YFP 360: Starting a Nonprofit: An Interview w/ Brentsen Wolf, PharmD Founder of RxTeach

Brentsen Wolf, PharmD, Founder and President of the nonprofit RxTeach, shares his journey of starting and leading a nonprofit organization.

Episode Summary

On this episode, Tim Ulbrich connects with industry pharmacist Brentsen Wolf, PharmD about his journey starting RxTeach, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing scholarships in the areas of advancing preventative medicine education and cancer research. Brentsen discusses the motivations behind starting RxTeach, how he was able to go from idea to getting it off the ground and shares the lessons he learned along the way. He also discusses his thoughts on the future of the organization and the efforts RxTeach is supporting.

About Today’s Guest

Brentsen Wolf graduated with his PharmD from the Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville in 2021. He then completed a 2-year post-doctoral medical affairs fellowship through the Rutgers Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowship Program at Merck. Brentsen currently works as an MSL in thoracic malignancies in the pharmaceutical industry.

Brentsen is the President and Founder of RxTeach, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing scholarships in the areas of advancing preventative medicine education and cancer research. Brentsen has a passion for health and fitness, professional development, and research. You can connect with him via LinkedIn and read all of his articles here.

Key Points from the Episode

• Pharmacist’s career journey and nonprofit work. [0:00]
• Nonprofit organization RX Teach, providing educational content for pharmacists and students. [4:32]
• Preventative medicine and cancer treatment. [9:07]
• Nonprofit efforts to create educational content and raise funds for scholarships. [13:23]
• Brentsen Wolf avoids burnout by making nonprofit effort [14:45]
• Nonprofit formation and legal requirements. [19:48]
• Nonprofit organization’s mission to provide scholarships for pharmacy students and prevent cancer through education. [24:33]

Episode Highlights

“Starting the non-profit was based on passion. And I think if you can articulate well for yourself, what is actually going to drive you and prevent you from burning out. That’s how you make this decision.” – Brentsen Wolf, PharmD [14:48]

“If you’re thinking about doing something, whether it’s a nonprofit, for profit, blog, side project, whatever it is, there’s never going to be a perfect time.” – Brentsen Wolf, PharmD [20:51]

“I hear all the time, like, oh, once I get X number of dollars in the bank, or once I get to this place in my career, that’s when I’ll do this. And I can tell you, you know, ever since having my first child, you just, there’s no perfect time. It’s always going to be hard in some fashion, there’s always going to be some kinds of challenges, and you’re going to meet those along the way and overcome them and feel good about that.” – Brentsen Wolf, PharmD [20:59]

“So stop waiting is my first piece of advice, just take the first step. And if it goes slowly, if it takes a long time, or it’s really difficult upfront, that’s fine, it was never going to be super easy.” – Brentsen Wolf, PharmD [21:19]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• RxTeach
• YFP Gives
• YFP Planning
• Huberman Lab Podcast
• Brentsen Wolf, Pharmd on LinkedIn
• YFP Disclaimer
• Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
• Tim Ulbrich on LinkedIn
• YFP on Instagram
• YFP Facebook Group

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich  00:00

Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with industry pharmacist Brentsen Wolf about his journey, starting the nonprofit, Rx Teach. We discussed the motivations behind starting Rx Teach how he was able to go from idea to getting off the ground, the lessons he learned along the way, the future of the organization and the efforts that Rx Teach is supporting. Now, before we jump into my interview with Brentsen, I have a hard truth for you to hear: making a six figure income is not a financial plan. Yes, you’ve worked hard to get where you are today. Yes, you’re earning a good income. But have you ever wondered, am I on track to retire? How do I prioritize and fund all the competing financial goals that I have? How do I plan financially for big upcoming life events and changes like moving having a child, changing jobs, getting married or retiring? And why perhaps am I not as far along financially at this point in my career, as I thought I would be? One of the answers may be that your six figure income is not a financial plan. As a pharmacist, yes, you have an incredible tool in your toolbox – your salary. But without a vision and a plan that good income will only go so far. That’s in part why we started Your Financial Pharmacist back in 2015. At YFP, we support pharmacists at every stage of their careers to take control their finances reach their financial goals and build wealth through comprehensive, fee-only financial planning and tax planning. Our team of certified financial planners and tax professionals work with pharmacists all across the United States, and helps our clients set their future selves up for success while living a rich life today. If you’re ready to see how Your Financial Pharmacist can support you on your financial journey, you can visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/learn to learn more about our services. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/learn. Alright, let’s jump into my interview with Brentsen Wolf, founder of Rx Teach. 

Tim Ulbrich  02:06

Brentsen, welcome to the show.

Brentsen Wolf  02:08

Thank you, Tim. Thank you. 

Tim Ulbrich  02:09

Well it’s been a treat for me, you and I connected a couple years back when you were doing your industry fellowship with Merck through the Rutgers program. And we collaborated on some personal finance sessions with the fellows which we’ve done now for a few years, which has been a lot a lot of fun and it’s been a joy. And before we get into the work that you’ve been doing with the nonprofit Rx Teach, and we’re excited to share more of that story and the journey that led to that work and the impact that you’re having. Tell us more about your career story in pharmacy, what led you into the profession? What led to the interest in industry and the work that you’re doing now?

Brentsen Wolf  02:43

Yeah, it’s a good question. Especially because coming from the Midwest, and I know we’re both Midwest guys, the kind of interesting opportunities for PharmDs outside of retail and hospital aren’t thrown at you in school the way they are in some of the coastal areas. So yeah, my, my journey to where I’m at now is, you know, convoluted and stressful in some ways, but also just, you know, I think I ended up where I needed to be. So I graduated from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville in 2021. And like I said, Midwest thought retail, or inpatient pharmacy, I worked in both of those areas, and, you know, during school and just wasn’t sure that it was really for me. I learned in probably my P3 year that these fellowships existed. And I was glad to connect with you at some point to bring you into those folds. Because I know the fellows don’t know anything about personal finance. I certainly didn’t. So those are very helpful sessions. I’m glad we collaborated in that way. But yeah, I ended up at Merck, doing a medical affairs fellowship, and mostly solid tumors, the little bit of work in infectious diseases as well, and just absolutely loved it. I knew I found what I was looking for in a career, it actually drew me in. I was very passionate about all of the work I was doing. So I actually transitioned after fellowship over to AstraZeneca, which is where I’m at now working in thoracic malignancies as a medical science liaison, which again, couldn’t be happier. I’m back where I grew up, surrounded by family. I’ve got a one year old daughter now. So that part’s important. It’s cheaper living here than New York City where some of my colleagues live. So yeah, couldn’t couldn’t complain. And that’s kind of how I ended up where I am now. Hey,

 

Tim Ulbrich  04:24

You’ve got the sought after sweet gig, working in an industry position, but living in an affordable cost of living area. We work with a lot of industry pharmacists that make a great income, certainly, but often cost of living is a challenging part of the plan. So you’re certainly happy for you and where that career has progressed. Let’s talk about the nonprofit organization that you started RX Teach. And tell us about what exactly is Rx Teach and ultimately, how did it come to be? How did it get started? 

Brentsen Wolf  04:57

Rx Teach was a brainchild I had during fellowship, and for whatever reason, I thought I had enough free time to start this thing. So if that tells you anything about work life balance as a fellow versus maybe a resident, that might be a bit insightful. So I ended up, you know, just saying, screw it, I just want to do something. I wanted my own platform, I wanted to be able to say and talk about things that were important to me. And so I started this website. And honestly, the thought of it becoming a nonprofit organization was in my head, but was I was too busy. I didn’t know what I was doing. You know, it was it was down the line. So really, it started off almost like a blog, right? Just kind of writing member that I care about. I think you were one of the first people I talked to about it. So we really focused on a couple of different areas as a nonprofit, the two main ones that were preventative medicine, education. And the second one is cancer, essentially, broadly speaking. So we write a lot about those topics. But we also write about pretty much you know, across the board, anything that could contribute to pharmacists, or really any health care professions understanding of a certain topic. So we’ll do journal clubs, lifestyle management stuff. And we do all of that via essentially a weekly email, sometimes more than weekly. We’ve gathered a following and a community now that we’re very proud of. And like I said, we don’t keep a cent of anything, to be honest with you, it all gets donated. And that’s because our Rx Teach at its core, is still just a passion project and a hobby for the board, all the board members. You know, we we keep it very balanced. It’s in terms of work life balance. The second this feels like a job, we won’t do it. But you know, we’re very passionate about these topics. And so it’s been very easy for us to maintain this kind of work life balance with Rx Teach and still be able to provide scholarships and funds to students in the local communities like we’ve always sought after so.

Tim Ulbrich  06:58

So the website will link to this in the show notes, rxteach.com. So our listeners can check it out as well. Brenton, you mentioned we when you talked about some of the content, the articles is that you and the board? Are there other people that are contributing? Tell us about what that model looks like. I know content creation can be a labor of love. So I’m curious to hear more.

Tim Ulbrich  07:16

You know, it’s funny, you mentioned that. I was just thinking about this. I’m listening to a six part podcast series, one of my favorite shows the Huberman Lab podcast. And he did a six part series, his content is just fantastic. But he did a six part series on sleep with Matthew Walker, and it was one of the things I’m listening to and it’s like, Okay, think of all the things we learned about in pharmacy school about prescribing sleep medications and mechanism of action. Is this going to help, you know, latency and onset and people falling asleep versus, etc. We know nothing about, like prevention to the actual, like mechanics of sleep and is like, yes, yes. What you’re saying so true. Right. It’s, it’s that you know, we have such a strong focus, obviously, on the treatment, makes sense for pharmacists, but, you know, it’s like wow, the preventative aspect. And all in I remember even learning some of those things where it’s like sleep hygiene and, you know, self care, and we’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like maybe there’ll be a question there. Right. But what do I need to know about the drugs? Right?

Brentsen Wolf  07:16

Yeah, it’s definitely a it is a big week. So I frequently write for the website and my co-founder Kristin Lindauer, who’s a PGY1 trained pharmacist and is now an HIV ambulatory care pharmacist over in Virginia, also frequently writes. But we highlight student work constantly, it was one of the things that was important to us, because I didn’t think I had opportunities to really showcase my work or understanding or maybe some niche topics that I cared about as a student. So now we have students write for us all the time, you can go look at the website and see who has done that in the past. Oftentimes, if they write for us once they write for us, again, because it’s a decent experience. So students write for us, we also get other residents writing pharmacy residents, current fellows will right health care providers in any field. So we have Day in the Life series of like a veterinarian pharmacist, a retail pharmacist, and oncology pharmacist, etc. So we really highlight the full gambit. But we like I said, we do have particular interests in preventative medicine, and cancer, just because that’s where all of our money goes to. So content on that is obviously a big part of it. So for instance, we have a whole series on how to prescribe exercise, which I think is a big you don’t get that in pharmacy school now, right? Not to get on my soapbox, but honestly, like if a patient were to ask any given pharmacist or physician, like hey, I want to prevent cardiovascular disease, how do I do that? You’re not going to get a very in depth answer. Generally, you’re gonna get 30 minutes, five times a week of moderate intensity exercise. And that’s just to me not a good enough response. Right. And that’s the purpose of this whole thing, is how do we hash that out and really educate people on how would you respond to that patient in a way that I think is sufficient? And I do say I, it’s subjective term, but that’s the point of the organization.

Brentsen Wolf  10:05

Yeah, I totally agree. And I don’t think the healthcare system is even currently set up to understand the impact that, you know, preventative education could even bring, which is why we’re so interested. It’s a huge gap, huge gap. And it’s not just pharmacists. I want to say that. 

Tim Ulbrich  10:21

That’s right. That’s right. 

Brentsen Wolf  10:22

It’s physicians, nurses, PAs, whatever, you’re not learning this in school. So really, people have to self educate at this point, which is a bummer. But we hope to help make that easier for those people. 

Tim Ulbrich  10:34

What is the passion behind the preventative medicine, the cancer focus? Those are really the two pillars that I’m hearing you share about? Where does that passion? Where does that interest come from?

Brentsen Wolf  10:43

Yeah, so I mean, for me, and you seem like a fit guy. I’ve always been in exercise and lifestyle management. And Kristin Lindauer, also has been too. She’s a I mean, she’s in better shape than me in certain ways. She just ran a marathon in three hours and 27 minutes!

Tim Ulbrich  10:59

No way! 

Brentsen Wolf  11:00

She’s a superstar. Yeah, I mean, I hope to get that fast eventually. But, you know, fitness has always been something that we have been passionate about and have felt, at least anecdotally, for ourselves, the incredible benefits. And then all of a sudden, you know, you start seeing these publications around longevity and what contributes, what contributes to it. So anything from how a VO2 Max can predict your overall survival over a 10 year period, and how grip strength is associated with preventing hip fractures in the elderly. And all of these things start to stack on top of each other and really paint the picture of how important fitness lifestyle management is to preventing disease. And so it’s an area where I can easily nerd out in and you know, just dive very deep into the data. And I write about it frequently. So it was an obvious pillar. And plus, I had identified it as unmet need. I really think we need more of this information out there. And we need to encourage students, current students to look for this type of data so they can incorporate it into their practices once they once they graduate. As for cancer, you know, I think about it in my head is we’re attacking the two sides of healthcare: preventative, and then the sickest patients, right. And I started doing breast cancer genetics research, before I ever even got into pharmacy school. So oncology was a huge passion of mine, I had a mentor named Dr. Ronald Worthington, who really drove me towards that kind of thing. It’s why I almost went and did a PhD, right. And so I just, you know, you know, anyone with cancer, you know, what this is, like, it’s a tough field to be into a lot of the times. I think biologically, it’s, it’s extremely interesting. So again, it’s easy for me to write about because I have so much passion for it. But we need people that are willing to go into this space forever gonna take care of cancer, and cancer is not something you just cure, right? There’s 1000s of tumor types. I mean, it’s not it’s not how it works. And the general public thinks, oh, what’s the cure for cancer, it’s not going to be one thing, I can guarantee it. But you know, we need pharmacists, we need physicians, nurses that grow passion for oncology early, and then are willing to really put in the time down the line and hopefully, start kicking away at these patient outcomes, which are historically not I mean, you take you take metastatic lung cancer, five year overall survival rates of less than 10%. And I mean, that’s, you know, not not great, obviously, still unmet needs. So these are the areas we’ve chosen to focus on, again, for passion and impact. 

Tim Ulbrich  13:23

I love what you’ve built, because to me, I can hear the passion in your voice, I can hear the energy and excitement, right, you’re building something that’s taking an area of interest for you, one that you’re naturally going to be excited about create creating content getting others involved in, that you’re then able to teach others of which has more impact, right, and I would assume that’s energizing as well, as you see, hey, people are learning about things that maybe they otherwise wouldn’t have learned about. And it’s written in a way that you can connect from a pharmacist to pharmacist perspective, and an immediate need, right, and ultimately leading to scholarships and other efforts that are having a benefit. So that has the the ingredients that are so important, that we often talk about on the for profit side of a business, but yeah, here we’re talking about the nonprofit side, which is, you know, equally if not more important. I’m curious to hear more about, you know, you started, I heard you say, Hey, I just got started, right. You know, I just got started, I knew I wanted to create my own platform. I didn’t necessarily think, or I couldn’t see all the dots connect of how this would become a 501 C3, maybe that was an idea that loosely you held. But ultimately, you went that direction. And it very much could have been a you know, blog site that turned into a for profit membership community, a lot of different models that are out there. What was that juncture decision point where you said, Hey, I’m going to keep forward with this educational mission. But I really do want to make it into a nonprofit effort. 

Brentsen Wolf  14:44

Yeah. You kind of You briefly mentioned it and it was it’s based off of passion. And I think if you can articulate well for yourself, what is actually going to drive you and prevent you from burning out. That’s how you make this decision. For me if I knew that if I was trying to do this stuff, you know, as in a for profit matter, just to make money for myself, which I honestly don’t I see no issues with that I just know that I would have personally burned out on. It would it’s it would have become work instead of a passion project, I would have been chasing metrics that, you know, as a nonprofit, if I don’t make a million dollars, it, it does not bother me, I’m giving as much money away as I possibly can. And if I don’t hit a specific number, it doesn’t hurt me personally. I think if it was a for profit model, those numbers would have gotten into my head a little bit more, would have affected my mentality towards Rx Teach in general. And I was just trying to avoid that. And so, you know, getting the board together, a group of people that were on the same page is like, Hey, we’re just doing this in our free time. This is passion driven 100%. And whatever, however many dollars we can donate. That’s the goal. And we’re going to get that number as big as we can get it, but we’re not going to kill ourselves doing it. And that’s kind of how we landed on this model. Because, you know, I’ve got a one year old daughter at home, I got a full time job, all these things you got to you got to make sure it’s it’s driven by the right motivation, or you’re not gonna make it. 

Tim Ulbrich  16:08

I like that, because I think I was sharing with someone recently that when we think about a lot of the burnout that we’re seeing in our profession and to be honest, it’s not just pharmacy, right? I think the healthcare workforce at large, obviously, the impact of the pandemic and, and other factors in there as well, I think something like this, not to suggest you to go out and start your own nonprofit, but be being involved in an effort, whether that’s an investment of time, money, both, right, I think that participation in something bigger than the grind of what you’re doing every day, even for those who say, I love my job, great. There’s still a lot of stressing me evolve. You’ve got a one one year old child at home, like life’s busy, right. And I think, you know, for us to kind of go back to our roots and say, Hey, why did we get interested in healthcare in the first place? I think we lose that sometimes over time. And just an encouragement to listeners, you know, whether it’s getting involved in Rx Teach, whether it’s getting involved something local in your community, or both great, like, what are some of those initiatives and opportunities where people can get involved? And I think that naturally can be in part an antidote to some of that burnout that we so often see. So curious, certainly to hear you tie that directly back to that decision, that strategic move you made to go into the nonprofit direction. Yeah. How do you, not make money, right, that’s for profit language. But how do you ultimately raise funds that get delivered in the form of scholarships. Is it individual donations? What what is the predominant ways in which you’re raising money as an organization? 

Brentsen Wolf  17:34

So right now we do it in three different ways, right. So the first way is, what we started off at the beginning is that this is gonna be a free resource for anyone to read and do with what they want. And we’re gonna go deep into data, we’re gonna do all these things. If you care about our mission, and you want to get this content with a small monthly donation, we’re gonna let you do that. And so we just set up a couple of different subscriber levels. Yeah, paid members get some extra stuff, you know, maybe an extra article here and there. But really, it is like, hey, if you find value in this and care about what we’re doing, it’s always going to be free. And we have because we want to change the community, right? i If you can’t afford it, I’m not going to make you pay for it. But if you want to contribute, feel free to do that. So we have a subscriber base model, which is probably where we get the most of our money. We also have a couple of digital assets, which are pretty new that I actually have enjoyed this process a lot. So we have some cheats, cheat sheets on things like cirrhosis, sickle cell disease, we have a how to guide for Journal Club which I absolutely love.

Tim Ulbrich  18:33

I could’ve used that one in pharmacy school! 

Brentsen Wolf  18:34

Yeah, I totally agree with that thinking back to pharmacy school days! Kristin put that together, which I think it was important for a resident or someone with residency experience to do that, because she puts Pearls in there, but like, what, what questions can you expect your preceptor to ask you, so that you can prepare for this journal club where in an article can you find this information? You know, whether it’s New England Journal medicine, or general oncology, whatever it is JAMA? So that’s a great resource. And we’ve also paired up with Dr. Alex Popin, and who wrote a book called High Powered Medicine. Yeah, so we sell his book on the website, and we have an agreement in place. And we split the profits for that, which we’re very thankful to him to, you know, contribute to Rx Teacg in that way, as well. So digital assets is the second piece. And then the third piece is just like you said, one time donations, anyone who wants to give money based off of, you know, hearing this podcast, or you ran into me at a bar, and I was telling you about grip strength. Right. And they were like, oh, that’s you know, that’s interesting. So people can certainly do that on the website, just one time donations. And of course, we appreciate that. And then like I said, we have partnered with local universities to actually allocate the funds in the form of scholarships and those areas I’ve already mentioned, but that’s how we actually bring the cash in.

Tim Ulbrich  19:48

So one of the things I’m always curious to hear from people at start anything for profit, nonprofit is, you know, it’s one thing to have an idea it’s another thing to execute on an idea and it’s a big step and for some people, it’s the actual mechanics. For others. It’s the fear of, hey, you know, what if nobody kind of likes the idea of what I have out there, what if this isn’t successful? You obviously took those steps, which you know, are great that you did it led to the platform and what you have here now and certainly something you can continue to build off of. But talk us through some of those early mechanics and decisions. You know, you’re talking about a board, you talked about 501C3, like, I think sometimes even though you haven’t been doing this that long, sometimes we blow past those things like, hey, those happened. But those are big milestones that often give me barriers. So talk to us about those early stages involved going from idea to actually get into the point where you can meet someone at a bar or a conference or whatever, and say, Hey, you can make a tax deductible donation, right?

Brentsen Wolf  20:44

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, that’s a great, it’s a great question. And it is there’s, there’s multiple steps. But before I get into that, I just want to say that like, if you’re thinking about doing something, whether it’s a nonprofit, for profit, blog, side project, whatever it is, there’s never going to be a perfect time. You know, I hear all the time, like, oh, once I get X number of dollars in the bank, or once I get to this place in my career, that’s when I’ll do this. And I can tell you, you know, ever since having my first child, you just, there’s no perfect time, it’s always going to be hard in some fashion, there’s always going to be some kinds of challenges, and you’re going to meet those along the way and overcome them and feel good about that. So stop waiting is my first piece of advice, just take the first step. And if it if it goes slowly, if it takes a long time, or it’s really difficult upfront, that’s fine, it was never going to be super easy, right. So that’s, that’s my first piece. But in terms of actually doing the nonprofit stuff, specifically, you know, I was working with a lawyer in our family, which certainly helped me. But talking with someone who has done this in the past is definitely a first step and just feel out what you need. So things like your bylaws, your articles of incorporation, your employee identification number, application, your Conflict of Interest Statement, these are kind of that’s kind of the four core things, you really need upfront, to register with your state. You have to start at the state level, you don’t go straight to the federal government, you have to, you know, become a corporation in the state level. Once you do that, that’s when you can actually send in some of the documentation at the federal level. And hopefully, if again, if you’re working with people who have done this before, when you actually put in your stuff with the state, you’re putting in there that you intend to be a 501C3, you’re making sure that you meet the criteria for nonprofits. So you need to go do some research on. You have to be in certain areas in order to qualify for nonprofit tax exempt status. So you want to word everything from your mission statement to your bylaws to support the fact that this is going to be a nonprofit organization, you do all that stuff upfront first, before ever talking with the federal government. For us, we were able to send in what’s called an EZ application, literally capital E capital Z, because we were bringing in less than $50,000 a year annually. That’s kind of the cut off. Even if you are making less than that you can do a full fledged application if you wish to. But certainly if you’re bringing in a million dollars in your first year, you have to you can’t use this EZ applicant is one piece of paper front and back and you’re just checking, I just checked no for everything right? It was very easy. But once you get back your EIN and your the, you’ll get an official letter from the government saying like, hey, we recognize you as a 501 C 3, that’s when you can start to reap some of the benefits of the nonprofit. So things like we use Stripe, to bring in money from our websites and Stripe has nonprofit rates that we can utilize. A lot of these third party vendors will have nonprofit rates. And sometimes it’s not public. Go look on Reddit like hey, is there a special rate for so and so and go take advantage of that. But after that you are going to file some stuff, even once you hear back from the federal government. And that’s going to be annually. It’s like federal income tax your state and income tax. In Illinois, you have to at least register with the Attorney General. You know, stuff like that is it’s paperwork. You know, that’s always going to be a small part of this. And I think staying organized is important. But again, just take a breath if you’re new to all this legal stuff like I was, it can seem a little bit like, I don’t even know what I’m doing. But at the end of the day, it’s it’s just paperwork. You know, if you’re an organized person, you’re gonna be fine. And I certainly don’t think it’s anything that should prevent you from doing this. Again, if things get off to a rocky start, like, especially in a nonprofit sense, who cares, you’re doing this for a very good reason, right? Like be easy on yourself. Just get there eventually. And let things let things sort them out as they will. 

Tim Ulbrich  24:32

I’m with you on the you know, I’ve kind of gone down this twice now in the last six months you and I talked a little bit about this. We started the nonprofit YFP Gives and your overview was great by the way from state to federal level. So anyone’s looking for like a checklist or at least just a frame of reference of the steps involved. That was fantastic! The first time we went through it we used an attorney. So helpful, right because it seems so overwhelming until you can see it. And to your point, there’s, you know, shortened forms based on your projected revenue and other things. But just to see the process from a state level up to the 501C3, okay, now that you’ve done that, you’ve got to register with the Attorney General on the state level, you got to file this solicitation format. For someone to just be able to say do XY and Z, I can assure you as well worth the fees, but I respect that that can be a barrier. Yeah. Second time I went through it, which was something not nonrelated on the pharmacy side, we EZ application was the form I had been through it, I kind of saw all the steps and I felt comfortable, like navigating that part myself seeing all that, but I couldn’t have wrapped my arms around it the first time. So I think that’s something as folks are thinking about this, you know, anticipating those legal fees, and I think it is something that certainly does add a lot of value, you’re growing through it. So great, great overview.

Brentsen Wolf  25:52

Actually, I want to add one thing to the one of the values that the attorney can can bring in is not only make sure you file the right paperwork, but oftentimes these folks have worked with corporations in the past, and they kind of know, over the years, what you know, what problems might arise. And so they will give you recommendations on how to maybe word bylaws and this kind of thing to prevent an issue that would happen if you wouldn’t have taken this step up front. So that’s a very important thing. I talked about preventative medicine, you might as well be preventative on this front as well. And an attorney can do that. 

Tim Ulbrich  26:25

That’s great. Let’s talk about the future, Brentsen. So as you look out over the next 5, 10,15 years, however long you want to go for the vision, you know, what does success look like for Rx Teach?You’ve taken this important step from idea to going through all the mechanics, the legal stuff, we just started, getting to the point where you can take tax deductible donations, you’ve been creating content for a while. What is the next iteration look like for RxTeach in terms of the work that you’re doing? And and how you would measure success?

Brentsen Wolf  26:55

Yeah, so you know, I think we’re constantly trying to assess community change, at least locally. And so that has started to happen already. RX Teach, you know, I think influencing folks locally. And that’s, that’s great news, and it’s specifically on these topics of interest. But like big, big picture goal in the next 10 years, would be to essentially expand our scholarship availability to more or less every pharmacy school in the country, but also get outside of pharmacy school. So we started with pharmacy just because that’s our background, but we’ve already started working with some schools of Exercise Science, mostly because, you know, in my perfect world, those two things come together a lot more than they currently do, you know, taking that preventative side of healthcare, into the healthcare providers, actual education. Again, that’s an area of unmet need. So scholarships across the country is what we want to be known for, to where if you can show that you’re actually interested in these very important topics, we’re going to give you money. And I feel no guilt at all about putting dollar signs in front of certain topics in order to drive people towards, well, maybe I’ll at least look up what that means if I want to get the scholarship! That’s fine with me, you know, I that’s I have no guilt on that kind of thing. And then, of course, building out the types of people who are willing to write for RX Teach and, you know, just help get our message out there. Cardiac disease is the number one killer of Americans. Kills more people than liver disease and diabetes and stroke, and it combined, it’s ridiculous. So, you know, the more we can prevent these types of things, and however, we’re going to do that, whether it’s scholarships, putting out putting out more content, selling more stuff to fund these types of events. That’s what we’re going to do. And again, I guess the number one thing for 10 years is don’t burn out, right? So it’s right, you know, keep finding that passion, make sure I’m keeping me and the rest of the board ignited about what we’re doing. And just following that passion.

Tim Ulbrich  28:48

As my partner Tim often says, you know, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I think that’s true here as well. Right? You’ve got an important mission that transcends not only 10 years, but transcends your career. Sure. And to me, what I hear you doing, which I love is you’re getting others involved. This is not a Brentsen initiative. This is a board. This is a bigger initiative. And as those tentacles get out further, you know, it’s not about you and the face and the name. It’s about the impact, right that you can have. And that impact, I presume, isn’t going away. So when you say in 3040 years, like, hey, it’s time for someone else to take the reins like you’ve got other people that you’ve delegated, and gotten involved with on the way. This has been awesome. I appreciate you taking the time again, Rxteach.org. Make sure to check out the website we’d love for our community to not only learn about what you’re doing, get involved financially. You know, reach out to Brentsen, the team if you’ve got ideas for content that you’d like to contribute, make a donation if there’s a connection or relationship that you think could be helpful. Make sure to reach out to do that. As Brentsen says on the website, “Every cent will be given to students as merit based scholarships in cancer research and preventative medicine education.” So if you make Rx Teach a part of your giving plan, know that that’s going to be going to good use. So Brentsen, thanks so much for taking Time to come on the show. 

Brentsen Wolf  30:01

Thanks, Tim. Really appreciate it. 

Tim Ulbrich  30:04

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