak to someone who is of this faith. And if we have someone there, great. But in those moments, you want someone who listens. And it's, it's just getting that, that lifeline of giving you that hope that you're going to get through whatever that is. And, and sometimes it's celebrating, sometimes it's someone's going home. And you're also, you're so. But you've been with that patient for three years and they're healthy, but you're sad. You're sad that they're leaving, but you're happy. But there's still. You need to, you need to process.
- [27:05]
Unknown
That as you're talking about this. It strikes me that a lot of times when people go through a major incident, what you went through with your family, what she went through with her son, whether or not we have that kind of support system, whether it's familial or faith based, often it's very brief. You just described how he stayed with her every day, essentially, or visiting her every day for a month, how important that was. But for a lot of people, there's a loss or some kind of major traumatic incident, and then the news rolls on. I'm even thinking about the fires right now, because now the fires are still roaring, but they're also rolling out of the news.
- [27:52]
Heidi Johnson
Right? 100%.
- [27:53]
Unknown
Where does all this, where does all this fit? I mean, how do we make sure that we're present for people where maybe what happened to them is very real and present for them now, but the world isn't remembering it anymore?
- [28:06]
Heidi Johnson
Well, I think that's really interesting. I wrote, I wrote a piece about this recently because I kind of am equating the fires to a death and that when someone dies, the casserole brigade shows up. You know, those first two weeks, there are casseroles everywhere and there's food everywhere. And then when you need someone at four months, when you are at the absolute, like, bottom, which is textbook grief. Four months, there's no one, there's no casserole, there's no one around. And the fires are the same right now. We have volunteers and distribution centers, and it's great, but the casserole brigade is here and they're packing up and they're rolling out. And I keep telling everybody and all my friends, this is a long game. This is a long game. This is not a casserole. This is a weekly check in. This is a walk. This is a glass of wine. This is being that chaplain, that friend, that person that has a lifeline that is long, says, here's the rope and keep coming. And I'm going to be pulling it little by little till we get you back where we get need to get you out of this hole.
- [29:20]
Unknown
No quick fix, but it's no quick things here. So that's. And that's obviously what happened with the guild, because if it's still here now, and this is how many years it's still here.
- [29:30]
Heidi Johnson
22,003. So 22.
- [29:34]
Unknown
And lots of, lots of growth, but also acting as a. As a, you know, a template, as you said, for others which, which need some way to provide this, you know, provision of these, these services. But you also delved into things like a capital campaign. Where do you find that the. The love in the community was to support something like this? Because once again, unless people are experiencing it directly or they're part of that casserole brigade, right at that time, they might think, oh, well, didn't we already handle that? Or I don't even remember what.
- [30:04]
Jay Frost
When was that fire?
- [30:05]
Unknown
So how do you get people to be involved in making sure that something like this that might seem temporary actually is there for the long haul, for every incident that we encounter?
- [30:15]
Heidi Johnson
You know, I think. I think of people as passionaries and nonprofit founders as passionaries, people that become passionate about something and they really. And they turn that energy into something great. And so for me, I had been grieving, but I was given this opportunity, fate, whatever you want to call it, to put that into something really fantastic. And today, when I think about my mom, I do think about the tens of thousands of families that have had chaplains for the past 22 years that have changed their experiences, good, whatever, they've had someone there, and that wouldn't have happened without. Without that loss. So I think that when you think about, for us, when we started about creating spiritual care, we just said if we. And all the people I've interviewed, the charity matters and Nonprofit founders. Since our goal is if we could help one child, and most of them profits, they all stay if we can just help one person. And we started out, our motto was one spirit, one soul, one child at a time. And we thought if we can help one child to have a chaplain, then that's what we would do. And we would build this department and we would hire, we would become an accredited department at Teaching Hospital. And each chaplain that we hired, which was maybe $40,000, I think at the first, you know, 20 years ago, would then take five students and each. So that's how we built the department. We built it that way and we knew that we could manage those salaries. And then the new hospital was built without a chapel. Without a chapel. New building, new hospital, no chapel. And then we had to go into the capital campaign and kick out McDonald's and put the chapel in. And that became a whole other thing. But we had to build this apartment. But we started with the intention of helping one child and then it was hiring one chaplain and then getting five students and then one more chaplain and then five students. And before you knew it, that's how we did it. It was very, you know, and each year you set your goals and your bars higher. Like every non profit in America, we're our own best and worst enemies. We push and push and push constantly and we set these goals. And that's how we move the line, because we move it ourselves.
- [32:36]
Unknown
Right, but you aren't doing this any longer. You decided to put it.
- [32:42]
Heidi Johnson
I'm on the board. I'm on the board. But that I am not in the weeds of running Spiritual Care. Yeah.
- [32:49]
Unknown
How did you decide to make that change for yourself, but also for the organization? Did you have a succession plan? Because many organizations don't.
- [32:58]
Heidi Johnson
They do not. And I actually become kind of an expert on succession plans when I. Because at five years I realized I felt like Spiritual care was a toddler. It was going to kindergarten and it didn't need me as much and it was ready to go. And I realized that people in the organization were looking back at me as the organization with a little bit of founder syndrome where the, what we do and who we are, kind of the lines begin blurred. And that's what I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's this, this is all about these chaplains and, and the nurses and the staff and the families we're supporting. This is not. There's no face on this. So that's when I realized, and I had this kind of burning Question of, there was no CNN heroes then, there was no People magazine heroes among us then I wanted to know who the other people were who had done this work. And I was determined to figure it. So I transitioned with the board and said, I'm going to be rolling off, I'm going to stay involved with the. At the time still on the spiritual care advisory board, and then ultimately became a trustee at Children's Hospital. But I then went in search of who are these people who start non profits. That was really what I wanted to do. And that's what I transitioned, really made the transition to step aside so the organization could grow.
- [34:15]
Unknown
And that's where charity matters began.
- [34:17]
Heidi Johnson
And that's when charity matters began and I started interviewing nonprofit founders. Yeah, it was like 2008 or 9, I can't even remember.
- [34:27]
Unknown
So why, why, why that? I mean, there were many ways that you could have gone, you could have not just stayed with the organization, but moved on to, you know, into this kind of healthcare apparatus we have in the country. We certainly know it needs help. Or it could have been another kind of organization, another NGO maybe bringing this kind of work to the world. There are so many directions you, you could have gone, but you went right into, I guess, sitting down pastorally and asking people questions. What, what was the motivation for that? And what, you know, what did. What for form did that take? And what is it taking today?
- [34:59]
Heidi Johnson
You know, I think it was a little bit of finding my tribe because I just knew what I had been through this five year of building something really exciting, this entrepreneurial journey for service, where my life, my everything had just turned completely and focused into helping other people. And I started looking around going, okay, I'm not the only person. There's 1.6 million non profits in the United States. How did they start? And who did this? And who are these people? And why are we looking at Kim Kardashian? And I'm sure she's a lovely person, but. But why? At the time, I was like, she was all over the place. And I was like. And so the more I started looking at these stories of these people which started nonprofits, I became fascinated. I mean, like on a quest, on a mission. And I felt like an archeologist. I just kept uncovering the most beautiful human stories every single day. And the more I dug, the better I got, the more I craved hearing them and the more I wanted to share and tell them and inspire people. Because these are our modern day heroes. And they're everywhere. They're in all of our Communities and no one knows who any of them are.
- [36:12]
Unknown
Do you remember setting up the first interview? Who was that? How did that happen?
- [36:17]
Heidi Johnson
I'm trying to think of who the very first one was. I think the first one was Operation Progress. And I'm gonna think of her name. They. She. Operation Progress started here. It started in the Valley in Los Angeles. I can see her face. She ended up being on 60 Minutes shortly after I interviewed her too, which is so interesting. She's a fantastic woman. She had, she had what? Her family and she's one of the few. Operation Gratitude. Excuse me? Operation Gratitude. She. There is an Operation Progress as well. Operation Gratitude. She had. Her parents were supposed to. Were supposed to be in the doctor's appointments in the towers of 911 and she could not get a hold of them and she was absolutely hysterical and it was a very long time until she heard back that her parents were okay. And she had some incredible gratitude. And the war was starting and she went and she had toddlers and young children and she went and tried to sign up for all the army, the Navy. They all told her, many of them with their car se was outside the. The recruiting offices and they, they said no ma'am, we can't take you. You have young children. We're not going to, we're not going to take you. She had this calling to join. So then she said well, I'm going to do care packages for the military. And I got. Killing me, I can't see her name right now. It's right there. And anyway, she has done. I forget how many millions started with a couple in her living room. Care packages for our deployed servicemen around the world. It's called Operation Gratitude. I've been there, I've met her there. She's retired and then she came back Executive director. They're now completely embedded with the military. I mean they are now partners. But she started as a mom who just said if you're not going to let me deploy, I'm going to help. But she. There's a couple other pieces to her story about someone she'd met in recruiting office. And anyway, she was my very first and she.
- [38:23]
Unknown
Is there one that's really hit you. I mean all of them obviously are meaningful to you, but one that really stands out as being either emblematic of all the people that you're talking to, that kind of that crystallized element that makes all these people do what they do or maybe something that just touched your heart.
- [38:41]
Heidi Johnson
Particularly there's, you know, the when, when, when someone was the child that's always. I think those are the ones that really, that kind of haunt me a little bit with people have that level of grief and then they still take it and turn something beautiful. Whether it was, you know, Pavlov. Pablo died of cancer. He was five years old. His name is Pablo, and he used to take the camera, his phone, his mom's phone, and take pictures of everything in the hospital. And when he died, his parents were in the record business here in la. And his mom said, well, you know, his friends had started kind of a GoFundMe before GoFundMes existed and in the. The record business had. And then it turned out, ended up being a sig, you know, a significant amount of money. And so when her son died, she went to the doctors and said, I don't know what to do, but I need you something with this money. And they said, what would Pablo have wanted? They said, well, Pablo love to take pictures. And so she created a program called Shutterbugs for children with cancer. Learn to take pictures and to express their, you know, what they're going through. Then they sell those photos. But then all the money goes to pediatric cancer research. And pablov is the nonprofit. And Pop Love is absolutely huge organization helping children. They've done so much cancer research. I mean, that's just one. I could talk to you, Jay, all day. I've done hundreds, thousands, maybe so many interviews in 15 years.
- [40:18]
Unknown
What of that? Maybe all of it has inspired the writing because now you have the book.
- [40:23]
Heidi Johnson
Well, I think it's back to that thread we talked about, because each interview is a piece of the quilt. Each interview is a piece of the. Is a patchwork, is a story. And I kind of in my mind maybe said, oh, someday I'll write a book. You know, it wasn't, oh, I'm going to write a book this year. It's not that at all. I laugh and I've said this before, but I'm. I was born breach. So I backed into this world and I seemed to back and I kind of backed into becoming a nonprofit founder and I backed into writing the book. I was asked to be in a docu series with 100 inspiring women. And I thought, oh, I can be videotaped and talk about myself. That's easy. But I didn't realize when I went to sign the contract that the publisher was creating the docu series and I had to write a book as part of this commitment. And so I backed into becoming an author as well. But. But I had all the pieces of the quilt and it was just putting them together. And so it ended up being a wonderful adventure and fantastic. But it wasn't, you know, that intentional. This year I'm going to write a book. It was. I backed into it.
- [41:29]
Unknown
Did you discover something in writing the book that you, I don't know, somehow didn't put together when you were doing all these hundreds of interviews?
- [41:37]
Heidi Johnson
Well, I think, I think, yeah, because I really sat down and I've learned so many life lessons from so many people. And some of the lessons are the same and different. You get different veins of gratitude or you get different, different stories of overcoming obstacles from these people, or you get different stories of finding purpose through these people. And I say these people, I mean, nonprofit founders and so really trying to edit and collect those stories into lessons and then stories that back up the lessons, which is really, you know, what the book is about.
- [42:19]
Unknown
You know, I'm thinking about this and thinking about your own family because they went through this experience with you now many years ago, but still a big part of your own journey. And then you've watched other people go through these journeys. And often we don't talk about the extended family because then we become the focus either through our work in an organization or whatever. How is your family today, particularly your kids, who are so young, when you initially, you know, lost your mom and then your, Your father went through this?
- [42:49]
Heidi Johnson
You know, my dad is great. He's. He remarried another widow 18 years ago, and he's happily married and in great health and he's wonderful. My sisters are great and, and my sons are fantastic. They're 30 and 28 and 26. And, you know, I think I. You don't realize when you're a young mom, you're just doing what you do and you don't think about the mentoring or the role modeling. And I didn't think about my. I don't think my parents or grandparents thought about what they were doing. For me, they just did what they did. And so it continues. Right. But my sons have been incredibly philanthropic, all three of them, and at a young age, and I have to say, as a parent, it's one of my proudest accomplishments. My oldest son, at 13, had a pity party and it's in the book, but at a pity party about the school he was trying to get into for high school and he couldn't and he was wait listed. And I ended up sending him down to South Central Los Angeles to Bourbon Day, where I needed him to help volunteer. And I sent him to Watts, this redheaded kid to Watts. And he fell in love with the kids and Watts at Bourbon Day and Urban Compass and after school program. And he ended up spending four years. I drove him every day to Watts, which is 45 minutes each way, after school. And then when he had his license, he drove himself every day to Watts. That's my oldest son. My second son's dyslexic, and so he ended up starting a program that reading to kids after school. And then he also started with Children's Hospital, a junior ambassador program. So he was a quarterback in high school. And he did. They called it. What was. I'm trying to think of the name of the program, Junior Ambassadors. So he would say, sponsor me for a touchdown and a dollar a point for my team. And so he would raise about $10,000 of a fall season.
- [44:54]
Unknown
Wow.
- [44:54]
Heidi Johnson
And. And in the huddle, we took all the kids to Children's Hospital. In the huddle, he would say, this is for the kids. And they knew what they were working. All the team was working to raise money, you know, for the hospital. And so his junior ambassador program was my middle son. And then my youngest son ended up co founding a nonprofit with a friend of his called Once Upon a Room. And My youngest son's 20. He's 23 right now. My youngest son in high school and his good girlfriend is half of a Siamese twin. And yes, you've probably read about her in People magazine. Josie. Josie Hull. And Josie was separated at birth and knew she would not really walk. She lost the balance part of her brain when they were separated. And. And so she stands on a kind of a standing wheelchair. And her mother, Jenny did. Her doctor mother Jenny, did incredible, like, extreme hospital room makeovers, decor for all the surgeries that she had. And so Josie said when she's in high school, to her best friend Sienna, I want to do this for other people. Will you help me do this? And so Josie and her best friend Sienna, who happened to be really good friends with my son Ford, and his best friend Thomas, launched Once Upon a Room with a lot of parental involvement. And Ford was really in charge of getting the junior ground crew, which is getting all the 300 high school kids to help. And they go in and they do these. I mean, if a child is having surgery or it's a birthday or they're going to therapy or they're having a hard week, and it's not that they like superheroes, they like Batman or they don't like baseball, they like the Dodgers, they come get wheeled in, and their room is unrecognizable. And it's bedding and, and decals and toys and hats and everything. And, and it's, it's, it's instant gratification which you don't get in the non profit space very often. And they're now in 22 hospitals across the country. And my son went to college and Sienna and my son both went to the same college. They took it to Texas, they took it to tcu and they already had expanded to three or four hospitals, children's hospitals in the Los Angeles and Southern California area. And so There are now 22 hospitals across the country.
- [47:22]
Unknown
I like to ask about family because it's good to know how things turned out for everyone. But it's also interesting to find out, is there a kernel of what you managed to do as you thought about your life and turned it into, you know, turned. It looked outward, not just inward, and started doing things with and for others. And then what happens with the rest of the family? Do they. Are they inspired by it or is that just something that's in the DNA or something? It sounds like they were all exposed to something where you also interviewed all these people and then you've just written this book. Are you finding the essential element? Is that. Is there something out there? Is there a Tony Stark element that we haven't discovered yet that helps some people not only to overcome, but then to devote themselves to this world of social good?
- [48:12]
Heidi Johnson
It's so basic, it's so crazy to me, Jay, that there's billions of dollars in self help books out there every year to be richer and thinner and all the better leader and all these things that we strive to be when the most basic cure for everything is helping another person. Josie knew this as a young girl with brain surgery. I figured it out at 35 people figuring out a different. My son's watched this and figured it out. It is the most basic cure for connection, for empathy, for joy, for purpose, for physical health, for mental health. It is. There is no silver bullet, but if there was one, it is helping another person. It is just so simple. It's right in front of us and yet no one sees it. It's right there in plain sight. You and I have the privilege of having. I always say I have a front row seat to humanity with the conversations that you and I get to have with wonderful people each week. And we get to see the best of humanity, which is really a treat because there's so much good. And the news is sadly showing us sometimes the other side of humanity, but it's just so simple. And it's really, it's contagious. And if you're around it enough, you can catch it. And, and my kids have caught it. My husband is in the major support role. I couldn't do any of this without, without his support, Trust me. He's like, wouldn't it have been better if you were like a shopaholic or, I don't know, any addict, Anything other than philanthropy, like, this one's tough. You can't save the world, Heidi. I'm like, oh, but you can try. You can check. You can help one person and you can do a lot. You can do a lot.
- [49:58]
Jay Frost
Well, that's it for this episode of the PM Podcast. If you would like to learn more about charity matters, go to charity-matters.com for more information on Spiritual Care Guild of Children's Hospital Los Angeles, visit spiritualcareguild.org Our thanks to our sponsor, Donor Search, the world leader in AI and donor research for nonprofit fundraising. Our producer is Jack Frost, and our theme music is Moving Out, Moving in by Jay Taylor and is provided courtesy of Epidemic Sound. If you like what you heard, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen. Check out our sister shows, Front Lines of Social Good and How to Raise. And come back next weekend for another conversation with a leader in the world of social good. Until then, this is Jay Frost. Thanks for joining me.