Connecting People With Resources - Howard F. Freeman

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Howard F. Freeman, a fundraising advisor and executive business development specialist based in Kerrville, TX, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

My "business" is to be that "jigsaw puzzle piece," connecting people with resources and people who can deploy those resources to execute a shared vision for an increasingly bright future. My customers are nonprofit clients looking to understand their donors' giving capacity through wealth research, and sometimes for me to be a broker between donor and organization. I also am a start-up founder: I've helped start a climate tech/hardware company in the wildland firefighting space (Team Wildfire) and am now embarking on a second start-up in the medical device field. In sum, my customers are nonprofits or start-up founders looking for additional funding.

Tell us about yourself

Very few, if any, kids say, "When I grow up, I want to be a fundraiser." Myself? I wanted to be an astronomer or a baseball player for the New York Yankees. I started my fundraising career helping produce special events in New York City. These were the black-tie affairs that the well-known nonprofits put on to raise a significant portion of their annual budgets. I loved the rush of the evening itself, and I loved having a goal and a deadline. That closure was very satisfying.

My next move was to get into major donor fundraising. I found I enjoyed sitting 1:1 with a philanthropist, listening to their personal story and what connected them to the organization I represented. My simple approach was to make a friend, share a vision, and offer a next step. My job was to do a minimum amount of talking, ask a lot of questions, and invite them further into the mission of the organization. I did that for 25 years.

This background then led me to help a friend start our business, Team Wildfire. He invited me in the Summer of 2021 to find funding for what is potentially world-changing climate tech hardware to reduce the devastation caused by wildland fires. He and I secured the initial round of funding that set the company on its current course.

A fundraiser's life can be monotonous and exhausting—one fiscal year's success gets erased when the calendar year changes—but donors are always interesting. And during my 25 years doing major donor fundraising and capital campaigns and meeting fascinating people, I developed a network that allowed me to help the founder of Team Wildfire. To have helped start a business that could literally change the world by saving ecosystems, homes, and lives was one of the thrills of my life.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I could say that helping start Team Wildfire is my biggest accomplishment, and that wouldn't be wrong. But what is probably more of a longitudinal accomplishment is 27 years of working with donors and investors to help them realize big visions that improve lives. This can mean, on the nonprofit side, facilitating a donor's gift to lift ultra-poor communities from abject poverty. And on the private side, it can mean using a venture capitalist's seed funding to save millions of acres of forest, thousands of homes, and hundreds of lives, and slow or even stall climate change.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

Getting my ego out of the way. "It's not about me" becomes more and more true the older I get.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

1. Learning certain sports requires that we first learn how to slow down, stop, and fall so that we don't hurt ourselves. In your business, know when to slow down, stop and even step aside. That sounds pessimistic, but think of it this way: the best entrepreneurs I know started businesses that they grew and then exited or stepped aside for a CEO to grow the company. They started knowing they would step aside at some point. That was essential.
2. All business, all of life, is relationships. It's one of the oldest cliches there is, but it's true. I absolutely could not have helped start Team Wildfire if not for the relationships that I built and maintained over almost three decades, not to mention my time prior to my fundraising career, which includes relationships I had from college and even high school. In fact, it was my high school classmate who called me to help find funding for Team Wildfire. Be creative in how you maintain and value these relationships, and always, always follow up when you say you will.
3. Be a "Master Question-Asker." Learn to engage people and get to know them. Be a listener more than a talker.

These three tips are from my standpoint as someone whose "business" has been to leverage a network. This business is less something I created than what grew up around me, and I used this network to help start one business (Team Wildfire) and hopefully another soon.

These tips are also "who" tips and not "what" tips. I don't know of any sure-fire techniques (whats) that can help you start a business without being the "best you"—getting your ego out of the way—and properly valuing others. The "others" in your life are the key to success. As the famous saying goes, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

Where can people find you and your business?

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howard-freeman/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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