The Pinnacle Prize welcomes back 2023 winners, Josh Henges and Kyle Hollins. Josh, Kansas City’s Houseless Prevention Coordinator, and Kyle, founder of Lyrik’s Institution, share updates on their impactful work and discuss the importance in addressing the root causes of homelessness and violence in the KC community. They explore their unique approaches, emphasizing the need for understanding and building relationships with those they serve and those who want to support their work. In conversation with moderator Tracy McFerrin (Credo Philanthropy Advisors), Josh and Kyle also share how winning The Pinnacle Prize has fueled their passion and offered a bigger platform to further their missions.

Transcript

Tracy McFerrin: 

Welcome to The Pinnacle Pod, the voice of The Pinnacle Prize and annual award, recognizing people making a significant impact on Kansas City through bold, selfless actions. I am Tracy McFerrin, your host, on this conversational journey to meet dynamic leaders who show us what’s possible when passion meets perseverance. In this episode, I am pleased to welcome back last year’s [2023] winners, Josh Henges and Kyle Hollins. 

I am excited to dive into what they’ve been up to and what inspires them to keep driving toward their goals. If listeners are unfamiliar with Josh and Kyle’s stories, make sure to check out their previous Pinnacle Pod appearances and find their videos on PinnaclePrizeKC.org to get us going today. I’ll start with a quick reintroduction. Josh is dedicated to advocating for the houseless through his work as Kansas City’s Houseless Prevention Coordinator, he strives to end homelessness by implementing innovative strategies and providing compassionate support and services that address the root causes of chronic homelessness. And Kyle, the founder of Lyrik’s Institution, sets his sights on reducing violence in our community through culturally competent behavior modification and cognitive based programs for at risk young adults. His programs empower students with resources, outlets, and internships in the creative arts. Kyle and Josh, thank you for being here today. 

Kyle Hollins: 

For sure. 

Josh Henges: 

Very excited. Thank you. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Yeah. So, let’s get started. Firstly, I’d like each of you to tell the listeners, what’s the one thing you want the community to know about your work? Who wants to go first? 

Kyle Hollins: 

I’ll take off. So, our work is focused on at-risk young adults from 13 to 25 that fall into three buckets. That’s criminality, poverty and violence, something that’s really, really important. I think we miss the reality that each one of those buckets is a culture. It’s a thought process. It’s an idea, and we’re bucketing them all together and then trying to solve all of it at one time. And they need to be broken in into pieces, right? If I had an addict, the best person that’s gonna help them through their addiction is somebody that wants lived as an addict. Not saying they’re the only person, but they’re gonna be able to speak to a craving differently than someone else. When I speak to young adults about like homelessness and houselessness, and I say, Hey, you remember you had to pull your clothes out that, that trash bag, and it had that smell to it, and they instantly, they light up like, oh, you get it. It’s, it’s those type of conversations that build relationship very, very quickly. And the demographic that I serve, we teach relationship first, and then we get into the education component, because if they don’t trust you, I can’t solve a problem. If you gimme a piece of the problem, I’m gonna give you a piece of a solution. So, the relationship helps me get the whole problem, and then I can give, you know, as many solutions to that problem as I can.  

Tracy McFerrin: 

Thank you for that. Josh, what do you want people to know about your work? The one thing. 

Josh Henges: 

I think it’s really important to know this homelessness is solvable. Talking about homelessness all the time, it seems like it’s this inevitable, endless grind, and it does not have to be that way. The term to look for is called functional zero. It is an actual methodology that ensures your city can end homelessness, and it’s happened all over the country. Go to builtforzero.com if you want any information about it. It’s a nationwide program, and Kansas City is a “Built for Zero” city. So, what you have to do is you’ve gotta build a system that delivers people out of homelessness. It’s not about individual units of service, how many bottles of water you gave, or how many hot dogs you gave. It’s, here’s homelessness. And on the other side is permanent housing, and what nodes need to exist along the way to ensure that that person can get there, and every city across the country can build it if they want to. But what it takes is a lot, a lot of hard work, a lot of advocacy and citizens demanding it from their elected officials. Hey, this is worth funding. If there’s anything anyone can leave with this, please know, homelessness is solvable and we’re gonna do it in Kansas City. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

That’s great, Josh. I think having hope and realizing that something can change and you’re providing the steps for that to happen in Kansas City, I think it’s important. So, I appreciate that. I wanna ask each of you – you’re very careful about your language and how you describe your work. Josh, for instance, your title includes houseless opposed to homeless. What do you see as the difference in those terms, and what’s the impact using one versus the other?  

Josh Henges: 

It’s interesting, the history of homelessness includes the terms bum or tramp. Yes. Um, and those were commonly colloquial, 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Hobo. 

Josh Henges: 

Hobo, yes. Yeah. It’s, it’s those three, and those were not pejorative titles for their time. Uh, it was in the sixties, seventies, and eighties where the term bum came the term. And that is a very pejorative term, uh, very, and it’s got a lot of history to it. So, in the eighties, a group got together and said, let’s, let’s say it’s, let’s call it homeless, because the issue here is, is housing. So that was kind of an evolution of the language then, and it’s evolved even more. So, people use the term unhoused or houseless, homeless is just fine. It’s in general, it’s okay to use, especially if you’re not being pejorative. If you feel like the room requires you to say something different, do it. Because the goal here is ending homelessness and creating as many true allies as you can. And if you say homeless and it makes someone mad, that’s not worth it. So yeah, we want to be all things to all people, especially from the perspective of the city. But don’t worry too much about it. Those out there listening, 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Kyle, your programs are rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy, which is an unfamiliar term to most. Talk about the words you use to speak with donors and those participating in your programs. 

Kyle Hollins: 

For sure. A lot of times people don’t really even understand what behavior modification is or the work that we do. So, the heartbeat of it is called neuroplasticity. It’s rewriting the neurological pathways that that form in our minds. But when I’m talking to my young adults, right, I gotta code switch it into the language that they understand. So, and a lot of donors too, though, right? It doesn’t, it’s not about mental aptitude or anything like that. Really what it is, is, uh, let’s take a young adult that goes through a traumatic instance. 10 years old father goes to jail, whatever the case may be, what they’re gonna do is they’re gonna solve that problem, because the way that the body is designed, it’s going to heal itself. Right? Well, I don’t tell my arm to fix itself. I don’t have to tell my brain to fix stress. It does it on its own. So, it creates a solution. Well, the problem is we’re gonna reinforce that solution to make sure it’s true. And once it’s true, we keep going. Well, when you’re hyper survival mode, you never go back and fix a problem that you’ve already fixed before you move to the next problem. So now we have adults solving adult issues with 17-year-old thought processes, right? So, you have to go in and uproot those thought processes. You have to validate ’em and say, Hey, this is real. Of course, this is why you made that decision. And then say, Hey, there’s 50 other solutions that you could do, right? That’s more effective than the one that you chose. So, we need to stop using squares on circles. So that’s the way that I explain cognitive behavior modification. And then you can’t coin cognitive behavior modification, <laugh>, that’s like, it’s a philosophy. 

It’s a, it is a thought, right? So what makes us different is our cultural competency in it, where other people would say, oh, that’s ratchet, or, that’s not how it should look, or how it should go. We’re more focused on the end goal. And I like what, what Josh was saying about, like, he’s very definitive on saying, we can end this thing. But he’s not saying we’re gonna magically one day arrive there. It has to be systems put in place, right. To get there. And the systems that are put in place aren’t created from the demographic that we serve is created for the demographic that we serve. And the issue with that is the ‘99 crime bill, right? Or how we deal with food stamps. When you make solutions for people that are at the bottom, they don’t have any equity in the, in the solutions, then what happens is we have these policies and procedures that we have to fix six and seven times. Well, those data points are people, those people create systemic cycles, and those systemic cycles live in our communities. And then, The Pinnacle Prize has to give people money to solve them! <laugh> 

Tracy McFerrin 

And these problems don’t go away overnight. But there is hope that you can, and you both are working on trying to solve these problems. So, I wanna get back to something, Kyle, you said at the top about relationships and how important they are and how important trust is. Could you each talk about the importance of establishing relationships with your stakeholders? Why is it important to gain trust? 

Josh Henges: 

Oh, yeah. And it’s interesting with homelessness, because you, you’ve got a spectrum of folks who want to get involved with homelessness. On one side, it’s folks experiencing homelessness can do no wrong. And on the other side, it’s let’s hunt the homeless for sport. And though all of those people populate every neighborhood in every city. So, getting folks to find common ground, it, it can be very, very difficult. And here’s a good example. Let’s, let’s say that there’s a homeless encampment in a neighborhood, a homeless encampment in general. They’re unpredictable. So, folks don’t like their kids at a bus stop near a homeless encampment, rightfully so. But there’s gonna be a large group of people that are gonna be bringing stuff to the encampment, sweatshirts, hot dogs, water, all those things. It might be helpful in the moment for the folks in the encampment, but overall, the neighborhood gets frustrated. When the neighborhood gets frustrated, they are less likely to support long-term infrastructure that actually solves the problem. So, you, by being nice or actually working crosswise at actually solving the problem for the folks in that encampment, so bringing everyone together is tough, but what you have to do is you gotta build it on a foundation of what does everyone really want here? The folks who wanna hunt the homeless for sport, what do they want? They don’t want the homeless in their neighborhood. I don’t want that either, because I want them to be wherever they wanna be. And, and folks who are wanna bring hot dogs and water and all that stuff, they also want that too. So, if we can find that common ground building relationships is absolutely possible. But it starts with everyone going, all right, I might have to think about this a little bit differently than I did. But what’s great though, is most people are pretty reasonable. And even when they’ve got their pitchforks out wanting to yell at me about a homeless issue, when we talk to ’em, they understand so much better what it’s really gonna take to solve this problem. But relationships without it, you’re toast. And not only with stakeholders, when you’re working with someone who’s on the street, we call it progressive engagement. If you don’t have a trusting relationship with them, you’re not going to help them. It’s the same thing if a stranger walked up to you on the street and said, Hey, you’re terrible with your money. If they don’t know who you are, you don’t know them. Like, who are you? Even if you were terrible with your money, you’re not gonna listen to them. They don’t have a relationship. You gotta earn the right to say hard things to folks. And it’s the same thing here. If all the way from the person who’s in the encampment, to the person who’s gonna give you a million dollars to solve that problem, 

Kyle Hollins: 

And my work relationship is king. I don’t have a program without relationship. I’m, I’m just like everybody else. <laugh>. I think because of my cultural competency being incarcerated, kind of going through the homelessness, navigating the justice system and things like that, I’m very aware that the people that wanna do the most work in this space look like the same people that took their mothers and their fathers and their cousins away. So, there’s a distrust that’s already there. One would say you pull yourself up by the bootstraps, but if you don’t know that you got boots on, then there’s no straps to pull yourself up by, like, you can have a million resources. But if I’m not privy to those resources being actually for me, or, or not gonna harm me or put my mom in danger, because I know we don’t have any food, but if I go tell you we don’t have any food, then you’re gonna take my, you know what I mean? You have to eliminate, you have to eliminate those barriers. And building that relationship cuts that time just dramatically down. And you wanna build a relationship to where a young adult could commit a homicide and then call you and say, what is my next steps? That mm-hmm. That’s the level of relationship that you really wanna build with them. Because the, the truth is, I, I’ll give you a quick example. We gave, we do the, the ACEs, the risk assessment for, for young adults, the ACEs test, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yes. When we got the first ACEs test, when we were starting, the ACEs numbers were very low. And we were like, wait a minute. We know your story. What’s going on? Two weeks later, we, we gave them the test again, and the ACEs score were higher. Well, what we identified was they, they trusted us more Yes. To tell us what was going on. They didn’t, they didn’t think we were gonna try to take ’em outta their home, or, you know, take their mom from ‘EM or something, or dad or grandma. And now we’re able to holistically help this person. So mm-hmm <affirmative>. Relationships are king, but they also turn into marketing for us too, though, because, so our young adults, so our, our population is very small. We’re not trying to tackle a million people. We’re trying to, we’re trying to target about 500 people and hyperfocus on those 500 people. Yes. Because the, the fact is, in our community, the ones that drive crime, that drive violence are the superheroes. So if I affect the superheroes, then the superhero methodology always wins, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. The people that follow the superhero will follow them wherever they go. So if I change the thought process of the, the activator, then it’ll activate everybody else to make better decisions. Wow. So that’s why we’re hyper-focused. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. On spending so much money on mm-hmm <affirmative>. On poverty, criminality and violence. Mm-hmm 

Tracy McFerrin: 

It sounds like from what you both are saying, it, it sounds like it’s true that change happens at the speed of relationships. 

Josh Henges: 

Yes. Oh, that’s a great point.  

Kyle Hollins: 

A Hundred percent. 

Josh Henges: 

I’ve never heard it that way. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

I’m quoting someone else [Stephen Covey, “The Speed of Trust”], so I, but, but I just thought that, that that is exactly what you guys seem to be saying. Change happens at the speed of relationships. 

Josh Henges: 

A hundred percent. Yep.  

Tracy McFerrin: 

That’s great. Josh, what gives you the most hope in your work? We’ve talked about hope, but can you give us a little bit more on what makes you feel the most hopeful and passionate in your work? 

Josh Henges: 

Yeah. The conversations on homelessness are changing there in general is a lot of frustration about the behavior of chronic homelessness across the country. But what’s awesome is that’s not translating into we want to hurt them. People still want solutions. We are still kind of in that margin where, yes, folks might be frustrated, but they are still absolutely committed to finding the right thing to do. And I think that’s a testament to Kansas City. Kansas City’s one of the most generous kind cities I have ever been to. And it makes it easier to work when we ask the general public, Hey, do you wanna help solve this problem? They almost always say, yes. And I, and the marijuana tax is a very good example of this, where a certain percentage of it’s gonna go to crime prevention programs as well as homeless initiatives. The city resoundly said, yes, we want this. Now you only got a certain amount of time where people are gonna tolerate things Right now. They, they’ve been incredibly tolerant, and they’re, they’re really willing to work with us to get this done. And I think the other thing is, people want a common language around solving this problem. Here’s a good example. If I go to a foundation, and, uh, this foundation, let’s say they’re gonna give away a hundred grand, but they’re only gonna give it to one organization. You got two organizations gone. They both say they do street outreach for homeless individuals. One of ’em gives away hot dogs, and one does healthcare. Well, the healthcare one is significantly more valuable than the two, but foundations in general don’t know the difference because outreach just means outreach. That is changing. Foundations really want to dial into what is effective and what is impactful. So, the conversation I’m having with people who, in the funding realm, which if you change funding, you change the behaviors of nonprofit, it has been incredibly valuable.  

Tracy McFerrin: 

That’s great. So, good. Kyle, what good things are you seeing in Kansas City? Where is change happening?  

Kyle Hollins: 

People are starting to believe that the solution to the problem is in the problem. And that’s huge for me. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Ooh. Explain that a little bit more. 

Kyle Hollins: 

I think it goes back to what we kind of introed into. How can we solve this problem without the people that are in the problem? When I talk about culture, the first thing that we, it’s often a dog whistles for black Asian or whatever, but really it’s, the culture is just the, the norm of a group of people. At the root of it, that’s what it is. So, I think people are understanding, we have to have people that have lived experience in violence to lead the conversation. And this is a national thing. Like there’s not a lot of CVI, credible messenger workers that are actually the CEOs of the organizations. They’re actually just employees or middle, middle management. So, the philosophy, the ideas, the, the cultural dynamic of the, of the business and stuff like that has a cultural competency to it. And it’s taking a very long time to get granters to understand the importance of having lived experience of people in this space. And it’s as sad as I, I say this, I get it now. Five, six years later, I get, I get the fear. I’ve seen people get burned. I’ve seen foundations take, take leaps out there. Right. And I’ve also seen on the other side, organizations are all passion, no paperwork, and they don’t have anything to, to validate the work that they do, because they just have a heart to do the work. So, this kind of coming into this space, I’ve realized like the, the value of, you know, easing the, the fears of the donors and, but also being able to stand that ground and saying like, I’m still an expert. Like, regardless, if you think I’m not an expert, I’m still an expert. If I went to school for 10 years, you would say, I have a doctor’s degree, 37 years old, and I’ve been hustling since I was, you know, 14. So what else are you gonna, like, who else, what other doctor’s degree do I need to in this, in this thing?.So, yeah, I just, I’m, I’m very hopeful. I’m really, I’m really hopeful for the new thought process around philanthropy. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Well, to that point, let’s, let’s talk about the philanthropy and let’s talk about the impact winning The Pinnacle Prize has had on you all personally. 

Kyle Hollins: 

I love that the Pinnacle Prize cares about burnout. 

Josh Henges: 

It’s unbelievable. 

Kyle Hollins: 

That is everything for me. Like, I’m gonna be, that is the, the, the pinnacle of this for me, <laugh>, is that somebody was like, please don’t die. We need you <laugh>. Please get all the stuff that you wish you could get together. Right, right. You know what I mean? Because, you know, you’re not getting the funds that you need to live this life. I know you’re choosing between insurance and childcare. I, I, I get it. Yes. I know you’re doing that. Yes. But we want you to know that we see you. And that, that was huge for me in the, uh, philanthropic world. Only a certain amount of the dollars that go towards the, the organization can go towards staffing. And I’m not saying this to be like, to be in the colorism or anything, but like, I have a lot of odds stacked against me. In this space, being a, a felon, being from a marginalized community and things like that. Like, this is, this is my reality. Not to say I don’t have to work hard or whatever, but that being the case, overperforming is very, very high for me. You know, having to code switch to be able to fit in certain places and change. It takes energy, right? Yeah. And then changing the way, like, so what they thought save lives was, if you have an adult person has access to resources, a job, some type of career pathway, and people that support ’em, that, that would help ’em, well, Jeffrey Dahmer had all of that, so that doesn’t qualify. Right. <laugh>. So, like, we had to come up with new data sets to even say like, this is what’s moving the needle. So, for the last three years, we’ve been paying so much money into data just to get philanthropy, to see, like, kids know when they walk into a room, if my hood is hanging down on the right side, that there’s a possibility of a girl. Right. Or if I put my hood over my head, or I cross my arms, these are all very aggressive signals to other people, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But if I’m having two active shooters have a argument and they’re sitting down and they’re not distributing any of those, those factors, and they’re getting to the end of their argument and walking out, like, we need to track that data. Yeah. Because that’s what’s changing the needle. And it’s also hard to say, I stopped this kid from killing somebody. Like, how do I track that data? Right. Right, right. So, it’s just creating new measures for philanthropy to see the word clear.  

Tracy McFerrin: 

And The Pinnacle Price is giving you kind of a platform so you can talk about it in a way that has changed philanthropy’s view of it. 

Kyle Hollins: 

The podcast has, uh, yeah. The, the work that they do with Crux to getting the information out, being able to move, you know, marketing is king, and we’re raging war against the marketing of violence. And we’re losing. So like, having partners, being able to amplify the voices of the work that we do is, is critical. But again, like, I don’t think people really understand the, the burnout of a not-for-profit leader; managing these groups, being the leader that they’re gonna come to. Like, the burnout is real. We go to sleep with this, we wake up with this, we lose our relationships to this, we lose our time with our kids and this. So, being able to have that financial support in my own personal life, you know what I mean? It was just one of those things. It was like one, being seen and then actually, you know, money helps stuff. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Right? Oh, yeah, 

Kyle Hollins: 

Yeah, yeah.  

Tracy McFerrin: 

Was Money helps with financial issues. <laugh>.  

Kyle Hollins: 

Exactly. Yeah. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Josh, how about you? How has The Pinnacle Prize, winning it, how has that affected your life? 

Josh Henges: 

Uh, it’s been, it’s been incredible. I take care of my mom. She’s disabled. We live together. I love it. I, it’s a chance to get to know her in a way that I never thought I could. And it was tough doing it. And this, and this prize, just from the get go, made it a lot easier. So, on that personal side, big time, knowing that, you know what, they’re, we’re gonna be all right. We’re gonna be able to take care of that. It’s very hard to describe that feeling. It’s unmatched of any other experience I’ve had in my life. The biggest thing I, I really think is the confidence it gives you because it was so unexpected, completely unexpected. And you don’t do this work in general. Most people don’t do this work for that. But you don’t realize how important it is until it happens. And then it happened. And the credibility that comes with it is in, it’s just incredible. But I think the biggest thing is the risks that I’m willing to take. Now, I was not a social media person when I, when this happened. I thought, okay. And, and people said like, you, you’re gonna try and end homelessness and not reach a large audience. And I was being defiant and all that. But this prize pushed me to, to joining social media to tell people about homelessness. And, and that’s what I do. It’s, I look forward to doing it. It riles a lot of people up. But that’s what I want. I just want a conversation to happen. I’m telling you the, the Pinnacle Prize is what made me do that. It pushed me to do it. That’s great. And it makes me think about how I want to talk about homelessness completely differently now. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

So, you two met each other maybe about a year ago. Do you have any burning questions for each other? 

Josh Henges: 

I do. Straight up. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Yes. Let’s go. 

Josh Henges: 

So, I mean, I got a lot of questions for you, but your nonprofit is becoming the most talked about in the circles that I’m in. How do you keep on your mission when you’ve got a bunch of people telling you, I’ll give you money if you do this, but it’s not quite what your mission is because people want to support you. Sometimes the, their funding stream doesn’t allow you to do the thing that you want to do. What is keeping you on that mission? Being as, you are high profile people are talking about you, people want a piece of you.  

Kyle Hollins: 

You, you nailed it. The Pinnacle Prize gave me accreditation to say how things should go. And I’m being able to say how things should go now. Uh, they’re trusting the, the work that I’m doing. They’re trusting the leadership that I have now. So, I’m gonna be honest with you, this is what it is. I had to play the politics game. Donors are gonna do donors. They’re gonna give, once you build a relationship with them, then you get off the fill out and gimme the LOI on the thing. Like you build a relationship with ’em. And then, then it’s like, just tell ’em like, this is where we’re going. This is what we need. Real hustle and bustle is getting the city, getting county to create RFPs that, that don’t go outside my scope where I don’t have to create. So that’s when the legislation piece, so who’s telling them what the issue is? So, I need to talk to them. Gotcha. And that’s been working for me. ’cause otherwise I have to say no. Because our capacity right now to target and focus on the target population that we’re, that we’re on, we have to throw everything at that. So, if I keep creating program, my turnover rate on my staff is gonna be exponentially higher because we’re always creating new things, new things, new strategies. People gotta learn. It’s just too much when you’re dealing with a kid that just shot somebody and they’re calling you. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. So like, we’ve had to centralize our focus, get real, real lean on where we, where we’re going and why we’re going there. And just really like, say no.  

But I got a question for you. Alright. So, a guy from KBS development, he goes down there, him and his developers, they want to build some houses. They got five houses that they have to redevelop ’em. They wanna put people in. So they go on the avenue, they partner with this church. They walk in, they do this little presentation spiel, offer these homes. Nobody wants the homes, right? And he comes to me and he’s like, I just wanna play my part. I want to help and I wanna do all this stuff. But they don’t even want it. I think sometimes people think it’s just, oh, they’re just bumed. They don’t really wanna do anything. Like there’s other things there. Could you speak to that? 

Josh Henges: 

What a great question. So, this is the thing with homelessness, it’s very disconnected. So, it’s often a whole bunch of people that want to do good, but they don’t plug into the system that currently exists. So, there’s a reason that they’re not gonna tip. I mean, there’s a, I mean, there’s a variety straight off the bat. Who are you talking to? What relationship does this church have? What does the relationship with the church have with the folks? I mean, there’s a million things like that, but from the get go, they don’t know who these people are. They don’t believe they’re actually gonna get a house. There’s no relationship there. So where there’s no relationship, there’s going to be no progress. I mean, it’s, it’s the theme of this entire conversation. So it’s not about the house. The house is great. It’s, it’s incredible, but it’s about all the things it takes to get in the house and all the, the, the ways that, do they know how to live in a neighborhood? Do they know how the heat works? Do they like, this is overwhelming to people. And we saw this a lot when I was at Veterans Community Project. They, we did tiny houses. The reason the tiny houses were incredible. Number one, it was in a community of people who all went through the same thing. Mm. So they were peers. It was a tiny house. It wasn’t a lot to manage, which was incredible. It was very efficient too. So heating and cooling, super easy. Didn’t have to think a lot about things, but now you’re gonna put someone in a neighborhood they’re not ready for. That is too much to ask for so many folks. So any advice that I would give to, to folks who do this, and I love that you’re building houses, connect with the system. When you connect with the system, you’re gonna find the right people who know, who are ready to go into that housing. Or at least know what is it gonna take to get someone into this thing. I love people who are generous and kind in this field, but one of the biggest issues we have, it’s, it’s a whole bunch of vigilantes. Now, they’re good vigilantes, <laugh>, but they’re all wanting to do their own thing. If we can connect all of these folks together, we solve homelessness. And that is the goal. You are building a system and we need folks just like them to come alongside us. It’s a great question. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

So, for the 2024 Pinnacle Prize winners who were just announced recently, do you have any advice for them in how they can best use their platform? 

Josh Henges: 

They, they got here being who they are, <laugh>, they were chosen, being who they are, keep being you. <laugh> 

Kyle Hollins: 

110%. I would definitely leverage the platform. So, I ended up going down and talking to Kevin McGinnis at, uh, Keystone. He’s an ecosystem builder. And I was like, Kevin, like, tell me how to leverage it. Who do I need to talk to? What do I need to do? Find somebody that, that does this and figure out how to leverage that award. Figure out how to leverage the love and the support that the bombs have in the community. Allow this to be your opportunity to, to develop your relationships. Because it’s gonna give you some relationships. It’s gonna give you some credibility. People are gonna be talking about it. It’s a game changer when it comes to credibility. And for small grassroots organizations or people that have philosophies that’s, that are too big for Kansas City, but are known everywhere else. You need that credibility point. What I’m doing is not even new, like he said, like, this is somewhere else. This is a norm.  

Tracy McFerrin: 

Let me ask, what’s next for you all in 2025? And where can our listeners reach you and support you? 

Kyle Hollins: 

TikTok, uh, Josh Henges on TikTok. If you’re not following him, you are late to all the political news. You were late to anything in homeless. 

Josh Henges: 

Everyone loses like basic common sense because it’s all heart. Yes. But it just tells you how good people are. People are genuinely good. I like to use the TikTok platform to talk about the common sense and logistics of it. So if you wanna learn more about it, I am gonna make you think, I might make you a little bit mad, but just hang in there. Join me on TikTok. It’d be great. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Kyle, where can folks find you? 

Kyle Hollins: 

You can always find us at LyriksInstitute.com. You can find out everything is there. The science behind Lyrik’s, you wanna sign up, you wanna donate. There is a huge donation button right there at the top for people that wanna get involved. We’re on all social media platforms, Lyrik’s Institution. You can find us anywhere. 

Josh Henges: 

For everyone listening before you shut your phone down or turn your computer off, go to the website, click donate, and just give what you can. Yeah. It’s going to be meaningful and it’s immediately going to have an impact in this city. So please do that. 

Kyle Hollins: 

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

That’s perfect. because I was going to ask you all, any last thoughts? Anything you want to leave with our listeners? 

Kyle Hollins: 

I do wanna leave with a lasting thought in this sector, more dollars can get pushed to the work that we do when there’s more people doing it. I challenge people to do two things. One, find your passion and get behind it and like really, really dive into it and find some people that are, uh, connected to that passion. So you’re not the only one creating it. And then there’s three levels to philanthropy. There’s the people that give away hot dogs and backpacks. There’s organizations in the middle that are fighting to be these big conglomerates. And then the conglomerates know that we can’t be conglomerates if we don’t partner. So like this whole silo thing is not, it doesn’t serve the ecosystem at all. And true partnership isn’t you just saying, me and him do this thing together. You need to modify your program to create something. Right. And that sustainability is what funders are really looking for. They’re looking for partnerships. And I, I’m just saying that to all the people that do this phenomenal work out here. If you’re not collecting partnership letters, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. And you’re doing the ecosystem in which you serve with the service. So that’s it. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Very good message. Anything, Josh?  

Josh Henges: 

This is solvable. We can end it. That’s the goal. There’s no second goal. It’s that. 

Kyle Hollins: 

That’s fire. Wonderful. So linear. 

Tracy McFerrin: 

Wonderful. Thank you for listening to The Pinnacle Pod. And be sure to sign up for our newsletter PinnaclePrizeKC.org to continue to listen, learn and be inspired by good people doing good work in Kansas City.  

The Pinnacle Prize believes in the power of one person’s vision to spark collective change. And if you enjoyed hearing directly from the leaders pushing Kansas City forward, please share this episode with your friends and family.  

To learn more about people impacting significant change in our community, check out our previous Pinnacle Pod episodes. Follow The Pinnacle Prize on LinkedIn and sign up for our newsletter PinnaclePrizeKC.org.  

 

Hosted By Tracy McFerrin

Tracy L. McFerrin is a principal of Credo Philanthropy Advisors, LLP, former vice president for a family foundation, and an attorney. She advises foundations and individual donors on strategic charitable giving, governance, and navigating grantee/grantor dynamics.