Aaron Perry
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Values-driven Business in the 21st Century – Banking & Tourism for Good
In this podcast episode, Jared Meyers, the Founder and Chairman of ecotourism brand Legacy Vacation Resorts, discusses how values-driven business in the 21st century delivers benefits for people and planet while also bolstering profits. By embodying and demonstrating deep alignment with core values and day-to-day decision making and action taking, Jared exemplifies the “Ecocene entrepreneur” spirit and ethos. Eschewing the heretofore conventional business ideal of “profits at all costs,” Jared instead way-shows and shines light on emerging business models that are out-competing their conventional counterparts by focusing on sustainable values-driven differentiation in the marketplace. In a word, winning. Winning in the three-fold manner of stewarding our planet, caring for our communities, and prospering financially in a holistic and comprehensive foundation of leadership rooted in service. In order to evolve our world-views to attain this framework for ourselves, Jared tells us we must (1) unlearn, (2) relearn, and (3) rehumanize.
In addition to leading Legacy Vacation Resorts, Jared is also a co-founder of Climate First Bank and is a leader in several community networks, including 1% for the Planet, White Men for Racial Justice, B-Corp / B-Certified, Global Alliance for Banking Values, and One Ethos. By not separating “business” from “personal” life, Jared asserts that he experiences being more human as we collaborates across sectors and works tirelessly to improve lives in communities across the entire socio-economic-ethnic spectrum. A “Benefits Corporation” since day one, Climate First Bank is the fastest growing bank in the United States (measured in terms of organic growth as opposed to mergers and acquisitions) and focuses on lending to non-profits, other benefits corporations, and for solar and renewable energy.
About Jared Meyers
Jared Meyers is a values-driven professional utilizing his time and resources to improve social, environmental and economic conditions through Certified B Corporations (“B Corp”) and the Business for Good movement. He believes we can co-create a better and more resilient future by supporting organizations and people that seek a shared and equitable prosperity for all. He accomplishes this as a founder, investor, and/or lead executive of several carbon neutral B Corp businesses, which include Legacy Vacation Resorts (hotels), Salt Palm Development (real estate development), and Climate First Bank (banking). These B Corps operate in Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and New Jersey, serve over 300,000 customers annually, and regularly achieve some of the highest positive stakeholder impact in their respective industries (as evidenced by local, national, and international awards, and their verified B Corp scores). This past year, Jared was recognized as one of the top 100 Impact CEOs in the United States by Big Path Capital (“Momentum 100”).
Jared stewards the For Good Movement (Florida for Good and B Tourism business communities), while serving as Co-Chairman of B Local Florida, a Founding Steward of B Lab, a Global Economic and Environmental Opportunity Fellow at the University of Central Florida, Co-Chair of the East Central Florida Regional Resilience Collaborative, and a Partner in Change for the Transformational Travel Council. He enjoys sports, being an involved dad, and actively traveling with his wife of 22 years, Kristi, and their two children. They live in Orlando, Florida. Jared graduated from the University of Florida in 1998 Summa Cum Laude with a BSBA double majoring in Finance and Management.
Resources & Related Episodes
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jared-meyers
https://www.linkedin.com/company/legacyvacation
https://www.instagram.com/legacyresorts
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089722887100
https://www.carbonbankroll.com
https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us
https://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org
https://www.climatefirstbank.com
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Transcript:
Welcome to the Y on Earth Community podcast. I’m your host, Aaron William Perry. And today
we’re visiting with Jared Myers, the chairman of Legacy Vacation Resorts and pinnacle leader
so many amazing efforts underway that we’ll be talking about. Jared, welcome. It’s so great to have
this opportunity to visit with you today. Well, thank you for having me, Aaron. I’m
excited to talk with you. Share a little bit more about the good fun work that we are doing.
Really looking forward to it. Jared Myers is a values driven professional utilizing his
time and resources to improve social, environmental, and economic conditions through certified
B corporations, B corps, and the business for good movement. He believes we can co-create
a better and more resilient future by supporting organizations and people that seek a shared
and equitable prosperity for all. He accomplishes this as a founder, investor, and lead
executive of several carbon neutral B corp businesses, which include legacy vacation
resorts, salt, palm development, and climate first bank. These B corps operate in Florida,
Colorado, Nevada, and New Jersey, and serve at least 300,000 customers annually, and regularly
achieve some of the highest positive stakeholder impact in their respective industries.
This past year, just recently, Jared was recognized as one of the top 100 impact CEOs
in the United States, and that’s by BigPath Capital, their Momentum 100 recognition,
or MO100. As a matter of fact, we know Jared was ranked number 23 in the most recent round.
He stewards the four good movement, the Florida four good and B tourism business communities,
serves as co-chairman of B local Florida, founding steward of B lab, a global economic and
environmental opportunity fellow at the University of Central Florida, and co-chair of the
East Central Florida Regional Resilience Collaborative. He’s also a partner in change for
the Transformational Travel Council, and when he’s not working, and I’m pretty clear now that he’s
working quite a bit at the time, when he’s not working, he enjoys sports being and involved
at, and actively traveling with his wife of 22 years, Christy, and their two children.
Jared, you’ve got so much going on, you know, for somebody like me interviewing you, it’s
almost like where do we start, but I want to start with a very broad open question for you.
You’ve got a business background, finance management, you’ve got a lot of skills and capabilities
clearly. Why are you doing what you’re doing now instead of all the other things you could be doing?
That’s a good question. I do what I’m doing now because it’ll lines closest with who I am,
like at a very core individual level, and all the things that you touch on sounds like an
awful lot, but the truth is there’s a very common thread through all of those, and that is trying
to maintain a sense of alignment in who I am and what I do every day. And so every
business interest that you talked about or network that I’m a part of allows me to be more human
and doesn’t allow me to say, well, that’s personal and that’s business and those are different.
I’m able to treat them like they’re one and the same. And so I’m very lucky that I had a
point of my life where I can live that way and be consistent from when I wake up until I go sleep.
And the B-Corp community that I’m a part of is just a very natural space for me to operate with that.
It’s really inspiring and really wonderful and you’re hitting on something I think that is so core to both many
of the systemic challenges we’re facing as a society worldwide and some of the greatest opportunities
that are emerging in these times. And what I’m hearing you speak to is integrity in the deep
sense of the term integration when things are integrated. And it’s very interesting to hear you speak
about not having a separation or a perceived separation between what’s business and what’s
personal. And of course, the clichés are many, oh, don’t take it personally, it’s just business.
And whether we’re thinking about a history of slavery or some of the other systemic injustices
that many of which are still very alive in our world, that notion of don’t take it personally,
it’s just business may in fact be a deep pathological set of behavior patterns.
What do you think about that?
I would completely agree. I think that almost every issue we face as complicated as they are,
it’s really simple at the end of the day. It’s that when we see ourselves as different from other people,
then we can justify why differences exist. And when we see ourselves as one and the same or similar,
it’s a lot harder to accept those differences, whether that is economic differences,
whether that’s privileges in my life, whether that’s access that I had that others don’t have.
Again, if they’re different than me, I can justify a ton of reasons why things are as they are.
If I see them as me, it’s much more difficult. And so I think a separation between business and personal
is one of those ways that that’s the case. Race is another way that that can be carried out.
And I think there’s a variety of ways that, you know, homo sapiens and humans have found ways to draw these distinct differences
to create more persuasive arguments for things being the way that they are.
That’s really interesting. And clearly with the work that you’re doing at Legacy Vacation Resorts,
Climate First Bank and elsewhere, you are really helping lead the way, transforming what business as usual means and looks like.
And I’m hoping, can you just walk us through what’s different about the approach you’re taking in the work you’re doing at Legacy Vacation Resorts,
you know, vis-a-vis relative to versus all the other many tourism oriented and hospitality oriented brands out there.
So at the highest of levels, we don’t pursue profits at all costs.
We don’t say, well, in the name of profit, all these things are acceptable. We’ll pay as low as possible in foreign wages,
or we will use cloud or marketing to get people to stay here or engage in just a variety of other practices that can occur within the travel and tourism industries.
We view our role differently. We view that if we do things the right way, which I can define further, we will be profitable.
And it won’t just be profitable, but it will be more sustainably profitable in the sense that since we’re not taking advantage and exploiting and extracting in the process,
our guests will want to return. Our employees will love to work here. Our communities will welcome us and want us to stay here and support us in different ways.
And nature itself will continue to flourish and support us instead of maybe react in ways that it does when we take things that are harmful to nature.
So it’s just a very kind of shared prosperity orientation. And then obviously we carry that forward with a lot of individual logistical steps to get there that make us different.
Yeah, that’s wonderful. And I know that it’s a very long list of practices and activities that you’re employing at Legacy Vacation Resorts.
And I’m very struck by the degree of engagement and leadership that you have with the B-Court movement.
And of course, I’ve taken a company through the certification process myself. I understand that when one goes through the B-Certification process, this is not simply saying, hey, we want to do good and the response is great, here’s your certification instead.
It’s a rigorous assessment process looking at all sorts of categories and domains of impact from workforce and employees to environmental impacts, supply chain impact, customer, other stakeholder impact.
Can you walk us through and explain to us how that framework has been developed and how you think about it, especially with Legacy Vacation Resorts?
Absolutely. And I’ll point out they’re actually going through adjusting the framework presently into a newer variation based on just change that happens in the world.
You know, these standards can’t stay fixed as the world changes and as years go by, but in the current framework, it was really focused on maybe five generalized areas in an attempt to create a holistic view of how the business operates.
And it’s impact in those different areas, which you might call different stakeholders.
And the thought process there is that we don’t do just really well in one area and ignore all of the others.
So you can’t just say like, hey, I made a really big donation this year. We did a good job.
Don’t look at all the other things that we said. Just pat us on the back. We wrote a big check.
And, you know, I made a nice smile on the camera. And unfortunately, that’s a lot of traditional capitalism might be done that way is like, we’re going to do what we’re going to do.
We’re going to write a check at the end of the year and people are going to celebrate us for that.
And we look at it through this that every decision we make matters, every day matters over the course of that year.
And if we go through the whole year and do things the right way, if for the some odd reason that we aren’t hugely profitable at the end of the year, that is better than being hugely profitable and writing that check.
Because what that means is that we spent dollars throughout that year appropriately.
An example would be we paid responsible wages within our organization.
You know, that might be measured as not paying less than a living wage or that might be measured by having an appropriate pay ratio between your highest and most paid employee.
That might be measured through gender equity or other forms of equity and how payments go out.
Those become the focal point throughout the year becomes a focal point throughout the year of just like maybe having ongoing partnerships that you’re supporting financially throughout the year.
You’re not just waiting to the end up, you know, kind of write that check.
It involves analyzing what are the consequences of our actions and activities and how we operate.
So as a person organization, what level of a waste do we create?
How are we minimizing the creation of that waste? How are we recycling that waste for composting that waste?
What are we doing in the form of greenhouse gas emissions that occur from whether it’s operating hotel rooms, whether it’s guests on how they fly or drive down here?
How do we design some of this out of the system? For example, there’s a reason we have EV charging at all of our resources and we cover that that’s included for free.
We would love guests to drive. We’d love for them to drive EV that was already solar charged at their house or somewhere else so they can get here without the corresponding emissions that might come from air travel.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t have a lot of guests that do come from air travel, but we’re trying to design it out of the system, the best that we can.
We don’t own an airline, but we do have the ability to put EV charging in place here.
We have the ability to put solar panels on our roofs, which we do implore to all of our properties now solar employees.
So these are some of the steps that we undertake in a variety of ways, other things we do.
We work with others in collective action on some of the biggest challenges we face as humanity.
We clearly cannot solve by ourselves, so we try to support other organizations together, either with other B-quarts or other companies that think alike and that becomes a focus.
Each year to be as simple as even in like civic education for our employees that want to be able to understand better how they can consider voting when it’s a voting cycle.
And we ensure that we give paid time off as an example during that, because one of the main reasons employees aren’t able to go vote is they can’t choose between a paycheck and the right to vote.
And I think it’s not very appropriate for a business to place their employees in that position.
We think, you know, very specific to legacy vacationers, or it’s also from our guests or customers mindset.
And we try to think, all right, what can we do if we think from the kind of the whole life cycle of the vacation, from when the guests learn to we are through our website all the way through their vacation with us, what touchpoints can we have with them that help them become a little bit more familiar with the why behind what we do.
Because there’s a really good chance they will carry that home with them or they will pull out into what they’re doing.
Because when usually we have seen that when our guests see why we’re doing it, it really resonates with that.
It’s not because it’s not presented in the way is like there’s good people and bad people.
It’s presented as like this is more people focus.
It’s more like you this is more like how you don’t want to treat your family, your communities.
We do a lot of this for you when you spend your dollars with us.
It’s supporting the type of world you want to live in, not the one that you’re fighting against or frustrated with.
And so we have messaging throughout our properties that you’d see.
We have in-room channels and the guest sees on like the default channel that pops up on the television when they come in.
We do things like free water bottles that reusable water bottles at check-ins.
So guests aren’t using single use plastics.
We don’t have single use soap and shampoos in our bathrooms.
We have refillable reusable containers.
And so there’s just a lot of these just different ways that we try to incorporate this in front of getting employees standpoint, customer standpoint, a community standpoint or an environmental standpoint.
To be holistic.
There’s a lot of which we’ve learned from the B4 community.
We wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing today if we didn’t get to learn from I think the best companies that exist.
Yeah, it’s really so impressive and so exciting.
We’ve had Jorge Fontan as the CEO of BLAB, US and Canada that runs the B certification program here.
And so impressive the ways in which this community is leading from the inside out really a transformation in how we’re doing business.
And now not only are you doing what you’re doing, by the way, I had the opportunity to stay at one of the legacy properties in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and London.
It was wonderful.
So I can attest to the water bottles and the non single use soaps and shampoos and so forth.
You’re doing so much beyond the industry of hospitality and tourism.
And specifically you’re working in an industry that obviously basically touches on all other major industries and economic activities.
And I want to ask you about the climate first bank.
What you’re doing there, how you’ve helped to found the bank and of course, as I understand it, we’re in a very exciting year right now where it’s about to go nationwide.
If you’re in the United States, if I understood that correctly, that is it’s been a very exciting.
All the years have been exciting because it’s been a really large growth.
I think we are the number one organic growing bank in the country right now and we’re almost at the three year mark.
And it isn’t just exciting that we’re growing fast, but how we’re growing and the fact that we prioritize and create special loan products that help decarbonize that draw down carbon from the atmosphere.
And so I’m involved with climate first bank as an investor.
I’m vice chair of the board of the bank and was one of the founding directors, Ken Loro, who is a chairman.
This is the third bank that he’s founded. His last bank was also a big court. It was first screen bank, but ended up selling that bank.
And shortly after selling it realized, you know, this is a mission and purpose that I need to be carrying through my life and I need to do another bank at some point in time.
And when it became time to be able to launch another bank, he contacted me and asked if I wanted to be a part of it and could support it.
And I was I knew Ken from first screen bank and knew the work he’d done there in central Florida.
And I was all too happy to to support him and try to help him move forward.
And that’s how it all originally started.
I also knew at that point in time when first screen bank had left that we had lost a bank that acted like first screen in Florida.
Meaning there was no other vehicle or bank in Florida. There was no other bank that I knew of who had a very positive impact mission.
And we needed another bank like that. And that’s what climate first bank would be.
So from even legacies perspective, if I kind of draw a connection between the two, we were really struggling finding someone who would finance the solar panels for our resorts.
We went through a variety of evaluations and we couldn’t find a cost effective way to do it. There were all these barriers in place.
And that was because by and large, a lot of the banks just weren’t that interested. That wasn’t their focus.
They’re like, look, we make enough money doing other types of loans. We’re not really worried about these, you know, this type of loan type.
And it was standing in the way of legacy achieving its goal of being net zero by 2030 through renewable energy.
I knew that when climate first would be in place, that that would have been a solution for us. And ultimately it came to be a solution for us to get solar in place at our Florida properties.
You know, the other part of it was a lot of banks. Unfortunately, banks are notorious for using their deposits to fund very industries that cause a lot of harm out there.
The industries that I try to get fight against on a regular basis.
So knowing climate first would be more supportive of the industries that are very positive towards people in planet.
There was a desire to kind of help support that. And so we’re in almost three years into this process, been growing rapidly.
It’s a community oriented bank that does traditional loans like, you know, home loans for a mortgage or a business line of credit.
But it also prioritizes and specializes in loans that are renewable energy based, water monetization based, loan for nonprofits, loans for churches, loans for hospitals.
And we measure that and focus on improving that monthly. So it’s not, you know, your traditional bank is probably looking at profit and law statement and trying to say like, yep, we’re more profitable, less profitable that our loans grow or not.
We go a whole nother layer and we’re like, all right, what percentage of those loans went to the types of companies that are supporting the future that we want or the present that we want. And that’s our important task.
Well, it’s really interesting. I want to ask you about your product mix and your anticipated future growth. But before getting to that, you mentioned something that really caught my attention.
And first green bank was acquired or there was an exit or some form of liquidity there. Did it did the nature of that institution essentially change? It sounds like they’re, it left a vacuum.
It did. I actually tried to work with the acquire for a good period of time to maintain that was hopefully would keep first screen as a subsidiary and would remain maintain the becorp certification.
I tried very hard to assist them with that, even though I wasn’t involved with first screen, but it mattered enough to me to have this becorp banking on unfortunately those efforts for not successful.
And the end of getting merged into the acquireer and the acquireer basically the bank just how they do it, but not let’s just say not the becorp wire doing it.
Well, this this brings me to what I think is, you know, perhaps one of the top 20 or top 30 most fundamental important questions for entrepreneurs, especially and executives working to evolve their organizations, such that the organizations have.
Maximum positive impact across all these sectors and the question is basically how do you think about preventing that kind of outcome with an acquisition or some sort of exit or liquidity event?
How do you think about structures and strategies that can ensure, you know, perhaps even in perpetuity the best in class behaviors that your companies exhibit?
That’s a good question. It does vary maybe a little bit by industry and based on how many shareholders are involved.
So like and legacy vacation, who’s or it’s an error to closely held company with my wife and me, you know, we’re going to make the decisions on if we sell it or not.
So if we chose to sell the company that’s going to throw away everything that we built and stands for that’s on that’s on me, you know, for doing that.
And a bank that has, you know, kind of hundreds or thousands of shareholders, obviously it can be harder because you have more shareholders that can vote in a particular way.
So something that we did we started off as a benefit corporation from day one. So it’s in our legal documents, in our governance structure, who we are, what we stand for, which is very important.
And it’s hard to change that you have to have a very large vote to undo benefit corporation.
And that’s intentional because we want it to be a legal requirement and not just the feel good thing that you do this year because it works and next year because it doesn’t work.
You can’t do that like I’m in and out and in and out like this is a commitment that benefit corporation enables you to do.
There are additional steps that others have taken to also protect that because obviously if you sell something and you get a hundred percent owner, usually a hundred percent owners can change, you know, legal dynamics and governance.
Anyway, a lot of people saw what Iván Sonar did in Patagonia and how they put, I don’t think it was a hundred percent, but it was well over 90 percent of the business into this perpetual purpose trust.
That is another sort of layer that you can put into it so that it stays there and it doesn’t ultimately get sold off into others.
There are other organizations that have done that. In fact, we have a swim school, B-Corp, Ocoquatics, who just I think adopted a very similar structure to do that to kind of maintain this purpose in place, which is phenomenal.
Some of these structures are not always easy to put in place depending on the level of capital you’re trying to raise from the public because people are going to put up money if they understand it, if they believe in it.
Sometimes the things get too complicated, they just won’t put money out behind it.
We did look at that as climate first. When we first went, it would have been awesome if we could have like really locked something in perpetually.
We had some concern at the time we may not raise enough money because it would have been just complicated to understand.
Not because we didn’t believe in people, but because we thought it would be complex and then we would say, if we don’t even get off the ground as a bank, what could we do?
Sometimes you have to weigh that in the process. Today we sit. It’s a Florida benefit corporation. It’s also a certified B-Corp. We’re operating according to those principles with that mission.
We have a very aligned board of directors who ultimately staffed the courts up to that builds that in.
We have a lot of layers and levels of protection that are in place, but I suppose you can never have enough of them if you really want this to go on forever.
Our next challenge certainly will be if we IP up and I think we will IPO at some point when the time is right and it will be incumbent on us when we make those decisions that we do so in a way that mission can be preserved.
We have a very interesting and very exciting and I’m very curious with climate first bank being the number one fastest growing bank from an organic growth standpoint.
To whatever degree you want to, we share with us a bit about what’s the balance sheet look like? What do you anticipate in the next 36 months in terms of growth?
What are the main products driving this? Is it loans to hospitals and churches? Is it consumer loans for autos and homes? What’s that look like?
I think as of today we’re a little over 600 million assets and that started zero and when we get to the end of this year it will certainly be, I would imagine at least $100 million more in assets than that and it could be significantly more than that.
But at least budgetarily we’ll exceed that. One of the things that will also influence that on April 1st we did another capital race.
It’s only available right now to existing shareholders to come in but it will be open to the public 60 days after so is that June 1st.
The reason I mentioned that is obviously when capital comes in that grows assets but even more important than the capital coming in is we have such a good way to deploy that capital via these loans which grow our assets further.
So in order we’ve been growing so quickly we go through our capital because we’re lending it out which is what you’re supposed to do as a bank that’s how you generate profits.
So we do need to bring more capital in to maintain the spread of growth otherwise you can grow but you’re constrained by principle of payments coming in in order to be able to lend those back out to make to in order to make more loans.
And then that changes if you’re a public because that’s other capital that comes in so that’s part of what’s influencing it right now.
We have a lot of real estate based loans but all within what I would call safe limits because that is one of the areas that a lot of times banks if you hear sometimes their concentrations end up going too high.
So actually our real estate concentration has come down in the last probably six months or so and that was intentional on our part.
Part of that a lot of people you know we’re paying attention to some of the banking failures that happened last year and concerns about like where did the risk lie.
A lot of times people talk about that in real estate even though all real estate isn’t necessarily one in the same like obviously right now people understand that office building represents maybe different sort of risk because of a lot of people working remotely then into a hotel that might be operating very well and successfully in a particular market.
But we have real estate based loans. I don’t know that I can tell you I’ve talked my head right now how the person is or breaking out right now between.
Personal and commercial but our one of our fastest areas of growth has been the solar lending and that’s partly because we have a thin text of city area that is part of our bank holding company called one ethos.
One ethos is designed the software the technology behind this lending that makes it very user friendly for solar installers so solar installers ultimately seek us out because we make their lives easier.
You know to make the loan so they go into someone’s home they quote out the project if they’re interested they say well let me see if you qualify for the loan and they can like tell them right then and there.
Hey you can get alone this is what the rate is is the payment terms and what we do and uniquely different than the traditional solar industry is there’s a large I’ll call it a kick back a large markup that tends to happen where systems are grossly marked up so that money is paid back to the financial institution that isn’t adequately disclosed to the end user.
I know that sounds like how’s that impossible.
I don’t really know how that escapes the laws that are out there but it happens happens regularly we won’t have we don’t allow that to happen so the rate is the rate is no money behind the scenes that’s happening and it’s a lot more beneficial and clearly solar installers prefer that with us because they don’t have to mark this another 20 to 30% and not tell the customer why it’s that expensive.
Because they’re not saying so I have to pay this finders fee or kick back you know to this institution so that that has been very helpful for us and growing you know the solar lending and we see that as a continued area of growth for us which is why the fintech is a standalone entity that will be doing this for other banks as well not just for client first.
That’s so interesting and wow really amazing impact you guys are having congratulations on that I I have to ask one sort of nerdy question I guess here.
I’m really curious with the products you’re providing both to commercial and consumer markets are you holding a lot of your own paper are you putting things back into the secondary market through securities instruments what what’s that look like.
I would say so far we’ve been holding a lot of our own paper we do have some instances where like in the solar.
Before we’ve been holding a lot of our own paper,
we do have some instances where like in the solar,
interestingly in the solar space,
we have some banks in it.
It’s either don’t have solar lending directly
as a part of them, or they want to have more green type
loans, you could call it.
So they are buying, they want to buy pools of loans from us.
So that would be like another market that they’d move into.
So it’s helping them feel like a percentage of their lending
is going in a more responsible direction
that they don’t have to generate themselves,
because they haven’t built up that part of their team,
or they’re not as committed to it to grow that.
So like, hey, it’s easier if we can just buy a $100 million
pool from you or a $50 million pool
from you that you already generated.
So that has been happening.
And then you have the traditional one.
When it comes to home loans, you
have the traditional governmental programs that will buy
those loans that probably every bank participates in.
I mean, I know some banks have private mortgage pools
that they will hold onto and not sell.
But generally speaking, most of the mortgages
they generate on residential, they end up
selling off to the government.
Yeah, fascinating.
I a quick shout out to my dad, Duane Perry,
when he was in his 20s, early in his career,
he worked with Lou Renere on Wall Street
when the mortgage back security wasn’t
invented.
So there’s a whole rabbit hole that we won’t run down there.
But it’s very interesting to hear how
you as a very mission driven bank are
working with the existing systems and structures
and pushing envelopes where you’re able to.
And clearly you’re making a lot of impact already.
Yeah, an interesting thing on that.
I actually don’t know the answer to this on RM.
And maybe it’s because we’re too new.
But I was speaking with another responsible bank that
was out there.
And they were sharing how they had sold off
one of their mortgages in a pool.
But it ended up getting picked up by one of the larger banks
that isn’t as responsible.
And custom under that said, hey, I banked with you on purpose
because I wanted to do with a bank like you.
I didn’t want you to sell it off to the other one.
And they were quick to recognize, you know what?
That’s a great point.
We’ve got to do something about this.
So I don’t know where that ended.
But you can make mistakes like that too easily.
Even if it wasn’t intentional, as I know it wasn’t in their park.
They’re a very responsible bank.
So interesting to hear, Jared.
And I want to ask you about an organization of banks
that you’re part of, banks that are mission driven,
the global alliance for banking on values.
Could you tell us a little about what that is,
who’s in that, if you want to mention a few other banks?
And what’s happening there, worldwide?
Absolutely.
So that organization spans, I think,
71 banks around the world in a variety of different countries.
And we have a few here in the United States,
to you that are in Canada, they’re in Australia,
they’re in Sweden, they’re in Germany.
You’ve gone to a Democratic Republic of Congo.
I believe there’s one in the general area of Russia.
And I just point out how different and disperse they are
because they’re also able to come together
under the set of values, of what values they’re banking is.
And when you have to talk with individuals from these different banks,
you learn how different it is in different parts of the world
and how hard it is to do some things that are very easy here
or by its first sign.
So when we come together, we talk about banking
what we term as the real economy.
And that would be companies that really generate
like this net positive activity and generating things, products,
and not just financial instruments that are ways to make money
but don’t really improve lives in the process.
So we want to bank companies, ideally,
that are improving their communities
and not just improving the pocketbooks of a few shareholders that are within there.
It doesn’t mean that will never happen.
I mean, it’s not like we’re saying,
we don’t make any loans to anyone if they don’t fit that.
But we measure that and we commit to a report card on that
to try to measure that with respect to where we are in the world.
And it’s just fascinating how difficult it is.
Some days seem hard here in the US lately,
just with political divisions and otherwise that we have to deal with.
But I was just at the GABV, that’s the acronym for it, the Summit in Italy,
and the bank from the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
is like, we basically have been a war for many, many years right now.
All of our bankers are trained on how to respond to someone come into the bank
to kidnap people or to take over the bank.
Like it’s a regular realistic thing that they base daily.
And so we take a lot for granted and think of how hard things are here,
but that is not something we’re dealing with.
We’re not dealing with what Bank of Palestine is dealing with right now.
And yet they’re finding ways to maintain those values.
And the exciting element I pull from that is that people can do this
in some of the hardest places in the world to maintain values.
We certainly can do it in the country like the United States.
That’s wonderful and so inspiring.
Well, for folks who would like to learn more about global alliance for banking on values,
GABV.org is the website.
I want to take a moment and remind our audience.
This is the Y on Earth Community podcast.
I’m your host, Aaron William Perry.
And today we’re visiting with Jared Myers, a social entrepreneur extraordinaire
and financier leading the way on so many fronts,
including as Chairman of Legacy Vacation Resorts.
You can find links to many of the organizations we’re mentioning in our show notes.
And we’ll mention a few to be sure.
You can connect with Jared on LinkedIn at Jared-Meyers.
And you can learn more about the B-Corp movement at bcorporation.net.
Jared mentioned one ethos.
That’s one ethos.com.
We didn’t yet discuss 1% for the planet.
1% for the planet.org.
We’ll get to that.
And our good friend, Kate Williams, who runs 1% for the planet.
We have not yet spoken either about the work you do in an organization called White Men for Racial Justice.
And I’m really excited to ask you about this, Jared.
Before doing so, I want to be sure to thank our many partners and sponsors
making the White On Earth community podcast possible,
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Specifically, big thanks to Chelsea Green Publishing.
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with a 35% discount using the code Y-O-E35.
Weylay Waters, biodynamically infused aromatherapy soaking salts with regenerative farm partners here in Colorado.
Profitable purpose consulting, a huge shout out to Nathan Stuck, who introduced us.
Huge shout out to Profitable Purpose Consulting and the great work they’re doing, helping many companies
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A shout out to Earth Coast Productions, to Dr. Bronner’s, to Patagonia, and also to our ambassadors.
The White On Earth community has a growing global network of community impact ambassadors.
You too can join the CIA.
And many of our ambassadors give monthly.
And if you’d like to support our work and haven’t yet signed up for monthly gift,
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And after our main podcast interview today, we will do our customary behind-the-scenes segment
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A huge thanks to everybody for making this work possible and for helping us amplify the voices
and the leadership that are transforming our world as we speak.
So, Jared, I’m so excited to have had this opportunity to chat a bit about the work
you’re doing through Legacy Vacation Resorts, through the Climate First Bank,
and I’m so struck by the ways you’re also leading the charge in the social justice movement.
And I want to ask you specifically about White Men for Racial Justice, this is WMRJ.org.
What is this? Why are you a part of it?
And why ought many of the rest of us consider joining as well?
Great question. So, you know, we talked a lot about the work that I’m doing corporately
personally, but through businesses, of course, we’re good.
White Men for Racial Justice, to me, I’m turning on my light, that one of the consequences
of being environmentally friendly, it doesn’t seem you’re moving in the office and sometimes
it shuts my lights off. But one of the big reasons why I’m part of it is I read this
organization, helps me be more human. It was founded after George Floyd was murdered
because a lot of people that looked like me were struggling with not understanding what
just happened, why it might have just happened. We knew we wanted to do something, but didn’t
really know what to do, how to do it without creating more problems, and we just wanted
to kind of learn a little bit more, because we knew that it wasn’t, it didn’t feel like
it was just an isolated incident, that didn’t have a longer history to it.
And so, a group came together, a white man, that started exploring a little bit more of
the history of our country, and the history of race, and maybe how things have gotten
to where they are today, because it didn’t just happen overnight, it happened over many
different years, and we started learning in those conversations that, you know, going
back 400 years, when like slavery came here into the United States, there have been systems
that have been put in place and built upon each other over years, and participating
in this group really helped me understand how power is built and power is maintained.
Specifically, when that power is maintained by less than a majority of people, and even
more so when it’s a very small percentage of that majority of people. And so, as there
was learnings unfold, naturally you ask questions like, why, like why is it done this way,
what are some of the reasons, and then start exploring even further, all of the different
ways that it kind of pervades society, maybe still, and like where did that start?
Like now, where is it now, what happened last year, what happened the year I was born,
but like where did it start to begin with, and roll forward into the systems that exist
today. And what this group helps us do is one unlearn, because a lot of us have learned
things that we thought were accurate, but weren’t, to relearn, and then I would say three
take those new learnings to rehumanize ourselves, and especially what people that look different
than us, that have different upbringing or cultural experiences of us. And there’s a lot
of different ways that it kind of unfolds from there. One of the ways is very specifically
racial justice, trying to bring justice to those who have been disadvantaged historically
by means of the construct of race, or other means, but race is the big focus.
A second part of it, though, is really understanding that how similar we really are, but for privileges
or advantages that we may have received over the course of our life at where largely unaware
of in many circumstances. It’s indiscible to us until it becomes visible. And then what do we
want to do about that? And different people respond to that differently, some are like I have to
fix this tomorrow, and they try to jump right in to how to do that, whether that’s individually,
or if we’re supporting systems change at a larger level. Some people grapple with that for a long
time, beat themselves up about it, because they’re really too bad, that they, even if they didn’t
create the system and didn’t put everything in place away this today, they realize that perhaps
their descendants of others who had, and that maybe they maintain those systems, whether
intentionally or unintentionally, because they are scared of the alternative.
Additional to that, though, is as I think one evolves further in, because there’s obviously
takes a while to really relearn history, engage with others, is, or at least I have learned that
a lot of the stories that are told and that we tell ourselves aren’t really accurate. We just
don’t know that because you’ve been told this story for so long. And so like one of the main stories
that’s told out there is, or the questions that gets asked is, well, Resonance and Justice
mean that a lot of people that look like me are going to lose all these privileges in the world.
That’s not accurate. There’s a perception of that being accurate. And on a personal level,
I have no problem giving up many of the advantages that I have, but I’m not asking everyone else
to sign up for that by being part of this. When one study is kind of how power and balances
have been maintained, it don’t make any sense. Like when a gross majority of people
have very little income and very little power in this world. It is clearly a system in place that
maintains that. Because the natural order would be the majority tends to win unless there’s
these systems in place otherwise. So what would really happen if we started to dismantle some of
these systems that maintain this difference is that almost everyone benefits. You know, maybe there’s
a very, very narrow amount that would have to adjust their lifestyles, which, by the way,
wouldn’t make them any less happy than they already are. Because that isn’t really helping them.
But these changes would really help almost everyone. They would help our natural environments.
And there’s these stories that are maintained to be kept in place to maintain that power and balance.
And so we’re told this and a lot of us are just really busy with our daily lives. You don’t have
the ability to look behind the curtain and do this sort of investigation. And I think that’s
unfortunately one of the issues is that when people don’t have time to do that, they’re like, this is
too, you know, sometimes this can be called elitist or like too academic. Because it does take some,
you have to invest time to unlearn and to relearn. And not everyone has that time to do that.
But ultimately, if we want to better ourselves in any which way we do that, it takes time.
And we have to invest that time into it. So this is a way that I try to better myself, my understanding,
to not be one that is being exploited out there that’s taking advantage of benefits that have been
given to me just by my, where I was born, who I was born to, and not for any other reason.
And so this group can meet every Tuesday evening. And we do it in a form to one keep accountability
amongst ourselves. Because this isn’t about white men petting themselves on the back and saying,
hey, you’re a good guy. Nice job. It doesn’t mean we don’t compliment each other, you know,
for doing things because there is a community support. But a lot of it is ensuring that we can
continue to walk that walk. And we have black equity advisors in there that also ensure that we’re
going about the work the right way. So that we’re supporting that we don’t take on this like,
you know, white savior is some concept. I’m like, well, we can fix it all. But instead,
that we can do it through existing organizations and people that are already out there doing this
hard work and that we are supporting them. But it’s important that white men are part of this
because white men tend to still hold most of the levers of power in society. And so what we do
has an outside significance. So people like me take actions to restore equity to bring
justice into the world. It has a greater chance of succeeding because of the power that we hold.
Wow, absolutely impressive and so commendable. Thank you for sharing this with us. You know,
I’m thinking of a couple things here. One is this is reminding me of a conversation we had with
Dr. Janelle Allen Davis, days after the murder of George Floyd. And she had already been on the
podcast previous to that talking about the incredible work she’s doing as a service leader as CEO
of Craig Hospital in Denver, Colorado. Incidentally, she’s also on the Federal Reserve Board
and is doing so much amazing work in communities all over. And of course,
Dr. Allen Davis is an African-American medical doctor and executive and just an extraordinary
leader. So I’d encourage folks to check that episode out with with Janelle that we did shortly
after the murder of George Floyd. I’m also really wondering about how can more of us get involved
with white men for racial justice? And I mean, a weekly commitment every Tuesday evening,
that’s not an insubstantial commitment. Is that literally a requirement to join? Is that
exactly what needs to happen? So it isn’t, but there starts out with an open house that people
can ask questions and get to understand if there’s something they want to participate in. I don’t
know in the next open house date is, but they do happen throughout the year. So if someone is
really interested in this as he pointed out in LinkedIn, if someone drops me a message on this,
I’ll get them exactly what answers for the questions. If you’ve read starts with an open house
and then it starts with a learning cohort that runs maybe approximately eight weeks. So that
would be your first level of commitment. If after there’s eight weeks, this isn’t for them,
or they feel like I’ve learned enough at this point that I can move on, that’s fine as well.
So it’s not like a commitment that you’re doing this Tuesday night forever, but there is a recurring
ability to come together on Tuesday evenings, and there might actually be another time
during the week that’s being done right now. I do the two Tuesday evenings ones, and then the
cohorts fit into either following a new book or audio podcast of sorts that helps in this
educational process. Some of the things resonate more than other things. That’s just like, you know,
natural. There shouldn’t subject that you’re like, this was dead on. This is what I needed to hear.
And other ones are like, okay, I follow where they’re going, but maybe it doesn’t need it much,
and that’s fine. Like in anything that you would read earlier. So there’s not a requirement on it,
but it is more successful if you can stick it through, at least each of those cohorts.
There are breaks like during the summertime when people are traveling. So there are some,
and life does get in the way. I do miss Tuesday nights, but I do try to attend as often as I can,
and stay in touch with the group, whether that’s through WhatsApp, emails, or otherwise,
because it does become a community, and you care about one another, and you support each other through
what isn’t easier. I mean, like this is not for people that aren’t willing to sign up for like
a personal betterment and evolution. And the only other thing that I will add on that is a lot of
us think this is just about like making the right for what’s been wrong out there. And that,
while I agree that is necessary, that is not the only reason to be doing this. If anyone that wants
better relationships with people, period, or the end of our race, or you’re not anything, anyone who
feels like I would like to be able to form deeper relationships with people with benefit from this.
Because this helps us see the differences, and as I talked about earlier, that division between
us and them. So much of that, when you start seeing things in us and them dynamically recognize it,
you can dismantle it, you can change it, and you can realize that I actually can have a relationship
with this other, this person who I perceived is being different before I thought about it.
And this different perspective. And there’s a lot of work that goes into that.
And we just see it different. I mean, my relationships with my colleagues at the bank,
at Legacy Vacation of the Yorks have substantially improved as a result of being part of white
and unforestationed buses. Beautiful. And is it a virtual open house? Is it limited by a hierarchy?
It is. It’s Zoom. So there are people all throughout the world that do participate in it.
And what ends up evolving from there, if you stay involved, is like, fear circles end up getting
formed. A lot of times there’s ever regional component, because some people obviously would like to
get it in person for some elements. That’s usually once a month, that fear circle of, say, roughly
five, people would get together, and they’ll focus on whatever they want to focus on. It doesn’t have to
be the topic of that cohort, but it’s usually in the form of racial justice.
Amazing and beautiful. Wow. Thank you for sharing this with us. Part of what you’re talking about
in the psychology of us versus them reminds me of an episode recorded recently with
Saraya Afzali from Afghanistan, originally whose station now in Ireland studying charismatic
leadership and autocracy, and how certain types of charismatic leaders will mobilize this
perception of division and difference in order to gain political power, financial power. So
what’s really interesting to me from a systems and human psychology and sociology standpoint
is that the work you’re doing at white men for racial justice and the work you’re doing throughout
the B-Corp movement globally is really working to counter those other forces that unfortunately
shows us have a way of showing up again and again and again. A hundred percent. If we ever solve
that, every other problem we have will be like it’ll be a ripple effect of positivity that happens.
Amen to that. Amen to that. May it be so. Well, I want to be sure to ask you a little bit about
your athletics and what you’d like to do when you’re recreating with your family when you’re
not working and of course we’ll wrap up our main podcast interview here in just a few minutes
and then switch to our behind-the-scenes segment which our ambassadors have access to.
You want to remind folks to join the ambassador growing global network of ambassadors at
whiners.org if you’d like and before doing that I want to ask you so what do you and your
wife and your kids like to do when you’re at your various resort destinations or elsewhere traveling?
Well, one we’d just like to travel because of how much we learn being in other cultures and
other environments in realizing that the world isn’t how we see it that it can be quite different.
It can be better, it can be worse and there’s just so much to learn. So travel just in and of
itself of just kind of breaking down cultural barriers and understanding people is so powerful.
It’s one of the reasons that like even when we look at like well how do we solve for other problems
with the travel ecosystem? Like planes get a lot of attack rightfully so because of carbon emissions
but unfortunately without playing travel there are parts of the world we would not be able to
experience and I would be a different person if I hadn’t been to some international destinations
that I’ve been very lucky to go to. So part of it is just that experience being there in that community.
A lot of it is active travel for us when we love to hike. My kids hike a ton. They don’t love
this much because they’re 14 and 17. I imagine that might change in time but my wife and I go to
mountain towns a lot in the summertime escaping Florida’s heat and just really like to get out
outside of that. I enjoy all types of sports and my only restrictions are our thanks to injuries
over over the years that have knocked some off the list that I would still enjoy playing but we
we get to snow ski which is very exciting to get out and see what springs pretty often
where two of our resorts are and then we’ll get out in the lake, we’ll get out to the beaches
really just being outdoors. The more we are in nature the more we kill that connection that is
harder to sometimes experience realizing that life has this larger web that we’re a small piece of.
Yeah absolutely and remind folks what’s the best URL to go to legacy vacation resorts? I’ve got
so many URLs on my notes here and that one is not jumping out at me. I want to make sure we
mention that to people. So that would be legacy vacation resorts so plural.com. Perfect thank you great
yeah and all of these links will be in the show notes of course Jared it is such a joy to have
this opportunity to visit with you today and thank you for taking the time to be a guest on our
Y on Earth Community podcast before signing off I want to invite you if there’s anything else
you’d like to say to our audience today please my friend the floor is yours.
Well first thank you for having me I really appreciate you to share all of this because I do
think a lot of people think as I do and sometimes it’s just about learning that these networks exist
that these opportunities exist we would have been at B Corp companies much sooner if I knew what they
were so and there’s a lot of people that don’t know what B Corp’s are so I encourage people to do
their own research learn a little bit more and realize that there’s a lot of people like me out there
that just want to help you through that process so you can join these networks there’s B local
communities throughout the United States which are regional communities of practice that are B Corp
for B Corp like companies that you could join either as an employee or on behalf of your company
Florida for good is the one here in this region there are also global versions of this
of B tourism which we’re a part of is a global travel and tourism network that spans B Corp’s
and again values aligned travel organizations non-profit for profit that try to do travel the
right way and we’re always offering free resources to help businesses become better and become
more resilient which will lead to their their own sustainability and success of the long haul so
again thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this and I welcome all of you to join us
in this movement wonderful well thank you Jared for all of your leadership and making the change
and impact that you’re making possible thank you take care bye bye
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