Episode 11 | Solving Chronic Homelessness with The Other Side Village

Key Moments & Timestamps

Guests: Tim Stay, CEO of The Other Side Foundation, and Preston Cochrane, CEO of The Other Side Village

Host: Todd Manwaring

0:24 | Introduction to The Other Side Foundation and Village

Todd Manwaring introduces Tim Stay and Preston Cochrane and frames the conversation around The Other Side Foundation, The Other Side Academy, and The Other Side Village. The discussion centers on why this organization has become one of Fierce Philanthropy’s recommended partners and how listeners can support its work.

2:04 | Tim Stay’s Path from Startups to Social Impact

Tim shares his journey from the business sector and startup world into nonprofit leadership. He reflects on his long involvement in charitable work, his connection to Todd and Unitus, and how he eventually joined Joseph Grenny to launch The Other Side Academy before later helping create The Other Side Foundation and The Other Side Village.

6:06 | Preston Cochrane’s Background in Housing and Behavioral Health

Preston describes his unconventional professional path—from a pre-dental student to legal work, nonprofit leadership, government roles, and behavioral health. He explains how his work in homelessness, housing, and supportive services eventually led him to join The Other Side Village and help shape its approach to long-term community transformation.

9:41 | What The Other Side Village Is and Why It Exists

Preston paints a picture of The Other Side Village: a master-planned community built on a former 40-acre brownfield in Salt Lake City’s Poplar Grove neighborhood. He explains that the Village is designed for people who have experienced chronic homelessness and need more than housing—they need healing, belonging, accountability, and a supportive community.

14:35 | The Role of the Prep School

Preston describes The Other Side Prep School as the critical bridge between street homelessness and village life. He explains how the prep school builds readiness, stability, life skills, and commitment to change, while pairing participants with coaches who have lived experience and understand the path from addiction, incarceration, and homelessness to recovery and leadership.

21:07 | The Future Vision for The Other Side Village

Preston outlines the broader vision for the Village, including deeply affordable permanent housing, an integrated medical and wellness clinic, multiple social enterprises, nightly rental cottages through The Other Side Inn, community gathering spaces, and future expansion designed to create both healing and economic opportunity.

26:33 | What Changes in a Person’s Life After Moving In

Preston describes the transformation he sees in residents: confidence, safety, peace, stronger relationships, savings, vehicles, and renewed connection with family members and children. He explains how the Village’s culture of accountability and peer leadership helps residents not only remain housed, but rebuild their lives in a lasting way.

36:59| Support Opportunities: Donations, Investment, and Partnerships

The conversation turns to ways supporters can engage: donating toward homes, sponsoring inn units, supporting the freeze-dried foods business, offering loans or debt financing, and helping grow the social enterprises that will sustain operations over time. Tim explains that these are not one-time charitable inputs alone—they are investments in a model designed for long-term self-sufficiency.

46:21 | Final Reflections: A Comprehensive Model for Restoring Lives

Todd closes by reflecting on why Fierce Philanthropy is excited about The Other Side Village: not just because it provides housing, but because it produces measurable, meaningful transformation. The episode ends with a clear message that this is a comprehensive, scalable model for restoring lives and addressing chronic homelessness in a fundamentally different way.

Episode Transcript

Preston Cochrane-  For the first time in their lives, they can finally breathe and feel at peace and feel safe. Their building assets, they're saving money, they're reconnecting with family that they've burned bridges with or children that they haven't seen in years and rebuilding those relationships. Yes, the homes are important, but ultimately it goes back to that human transformation. Ultimately we're changing a generation.

Todd Manwaring- Welcome to the Impact Innovations podcast presented by Fierce Philanthropy, where we help you become a more impactful philanthropist. We're thankful for the production sponsorship by UI Charitable. This is episode 11. 

You just heard a short clip from my conversation with Tim Stay and Preston Cochran, the team behind an innovative and effective model to end chronic homelessness at the Other Side Village. The Village is our most recent vetted organization. Homelessness is a social problem across the U.S. Chronic homelessness, those who have been homeless for over a year and are dealing with mental health and substance addictions is notoriously difficult to tackle. 

Later, after the interview, we will dive into how you can support their effort. Now, let's join the interview.

Hello, everyone. This is Todd Manwaring. I'm your host for the Impact Innovations podcast brought to you by Fierce Philanthropy. We're excited today to be talking to both Tim Stay and Preston Cochran, who represent the Other Side Foundation and one of its entities, the Other Side Village. This will be a fantastic opportunity to learn about our latest recommended organization. And we'll also be talking about opportunities to provide support and also to invest in some of the activities that are going on. Tim and Preston, welcome to our podcast today.

Preston Cochrane- Good to be with you, Todd. Thanks for having us.

Tim Stay- It's great to be here.

Todd Manwaring-  Tim, I thought we'd start with you giving us a bit of a lesson about your transition or your pathway is probably a better description to how you've become the CEO of the Other Side Foundation. For those of our listeners who heard a previous podcast about the Other Side Academy, that's one of the entities in the foundation. But also the other side village is another entity. So Tim, tell us a little bit about your path, some of the things you've done and your involvement in this world of social impact.

Tim Stay- Yeah, most of my career I would spend in the regular business sector, involved in a lot of startups and growing small businesses. But during that whole time, I was part of different charitable nonprofit initiatives. I got a chance to meet you Todd back in, I think it was 1999 and your efforts that you were doing in Kenya and that led to the formation of Unitus and I got a chance to do that. And during that process got a chance to meet Joseph Grenny, who was also one of the co-founders of Unitus and, and worked with him on the board of Unitus for about 20 years.

He, a little over 10 years ago, he approached me and said, Tim, I'm going to start this nonprofit in Salt Lake and asked if I'd be involved. And I had always wanted to be not just a board member or someone on the peripheral, but I wanted to be in the trenches. And so I got a chance to step in as the CEO of this new nonprofit, which at the time was the Other Side Academy. 

And we ran that from 2015 to about 2021 when we saw the need and opportunity to establish a sister organization called the Other Side Village. And when we established that, it made sense to say, let's take some of the administrative functions and support both entities with that. It's a more cost effective. We don't have to duplicate roles. can cover both entities with that and so we created the Other Side Foundation and I moved into that role. We were able to hire Preston and he came on board and was able to then launch the Other Side Village in 2021. Today the Other Side Academy has two campuses. We're exploring a third campus. We have one in Salt Lake and one in Denver and then we have the Village in Salt Lake City.

Todd Manwaring- Right. Give us a sense just of the sizes. How many students do you have between the two areas of the academy and where are we at size-wide with the village?

Tim Stay- We have about 130 students in Salt Lake City. We have about 80 students in Denver. Combined revenues between the two is about $12 million annually. That's one of the unique things about the other side group of companies is we operate social enterprises inside the nonprofit.

We have a goal to be self-sufficient and on the Academy side we are recovering 100 % of our revenues and that's what we hope to do as well in the village. In the village we have a little over 20 people in the village and then we have about 20 plus 22 I think in the prep school who are preparing to move into the village once they finish their transitional program that we have.

Todd Manwaring- That's a great introduction. Thanks, Tim. Preston, tell us a little bit about your pathway to becoming the CEO of The Village. I know you've been involved in a lot of things as well.

Preston Cochrane- Yeah, well, I was in college on my way to dental school and my kind of the tail end, I was doing an internship in a dental office and I was I was bored out of my mind and I thought I can't do this. And so I switched gears a little bit and I I worked at a law firm, which then led me to start a nonprofit called Fair Credit Foundation. And at the time we were doing credit counseling, debt management, financial education.

And that's when we met Todd, I was starting the Utah Individual Development Account Network, which is three to one match individual savings accounts where individuals could save and we'd match it three to one. They could use those funds to buy a home, first time home, start a business or go to school. And so that's where you and I met early on in those days. And that then took me down a couple of different paths.

Todd Manwaring- Right.

Preston Cochrane- I worked in a for-profit companies. Worked in some government positions and then I went back into the nonprofit world, worked for Valley Behavioral Health and then led the initiative at shelter the homeless when Salt Lake went through the transition of closing down one large homeless shelter into three homeless resource centers and then adding more supportive housing around that. And worked on the Utah Housing Coalition front for affordability and I’ve done a lot of work in just behavioral health in general with Valley Behavioral Health and running a lot of their supportive and transitional housing programs. 

And about four years ago, when I was working at Valley Behavioral Health and working on a kind of a similar type housing solution, a little bit different than a tiny home community, but some similarities, and then connected with Tim and Joseph.

And they were in the process of coming up with this, know, village type community, cottage homes for individuals who had been unsheltered and chronically homeless. And, just giving kind of my sense of what's working in, in housing first, what's not working and how do you couple that with, mental health and all the other things that go along with that. And then about close to three years ago, was at a lunch meeting with Tim and Joseph and they were sharing their vision for the village. 

And, I wouldn't say they, they coerced me, but I, I'm just so grateful to be a part of this, being able to share what I know and, in my, in my career of doing different things, behavioral health and homelessness. And, there's a lot of touch points, that we're involved with in helping people, come off the street and live in a supportive community to help them become the best version of themselves. 

So I went to the University of Utah, graduated in exercise physiology and sports science. And when I'm not doing any sort of philanthropic work or I enjoy the outdoors and I enjoy living in Utah and chasing powder and it's just such a great opportunity to be a part of the other side, literally saved so many lives and I'm just grateful to have a front seat.

Todd Manwaring- Yeah, that's great. Keep telling us a little bit, Preston, about for people who haven't seen the village, they could go online and see a couple images, but describe for us kind of the size of the village, maybe its location, you know, the Salt Lake City, and what the people that are at the village today, what do they see? You mentioned the tiny home, but what's the village today and what's going to be happening in the village in the future?

Preston Cochrane- Yeah, when you look at where the other side village is, it used to be an old brownfield, 40 acre brownfield. There was nothing here for many years. No commercial development, nothing. And what we've taken is a brownfield and turned it into literally a thriving master plan community for individuals who have spent decades on the street. 

And so we're in Poplar Grove is where we're located just about five minutes from downtown Salt Lake City, just west of Redwood Road in between 215 and Redwood, very close to the Salt Lake City Airport, the power district, things like that.

But for many it really takes more than housing to overcome years of homelessness that lasting healing and change requires immersing oneself into a new community. And so we take people that are trying to overcome those unhealthy habits that they've used to cope with stress on the streets. We help them gain new problem-solving skills and help them develop habits that help them achieve one's full potential. 

And what's important is having worked in a housing first type of environment, housing is part of the solution, but it's not everything. And so many people have misinterpreted housing first research to mean the provision of housing with no expectations. 

At The Other Side, we believe that the same conditions that led to a fulfilling life for the rest of the world apply to the chronically homeless as well. We all need social support, meaningful work, a network, peers who hold us accountable to healthy norms, and few people would ever achieve the potential if they weren't embedded in a community that expected something of them. And so the other side village is simply a healthy community that helps people learn to live in a healthy community.

It's amazing to watch people come in right off the street and, you know, nine months, 10 months, however long it takes them to move into the village, into an independent living community.

Todd Manwaring- Yeah, that's amazing. Tim, tell us a little bit about why the board decided, Preston mentioned this briefly, why did you decide to focus on chronic homelessness? I mean, you could focus on different areas. What was it about that that seemed like a good fit for the Other Side Foundation?

Tim Stay- One of the things we learned about the Other Side Academy is we felt we really understood how to create peer-led, self-reliant communities that bring about healing in people who've gone through really hard things. And we think it's worked at the Academy for people who've been battling addictions and criminal behavior through their lives. And we're seeing just tremendous results. Almost seven out of 10 of our graduates have remained drug-free, crime-free, and employed going through this process. And we said, are there other really hard, difficult societal problems that we could apply this.

And we had been asked from multiple people within the community, within the government agencies to say, could you take your model and apply it to one of the biggest challenges that Salt Lake City and most cities are dealing with is chronic homelessness. And no one has really come about with a comprehensive plan to say, here's we can make a significant dent in the homeless situation. 

And so we knew that it needed to be different from the Academy. We knew many of the people on the streets had mental health challenges, which the Academy doesn't address. We don't have the staff or the support. And so we needed to create a different model, but we still have those core fundamental philosophies of a self-reliant peer-led community that brings about healing.

Todd Manwaring- That's really important. And we talked a bit about that in the last podcast. I think really describing pretty well this therapeutic community model and that approach. Help me understand, Tim, I think maybe before Preston came, when creating the village, the first thing that really got created was a prep school. The Other Side Prep School, a way for people who were chronically homeless to prepare for moving to the village. Can you talk a little bit about that prep school and why that exists as an interim or as a transition place? What does that look like?

Tim Stay- Yeah, well, as we looked at the approach that most communities, certainly state of Utah, many other states, it became kind of the national approach to homelessness was this housing first. And the original housing first doctrine or approach would say, let's get people into housing and provide all these supportive services to help them adjust. 

In reality, housing became so expensive that there just wasn't money left to provide all the supportive services that were intended to be provided and so it really became a housing only model and and we said what if we focused on whole person change as the focus and so we've developed a concept we call human first instead of housing first let's focus on whole person change and all the things that need to happen for a person to change to be able and some of them are physical and structural and some of are behavioral and mental, some of them are medical and mental health, all of those things add into let's address all of these issues that are keeping people stuck on the streets. And so we realize that just moving someone into village would be following the same pattern that most happen. 

And you see all across the country supportive housing with people coming straight from the streets and they soon become slums and they become places of chaos they bring all the chaos from the streets into the housing because nothing has changed and they don't have the skills needed to be able to thrive and succeed and so we said let's take a transitional period where someone can come straight from the streets if they're high we'll take them to detox but we'll then be there to pick them up from detox. 

If they have medical or mental health issues, we'll get them evaluated, we'll make sure that they get the support they can come in. So a lot of it is stabilization at first, but a lot of it is also learning how to live in a community that holds you accountable, learning how to be productive, just following those regular routines that happen every day that someone in a productive life is going to follow. 

And so this transitional stage we call the preparatory stage or the prep school. And so like Preston said, it could be from nine months to however long they need to show that they have the capacity to live independently and to thrive.

Todd Manwaring- Right. Now that makes a lot of sense. And Preston, I know I saw a presentation that you did two weeks ago, I think it was, and you described that there's a new building about to be finished that this prep school will be in. Tell us a little bit about that.

Preston Cochrane- Yeah, it's actually kind of the first of its kind. We worked with a company, local company called Irontown, and we were able to get really the bones and the structure on site within about four days, and then they've just been doing the finished work. It's right across from our Academy campus on East and First South in Salt Lake City.

This will be the prep school right next door is a former decommissioned LDS chapel that we also purchased. We'll be running some programming out of that and also a kitchen, also for serving our meals, community gatherings. We, a huge emphasis on both behavioral health, mental health and physical health. And that's where we'll be moving here in a couple of weeks is back into the other side prep school.

And really the prep school is the first step of the stabilization. It's, you know, I kind of liken it to if you're going to climb Mount Everest, haven't reached base camp yet, you're trying to get there, but we're focusing on this mental health focus and accountability. And as Tim mentioned, It's really less about housing. It's more about building a culture.

And the most important important part about both the other side Academy and The Other Side Village is behavior and culture. And both communities are strong community with strong social norms. They're maintained by the neighbors as we as we refer to our individuals in the program we call we refer them as neighbors. But this this culture facilitates the connection.

It invites the growth, it maintains community, and they're learning those positive social norms. So that prep school is really the stabilization period to get them towards readiness and life skills and providing and helping them prove commitment to change. So one of the unique aspects of our program in community is we have coaches with lived experience. 

So many are graduates of the Other Side Academy. Most have been homeless, incarcerated, and overcome addiction. They're just farther removed from someone that's brand new that's coming in. But we pair them up and essentially they serve as a guide to help them get to the next step, which would be permanent housing at the Village or independent living.

Todd Manwaring- Right? Yeah, that makes sense. I imagine it's larger, how much bigger is it than what you have today for the prep school?

Preston Cochrane- Yeah, it'll allow us to literally triple our current capacity. So we have a healthy waiting list. We've been having to tell people, know, wait a minute, we're just about there. But we've got people ready to move in. And as soon as we open our doors, we'll be able to bring more people off the street and get them into our prep school and eventually into the village or other permanent housing if it's a good fit for them.

Todd Manwaring- Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Tell us about kind of the vision for the village. I've seen, you know, some of what's online. I've seen a presentation like I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Preston. And, right now there's 60 tiny homes. I noticed there's a gathering place. I don't know how many of those there will be.

You mentioned, I think in that, that there is mental health and as well as, you know, healthcare services on site. And then really there was this kind of future discussion about what else is going to be happening there. There's one social enterprise right now with the other side, Donuts. And the other side food business with the donuts and also a freeze-dried business that's been started. 

But then I've heard other things that I could in the future come and stay there. People coming for the Winter Olympics in a few years could stay. So give me a picture of really the future. What does that look like at the Village?

Preston Cochrane- Yeah, I can share a little bit. So there's a broad rang of on-site support services that are available to both villagers, which are the residents that live here with facilities that are designed to accommodate their unique needs. So you mentioned the medical clinic. It's a full integrated health clinic. It's called the Gail Miller Wellness Center. We are grateful for the Gail Miller Foundation, the Larry H. Gail Miller Family Foundation for their help to get that built. We opened that in December of 2025. 

Many of our residents frequent their daily for whether it's to pick up medication, whether it's to see their therapist, prescriber, there's vision, there's dental, anything that they would need for both their emotional and physical challenges. So access to those high quality services are really at the heart of our community. So not only do they have safe and permanent and affordable, deeply affordable housing, but they also get primary healthcare.

Most of the insurances and Medicare and Medicaid and the things that typically our population qualifies for are covered through the services provided there. You mentioned work opportunities, so there are social enterprises. You mentioned the other side donuts, which is a stone's throw from where the other side village is. It's at 760 South Redwood Road and a new location coming soon at 570 East first South, which is literally a half a block from our new prep school. 

So that allows us close proximity where individuals at the prep school can walk right there to the new donut shop and or the bakery which is close by as well and work in those environments and that's really providing opportunity and job skills and vocational training for them so whether they decide to continue working with us when they live in the village or they want to decide to work elsewhere and pursue other career goals, our approach is to help them, connect them with employment opportunities. 

We also have The Other Side Inn, which is coming online, 21 uniquely themed cottage style homes that if you think about many of the locals are familiar with the Anniversary Inn or things like that. It's our version of Airbnbs as you know them.

And as we know them, where people can rent those out on a nightly basis. We also have our regular farmers markets. We provide residents with opportunities to work in our social enterprises, whether it's donuts. We have the other side, Fruits, which is a freeze dried food business where we're doing healthy snacks and fruit powders for different supplements and things like that. And we've got a couple more ideas in the works.

It's great to work with such serial entrepreneurs like Tim and Joseph who think of how do we work with the abilities and disabilities of the population that we serve. Tim can speak to The Other Side Academy and how they started with a moving company which then has grown into multiple different social enterprise businesses.

Todd Manwaring- Yeah, no, we've talked about that. I think it's really an amazing part of what goes on because it then becomes part my transition is I am going to work. I'm going to help provide for what I'm doing in, whether it's in the academy or now on the village. You just mentioned, for instance, people are paying rent to live in the village.

They get paid to work at the various social enterprises that helps them cover that rent, different kinds of things. Tim, I know that there's some key outcomes that when we describe to people and shared what we're excited about and what we're seeing, one of the things, there's a key output and one of those is that people's income has gone up quite a bit. 

Here I am, I'm on the street, maybe working just a bit, but now I have a job at the Other Side Donuts at one of these other entities. I'm making a lot more money. 100 % of the people are sober. Tell us a little bit about some of those outcomes and, you know, changes that you see in people's lives.

Tim Stay- For the village, we're looking at poor criteria as evidences that we're achieving the right outcomes. So are they permanently housed in a stable location? Are they drug-free? Are they crime-free? And are they self-reliant? And of everyone that's currently living in the village, all of them can meet those criteria. We've had a few people leave the village because they two wanted to go back and use. One of them decided after leaving that that was a mistake and he's now back in the prep school working his way back into to move back into the village. So that's over nine out of 10 of our the people that have moved in.

And these are people who have been chronically homeless for many, many years. And so to see this kind of radical transformation is really exciting to see that this model that a few years ago was just theoretical is really bringing about the results that we had hoped for.

Todd Manwaring- Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Maybe tell us quick story, I know some of the people moved into the second phase, into the village at the beginning of 25. So they've been there now more than a year. What is it that you see changing the most as they enter this next phase, they stay sober, they're getting help with any mental health challenges, they're working. What does that look like as somebody changes? What do you see going on?

Preston Cochrane- A lot. I mean what you see first and foremost would be confidence. So those who have been here for you know since we opened the village and they moved into their home it's it's a very neighborly culture. It accounts for it's one of the safest places. I mean they'll tell you I've never felt as safe living here than I've felt anywhere else. 

If you can imagine, you know, folks that are coming off the street and living on the street and they move into their own home, which by the way, it's not when you hear the word tiny home, this isn't some little shed that we just built in the backyard or just bought on Amazon. This is literally a stick built home with a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, a full kitchen with all the appliances, all the amenities, air conditioning, heat, solar, Google fiber, anything that you and I would feel comfortable if we were to live there or if it was one of our loved ones to live there. 

What's so great about the village of the model is it's democratic. So anytime there's rules or there's disagreement, there's conflict, 95 % of the problems aren't handled by law enforcement or police. They're handled by the community. And The Other Side Village, we work in that kind of environment where there's no acts of violence. It's a sober community. It's maintaining those great relationships with neighbors.

And for the first time in, for many of their lives, they can finally breathe and feel at peace and feel safe. And their peers are really there to their support system where everyone is in everyone else's business. People speak up when they see problems.

You're not going to throw your trash out on the street or blow your leaves in your neighbor's yard. That's just not going to be acceptable. And so the village is organized into micro neighborhoods of about 25 to 35 homes. Those homes literally form a ring around a central gathering place. And that structure that we've built encourages the interaction and increases the awareness of the needs and challenges of each neighbor. 

So the new neighbors that come in in the prep they're trained to speak up and to maintain those community norms. And so what we've seen is those who've been here longer, they're the ones that have those high expectations.

And they're the ones who get voted into these different roles and leadership roles within the community. And so for problems that can't be solved between neighbors, which there rarely is, we've established neighborhood councils. So each neighborhood has a tribe leader. The peers agree to take on leadership responsibility. And then they receive some different training and there's ongoing problem solving. There's ongoing groups and group expectations.

and norms that any neighborhood if you or I to live in we're like wow I wish we had that in my neighborhood and it's it's just a beautiful thing. It's we rarely I don't think we've had a police call it's usually we call police because someone is coming into our property to try to steal something is what we see. None of our neighbors the community has welcomed us with open arms and our donut shop is on a Friday afternoon when school's out. It's a thriving place where a lot of kids show up and that's their hangout.

Todd Manwaring- Right? That's very cool. And so really, I guess I'm hearing from you. Yeah, now I've got this huge sense of confidence. I've got a sense of relief from the safety that I'm feeling. I'm also feeling like there's a community that loves me, wants to see me succeed. I mean, it seems like that would be life changing for so many people.

Preston Cochrane- It is. I'd also add they're adding their building assets, they're saving money, they're investing, they're buying vehicles, they're reconnecting with family that they've burned bridges with or children that they haven't seen in years and rebuilding those relationships and being able to see that that ultimately we're changing a generation. If you can end that homelessness at a level, then think of all the generations after that. It's like childhood poverty, we've eliminated that

Todd Manwaring- Wow.

Tim Stay- One of the strongest desires as you talk to people who are coming into the Prep School is a desire to work and to be able to have purpose and to have something that you can be proud about. Most of us find fulfillment through the work that we do and being outside of that.

People miss that and people want that and people desire that. One of the strongest desires that we continually feel is people are excited to be able to be part of our social enterprises. And if they want to work somewhere else, that's great too. They certainly have that capacity, but we certainly think that that adds to their purpose of saying, can be proud of what I'm doing. And they're doing important parts of each these businesses.

Todd Manwaring- Right? It makes a lot of sense. I mean, in some ways, like you're saying, they feel an ownership in that. Both the village and these businesses that they're part of, that makes a whole lot of sense. Tim, know as Preston's kind of describing, yeah, here's what the village will become. Tell us about some of the fundraising you're doing. Right now there's 60, homes at the Village. You're working that I think that's called Phase 1. Maybe it's called something else, but I think I've heard you say that there's other phases going on. What are you trying to do from a from a perspective of support? What are you looking for?

Tim Stay- So we have 60 homes in the village right now. We're just finishing the last of our homes on site. That will complete phase one for the number of homes. We have been working for the last...a year and a half to get ready to continue that expansion. Eventually, our plan is to have 456 homes. So that's another 396 homes that we're going to build on site with the rest of the property that's adjacent to phase one. And with that, we're going to build an amphitheater. 

We're going to build retail services additional of these cottage inn units for additional nightly rentals and bring more employment opportunities on to the campus.

And so we're looking to raise $54 million. We've got $32 million of that already raised or committed. And so we've got the balance of that to finish raising for the completion of the capital portion of the village. Again, we're...We think within three years we can be generating enough money from our social enterprises that we will be able to cover our ongoing operational expenses. But we are raising about two and a half million to cover that bridge, that gap until we become self-sustaining and also to help us launch our social enterprises.

Todd Manwaring- Right? Well, that makes a lot of sense. And so you're still looking for 20 million-ish in commitments, right? And I know that people in the past have donated a home. They've, in essence, paid for the price of a new home or somebody could do the same thing with a building or...

Tim Stay- Yeah, 22 million.

Todd Manwaring- or just provide funds in general if they were interested in that.

Tim Stay- It's been amazing to see just across the entire state we've had people step up and help us, you know, fund a full home, fund several homes, help us. Like Preston mentioned, Gail Miller, we've had a number of other significant foundations. We've had an incredible donation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from the state, the Department of Homeless Services, the county. Across the board we've just felt. And I think people are really to say, a model that really works.

Preston Cochrane- Tim mentioned Gail Miller, Gail spoke at our ribbon cutting here when we opened the clinic. And I just pulled up the quote that she used. She said, from the beginning, we recognize that this project is more than a housing solution. It's a comprehensive model for restoring lives. And she saw early on as of other philanthropists and supporters of our vision for this, that it truly is. It's a comprehensive model.

It's not you gotta go there or here or there or over here. It's really all under one roof and we're able to see that human transformation take place in such an amazing way. Yes, the homes are important, but ultimately it goes back to that human transformation.

Todd Manwaring- That makes sense. Preston, maybe another question that you could help me with just to kind of wrap some of this up. When you've been working with these efforts and getting this going, I mean, there's a lot of work with the state, the county, the city government, a lot of people to be able to change, you know, zoning laws and different kinds of things to have the kind of housing that's there.

When you look at the future, where do you see, obviously we just talked about, yeah, there's a need for funds. Are there other kinds of needs that people listening could participate in? I mean, obviously one is, yeah, come and use our businesses, use our products, come get some donuts. What else is there? What does it look like?

Preston Cochrane- You know, we get very creative. Even just today we had, right before we started recording, we had a group, had two Lexus dealerships here, employees from the Lexus, Linden and Murray dealerships doing a service project and talking about, well, your folks need to buy cars. Yeah. Use and affordable cars and transportation. So, you know, talking to them about, yeah, maybe there's a partnership there. 

At the same time, when we had them here, we had, the mayor from Warrensville, Georgia and his team here this morning, looking at the village and they were describing to me, a project that they have just launched renovating an old hotel for individuals that have been homeless. And they were concerned that who's going to operate it? How are they going to operate it in a way? 

And as they walked around the village and saw what we had built, they were in awe. They've been to a couple other similar villages around the country, but they're like, I can just tell right off the bat that you guys have figured out a lot of things that others haven't.

A lot of that is just the culture and the accountability piece and even just the way that the village is built from like a trauma informed perspective when we have people that are clinically trained to come in and see it and they recognize that very quickly too. So for us, it's like we can replicate the model, but you need to have the right people that are running it. It's all about the right people that are in those conversations and working hand in hand with the population.

Todd Manwaring- Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But I wanted to thank both of you for helping us understand more about the village, where it's headed, what it's been able to do. For us in Fierce Philanthropy, we're looking for groups that measure great outcomes and changes in people's lives. And that can be a group that's working with 500,000 people. It can be an organization that's gonna end up working with 300 or 400. We're interested in any kind of a social impact organization that actually is having impact, that's actually bringing about these kinds of changes. And so it's exciting to see what's been happening at the Village. Thank you both for being with us today.

Preston Cochrane- Thank you.

Tim Stay- Thank you. It's a real honor to be here, Todd.

Todd Manwaring- As a final piece here in our discussion with The Other Side Village talking to both Preston Cochran and Tim Stay, we wanted to talk about opportunities here right now and in the future for supporting the organization more precisely. So, Tim, during the podcast, you talked about raising 50 plus million dollars for the rest of the capital for the village and I think you mentioned another of that there's still 22 million to raise. Tell us briefly about that.

Tim Stay- Yeah, so that helps us complete the 356 total units and all the infrastructure and the additional buildings that we're going to be adding as part of phase two. The other part that we're trying to raise is funds to help us build the social enterprises. Again, the social enterprises not only provide employment for the people who live in the village and create all those employment opportunities But it covers the operational costs of the village. 

So we are not reliant on Taxpayer funding or we're not reliant on ongoing Donors to to bring that about so, we're we're raising money for the other side foods, which includes our freeze-dried line and we're raising a total of a million dollars to help that and now within five years that we're projecting that to be a five million dollar a year entity that will be ongoing employment and generating revenues. 

So we think there's a great ROI for a donation rather than just go in and be a black hole and it gets consumed and never has any impact these donations into these social enterprises or we're also open to loan and debt financing. They have ongoing paybacks over the course of 10 years, our $1 million donation could help generate millions of dollars in revenues for us. 

We have a wonderful match right now with the other side inn that a donor said that they would match. If someone wanted to pay for half of a unit, which is about $70,000, they would match that. Or if they wanted sponsor, a full unit and donate the funds for a full unit at $140,000, then they would match with another $140,000 donation. 

So that's a way to double your money immediately. And again, those units then generate revenue each day and help pay for operational expenses for the village. So it's really got a powerful impact that way.

Todd Manwaring- Right, that makes a lot of sense. And we're underwriting here at Fierce Philanthropy funds for the food business, specifically the fruit business, the freeze dried business that you brought up earlier, Preston. Maybe just talk briefly about what that freeze dried currently looks like and where it's headed.

Tim Stay- We're currently doing a freeze-dried In order to meet the demand, we have to grow our capacity. And so these funds would help us increase our freeze-drying capacity, additional freeze dryers, larger freeze dryers, so we can do larger capacity instead of small batch runs. We could do larger batch runs and be able to have more product to sell. We're very confident with the marketing and sales side and so right now it's making sure we can grow the capacity big enough to meet the demand that we're seeing.

Todd Manwaring- Awesome. Well, thanks again to both of you. Preston, you have a final comment there? Yeah.

Preston Cochrane- If I could just add one more for other executives or groups out there saying, well, gosh, I love your model. I love what you're doing. How are you doing this? How are you training your people? We have the Other Side Leadership Institute. 

And so we've taken the principles and methodologies that we've used and put them into a training that would equip groups to help build life changing communities or organizations like the Other Side Academy, the Other Side Village, to maintain one of our beliefs is 200 % accountability in more of a corporate or nonprofit environment. So they can go on our website and essentially hire us to come out as consultants to teach you what's worked in our environment and what could work in yours.

Todd Manwaring- Yeah, I appreciate that. Really kind of the flip side, you mentioned some corporations now coming to you, helping out in various ways, but also here's something that you have that would help them and what they're up to.

Tim Stay- It only works if you're in an organization that hires imperfect people. And then this model works really well.

Todd Manwaring- Okay, so I need your help. Well, thank you again, both of you, for being with us today.

Tim Stay- It's a real honor. Thank you, Todd.

Preston Cochrane- Thank you, Todd.

Todd Manwaring- Thank you again for joining us for the Impact Innovations podcast. I hope today's conversation inspires you to approach philanthropy with greater intention, strategy, and effectiveness in a way that you can feel confident you are truly making a difference. Please subscribe to our podcast and leave a review on Apple podcasts or on Spotify and share this with others that you know who would be interested in finding great organizations to support. This will help our podcast to grow.

To continue the conversation on grant making, impact investing, or impact measurement, or to support one of the high impact organizations that we highlight, go to our website at fiercephilanthropy.org. You can also connect with me directly at podcast@fiercephilanthropy.org.

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