Changemaker Gregg Garfield, CEO, ChipIn

Gregg Garfield, CEO of ChipIn, transforms the credit card processing industry by donating 10% of profits to nonprofit organizations selected by their business clients. His journey from being LA's first hospitalized COVID-19 patient with a 1% survival chance to creating a nationwide philanthropic business model demonstrates how tragedy can inspire meaningful change. 

The idea is simple and powerful: ChipIn offers competitive credit card processing rates to businesses while donating 10% of profits to the charity of the client's choice. With nineteen nonprofit partners and growing, the model creates recurring, sustainable funding without requiring additional asks or fundraising efforts.

Welcome to the Agency for Change podcast.

Connect with Gregg and ChipIn at: 

·       Website – http://chip-in.org/

·       Email – info@chip-in.org 

Chapters

• 0:00 Greg's Survival Against 1% Odds
• 3:14 ChipIn: Credit Card Processing with Purpose
• 8:51 COVID Patient Zero in Los Angeles
• 15:19 Power of Mindset and Believing
• 20:05 Making a Difference One Step at Time
• 23:20 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

Connect with Gregg and ChipIn at: 

·       Website – http://chip-in.org/

·       Email – info@chip-in.org           

Gregg Garfield: 0:01

Your journey is to be experienced. Your experience is to be learned from.

Announcer: 0:09

Welcome to Agency for Change, a podcast from KidGlov that brings you the stories of change makers who are actively working to improve our communities. In every episode, we'll meet with people who are making a lasting impact in the places we call home.

Lyn Wineman: 0:23

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Agency for Change podcast. This is Lyn Wineman, President and Chief Strategist at KidGlov. Today's guest is living proof that mindset can move mountains. Gregg Garfield is the CEO of ChipIn, but he's also an adventurer and an early COVID-19 survivor. Gregg was given just a 1% chance to live, and not only did he survive, but he turned that life-altering experience into a mission that today helps others. In this episode, Gregg is going to share how that brush with death led to a deeper purpose and how he is now using his story and his platform to bring hope, healing and human connection to people who are facing the toughest moments of their lives. Let's dive in, Gregg. Welcome to the podcast.

Gregg Garfield: 1:34

Oh, it's a pleasure to be here and thank you for having me.

Lyn Wineman: 1:37

I am so interested in your story, Gregg, and you know I think that when people hear that I'm interviewing the CEO of a credit card processing company, they might be a little bit surprised, because this is a podcast about people making a positive difference in the world. Can you tell us about ChipIn and what makes you unique?

Gregg Garfield: 1:59

Well as an industry. We're not the most loved industry in the world.

Lyn Wineman: 2:04

I think that's an understatement. That's an understatement, right, we're a necessary evil out there.

Gregg Garfield: 2:09

I've been in the credit card processing space. This November will be 36 years, so I probably should have my head examined, but nonetheless. They always say once you get into payments, you die in payments. We definitely try to be different.

In my career, I've always focused on being pro-merchant, creating relationships, and then it took a different turn, brought it to a different level about 14 years ago when ChipIn started yeah, started in the town of Mammoth Lakes. I'm a diehard skier, I've had a home up there for 20 plus years and we were very fortunate to become the credit card processor for Mammoth Mountain Ski Area about 14 years ago and we allied with the Mammoth Mountain Community Foundation. We started peeling off a percentage of our profits to donate to the foundation. The foundation funds a lot of different programs in the community snowboard team, ski team, mountain bike team but they also help fund the public school system. We made an agreement where 100% of our money was to go to the public school system. So, five years in, I decided to audit the program to really determine where my money went, what was the effect, and come to find out that the STEM and music curriculum exists because of the money we donated it affected thousands of children's lives in a four and a half square mile town.

So I decided to brand it and it's called ChipIn Giving Credit Card Processing a Purpose and brought it off the hill, went nationwide with it and started partnering with a variety of non-profits currently, there's 19 non-profits under our umbrella, all highlighted on our website and we help them create recurring donations by speaking to their donors and introducing our vehicle. Because donors we have found that donors are business owners or business people and most businesses take credit cards. Yes, it's a different vehicle, so we just really are going out there aligning with these for-profit businesses that were just taking 10% of our profit and donating it to the charity of their choice.

Lyn Wineman: 4:33

I love that, Gregg, and why I think this message is so timely to have on the podcast right now is we're in a time where a lot of nonprofits are concerned about donations. There's a little bit of uncertainty in the economy, which always makes donations a little bit uncertain as well. There's nonprofits who are used to getting government support, who may or may not be getting that any longer, and you are providing a way for nonprofits to fund their missions by people doing nothing different than they would normally do, just using their credit cards, which, believe you me, I am burning a hole in mine all the time, and I think there's a lot of people in that same boat. 

I want to quickly take a turn on our conversation because these two things go together in such an interesting way. But, Gregg, you also have such an incredible personal story of both survival and resilience. Would you mind? I know you've shared this story on national news, international outlets. I'm a little bit humbled to have you share it here with us on the Agency for Change, but tell us a bit about that story.

Gregg Garfield: 5:52

Oh, five years ago, this was February of 2020.

Lyn Wineman: 5:58

Yeah, we all remember what was happening in February of 2020. I'm going to just jump in, Gregg, and say I remember having lunch with a friend. We both said we're not going to let this COVID thing change our lives, and the next day the world shut down. So where were you in that continuum?

Gregg Garfield: 6:22

I was in Val Gardena, Italy. I'm on a ski trip with a group of friends that go every year to Europe and we ended up going back to Val Gardena because we loved it so much. And on the 20, we got there on the 22nd of February 2020. And my girlfriend at the time, now my fiancé, calls me and says are you aware of this thing called the coronavirus? It's where you are, in Northern Italy.

So we're all avid skiers, we're all athletes, we're not really too worried. I mean, who would think it would become a worldwide pandemic? Right? And you know, I said I'll be careful, but we're outdoors, we're in a boutique hotel, we're eating breakfast, lunch and dinner with our crew yeah, we weren't really around too many other people. About three days in, we started getting flu like symptoms and I laid up in my room for a couple of days, didn't think anything of it, other than had flu of some kind. We had three of our friends that went to or that were living in Sweden that went home a couple of days earlier. One guy checked into the hospital and was sent home with the flu. So he called us and said we had the flu.

Now we were heading home through Munich and the night before we were leaving our good friend checked into the hospital that night with double pneumonia and missed our flight. We didn't find out about it till the morning and we got on the plane. We had no issues getting on the plane at that particular time because there really wasn't anything happening. This was on March 1st.

Three quarters of the way through the flight we get a text from him at the hospital saying he tested positive for COVID. Like wow, so I land. I call AJ, my girlfriend, and said don't come to the house. We were living together at the time. I have to quarantine. I called my doctor who called the CDC that sent a hazmat team to my house oh my goodness, took me to their office and tested me because there was no random testing Right, and turns out that I tested positive 24 hours later. This was on March 2nd. On March 4th I was pretty darn sick and I was on the phone with a very good friend of mine who's a retired physician that called all around every hospital UCLA, USC, St John's, Cedars-Sinai and said every one of them said we're not ready for a COVID patient, send him to the emergency room. Well, if they send me to the emergency room, I'm COVID positive. I infect everybody.

That wasn't acceptable. So St Joe's was the only hospital in Los Angeles that was ready with an inflow room, and the next morning I couldn't breathe and we called the ambulance. They picked me up, took me to the hospital and I was admitted and subsequently they dubbed me patient zero for COVID in Los Angeles. I was the very first COVID patient admitted to a hospital in LA. It was here in the States but nobody knew about it and didn't understand what it was. And that was on March 5th. On March 7th they came in and said we have to intubate you because your oxygen saturation is so low that you won't survive.

Unless we do so, I reached out to AJ and said I'm going to be offline for a couple of days, and subsequently I spent 31 days on a ventilator, 64 days in the hospital. Given a 1% chance of survival, medically speaking, I shouldn't be here. I had MRSA, sepsis, a pulmonary embolism, ards, which is acute respiratory distress syndrome, blood clots throughout my body. I had complete organ failure. I was on 25-hour dialysis and they put me on pressors, which forces your blood to your vital organs for survival and it compromises your extremities. So, unfortunately, a couple of my toes died, a couple of my fingers died, wow, and I ended up losing the majority of my fingers. Oh, my goodness, all my fingers on my right hand, half the fingers on my left. But they were more worried about saving my life than saving my fingers.

So I'm here to talk about it. I got out of the hospital on March or on May 8th 2020. And subsequently I had nine surgeries in eight months. When I got out of the hospital, I could barely walk. When I got out of the hospital and I challenged my physicians, my surgeons, and I said I need to be back on skis by the end of the year and they thought I was crazy. I could barely walk. And December 11, 2020, I got back on skis.

It was filmed by the media team and covered by People TV with Nancy O'Dell, and we made it and the rest is history.

Lyn Wineman: 11:40

Wow, Gregg, I just I can't even believe. I think about how much, how much fear was happening in the world at the time. We didn't understand. We were only hearing like glimpses of what was happening from other places in the world. We were all like washing our groceries and doing all the things. And you actually were right in the middle of it and you survived. And not only did you survive most people don't get to see you right now because they're listening in their cars or wherever but you're the picture of health and vitality, from what I can tell through our computer remote Zoom screen right now.

Gregg Garfield: 12:29

Yeah, I really, truly believe that being healthy really saved my life amongst my medical team, obviously, but I have a foundation. The importance of health is is everything. I mean. You could have millions and millions of dollars, but if you don't have your health, how are you going to be there to spend it?

Lyn Wineman: 12:49

Right, good, good point, or even enjoy it Right, or even enjoy it. Yeah, so wow. Those are two great stories. So I want to just rewind a little bit, because chip in started, I think you said, 14 or 15 years ago. So you already had a heart for service and giving back before this event happened in your life. But this kind of near death I mean so near death experience has to have an impact on a person. Can you connect the dots with this? How does your personal story influence your work at ChipIn?

Gregg Garfield: 13:30

It took it to a different level. I mean, I've been given the best gift of all life, yeah, and giving back means more to me than ever before. And you know, frankly, when I had gotten out of the hospital, only 20% of my business, my portfolio, was philanthropic.

My goal is to make it 50 plus. Yeah, and I really want to help others. My fiancé and I started a motivational speaking business as well, really to share our story with entrepreneurs and understanding the power of mindset, empowering your people, overcoming adversity. People's trauma is very real, everybody's is different and you don't have to die to get here, but it's just sharing our story and there's two sides to our story. Myself, I was obviously. I was the patient, I was the one that was in the trenches, but she and my sister were the ones coordinating my medical care with my medical team and my village, my, my friends, my family, and we're communicating with them. So they, you know, it's the other side of it. It's the loved ones that were experiencing this and the trials and tribulations of one minute everything was good, the next minute everything was bad. And give it a 1% chance of survival, I shouldn't be here, medically speaking.

Lyn Wineman: 14:58

Wow, Gregg, you are in LA. I feel like this has all the makings of a movie right, like I can see it on the screen. All right, I'm going to advocate for that. So let's talk a little bit about mindset and positivity, because I know your health is an incredible asset, but you've got to have that will to survive. You've got to have that mindset that says I'm not joking here, I'm skiing in December. After all of these things that would tell you it's impossible including, I'm sure, the medical team told you it was impossible.

Gregg Garfield: 15:41

Well they didn’t, and the reason they didn't is they didn't want to, uh, they didn't want us to limit my state and my focus. Uh, I wouldn't have heard it. I actually, when I was, when I, before I was getting out of the hospital, I was in the middle of therapy and I looked at my physical therapist and I said I'm going to walk out of this hospital. And he said, well, create realistic expectations. And I looked at him and I'm like you don't know who you're dealing with. That is a realistic expectation. And up until the time that I was wheeled into the atrium where there were hundreds of people when I was walking out of my medical team and everybody in the hospital that was seeing me off, because nobody was allowed in the hospital at that particular time, it was up until that moment that I looked at AJ and my sister and said grab an arm. And I stood up and walked out. They had no idea, I was able to do that.

Lyn Wineman: 16:44

Wow, you knew it, though you hadn't practiced it, but you knew it Wow. So how does that, how does that you know when you're doing the speaking and working with people? How does that translate to everyday lives for people? Right, like very few people have a story like yours if anyone. Honestly, it's such a unique story. But for just everyday people who are listening right now, how does mindset and motivation and positivity impact their lives?

Gregg Garfield: 17:17

Well, everybody's tragedy their, their tragedy and their trauma is real. As I mentioned, you don't have to die to get here, right, and anything is just on the other side of fear, and fear is what holds us back. And it was real for each and every person? I am not a superhero, by no means. I'm an average everyday person. I'm a healthy person.

Lyn Wineman: 17:45

Yeah. You've got an incredible story though, yeah.

Gregg Garfield: 17:49

And I grew up really seeing the glass half full and I've really learned that my story as tragic as it is and it was just the power of believing is truly everything. You can believe in yourself, you can believe in your goals, setting goals and trying to achieve micro goals. And you know, my story started when I was in the hospital and I had to walk three steps and those three steps were like running a marathon. I was hooked up to all these different tubes. I had collapsed lungs, I had chest tubes, I was put on a trach, I was attached to so many devices that really what motivated me was I didn't want to go to the bathroom in a bedpan again.

I wanted to get to that bathroom and I kicked my therapist out of the hospital or out of my room multiple times and I looked at AJ and said I need to get him back in here, I need to get to that bathroom. And she's like Gregg, you that's 15 steps. You took three and you wanted to, you wanted to pass out, and I literally made it that 15 steps when I got him back in there, because that was your, just that drive and focus, and everybody has the power to do that.

Lyn Wineman: 19:14

So, Gregg, for people out there who are, who are wanting to make a difference in the world, what advice do you have for them?

Gregg Garfield: 19:23

One step at a time.

Lyn Wineman: 19:28

That's a great transition, one step at a time. Yep, you don't have to do everything all at once, and you know this may sound a little bit corny, but I have full belief that just going through your day and smiling, being nice to people, complimenting to people, uplifting them as you go along, can make a lot of difference. Likewise, going along and spreading your trail of woe or anger or negativity can make the opposite, toxic difference. So I do appreciate that. So, Gregg, for anybody who's interested in ChipIn, let's take this all the way back now, for anybody. Can anybody sign up for ChipIn? So, like, let's say, KidGlov, right now we take client payments with credit cards. What would it look like for us to sign up? And for my staff that's listening, take note of this because we're going to do it.

Gregg Garfield: 20:23

It's very, very simple. I mean, you can just give us a call. We'll go over the fees. In 36 years I've never lost on price. Wow. So 90% to 95% of the time we can beat the rate. If not beat, we will meet your rate. Okay, so it doesn't cost anything out of pocket. What we'll do is we'll increase your profitability. We'll give you the tools and educate you on potential tools that you are available to use to streamline how you take the cards. Then we'll donate 10% of our profits to the charity that you choose.

Lyn Wineman: 21:02

I love that so much. So you're not just raising your prices 10% to make way for that donation. You have got that baked into your process and your formula. So not only are you competitively priced, but you're philanthropic as well. 

Gregg Garfield: 21:15

If I make a dollar, I donate a dime. 

Lyn Wineman: 21:17

That's amazing. That's amazing. So what's on the horizon for you and ShipIn? You've seems like you've already lived a full life. You've been in this business for 36 years. What's next, Gregg?

Gregg Garfield: 21:32

Just making a difference, really getting into organizations that we can impact, and it's whether it's an anchor merchant, that is, is a very large volume merchant to make the program a success out of the gates, or 100 merchants that do small volume that can build it up to actually create that donation campaign. We want to donate thousands of dollars to each foundation. Really make a difference.

Lyn Wineman: 22:00

Amazing. How great does it feel to know that the kids in your school district have a music and arts program, thanks to ChipIn.

Gregg Garfield: 22:07

Yeah, pretty cool it's pretty cool.

Lyn Wineman: 22:09

Yeah, so for people who want to get in touch, how can they find out more about ChipIn or connect with you?

Gregg Garfield: 22:17

So you can go to our website at wwwchip-in.org or you can email us at info at chip-in.org. And look at our website. On the About Us page is a video of my story and also on the nonprofit page is a video that describes what we did in the town of Mammoth Lakes. That is a real feel-good story.

Lyn Wineman: 22:46

That's great. I have watched both of those videos, Gregg. They're both fantastic and, for those of you who are in the car driving, we'll have those links on our show notes on the KidGlov website as well. So, Gregg, everyone who listens to the podcast knows that I am inspired by motivational quotes. I'm kind of a positive girl myself. Could you give us a few of your own words of wisdom to inspire our listeners?

Gregg Garfield: 23:15

Your journey is to be experienced. Your experience is to be learned from.

Lyn Wineman: 23:20

Whoa, that is good. I think I want that on a poster behind my head on the wall. Your journey is to be experienced. Your experience is to be learned from. Did I get that right? Gregg. I've loved this conversation. It's really been a privilege to get to know you. You and I are members of the Nonprofit Cooperative, helping nearly 8,000 nonprofits across the country succeed. As we wrap up our time together today, what is the most important thing you'd like our listeners to remember about the work that you're doing?

Gregg Garfield: 24:04

We help diverse opportunities nonprofits create recurring donations, so you won't have to ask for another check.

Lyn Wineman: 24:14

Yeah, that's great. I know a lot of fundraisers are working really hard to make those asks, so any money you can make without having to ask for it, that's a good day, Gregg, I love it. I fully believe the world needs more people like you, more companies like ChipIn and for anybody out there listening, let's get that movie made.

Gregg Garfield: 24:39

Thank you so much. I appreciate it and thanks for having me on.

Lyn Wineman: 24:43

Absolutely, Gregg. This has been a pleasure.

Gregg Garfield: 24:46

Pleasure's all mine.

Announcer: 24:49

We hope you enjoyed today's Agency for Change podcast To hear all our interviews with those who are making a positive change in our communities or to nominate a changemaker you'd love to hear from. Visit kidglov.com at K-I-D-G-L-O-V.com to get in touch, as always. If you like what you've heard today, be sure to rate, review, subscribe and share. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.