- This month on The SPARK our theme is "Collaboration for Education, Exploration, and Inspiration".

We'll learn about an organization equipping nonprofits with a platform to share data and foster collaboration to improve outcomes for our community.

A sanctuary for prayer and inspiration serving as a force for good and a center for learning and collaboration.

And a company creating water features in backyards across the Mid-South, while giving back to support education and exploration.

We'll also share a special moment from our Spark Awards 2023.

- From Higginbotham's founding in 1948, our insurance agency has been built on the values of customer service, leading with integrity, and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement, and leading by example to power the good.

Higginbotham Insurance and Financial Services is honored to be the presenting sponsor of The Spark.

- (male announcer) Additional funding for The SPARK is provided by United Way of the Mid-South, EcOp, the Memphis Zoo, and by My Town Movers, My Town Roofing.

- Have you ever been excited by a new idea?

Inspired by watching someone lead by example?

When we talk about creating change, we start by sharing the stories of everyday heroes who are making a difference in their own way so we can learn and do the same.

I'm Jeremy Park and this is The SPARK.

They're an organization equipping nonprofits with a platform to help share data and foster collaboration.

We're here with the Executive Director and the Chairman of the Board of Directors with CoactionNet, Dottie Jones.

And, Dottie, let's start out, before we dive into CoactionNet, give us some of your personal background and what led you to launch the organization.

- Well, thank you for having me today, Jeremy.

I have spent most of my career in nonprofit, government relations and government service.

So throughout that 40 years, I learned a lot about how nonprofits work, how they gather data, what they need to do with the data, and saw a real need for a platform that they could use that was easy and inexpensive.

- Talk about the importance of the data.

When you talk about decision making and outcomes, why is the collection of data so important?

- To tell a story.

Absolutely to tell a story.

If a nonprofit doesn't have facts to back up their work...

So, you know, I can say all day long as a nonprofit, "I did this, I did that," but we want to prove that what we do works, and you have to have data to do that.

So when you're raising money, when you're applying for a grant, when you're just talking to people in the community, you have to be able to say, "We served X number of people."

And it has to be a real number.

Not, "We served 10,000 people."

No, "we served 9,391 people", which is a lot more impactful than saying 10,000 people.

- So let's go ahead and dive in.

Describe the CoactionNet platform.

- So, CoactionNet is a cloud-based data management system that's fully customizable for any nonprofit.

So that if they need to keep track of certain things that they do with a client.

For example, if they do emergency assistance and they need to keep track of who applied for the assistance, what are the qualifications for that, all of this can be done online and in the system.

Totally customizable so that Agency A doesn't have to have the same forms and the same data points as Agency B.

We're able to put that together for them.

It's all based on the cloud.

So people in the community can submit their information in directly without ever walking into an office.

But then the people in the office can also work with that data and get the reports that they need.

- I know that a big benefit of this is that it can go per person.

So when you look at being able to track an individual, a recipient, a service recipient, all through the different things that they need, that allows nonprofits to share that data, but really to create more powerful outcomes and foster collaboration.

So, share a little bit of that vantage point.

- Well, we're really interested in working with coalitions and collaborations.

For example, we're working with the Justice Network right now.

They work with people who have been involved with the criminal justice system, mostly ex-felons.

And there are perhaps 20 different organizations that all do something to help that person, but they all do something different.

And we wanna make sure that they are doing different things, that they're not doing the same thing, but we also wanna be able to track the client from the minute they enter the system until they get the help they need.

First of all, they have to assess the help they need, then they have to be provided the help they need and work through the system.

But this is the kind of data system that can help Agency A work with Agency B.

- What's your vision for CoactionNet?

- I would love to see a whole big group of nonprofits all working in the same data space so that they could share.

You know, people are afraid of sharing data 'cause they hear HIPAA.

HIPAA was actually created to help people share data, not to keep them from sharing data.

So I would love to see a whole group of agencies all working together with the goal being, how do we best help this person?

- So how does the community help CoactionNet?

- Well, spread the word.

I mean, if you know of an agency or anybody who needs a data system, you know, someone who's struggling with, you know, "I'm still putting things in Excel spreadsheets" or "I have a system that I'm paying a lot for, "and it's not customizable, it's not exactly what I need to do what I do," that's what we specialize in.

We specialize in taking agencies, defining their data needs, and then helping them implement those data needs.

'Cause it's, you know, one size does not fit all, especially with data systems.

- Well, where do we go to learn more and to connect in with CoactionNet?

- Well there's... Best place to do is go to the web.

You know, you can look up CoactionNet on Facebook.

You can look up CoactionNet on Google.

We are available.

We have a website, CoactionNet.org.

And you'll get some information there and you can connect with us from that website.

Call us or email us or fill out a form online.

And if you fill out the form online, you're seeing how CoactionNet works.

[chuckles] - Well, Dottie, thank you for all you and your amazing team do to power the good.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it very much.

Have a great day.

[upbeat music] - They're a sanctuary for prayer and inspiration serving as a force for good here in our community.

We're honored to have with us Rabbi Micah Greenstein with Temple Israel-Memphis.

And let's start out.

Give us a little bit of the history and background for Temple Israel-Memphis.

- Well, first, it's so great to be with you Jeremy.

We're about to embark on Temple Israel's 170th year.

Temple Israel is the oldest and largest synagogue, Jewish house of worship, in the state of Tennessee and the last remaining large synagogue south of St. Louis, east of Denver, west of Nashville.

When you think about the past 170 years, what that means is how integral Temple has been to everything that's happened in the city of Memphis.

Surviving the yellow fever epidemic when Memphis almost disappeared off the map with a third of Memphis dying and a third leaving, and Temple and its people, the survivors staying.

Of course, the civil rights movement with the great Rabbi Wax.

But even before him, 50 years before, the first clergyman to speak out against a Ku Klux Klan, Rabbi Fineshriber.

All the wars from the Civil War through Iraq and Afghanistan, we kind of hug the city.

Our cemeteries in south Memphis, near STAX, Soulsville, our social justice center spreading goodness is at Crosstown in midtown, downtown.

And I'm coming to you from east Memphis.

We're like a small city, Jeremy, with so many inspiring villages all unified by core principles.

Inclusivity, treating every person and household the same, with dignity and respect, an amazing clergy team.

A model early learning center.

We're kind of a hidden treasure and a geographic anomaly.

- What does it mean when you say be a force for good?

So talk about your mission to be a force for good.

- Our mission is not to make the world more Jewish, it's to make the world more human.

And that means being a force for good, not just for the Jewish community.

Our sanctuary feet away from where I'm seated right now is in a semicircle because there's a Jewish teaching that what good is prayer and whatever you do in your house of worship if it doesn't impact the other half of the circle?

Meaning the community.

So when we talk about being a force for good, that means social action initiatives that involve direct community surface or public advocacy in the broader Memphis community.

Whether the issue is healthcare, mental health, affordable healthcare, anti-Semitism, fighting all the -isms, racism, food insecurity.

This temple was one of the founders of MIFA, which many people know, and the Memphis Food Bank.

I'm humbled.

It's not the rabbis of Temple, it's the people who've served here, who've led the food bank, who've led the school board.

- I know that you recently collaborated with the Memphis 13 Foundation, and that was a powerful experience.

Talk about that, and in the larger context, the importance of collaborating with other organizations and nonprofits here in our community.

- So the honorary president of Temple when he was alive was known as Mr.

Anonymous.

We all know who he is 'cause he's no longer alive, Abe Plough.

And he had the motto that inspires this force for good named Temple Israel.

His motto was, "You do the greatest good "when you help the greatest number of people, "no matter who they are, where they're from, or what they have."

And so our mitzvah work, our collaboration work is with dozens, literally, dozens of nonprofits.

And they range from preventing child sexual abuse with the Child Advocacy Center.

Every nonprofit you could think of, BRIDGES and a lot of those causes that people can get involved with, Temple has been instrumental in quietly partnering with, whether it be through our youth, our seniors.

We have seniors who make bears for patients in the cancer clinics around town.

A lot of those needle moving causes.

I would be leaving off names of causes, and Memphis 13 Foundation just happened to be the partnership that we began this summer to help launch their educational outreach.

- Talk about how the community can get involved with Temple Israel-Memphis.

- Well, the easiest thing is just to share the timemphis.org website on which you could find, or all the handles.

Were on Facebook, we're on Twitter, Instagram, all that, to keep current with... beyond the predictable.

Our Meals on Wheels, our work with MIFA and with the food bank, our work with some of the causes that I mentioned.

But just as we're finding people's time is not only precious, but they wanna get involved, but they may only have Saturday two to three o'clock or Tuesday after work.

So I would say to reach out to our engagement director, Faith Ruck, here at Temple who helps channel people into the temple tribe, if you will, that is living this mission of being a force for good for all of Memphis.

- Well, Rabbi Micah Greenstein, thank you for all you do and thank you for your amazing team, all you do to power the good here all across the Mid-South and beyond.

So, thank you for coming on the show, - Humbled and honored to be with you.

Thank you so much for having me.

[upbeat music] - The SPARK Awards annually recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the community.

The 2023 Education Award for Schools went to Aurora Collegiate Academy.

- So Aurora, we're a K-5 public charter school located Summer and Mendenhall.

Three hundred and fifty students.

So we're always looking for staff members that can both kind of relate to our students but also meet the academic needs that our students have coming into the school.

In the past couple years, we've been rated a Reward School by the state of Tennessee.

So that means we were some of the highest, both in terms of our student growth, as well as our student achievement.

And this past year, we actually received a level five, which is the highest you could receive for our students growing.

So we started over 12 years ago in a one modular building kind of schoolhouse with 50 kids, K-1.

We ended up buying a building that was originally built in the '60s, the USDA cotton grading facility.

And we were able to go in and basically from the ground up, renovate it.

So if you walked in there, it looks like a brand new building.

One of the really neat things that we have is what we call our Parkway.

It's a large hallway that runs the entire scope of the building.

We have our library in that space with thousands of book titles.

In addition, it's just a collaborative learning space where you'll see kindergartners and third graders and fifth graders working and you'll see teachers meeting.

What makes a school successful?

It's hardworking, dedicated teachers, it's engaged students, and then it's parents who are invested in the work.

And then we bring that all together by developing relationships with the community that we serve.

The work is very, very challenging, and so we purposely find really good partners who are doing similar work to us that we can collaborate.

One of those you mentioned is ARISE2Read.

So they're supporting our second and third graders who may need a little additional support during the day.

And so twice a week, they're getting 30 minutes of 1-on-1 tutoring with a community member.

And it's really great because not only are they getting that individualized support, but they're also building a really great relationship with a person that they may have never met before.

And so it allows our students to really grow in a lot of different ways.

We have about 95% of our students returning year over year.

And in a city like Memphis where there's high mobility, that's not always the case.

So it's really awesome to be able to go and see a kindergartner, and year over year see them developing and growing all the way to that fifth grade.

So it's fun to see them doing phonics and just like learning basic words, all the way to being able to, you know, in fifth grade, writing five-paragraph essays.

And I think that's what really roots me in the work, is being able to see those students succeed year over year.

[bright music] - They're a company creating water features in backyards all across the Mid-South while giving back in a number of ways.

We're here with the owner of Midsouth Ponds, Bubba Hogan.

And before we dive into Midsouth Ponds, you have a long history and legacy of serving our community tied to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office.

Give us a little bit of your background and what led you to launch Midsouth Ponds?

- Well, I guess it was, back in college, I worked at a greenhouse nursery, did some landscaping, things like that.

But growing up, I always wanted to be a deputy sheriff.

My dad, my granddad, everyone was, so it's kind of a family tradition I guess you'd say.

So over time, I did that, served 25 years.

During that time though, I'd started a business back in 1998.

Me and my brother were cutting grass.

He was in middle school and needed something to do.

So we got back into the landscaping kind of part-time job, and one thing or another led into water features to where we had just enjoyed really doing that.

And then as time progressed, COVID hit, and everything, as you know, kind of changed after that.

And our pond business just kinda exploded.

So I had the time to retire and I decided it was best to go ahead and retire now and doing other things other than law enforcement.

- Well, when you look at Midsouth Ponds, give us an overview of all the things you do 'cause you do a lot.

- Yeah, well, we build, maintain, service.

We'll sit there if you have a blank slate in your backyard, we'll come out and design something, put you a water feature in the backyard and just totally recreate your backyard.

If you have a pond, we do service and maintain, take care of it where all you do is come home, sit beside it, relax, unwind, and enjoy it.

- Talk about the therapeutic side of having a pond and even koi.

So talk about kind of the relaxing and some of the testimonials you get.

- Well, I mean it's kinda like, people tell us we give 'em time back.

When they get home in the afternoon, they had a long stressful day, you go out back, and all of a sudden you hear the rippling brook of your waterfall in the back and it just kind of takes everything away and it just makes time stand still.

We get some of 'em where they sit there and their husband and wives.

We come back to follow up visits and you got two chairs sitting there and two glasses of wine and they just sit out there all evening and they said they'd gotten time that they didn't have before because they could set beside the waterfall and just enjoy it together.

- When you look at the community service and your background, tie that to why community engagement philanthropy, why is that so important for you at Midsouth Ponds?

- It's just giving back to the community and helping somebody.

You know, Zig Ziglar always said, "If you help enough people get what they want, you'll get what you want."

So, I mean, it's one of those things just going out and doing good and helping out in the community and just seeing the smiles on people's faces.

For many years, I used to always say, you know, "I showed up on the worst day of someone's life when I worked in law enforcement."

Now I get to be out there pretty much on the happiest day of their life.

I kind of consider it when we turn that waterfall on and they see how just nice it is when it's flowing.

- Talk about your involvement with the St. Jude Dream Home.

- Yeah, we got get involved in that this year, and that was a real enjoyment and thrill to get to do that and help out and just be a blessing there.

Maybe we gotta go out and put the pond in it, and that was one of the highlights people talked about.

And being the first time ever here in Memphis, that they had a koi pond in the backyard there at the dream home.

It just added a nice effect to the backyard.

- And then carry that into working and creating outdoor classrooms for Keystone Elementary.

- Yeah, early in the spring, actually last fall, one of the teachers had contacted us.

They had an old pond that had...

The pump, everything had gone out and the water was just kind of stagnant and they were needing to do something with it.

And they were able to get a small grant to pay for the components, and we donated labor and time and went in a couple of days early spring and sat there and just totally renovated, gutted it out, and rebuilt it and built 'em a whole new koi pond so the kids can enjoy it.

For a classroom setting, they do like a news channel, I guess.

They go out and do the weather and kinda reports in front of it.

Plus, the poetry teachers take the kids out and help 'em get some inspiration for writing and just other classroom settings, science teachers with ecology, pond ecology, things of that nature.

So it just turns out working well in the classroom setting outside.

- You all are also doing some really innovative things around scholarships, creating job opportunities, exposing youth and young adults to new opportunities.

Talk about the scholarships.

- Well, this year, we've come out this year and we're gonna offer a $1,500 scholarship for somebody going into either the science, ecology, things of that nature, maybe even the agriculture side of it.

We hadn't really decided and got all the components down for it, but that's something we're talking to different principals at high schools and guidance counselors and getting with 'em and have the kids submit requests for it and applying for the scholarship and try to do that.

Plus, we take on, like I said, I guess you'd say... What's the word?

Interns or whatever, they come out and work with us in the summer to see if that's something they might wanna get into later before they go to college.

And I've even got a few kids that go to college for a year and say college wasn't for them and they come work for us, and they just wanna get into the field of work.

So that works out well also.

- I know that you're also doing a lot around education, exploration, inspiration tied with MVP3 Foundation and a new television program.

So talk about that side of things.

- Yeah, we're getting excited.

We been working with MVP3 and starting up a educational TV program for younger kids and all, and using our frog logo, things like that to get in there and kind of teach and let kids learn more about pond ecology and the science and things behind all that.

- How has this changed, though, for you and your perspective as a changemaker?

How has it changed you personally?

- It makes me appreciate things more.

You know, when you get up, go out there and you see somebody... Well, even with interns and kids from inner city, that they never really seen anything outside of the inner city of Memphis, and all of a sudden, they get out there and we got one new guy that's working with us now.

He goes to the University of Memphis, but Kenny's working with us, and he was in tears the first time we turned on a waterfall.

He said he never imagined you could actually build something like this to replicate what you'd see in pictures and get to go out and actually enjoy something like that.

So it's just good to sit there and help and maybe get more kids and more people involved in things that there are out there and get into the pond ecology and nature and things of that nature.

- So where do we go to learn more and to reach out and connect with Midsouth Ponds?

- Best place would probably be our website.

That'd be midsouthponds.com.

And we're also on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all of that's under Midsouth Ponds as well.

- Well, Bubba Hogan, thank you for all you and your amazing team do to power the good.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- I appreciate it.

Thanks.

[upbeat music] - The proverb, many hands make light work exemplifies the power of collaboration.

When people and organizations work together, things can be done more quickly and easily.

That's why collaboration is critical to the success of a community.

As organizations and individuals work together to innovate and problem solve, create new opportunities and overcome challenges, support each other and share resources, and actively get involved to make a difference, we have many hands to help lift our city.

We're fortunate to have so many here in the Mid-South working together to power the good.

CoactionNet is collaborating with and equipping nonprofits with a user-friendly client management platform that provides solutions to optimize processes, harness data, and inform decision making so they can work together to generate stronger outcomes for their service recipients, our citizens.

Temple Israel-Memphis is a sanctuary for prayer and inspiration, a vibrant center for Jewish learning, and a force for good in collaborating with the community as they partner with different nonprofits like the Memphis 13 Foundation to host public events for education, exploration, and inspiration.

And companies like Midsouth Ponds are collaborating with schools and nonprofits to build outdoor water classrooms, provide scholarships, and create television programming once again geared toward education, exploration, and inspiration.

It's a reminder that when we work together, we can do great things to benefit our community.

So where can you help power the good and become a spark?

To learn more about each of the guests, to watch past episodes, and to share your stories of others leading by example, visit wkno.org and click on the link for "The SPARK".

We look forward to seeing you next month.

We hope the continues joining with us to create a spark for the Mid-South.

- From Higginbotham's founding in 1948, our insurance agency has been built on the values of customer service, leading with integrity, and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement, and leading by example to power the good.

Higginbotham Insurance and Financial Services is honored to be the presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

[upbeat music] [acoustic guitar chords]