Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - How to Support Girls With No Rights, Resources, or Choice: Clay Dunn of VOW for Girls

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

Clay Dunn, CEO of Vow for Girls, is here to discuss the global issue of child marriage. Clay reveals that over 12 million girls will become child brides this year, with significant concentrations in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. Child marriage is also legal in over 30 U.S. states. Clay explains that child marriage often stems from gender inequality and poverty, with parents marrying off girls to protect them. Vow for Girls supports local leaders to change community norms and empower girls through education and economic opportunities. Donate at https://drmindypelz.com/vowpod To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep256 Clay Dunn is the Chief Executive Officer of VOW for Girls, the organization that turns moments of celebration – weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and more — into support for the girls around the world without the rights, resources, and choices to decide their own futures. Clay became VOW's first CEO (and first full-time employee!) in late 2019. Under his leadership, VOW has seen tremendous growth, mobilizing millions, expanding its community of supporters, and setting a bold strategic plan for the next phase of the organization's growth. Before leading VOW, Clay spent a decade helping launch and build the successful No Kid Hungry campaign to end childhood hunger in America. Before moving into more purpose-driven work, he was a marketing and entertainment executive, most recently at National Geographic Channels.  Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

On this episode of The Resetter podcast, I am bringing you Clay Dunn, the CEO of Vow for Girls. Now, I want to give you a little backstory into how this conversation landed on my podcast radar. So after watching Fast Like a Girl go out into the world, I started to see how many women were feeling empowered around their own bodies and how cool a tool like fasting became because it didn't cost. money it didn't take time and it could really move the needle on women's health and when I started to open that lens up I started to see that there are so many areas in the world where women girls are staying in a disempowered state and that was when Clay's organization got brought to my attention so vow for girls is ending child marriage for girls across the world and what you're about to

hear in this conversation is that child marriage is not just a issue that happens in certain countries or an issue that is attached to religion. It is happening everywhere and is largely happening here in America. And so I wanted to bring Clay on to talk about how we could all be a part of this solution because we are all connected as humans, whether you have a deep awareness of this or not. But what you're going to hear is that the rights for girls and boys are not the same. It doesn't matter if you're sitting in a school and getting educated or you are in a community where you're a girl and you're going to be married off at a young age. We need to create a world where girls and boys have future opportunity,

equality. And in this discussion with Clay, you're not only going to hear how once a woman, a girl is married at a young age and she becomes her future is hijacked by this decision you will see that she doesn't get an education and if she doesn't get an education she doesn't get a future and what's so shocking about this conversation is again many the times the person making the decision of this girl having this future that is taken away from her is the parent this conversation will not only break your heart but what you're you're going to hear is there is a solution we can all step into and this solution doesn't just impact these girls this solution impacts all women and so as you're listening through this conversation what i want you to hear is that we can rally around

vow for girls and we can start to create a world where equality exists and one of the last things I want to tell you is that October 11th is International Day of Girls Day, it's Day of the Girl. And we have some really interesting ways that we can lift girls up after, and hear it at the end of the conversation, because it's a quite beautiful, we came up with some pretty innovative ideas of how we can use October 11th, International Girls Day, to support not only vow for girls, but bring awareness to the fact that we are still living in a world where there is not equality. And when we free one girl and change her future, we are changing the future for all women. So I hope this conversation touches your heart. I hope that it motivates you to be a part of the change. And most of all, this is what our Give Like a Girl campaign is about, is about all women coming together to support each other, whether we are supporting each other in health or we are supporting each other in the freedom to choose your own future.

So vow for girls. If you want to donate, please go to Dr. Mindypells.com backslash Vowpod and be a part of the solution. And together, we can absolutely make this change. So enjoy. And I look forward to hearing how you all receive this beautiful man's mission and this beautiful podcast. Enjoy. Welcome to the Resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to bring you to bring you to bring you to

believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Let me just start by welcoming you, Clay, to the Resetter podcast. This discussion is much needed for my audience. So I just want to start off by welcoming you. Thank you so much for having me. It's really a joy to be here with you today. One of the things when we started to really try to touch women through the lens of health and empower women through the lens of believing in their bodies and minds again is that we started to really see the disempowerment of women and how many areas there are in the world where women don't, they can't even, you know, access a small amount of power. And that's when, you know, Lisa brought to our attention, Vow and child, you know, child marriage. And I got to tell you my first reaction. And this, I'm going to be really transparent was like, oh, wow, is this, this is a problem?

I can understand how it's a problem globally, but this is a problem in America? Like, I was completely naive to it. And it broke my heart when I, when I understood that. So can we just start this conversation with like, why is child marriage such a prevalent issue on our planet right now? And how do we just shine some light on the shadow side of our world, but also of America? Like, how did we get here? Yeah.

I think that your first reaction is one that so many people have, the one that I have had. The one that I had, you know, a little more than five years ago when I met the founders of the organization, Bhopper Girls that I run, where child marriage is one of these things that I knew happens in the world. But I had no idea that it happens at such a staggering rate. I mean, this year alone, it's crazy. This year alone, more than 12 million girls will become child bride. That equates to a girl every three seconds. It's an extraordinary number of futures that are being compromised day after day and week after week. And, you know, it happens on a truly global scale, right?

Like in the greatest concentration in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and across Asia. But it does happen here in the U.S. It's legal in more than 30 states. It's legal. Yes, legal and more than 30 states. In America, it's legal and more. Or the 30 states to marry somebody who's underage? Yes, correct.

And it looks different state to state, but in I think it's still 35-ish states, still very much legal. It's, of course, happening in the U.S. at a much reduced rate than what we see in other parts of the world, but still happening to far too many girls. Because our basic belief, right, is that this is a decision that anyone should, and everyone should be able to make for themselves. And if you, we know from both common sense and tons of research that if this one decision, if you're robbed of this one decision, it changes so many of the other opportunities that you're having your life. It alters and takes away so many other decisions that you can have. So.

Explain to me, and I'm just going to go through the American lens right now, how does a child all of a sudden fall into? to a marriage she didn't want to be a part of. Like, you know, as a parent, my first brain is like, where's the parent? And then, you know, as somebody who like tries to understand the culture, I guess my next thing would be is there, is this a religious thing? Like, is it attached to a religion? And I mean that with deep respect. I'm not trying to, you know, say that religion's the problem. But I would say that's where my brain goes to is like, oh, this must be people who are a part of certain religions. And where are the parents? Yeah. So this is what's a bit difficult to come to terms with around this issue, especially as we think about it on the global scale.

You asked you your first question, why is this happening? It's such a big rate. And unfortunately, the real answer there is it happens at such a high rate because people don't believe that girls are deserving of the same choices that boys are. like this like ingrained, wow, sort of bias against women and girls that someone might know better for them. Wow. That's a really, I mean,

it gives me chills just saying, it breaks my heart. It breaks our, so what we see happening around the world and why girls become Sean Brides is often because it's like what we've always done, right?

This like local social norm that persists, where, well, I have an early marriage. Your grandmother had an early marriage. Of course you're going to have one. We also see that a lot of, I really believe, especially for meeting lots of parents around the world and talking about this issue, that no one does this with ill intention.

They're primarily doing it when they're worried about everyone, everyone's going to get fed. They're often like struggling with. extreme poverty. They're living in a place where either conflict or climate change is causing a lot of uncertainty in their lives. And suddenly they're looking for potential solutions. And marrying off children is one of the solutions that they turn to. And it's not while this like, I think global gender inequality is like going to be underpinning. Yes. You know, what it looks like community and community is different. In some places, it is a

religion. In some places, like, we were just in the Dominican Republic, visiting local organizations that we've been funding there for more than five years. Like, more vividly than other places I've seen in the world, like, it was about a real fear of a girl's sexuality and that she may become sexually active and then pregnant and dishonor the family. And so we're like encouraging her to go ahead and get married while she's like 15, 16 years old. Wow. So it's protection. So the parent sees it as protection in that, in that. Very often. Yeah. And are there are there dowries that's associated with it?

Like, or is each case unique? Each case is unique. In some, in some places, there are things that we would refer to as dowries. Like I had the opportunity a little more than a year ago to go to Nepal to visit local organizations that we've gone there. Like dowrys was something that was much discussed, but it is illegal in Nepal to do this. And so the dowry is like secretive, like under the table. Like, you know, it's not happening out of open.

I think money is certainly a factor because of the poverty that is linked in so many places. And are there hotspots? Again, like in America, are there hot spots in certain states that have this more? Because I think, like, the other part is that I'm seeing this through is like if it's acceptable in a community, then it's like if you're born in a female body, you just know this is. probably going to be your fate because you see everybody in that community going down this path. And so I would think then there would become this moment where a girl just doesn't know any different because she was born into a community that this is your fate. And she doesn't even have

another option. Yeah, I can't speak to you about, I don't have the expertise about like hot spots in the U.S. I will say that the research on what has happened in the U.S. or the last decade on the issue shows that in the majority of cases there's a large age gap, you know, young girl, older man. And, you know, I can tell you that I know that it's still legal in California, for instance. And like, from a population standpoint, I would imagine, just because they have such a large population, I would imagine that the problem is more pronounced there because of that. There's an excellent group of organizations who are going to sort of state by state. like closing loopholes and changing laws. And they've done it in more than 10 states over the last

maybe three to four years. And they've been working on a federal law that's in committee in Congress right now. They're working with several senators around the framing of that, that they hope to bring forward over the next six months that could make a real difference sort of across states, not having to do the state by state model. So is this like a loophole from if I thought having sex was someone under 18. If you were over 18, I thought that was illegal. So this would be like a loophole except if you're married, then you can that that's okay. Correct.

And you see in stories about child marriage in the U.S. You see like often it's happening because there's a pregnancy involved. There's something that's been happening that it's like the marriage is being used to cover. or, you know, something bad. Yeah, like it could be incestual. It could be, yeah, wow. Talk to me about how this dramatically changes a girl's life. I mean, I can, from a female perspective,

only imagine how different my life would have been if I had been forced to marry at 16 or 17 years old. Like, but what are the ramifications not only for the, for the girl but i i bet there's like even economic ramifications like i i don't think this is just a absolutely a problem for the girl this is a problem for the culture yeah absolutely i mean the number one ramification that comes to my that if a girl marries early it's highly likely like almost certain that that's the end of her education like becoming becoming a bride means no longer being a student yeah and that's something we see in communities a

around the world. And so anytime that girls are out of school, there are risk of child marriage or increases. Okay. The other end tied to that, like, you know, less education that you have, less earning potential that you have. Yeah.

So, you know, long term, your economic opportunity is decreased. There are also, though, like, very serious health complications related to this because a girl who married while it was still a child, is much more likely to have a child. while she is still a young woman and before her body is ready. And early childbirth causes lifelong health complications for many women around the world.

And I would say those are the sort of biggest impacts. You know, I also think there's a family and community impact because something we clearly see around the world is that when women do have money, they invest it in their families. They invest it in their communities. And, you know, when women have less money, less spending. and, you know, it's a loss of contribution both to their families and children. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because, again, I feel like I'm in the business of women's empowerment. And one of the things that I have watched, as I've researched so many different topics, is that there's a couple of different ways that you can disempower a woman very quickly.

And the first is education. Or one of them, it's not even the first. One of the bigies. just make sure she's not educated, and then take her body rights away. And if you take those two rights away, you control her. And I've also looked at the pattern of history around a patriarchal world that we're living in. And I think it's really important when we talk about a patriarchal world, that it's just power over. It doesn't mean men are bad and women are good. It just means we have a structure that has power over both men and women. And I really dove in to trying to understand, well, what would be the alternative to a patriarchal society? And I found a really cool definition of a matriarchal society, which is power within. And if we can empower people within,

then we are now both men and women living in a matriarchal society. It's literally that's that simple. So. I love that. Right? Is it like that way. it's not like we're not fighting man woman, we're just saying we all want to live in a society that that allows us to have power from within and that's the matriarchal lens. So talk a little bit, I don't want to leave this point before we talk about the solution of how does this affect our society to allow young girls to continue to be disempowered this way? Like what is the cultural global impact because I think when people listen to a podcast like this, there can be a sadness of like, oh, this is heartbreaking. But what I want us all to understand is this is heartbreaking

and it affects your life too, even if you are not exposed to some child bride. It affects the culture which is affecting you, which is affecting your health. Certainly. I mean, if we're, being in a world where a girl isn't able to make basic choices about her future. You know, the choice about whether or not to continue school, whether or not to, you know, to date and fall in love, whether or not to marry if she chooses, you know, whether or not to have children, whether or not to have a career, right? That's a world in which, you know, a staggering number of girls are living in compromised states, right? And without this sort of basic autonomy to say, like, this is what I want for my life.

Yeah. You know, I was with a grant in Nepal, and, you know, we think about, I don't know, you probably know, some teenage girls, like in your life, right? Yeah. Rentz are of teenage girls. We've got kids that were teenagers. Right. And it's like, I don't know, we're used to dealing with like, kind of empowered teams.

Yes. Who have a lot of opinions. Yeah. Oh, yeah, they do. You know, one of our grantees said, like, she said, Clay, like, these girls don't even know that they can dream. Yeah. Like, they live in a situation where, like,

no one has ever told them, you can be something else. You can be somewhere else. You can be somewhere else. Yes. Right. It's just like so much about this programming is opening eyes to there's a reality beyond what you can see right in front of you. And we want all girls to be able to have those choices. Yeah.

And you know, there's one of the concepts that I teach in all my books, and I've mentioned it on a thousand videos and podcasts, is this idea of what we call the hormonal hierarchy, which is like our sex hormones, are dramatically affected by insulin production, and insulin production is dramatically affected by cortisol, and cortisol can be calmed by oxytocin. So when I look at 12 million girls being married off, what I see is a world that's saturated in cortisol. And the more cortisol that we have, saturation we have in the world, the more it affects us individually on a hormonal level. And really to restore our own sense of hormonal health, we need to bring more oxytocin into the picture where we're loving people, we're supporting people, we're lifting people up

out of troubling situations. And when we do that collectively as humanity, on an individual level, our bodies win. So this idea that we're separate from each other is erroneous. So when I hear staggering statistics like this, I'm like, we got to solve this. We got to help women because we are just going to perpetuate the cortisol saturation that so many people are already living in. So that's my neurochemical lens on it. Talk a little bit about vow and like what you all are doing. And what I'm really hoping with this conversation, and I'll say it in my intro, is that I just don't want us to see this as like a car crash that we're driving by and go, isn't that sad? I want us to see that our own individual mental and physical health is dependent upon helping you all solve this problem. Talk to me a little bit about what VALFRA Girls is doing.

And I really appreciate that. And you're using your platform to draw attention to this issue because it is one that very much needs more attention, more attention, more eye ball, more heart, more funding. Like, if we're going to see a different outcome for girls. So I run this organization, VAL for Girls. We were founded almost five years ago by two people who had been deeply involved in the global movement to end child marriage and had been successful in. you know, bringing together groups around the world who were focused on the issue, making it part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, like really getting it on the agenda. But they really came to believe that real change on this issue was not going to happen unless it was

happening in communities themselves because someone at the UN or you or I, we may have lots of ideas about what should happen in communities. But the real truth is that that change doesn't happen in a place like, you know, Uganda or India or DRC or wherever, unless it's people who are from those communities, like really champion a different outcome. Right. And so they created vow for girls to raise awareness and funding and to be able to put that money directly in the hands of local leaders

who are running effective but like massively underfunded programs and organizations. So largely local women who are directly engaging in the lives of girls and have been doing it for quite a while and are really in a position to be those change agents in their communities. I'm just curious like I'm thinking what does it look like to change this in a community? Because you need to change the community. You need to change the community. You need to change the family. you need to help the girl see this is not right. Like that seems like a lot of people involved in the change. It does seem like a lot of people.

And that's why proving this model has been so important over the last five years because we've invested in the first four years, invested in around 175 or these local organizations. And in places where the issue looks really different. So like somewhere in the Dominican Republic where we have around 30 organizations, that we support, we intentionally chose an invested in leaders who wanted to do that kind of community engagement that you're talking about, right? So they're working with schools. They're working with parents themselves. They're working with the police, with local religious leaders,

sort of building this consensus that our community is going to be better if girls are able to make their own decisions about marriage. Got it. And seeing great success in that and sort of building consensus at the community level where it goes from, well, of course, we're going to marry our girls to, well, of course we're going to let our girls make their own decision about this. And we're seeing that real change on the community level place to place. So much of this, though, is really important engagement with caring. Yes. It's something that across our grantees, no matter whether or not they're working on things related to education, like helping girls stay in school or things related to economic opportunity, like helping girls learn to make money so they can contribute to

their families or things about their health, making sure that girls know how pregnancy happens, how to avoid it. Right. All of these things, they're engaging parents because parents are really critical to seeing this change because they're so often the one that's saying yes or not. Right. I mean, that's what I literally, how I started this conversation was like, what parent would do this?

And then now I'm seeing, they're seeing it as protection, which, you know, then I also go to, Well, in a time in America when contraception is being put out as optional and maybe not available for women, that seems like now we're only going to see a spike in more of these child marriages because if we can't make contraception easy for girls to get, the pregnancy rates are going to go up, which means parents are going to double down on this. And this is just topical right now because of political scene here in America that if we don't have access, if girls don't have access to contraception, we got a bit, you all, you know, in your organization now are going to come back and be like it's not 12 million anymore. Now it's like 24 million because parents are going to

double down on this protection. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, because so many, like I was, I was with a group last year and we were talking to parents about what's their experience around their girls being in this group. And like the parents like sharing with us that they were learning things about sex that they had never known. Oh my God. Oh my God. Or in this.

Yeah. In this program and things about their bodies that no one had ever told them like now my daughter is the one like educating me about this. Awesome. But you know, I agree like things like contraception being used to oppress. Like in withholding contraception being used to oppress. That's exactly the kind of thing we're addressing in terms of major. girls are not only aware of how their body's function, but also have resources to be in the

driver's seat, if you will, of those decisions. Where does that education happen because it's not happening in schools? So where is a girl going to get? Like, I remember when my kids were in teenagers, I'm in Silicon Valley, I raised them in Silicon Valley, there were like really cool programs that you could like send your kid to, and they would teach them everything. You know, if you were a parent that was like, I don't want to sit down and have this conversation. There was like, okay, they can teach them everything from contraceptive to contraception to respecting your body to how to have great sex. Like just let's just bring it out into the light. And it was really popular here in Silicon Valley in families that were wanting to help.

You know, both. And there was a girls class and a boys class. So how to how, I'm now. thinking just about communities that don't want to talk about it schools that are not going to put it on the on the curriculum where how do these girls get this kind of access to information what you described seeing in Silicon Valley is one of the ways that girls are getting that access in communities around the world so one of the number one through interventions that are community partners are

implementing are the creation of girls clubs or girls leadership clubs, sometimes boys and girls clubs together, largely the function as after school type activities. But regardless of where they happen and when they happen, the things that I see being similar as I visited so many of them is giving girls a safe space where they can come together, where they can learn about everything from what their rights are to some basics of financials and money to like hands-on skills that they could then use to like make things that they could sell for money like you know on on an art but largely though they give them a space and a mentor figure that they can both share about their lives and learn and if their future is somehow at risk

they have someone to go to like we were in Nepal and I met this young woman who's who said who like she was 15 years old. She very matter of factually said, I've been in this program for two years. Last year my parents came to me and she told me, they told me that it was time for me to marry. Wow. I said that's a violation of my rights and I knew that because of this program.

And I told them if they married me, I would go to the police and they said, oh, we won't do that then. Wow. Very matter of fact, very matter of fact. So I think like one of the biggest things that's happening in these programs that we support, whether or not they're safe spaces or whether or not they're like sports or drama clubs that are teaching girls about their rights while building their agency.

It's an opportunity for them to learn like I am a person with rights. This is what my, like my like, oh, I didn't mention this, but in all these places where we're working, the practice is illegal. It's just happening at a tremendous rate. Wow. So, so, you know, they learn about the rights. and they know what to do if someone is infringing upon them. Yeah, and what I hear in that, that's power within.

That's it. Yeah. You know, and this is the interesting concept that I've been really trying to teach to women is that there's so many places we give our power away. And for like the lens that I've been teaching my following is like, we give it away when we go in the doctor's office. And the doctors, and we like list off a bunch of symptoms that are really hormonal changes that are going on in our body and the doctor writes us an antidepressant prescription.

Like all of a sudden, that's where our power has been taken away. So when you educate a woman and you say, hey, when you go into the doctor's office, here's the questions you want to answer, you want to ask, here are the things you want to think about if they hand you an antidepressant, like stand up for yourself there. And what I heard is that's exactly what you're doing. And we could put that across all these disempowering places. It's like, if we're going to be, bring the the the the and I want to think of another word other than power but bring the awareness of an equality of women up it's going to actually what I'm hearing that you're doing is it starts with the woman it doesn't start necessarily with pointing fingers at the culture it starts with

teaching the woman yeah exactly because I think that no one's going to win with the pointing fingers approach yeah like it's why someone like me can't like show up in a community being like you got to changes like never going to work yeah like absolutely not and so this this while this sort of girl-centered and they can sense this approach takes more time and isn't like you know you know it's social norm change right we're leading our general partners are leading yeah leading the social norm change in their communities and seeing real change but we believe that this is the only way that it's going to stay because like once once you stop this practice you're not you're not going to be starting again right But once you stand up to your parents and you say you can't marry me, what else can, you know, that, that girl do in her life?

Like, that's, exactly. That's like the door in to empowering a woman. Now she gets to, you know, do that over and over and over again, which is. Yeah, agree. We were in Dominican Republic and met with this moment who we've been funding for five years. And I was like, you know, what's the biggest change that you have seen over the rest five years? And without missing a beat, she said, five years ago, the girls would come into this program. I couldn't get them to say a word.

And now they won't stop telling me what they think. Oh, yeah, right? That's dangerous to the society. I love them. Yeah. I was like, keep talking. Yeah, right. Exactly.

I mean, it's much easier to keep us quiet. So, wow, that's so cool. What do you do about the girls that already are married? Like I like it's really this has been helpful for me because I now see your long term vision and it's so in alignment with women's empowerment for me and what I'm trying to do. Like my win is when a woman comes out of the doctor's office and she feels like she was an equal. She feels like she had a collaborative conversation. I'm like, yes, because you educated yourself and now you can stand up for yourself. So I love this vision of let's change it at the girl, change the girl and empower the girl.

What about the girl that's already in the marriage? What about maybe she's 10, 20 years into the marriage? Like, is there any help that we can give her or that woman? So what I can speak to is that so many of our local partners are working to make sure that girls who do become child rights still have opportunities. They still get to finish school or girls who may have a child early. Like, in the wake of the pandemic in Uganda, a lot of girls that came practicing. while schools were closed.

They had the longest school closure in the world. Oh, wow. And one of our partners who we fund there, who's more of an advocacy organization, forced to change nationwide that had said that pregnant girls could not be in school. And like, which opened school for thousands of girls who had become pregnant during the pandemic. Wow. And so, you know, I definitely see and hear partners talking about who are, are, I don't have to phrase it exactly, but like supporting girls' decisions to leave unions,

like, at a point that that's not a sort of core thing that our grantees are focused on, like primarily the, it's hard. Yeah, really hard. We're providing it's about prevention of. Right. Yeah. So on this topic, it's way easier to prevent than to actually pull them, dismantle them from the marriage.

Yeah. Yeah. So talk a little bit about the biggest challenges that Valfourne. for girls has. And, you know, how can we support you? How can we lift you up? Like, what, you know, what maybe some of the things that you have coming down the road, because I'm really hoping people in my in my world see why it's important to support you all. Yeah. I mean, I think that the the biggest challenge overall is one of awareness, right? Right. People not realizing that this is such a global problem, but it happens on the scale, but it does.

And I'm hoping that through this conversation and other ways that, you know, your listeners might interact with us, that they see that not only does this exist, but there are also real tangible ways that I can do something. Yeah. You know, we provide a mechanism to empower incredible local women who are real heroes to me because they are standing up to often like centuries of tradition in their, in their communities and saying like, we deserve different and better than us. And we're a mechanism through which to directly support those organizations.

We also like, for readers for whom this is important, like we run a model where foundations and generous individuals pay for the operating cost of the organization so that 100% everything that donated goes right to these community organizations. And so I'd say like awareness is a big challenge. I think too just like, you know, building like a challenge of the last five years has been like building sort of a community at scale around around this work. Like we've been able to to work with like so many incredible people who like we just work with brands who make us part of their their business. Like we work with individuals who are heading. celebrations themselves and like say like oh instead of gifts like why don't you donate to this

cause and also just people who directly support us as part of their personal philanthropy and you know while while money it's like every nonprofit you can say and every nonprofit wants money i mean this is why we're doing give every nonprofit wants money right the reason the reason the exist is to yeah to support these local women these local leaders and it's the dollars make the difference yeah yeah you know as I was sitting here thinking, you know, you've only been around for five years, but you know what you need to do is once you get those girls empowered, you need to put them on your, on your staff. You need to bring them in to vow for girls and let them run this. I agree.

Like, they'll make the best employees because they will be so, you know, so connected to the cause. One of the challenges or one of the, I don't know if it's a challenge, but I can just tell you somebody who has donated money to organizations like this, where it's just so heartfelt. There's such a, it's not like I'm just writing a check. Like, my heart is breaking as I'm listening to this, is how can we see the progress you're doing? How can we feel sort of watch the emotional journey that you are all on so that we feel like

we're a part of the solution? Like I'll give you an example, like, you know, if you go down and, you know, one of the the organizations that were, give like, you know, a girl is supporting is an organization that goes into Mexico and builds homes for single moms. And so there's an actual real tangible like do-goating kind of feel there. I can imagine there has to be something like this. Like if I donate money, is there a way for me to see that progress, to feel like I'm a part of this incredible mission you all are on? I ask myself this question all the time around or how do we make this work?

sort of did it and tangible for people. Right. And some of the things that we've been experimenting with are sort of virtual visits to communities where we get to hear directly from local leaders, local girls, see programming and like, but people are doing it virtually and joining us for conversations around that. A lot more of hearing directly from girls themselves, like about their lives, what they want. Like actually today and the rest of this week, we're doing some of that work with girls in Uganda who've been in programming for five years, hearing about their experiences, what they want for other girls in their communities.

And I'm constantly trying to think about like, how do we make this like come to life for people without them having to travel to like a tiny community in Nepal, like in the middle of the world? Right. It takes a really long time to get to. Yeah. Is there a way? I just, it's interesting. I just was with a friend and who's a big podcaster here in L.A. Or when I was in L.A.

And she would, she was telling me that she was thinking of adopting a senior that doesn't have any family and like actually like going. I guess there's a program where you can go and adopt a senior and you can sit and like and be with them because they're lonely. I'm thinking would it be, is there a way where you're, you're like, hey, I'm going to give X amount of money. And then a girl is going to give me updates. One specific girl is going to give me updates on her life.

And then I get to follow that life and know that I made an impact in that. Yeah. I think there's some organizations have done that. Honestly, I can't speak to the model. I know that there are complicated thoughts about that. Oh, okay. Yeah. But I think the intent behind the question is there.

right one, right? About like, how do I, as a donor, see the impact of what I'm doing? Yeah, right. And continue to feel excited about it, want to bring other people into it, want to continue. I mean, I think this is a big question that philanthropy is wrestling with about how to do that in a way that, for me, it's like where consumers are on other things. Yes. Yeah. The other thing that I had heard in, but then I heard you guys did away with this was people could put it on a donation on their registry when they're getting married. Oh, no. You still have that?

No, we still do that. We just do it a little differently than we used to. So for people who are, if anyone's listening, they're planning a wedding or any other kind of celebration, we'd love to work with you on that. We've been able to work with thousands of couples now around moments of celebration where they say either in addition to or instead of gifts, make a donation to offer girls, like pretty much saying, like, in celebration of the choice that we're able to make, I want to support the choices of others.

Yes. And what we do today is we create really simple but personalized charitable registries. And, you know, they can have your photo, a message from you as a couple. We have incredible stories of couples who have been inspired to include us. And their guests being, like, really generous around those moments and, like, wanting to support a charity that they feel deeply about. Yeah. When I heard that, I was like, that's genius because you're using the, you're using the choice of marriage, this beautiful thing that so many people enter into with so much happiness. And you're shedding light on the fact that not every girl gets to make that choice.

So, you know, even I'm even thinking like when I start the next wedding I'm going to go to, I'm going to, whether they asked or not, I'm going to say I made a donation to you to vow for. girls, you know, in honor of the choice you got to make. And I, I love that. Yeah, like, nobody's going to be like, what did you, what did you do? Like, I think everybody will be, like, I see a really large amount of my following doing that because it's not just giving you all money, but it's really giving awareness. Yeah, definitely. And besides weddings, we've done some collaborations around big anniversaries, retirement, graduations, first day. other people have a person last year created a tennis tournament using the same model wanting to support us. So it's really fun in that way. It's a different way to involve people as well.

And I think so many couples who are celebrating, like often you don't really want anything. Yeah, especially depending on your like stage. It's like, do I need another toaster? Right, exactly. Like, do I need more stuff? Like, you know, and I'm not a stuff person. So I, you know, I'm, you know, they just came up with a new love language and it's called it's there's two new love languages and the one that I resonate with is experiences and I've come to this place in my time my point in my 50 almost 505th year that I really like having experiences with other humans and I would rather spend money on that than on any any physical item and you know we have a very altruistic following we have a lot of post-menopausal women whose daughters are up and out of the house or kids are up and out of the

house. And I really am going to highlight this for our community because I think there's as much joy in giving something to vow as if you gave, you know, an object to somebody. I think, and then everybody gets the joy. Like, you get the joy, the person receiving it gets the joy, the girl that gets pulled out of the situation gets the joy. Like there's more of the joy to go around in this kind of gift. Absolutely. I love that. And we all need more joy. We all need more joy. It's amazing. It's amazing. Well, Clay, I just, you know, again, like, thank you for what you're up to.

Thanks so much for bringing me on. And thanks for highlighting us through Give Like a Girl. It's really an honor to collaborate with you. Yeah. So, okay, speak a little bit about you've got a big event coming up or you're part of International Day for the girl. Is it? it like for the girl? Is that what this is? Yeah. Absolutely. So October 11 every year is International Day of the Girl. It's a day to celebrate the power and potential of girls everywhere. Wow. For Bell for Girls, it's always a really important time to shine light on our work to lift up the stories of change that are happening around the globe. This year we have people who support

us from around the globe holding their own Girls' Night campaigns in October and November. like just bringing together women that they love and men who love women in support of our work like over drinks or dinner or fitness, whatever they choose. But international day of girls October 11th later this week. Amazing. So, okay, talk to me a little bit about what that would look like. Like if I have a group of women that I'm like, hey, ladies night out on October 11th, we're going to celebrate International Day of the Girl.

Like, would we then, like, gather women together and be like, and we're all going to donate? So we'll go have drinks and everybody donate what X amount of money. Is that kind of, it's just gathering people together to bring awareness to the empowerment of girls. Yeah, right on. So you say to your friend, hey, we're going to happy hour on this date. It could happen any time this fall. We're going to happy hour on this date. Here's a link that I've set up for our girls night.

Like I invite you before drink to make a donation with me and support of this call. that I care deeply about. And then you just get together and you have a great time. We have for people who want to do events and want to have sort of a short program, we have a guide for that and the way to make it really easy. But largely it's about like enjoying the joy of being together and with one brother and just making a bit of an impact alongside it. Yeah, I love it.

I love it. I mean, this is something that I, you know what I was, I call them the mama bears. The mama bears are going to grab this idea. And I think it's the mama bears that are going to change the world, honestly. And the mama bears could easily gather all the other mama bears and do something as simple as raise awareness for you all on that spectacular day. So we will leave the link on how you learn more information on that in the notes. And so hopefully people will engage in that.

And October 11 is really like a sort of kickoff like, you know, the season that's support girls for us. So events will happen anytime that the remainder of the year. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. It would be great. Clay, I can't let you go without asking my final question that will be really interesting

to hear what you have to say on this one. And it's very, and I say that just because we typically talk about health on this podcast. And yet I see this as all a part of our health. So this is a large reason why I wanted this conversation. But my question to you is what does, what's the definition of health? for you and how do you know when you're healthy? I think the definition of health for me is when I feel really in balance with myself. Yeah.

I, and that for me is a combination of the sort of the combination of like the combination of like the food and exercise. Yeah. I'm taking in my own attention to my mindfulness. and, you know, building space for quiet and reflection and, like, really about listening to my body and how I'm feeling and what it needs. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's someone who does like a lot of travel for this work and it's really easy to follow out of balance. So it's something I'm constantly thinking about. How do I, what does balance look like for me when I'm on a plane versus like I'm at home and like working there?

and something I'm constantly working on. Yeah, yeah. We all are. We all are. You know what? I'm also going to put into that something that I have told my kids over and over again is that if you want lasting happiness, stop thinking about what you're going to get in life

and start thinking about what you're going to give in life. And I really think that, again, you know, as, you know, being so intimately involved in vow for girls, just being in that service, that place of service has to be a huge health and happiness driver for you. Absolutely, yes. Yeah, amazing. Well, Clay, I could talk to you forever. I hope, I really hope we meet one day.

Me too. Yeah. I'll let you know when I'm coming to California. Yeah, please, please do. I would love that. I will. And tell everybody, you know, your heart. whole team like, thank you, and we hear you, and we want to support you, and we just appreciate

what you all are up to. Thank you so much. It's a joy to meet you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.

Thank you.