How I Got Into Philanthropy | Jay Brasher

About Jay Brasher

Back in the 1970’s Jay and his wife made the decision to be be involved the Indian Placement Program by taking an 8 year old Navajo girl into their home during the school year so she could attend school where the Brasher’s lived- it was a big deal at the time because the Brasher’s already had 7 kids of their own. The girl returned each year to live with the Brashers for 9 years. During that time, Jay learned about the plight of the American Indian. Later in life, Jay was approached though a friend and was extended an invitation to get involved with American Indian Services- a not for profit organization dedicated to providing educational opportunities for young native americans. Today, Jay is the Director of American Indian Services.

Interview Transcript of: How I Got Into Philanthropy | Jay Brasher

Alan
You’re now in a different chapter of your life. It’s never about the money, although we may think it is, and you get through it, but where are you at in life? Now? You know, when you’re looking at the future, what are some of the things that you’re looking to accomplish?

Jay
All of my siblings, and I started when we were young, following the example of our parents and, and we’re a fairly religious family. And we believe in sharing what we have. We believe that not believe know that what we have comes from a higher power than us, okay? And feel real obligation to help other people. Now, in the early 70s, my wife and I already had seven children of our own. But there was a program called the Indian placement program, where you would agree to take a Navajo child during the school year and have them live with you in your home, and go to school. And we agreed to do that. And we got a young girl, she was just barely turned eight years old. She came back to our house every year for nine years. And we learned a lot about the plight of the American Indians, and why they’re in the situation that a lot of them are in today. And so it was an easy transition for me to make in the early 90s. When I had a friend call me in, and I wanted to introduce another friend that he had to me, he brought a man over to my house by the name of Dale Tingey, who, by the way, is 92 years old, still comes to work every day. But Dale was dedicated to helping the Native Americans. And so I got a little bit involved. Before long, I was on the board of directors. And then after being gone for three or four years, came back and, and almost six years ago, they asked me to be the Director of American Indian services. What we do there is we provide education opportunities for Native American, young people. When I first came aboard, we were doing scholarships. I soon realized that, that because of dropout rates, from K through 12, that the kids that really needed the help were in those years. And so we started concentrating on that as well. And it’s all grown. Six years ago, I think we gave out about 1500 scholarships. Last year, we awarded 30 818 scholarships, plus we’re in about 20 schools with reading programs. This summer, we have two STEM classes, we call them AI s prep, one down in Blanding, Utah, one in Roosevelt, Utah, and they’re pretty intense classes. It’s not a summer camp for the kids. It’s teaching them STEM subjects, and I’m preparing them for college. And this program was started in Texas about 30 years ago, with the Hispanic kids in mind, really, but it’s a viable program. In fact, they make the claim that if you graduate, the the prep thing lasts for three summers. It starts with seventh graders, eighth graders than ninth graders. And their track record is that if if a child goes through all three of those years, and passes, that 90% of them go on to college. I live in a fairly affluent neighborhood. Yeah. And our neighbor kids don’t succeed to that degree. So it’s 501 C three, we raise money, however we can.

Alan
Now do you have events that you you hold on a regular basis or the person wants to donate? How would they go about doing that?

Jay
We have a website, okay. It’s a is AmericanIndianservices.com. And they can find out all about what we’re doing there. Every year. We have a banquet in the summer. We had it three weeks ago, we raised about $608,000. Net. We have a lot of supporters. Johnny Miller, the golfer, has been a supporter for 30 years. We had a golf tournament just a week and a half ago, that he takes the lead in he does that with two or three events a year, and they bring in 125 or $150,000. I like to do things that I like to do that still will raise money for American Indian services, then we have a lot of corporate donors. We’ve got people that have given us 100 or $200,000 a year now for 567 years running and we’re adding to it all the time. So that’s, you know, when you’re when you’re in the philanthropy business, you Get money wherever you can. And so that’s what I spend my time doing now is trying to raise money because I can always spend a lot more than, than we raise. And it’s interesting because we’re not like some of the other 501 C threes that you hear about. We bring about 96% of everything we raise to the bottom line that takes us less than 5% of what we raise to run our organization. And actually, truth be known that 5% comes from three board members. So if you were to make a donation with a very straight face, I could promise you that all of it would go towards our goal to help educate young Native American kids and try and follow them through life and help them be successful.

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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