Danny Herron on Transforming Lives Through Homes
Danny Herron shares how Habitat for Humanity of Greater Nashville is building more than homes—creating stability, opportunity, and community across Middle Tennessee.
About Danny Herron
Danny Herron has led Habitat for Humanity of Greater Nashville since 2010, guiding the organization through more than a decade of growth and innovation.
Under his direction, Habitat Nashville has expanded affordable housing initiatives across Middle Tennessee, built over 1,000 homes, and helped more than 2,200 children grow up in safer, more stable environments. In 2020, Herron was named one of the Nashville Business Journal’s Most Admired CEOs, recognized for his commitment to transparency, community partnerships, and sustainable development.
About Habitat for Humanity of Greater Nashville
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Nashville’s mission extends far beyond construction—it’s about empowering families and strengthening communities. Through its sweat equity homeownership model and zero-interest mortgages, the organization makes homeownership accessible to families who might otherwise be priced out of the city’s housing market.
Each home built is ENERGY STAR certified, ensuring long-term savings and sustainability for homeowners. Habitat also operates three ReStores across Davidson, Dickson, and Wilson counties, which sell donated home goods and materials to the public—generating nearly $1 million annually to directly fund housing programs.
With 88 cents of every dollar going toward its mission and thousands of volunteer hours invested each year, Habitat Nashville continues to be a cornerstone of hope, service, and opportunity in Middle Tennessee—proof that when a community builds together, everyone rises.
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Spencer: Danny Herron, CEO of Habitat for Humanity for Greater Nashville, welcome to Signature Required.
Danny: Glad to be here and glad to be with you.
Spencer: So for those that are just listening, that aren't watching right now, where are we seated right now?
Spencer: We're not in our studio.
Danny: No. You're in, one of our three ReStore locations in Wilson County at the old Lebanon Outlet Mall. And that has been repurposed. A lot of people are familiar with other, malls that are, being repurposed where they put residential, things like that. So this was an old outlet Mall where they had polo, uh, uh, Reebok, all that.
Danny: We bought the Reebok building. And we have 35,000 square feet now of retail space that, uh, we've repurposed for the use of, you know, selling home goods. they've been donated to the, our, uh, habitat of Humanity and it was totally renovated, a year and a half ago. So we opened for Business in, um, in July of, uh, of last year.
Spencer: I feel like a lot of people have an understanding, or at least thought they had an understanding of what Habitat for Humanity does and is. But a retail location maybe wouldn't have come to the list. Like I think a lot of people would've said, well, I think they go and help build houses and are a great volunteer opportunity.
Spencer: So help us understand just a little bit of the scope of what. ReStore and the retail side of Habitat for Humanity is all about,
Danny: [00:02:00] well, and I, we didn't start it, but, you know, habitat across the world is, uh, really the second most recognized, um, nonprofit brand in the world next to Red Cross Habitat's everywhere.
Danny: And, so they, I think several years ago, they realized, that we needed to have a social enterprise to, you know, uh, more and more donors say, look, we're glad to give, but is there any way you can make some money for yourself? And so we kind of said, Hey, we're in the home building business and home goods business.
Danny: Why don't we start having where people can donate, what their unused products are and for people that are doing renovations can come look for. So we started opening these ReStores across the country and it generates a amount of earned income versus just contributed contributing incomes when we can come and ask you for donations.
Danny: And the fact that we can now show that we are, just our affiliate, which is the greater Nashville can generate almost, a million dollars a year of net revenue. For our ministry to further the work we do, by doing this. I think every, it's a win-win situation.
Carli: Help me understand where all your product comes from.
Carli: Off [00:03:00] camera, I can see there's a bunch of different fake flowers that are beautiful. And so I imagine those didn't all come from someone's house unless they had a fake greenhouse in their backyard. Right? So where is all your product coming from?
Danny: Well, we do have, and we run large box trucks, picking up doing pickups for people who are, donating, uh, you know, things that they contact us, schedule a pickup.
Danny: We also have it where, we also do a deconstruct where if you're reating your kitchen and you're. Tearing out ca cabinets, we'll have somebody come in and tear out cabinets and repurpose those. So avoid it going to the landfill. But generally we get donations from individuals, but also from large companies who are so kind to say, Hey, off season we're done and we have all this inventory left.
Danny: And instead of. You know, we just would just soon give it to Habitat as a donation, which we can then sell it at a great discount to the uh, uh, 'cause we're being given the product. So we have corporations that give us from inventories and warehouses. So what they have is leftover at the end of the season, and then we can discount it and sell it like that.
Danny: and we do have some [00:04:00] purchase product where we'll buy some product directly, from, um, a manufacturer. Get a discount on it and then sell it. But that's less than about 10% than 10% of our product. So 90% of it is donated either through corporate or individuals that live in the local area.
Carli: So something I didn't know about Habitat is that if somebody, like a regular person is moving and they have cabinets or furniture, or even, I think I saw carpeting and flooring.
Carli: You guys can use that, you'll come haul it away for me. Is that what I'm hearing?
Danny: We love to work with realtors and with people that are moving because we, yes, absolutely we can repurpose those items. We will come out, schedule a time to look at it, make sure it's something we can use. But absolutely, you know what, we have over 90% of everything.
Danny: This store has been donated to us, and I would say, you know, that, that, we do make a, about a 20% margin here because. You know, if we gross out in our three stores about $5 million a year at our ReStores and we make about a net $1 million a year, that helps go right back to the ministry. [00:05:00] And I always say, you know, even as an Alabama graduate, if you don't pay anything for your cost of goods, you got a better chance of making money.
Danny: So we do have a good margin. So it does help that we get those donations. It is so critical. We get donations because also inventory goes out the door every day and we have to replace it every day. And we don't have a company we can just call and say, well, we need more. We need you to donate. So we're always like running trucks, we're always needing that.
Danny: So people think, well, I don't wanna bother you. You know, I've got some furniture and all that. Would you mind, you know, me scheduling to get picked up? We would love that. That's what we sell. And the fact that we don't pay anything for it allows us to then have enough revenue to then turn around and, you know, funds our ministry.
Spencer: Is it still treated the same way from a tax perspective too, that as a business or an individual that you get a write off? How, how does that function? You do
Danny: get a write off. And again, if you've got something, a real expensive value, we don't establish the value for you. You have to do your own valuation.
Danny: But absolutely, we, we'll send you a letter, you know, for showing appreciation of, of your, your donation. So you made a free picture.
Carli: Oh, I have one more question. I wanna know, how [00:06:00] do you establish what to price things at? Because you said that there's all kind, you're getting all kinds of stuff from bulls heads to pergolas to you name it.
Carli: How do you know where to even begin pricing things?
Danny: Well, fortunately we have like a gentleman in our store who's worked with us 18 years. Okay. So he has. Has a good feel for it. And he has a notebook kind of, of basically these things, this lamp, blah, blah, blah. You know, there are all kind of softwares, you can look things up now about, you know, uh, my wife does that too when she's out doing estate sales, shopping, but she can look up what the value should be.
Danny: So we try to price it. Here's the great part, when somebody comes and says, I think you've overpriced it. We say, well, great. Come back in two weeks and it'll drop 25%. And they go, it might not be here. I said, then we probably didn't overprice it, did we? So it's a great thing. It will, if, if we did overprice it, it will come down.
Danny: Hmm. If we underprice it, it's probably gonna be gone that day. So it, it is one where it takes care of itself. Again, if it sits on the floor for two weeks, that's okay. It will come down and, and it, we will price it at some point. It'll keep dropping to it sells. Hmm. So it's not an exact [00:07:00] science.
Carli: Okay. I have to ask, have you gotten anything crazy donated?
Carli: I would imagine when you're working with the general public, people have all kinds of things that they are ready to part with. What a, I bet you've seen some stuff.
Danny: Oh, amazing things. I I go into our store every day because I can't wait to see what's there. One time we had, um, Longhorn Steakhouse was renovating, so we got.
Danny: a Large cow, steer head, and a Buffalo head. Well, how do you price that? That we bought that, right? It's over the glass door. Why did not, but how do you price it? Yeah. We didn't even know how to price it, but we're saying, okay, this one's 2,500 and this one we did for 1900. It wasn't quite as big. And they both sold.
Danny: Wow. We had no idea, but it could beat somebody. How else would you have found that? So it was great things like that. We recently had somebody that was in Williamson County that had moved here from California but had beautiful stuff. It was a multimillion dollar house and they donated stuff they brought in that they just decided it didn't fit in the house.
Danny: And one of them we found was a oil painting, was a huge oil painting that had been bought in auction in [00:08:00] Paris for $35,000. Had been reframed. We sold it for $2,500. It was, you know, but they were thrilled. We were thrilled. $2,500 off. But it was an opportunity to buy a, a beautiful oil painting from Paris and we listed it for 7,500.
Danny: And what happens in our store is after two weeks, it goes down 25%. And so it, in the fourth week, it gone down to 2,500 and. So there's always something unique there. You never know, but, it, it's fun to go, come see what, what, you know, what all we have. And it changes. Like I said, our goal is to not have stuff sitting on the store floor forever.
Danny: Every two weeks it goes down 25% most of the, of the items we have. So we wanna price it where it moves, 'cause people come back 'cause they wanna see something different every time they come in. So
Carli: is it like Black Friday, every time those prices drop, do you have people fighting over merchandise?
Danny: That's so true.
Danny: We, at nine o'clock in the morning when we open and the. Somebody, several have been looking at a piece of furniture, they will be at the door at nine o'clock to be in there and get it. So I wouldn't say we've had fights, but we've [00:09:00] had some arguments of who, who gets it. Uh, so it can get a little interesting.
Carli: Mm-hmm.
Spencer: Danny, it's a good opportunity to learn about a Habitat for Humanity, but we also wanna spend some time learning about you and your journey to be CEO. Uh, for greater Nashville. And, just to get to know you a little bit, we like to give you a couple questions just to get that started. Sure. All right.
Spencer: So, um, we can determine your personality and your character through the following two questions. Okay? Okay. Okay. All right. So the first question is, what was your favorite childhood toy? Do you have one?
Danny: Well, my mother would've said it was a stick horse. I mean, people don't even know what a stick horse is anymore, but it's, you know, the head of a horse.
Danny: Yeah. On a stick. And I would a hobby horse thing. A hobby horse. So yeah, I would ride on it and run all the time. Maybe that's related to now. I'm, I walk and playing golf a lot, so I may, I was always a walker, so I, I would really enjoyed that. So.
Spencer: Excellent answer. Um, and you know, it could date you or not. We find that [00:10:00] sometimes people's answers give a pretty good understanding of what era they come from, which is why it's fun.
Carli: But we have a stick out horse in our house. Our son has one in his room. It's a toy that survived. Well, he kind of like waxes sisters with the other end, so I don't think he's like getting exercise with it. Yeah. We have one. So there's that not too dated.
Danny: Okay.
Spencer: Question number two. Okay. You only get to choose one. All right. You're sitting at a table. Salsa, guacamole or queso? What are you going for?
Danny: Well, I love, uh, guacamole. Yeah. I don't know whether that tells all my character, but I, I, I'm a guacamole person. We're gonna
Spencer: let the audience decide that.
Spencer: Okay. Yeah. But now it's on the record, so that's good. So walk us through your journey. Some of what was your background after the hobby horse, but before CEO? Yeah.
Danny: Well, I, uh, went to the University of Alabama as a, and came out a civil engineer. and aren't you supposed to say roll tide after you say that?
Danny: That is a given, I would hope. Okay. That, uh, and I haven't even quoted Nick Saban yet, which will come at some point. [00:11:00] But, uh, you know, as an Alabama, fan, but that, you know, the, and, and became an engineer, enjoyed that, worked in the nuclear industry, for several years. But, you know, I hit that late twenties where I thought I was smarter and I really was.
Danny: And I thought, I gotta start my own business. I became a general contractor doing residential and commercial, construction, and I did that for about seven or eight years and. You know, it was a, you know, great opportunity to learn so much. So I have a background which fits in Habitat with home building.
Danny: And, you know, in, in the engineering part of it, um, my father was the high school principal at Gallatin High School. So I learned community, I learned, education, things like that. And he became, after 30 years of being a principal, he became, somebody said when he retired, we're gonna make him a banker.
Danny: Hmm. Well, because he knew everybody in the community. I love the story that was, told about him, that one of his, customers said, Mr. Heron, it's not fair. Not only do you know my credit score, you know, my iq. So, uh, but he just, you know, he had 9,000 students while he was there. He grew the bank substantially.
Danny: That [00:12:00] bank, ended up buying a bank in Nashville. And I would've been doing engineering and real estate and they said, Hey, we'd love to make you a banker 'cause you're relational like your dad. Uh, we're not gonna let you get into too much trouble, taking too much risk. We're gonna keep you on construction loans, things that you understand, and home loans and all that.
Danny: So I became a banker and, I was president of a community bank for 15 years. it was sold in 2008. And then, you know, after a year kind of working, doing some other things, had the opportunity to come to Habitat. The great story is that one of my, my good friends who really referred me to this job, who was on the board at that time at Habitat, said, Danny, you know, you've got real estate and your background and home building.
Danny: You've got education 'cause your parents were educators. My mother was a teacher, my dad was a principal. you're an elder at your church. It's a faith-based, uh, organization and, other than retail, you've got kind of the whole mix. And, with the banking, we do mortgages here. He said, you're really not that bright.
Danny: You just fit. I said, you're right. And, and they had 150 applicants. And I was chosen because it just like the, all my background, it kinda led to [00:13:00] habitat 'cause it's so multifunctional, what Habitat does every day. And, and really I had tremendous experience in each one, enough to get by and kind of lead the organization.
Danny: 'cause it every day is something different here.
Spencer: Hmm. And so talk about the intentionality behind being a faith-based organization because Carli and I have had a lot of people on the podcast, and it seems like that's a big fork in the road moment, right? Is that a lot of nonprofits, you can tell, have a heart that could be linked to faith, right?
Spencer: If you. Try, you know, dotted the right connections, but, many of them refrain from being faith-based. Mm. So talk to me about that decision and how you've kind of a adapted and adjusted to that in this space where much of your career probably wasn't right or couldn't be right. Faith-based.
Danny: Yeah. It was a great move for me to do because one of the things, and I can't memorize anything and, and, but I can, I know our mission statement is putting God's love into action.
Danny: Bringing people together to build homes community. And [00:14:00] hope I memorize that because I love it. I get up every morning. I enjoy getting to do that. One is I get to serve God through that. And it is. And even though as a Christian, uh, and a Christian heritage of this organization, we are thrilled to have all faiths come together and honor their faith and working forward.
Danny: And I say to everybody, regardless of which faith you might have, or no faith, do you wanna serve your fellow man? Do you want to take care of your neighbor? Those are things we have in common, and that's what we can all do, and then we can enjoy serving and putting God's love into action. It may be and can do it consistently, even though they may have different purposes in doing it.
Danny: The other thing is, in this day of everything being so divided. Red, blue, black, white, rich, poor. We come together, we bring people together. I see it every day. I get so excited about doing that. I can't tell you because I'm on a build site. You're all wearing a light blue t-shirt. That's all it is. You're wearing a light blue t-shirt.
Danny: You're serving your fellow man. You're building, helping build a home for an for a neighbor, another Nashville [00:15:00] who may have come from a different part of the world or a different part of the city, but you just get to know 'em as a person. And I promise you, I, I live this out every day. Now we've over. 5,000 volunteers a year.
Danny: I've been doing it. I'm in my 16th year. 80% of everything we believe in, in this community are similar. It's the 20% we hate each other over, and we just fo focus on the 80% of what we have in common. We want to take care of our children. We want a safe place to live. We want to have people in in homes where they know where they're gonna be going to, their kids are going to school next year.
Danny: We want to have for a place where we can build value for the future in our community. That's what we all share, that whether from whatever background you are religious or or, or political or socioeconomic, you still have those desires and we just live that out every day and I love that. It's just something I've just embraced, enjoyed, and every day I get up excited about to getting to do.
Carli: Oh, I agree with you. Home is a heart language. And I don't care what language you speak or where you from, everyone [00:16:00] knows the power of feeling like you belong at home. Right. And I imagine you have hard days as CEO and there's a lot of big decisions you have to make, but I would imagine there's some stories that you've gotten to experience firsthand of people finding their home.
Carli: That make it all worth it. I wonder if any might come to your mind that you might share with us. Well, the
Danny: first one is I learned, uh, when I was going through just, uh, leadership in Nashville, but do you realize that 40% of all children who start in the Nashville public school system don't end the school year in the same school?
Danny: They started? Think about that. Wait, say that
Carli: one more time.
Danny: 40% of all children who start in the Nashville public school system don't end the school year. In the same school they started in, because they've been displaced, gentrified. They, they were in a rental house, or they were in public housing, they got displaced, they have family situations.
Danny: that displaces them how we all believe education is one of the greatest paths toward moving forward in life and moving up in life. If you're a student, young student and you know, a [00:17:00] teacher works to get to know every child in a class, but you get displaced in the middle of the school year. You just fall in through the cracks and all of a sudden your chance of, and all of a sudden you fall one year behind in education.
Danny: 'cause you really were moving to multiple schools during the school year. Isn't that's sad. So the fact that you and I and we, a lot of us grew up to where I knew exactly where I was going to school next year and the next year, you know, so many of our families we serve have kids who've never gone, gets the same school system consistently.
Danny: It's just every year it's a different school. 'cause it's wherever they have lived. They may be living with an aunt or uncle. For a period of time, they may have lived in public housing, but then section eight and that house got torn down and a tall, skinny was built on it. All the things that are now causing people to be displaced or they just can't afford it anymore.
Danny: Affects the family and they don't have the place to know that this is where I'm gonna be and my dress is the same one. It's been, you know, year after year. So we take that for granted so often, and we see people who, when they get to earn their opportunity to purchase a home through Habitat for Humanity, a lot of times the, [00:18:00] through the volunteerism and all that, the a, a mom or a family might not even show the children the house until they get ready to move in.
Danny: And you see, we have videos of the kids running around saying, this is my room, and they're screaming and jumping up and down. They've never had a room of their own. I mean, I've been, we always kind of meet the families, but that are being selected to purchase a habitat home. And you know, so often we've, I've met some that have six children living in a two bedroom apartment, and they're not even complaining.
Danny: That's what they've gotten used to, but they're having three to four and a one bedroom. So But to have a, a house where they can not only have stability, but to have your own room, things like that, it's just wonderful. So those are the gifts of what we get to do every day as we serve people in the community through all the.
Danny: The work that Habitat does.
Carli: I wonder, so you built, I'm gonna look at my stats. You guys have built more than 1000 homes since 1985, And more than 7,000 annual volunteer hours. Right. That's a lot of homes, a lot [00:19:00] of volunteers, but you can't help everybody. Right? Right. There's still such a great need in Metro Nashville and all over Tennessee for housing, so.
Carli: How do you pick where you're building homes? How do you pick who gets to live in those homes? What does that process look like? Well,
Danny: that first is as far as where the, where is, where is land affordable and where is it zoned, where, uh, it can allow for a smaller home because we don't build. Four, you know, 2,400 square foot houses, or 4,800 square foot houses.
Danny: We build usually about 1200 square foot house very well built. Mm-hmm. Energy star, energy efficient. We've been, uh, recognized by the E-P-A 17 years in a row, uh, for habitat homes. We build them so tightly and they're well-built with, uh, you know, dimensional shingle roofs, which are 30 year shingle roofs.
Danny: Everything that we do as far as quality, but the size has to be smaller. So first is we have to find areas where it's more affordable and. And so the second then would be as we do the selection process, I'm a, a recovering banker, as I said, so [00:20:00] we have to do the same selection process. looking at your income debt ratio, your credit score, your, your job stability.
Danny: We have to do all that because we're, we don't want to put a family in a home that doesn't stay in home. We do mortgages, 30 year mortgages as 0% interest. So what we do is raise money to pay for the house and we become the bank and then they have to pay us off. Uh, over 30 years. Well, as a 0% mortgage, that house payment is only about 11 to $1,200 a month.
Danny: Versus if it were 7% interest rate today, it would be well over 2000 because they're 2,500 a month. So it makes it affordable, but it also makes them put skin in the game. And ultimately what we always say to them is, you coming in today are part one of the 1000 homeowners have been here and you're paying it forward.
Danny: 'cause the money you're every month when you make a payment that payment. Is going to help the next person get a home as well, have an opportunity. But they have to go through not only, uh, you know, showing that they have stability and, and job [00:21:00] income credit. It doesn't happen a lot of the time. The first time they have to reapply multiple times.
Danny: Um, and then they have to make the commitment to coming out and being volunteering for a thousand hours of a hundred hours on each individual, for either here at the ReStore or at the bill site. So you have to volunteer a hundred hours while you have a job. And secondarily, you have to do a hundred hours of classroom work.
Danny: We put you through homeowner classes, budget coaching. We have pri, we have bankers and financial p uh, CPAs who come work with our families on, on one. One basis, they go through the FDIC, uh, financial freedom training. Uh, we have them go through training of what does it mean to change out the washer and you're sink.
Danny: It's because you can't afford to pay a pumper. How can you change out the airfield, do these things and do it yourself? Uh, and make sure you stay affordable. What does it mean to be part of an HOA We train 'em all that thing. So somebody has even, it's a hundred percent financing. They've got skin in the game already because they've got a hundred hours of classroom work, a hundred hours on the bill side or here in the ReStore, volunteering.
Danny: So our success rates over 97% of people staying in their home. [00:22:00] Uh, and that's, we're very proud of that. 'cause we don't wanna just get you in the home. Sure. And then we'll find out if you make it or not. We wanna invest so much into you that you are prepared and then you can be a success because that's the only way you build equity over time and you have children experience the stability of having a home long term.
Spencer: Hmm. Danny, one of the things that Carli and I do coming from the logistics business is look at bottlenecks and look at choke points. And so when I hear over the last 40 years. You all have built over a thousand homes. The math in my head says, okay, that's about 25 homes per year, about two homes per month.
Spencer: If you were to just average it out, uh, across all 12 months. And I wonder is if there's a bottleneck, is it that there's not enough land? If you said, Spencer, if I had more affordable land, that two per month could be four per month or 10 per month, or whatever the number, or is it. The amount of individuals that qualify, [00:23:00] is it the cost and the capital that you all have to invest?
Spencer: Like, where's the bottleneck if you got charged to say, make it for rather than two per month?
Danny: Well, part of it is, um, one is there are about a thousand habitats across the country, you know, in every community and, and Nashville's in the top 10. As far as number of new homes built every year, because we build around 30 to 32 a year.
Danny: Uh, here's the challenge. One is finding land. Okay? Finding land is so difficult in Nashville that's affordable. 'cause I'm competing against people coming from all over the world who wanna be in Nashville. Mm-hmm. And wanna be building in Nashville. One. Number two is, I started with Habitat in 2010. Our all in cost for a house, all in land, land development.
Danny: And the house cost, you know, with our bond to work was about 110,000 per house. Today that house cost is about $290,000. Wow. It's almost tripled in the 15 years I've been at Habitat. That's because obviously land is going up so much. Land development [00:24:00] with storm water and all the requirements for is much higher.
Danny: After coming out of COVID, the, the direct cost of the housing materials is so much higher, so it is just much more difficult. So what used to be, we had to raise four million dollars to build, uh, thirty homes. Now we're going to almost eight and a half million dollars. More than double. Mm-hmm. So it, it is become where I'm really proud to say, okay, we've been steady and it looks like, well, you're not really growing, Danny.
Danny: Well, no, we've had to grow our, how much we've had to get contributed income and earned income by having ReStores and opening new ReStores to be able to just still build thirty a year. Because again, the values are up so much. But the good news is, you know, you say, well, 30 or 32 years is not making a, a dent.
Danny: I tell you that's not true because in like we are in an area of North Nashville right now where we're finishing up. Our, we have a, we do our own developments. We buy the big tracks of land and we'll do the land development ourself. We put the roads in, the infrastructure, everything in. We have a development that's gonna have 214 houses, and it's being finished up this year.
Carli: Really?
Danny: We just finished up a development at 58 homes. [00:25:00] You go to another neighborhood, right down the road is another one that has 113 homes. So you go through whole neighborhoods you say. Look at this. This was just, and then we had some town homes right across the street. They have 26 homes. So all in that area, if you just drive around and you don't even know that they're habitat homes, you know, they're just really nicely built homes, smaller homes and well-kept neighborhoods.
Danny: Uh, we work with the HOAs to make sure they're maintained, things like that. Uh, so we're really proud of seeing the impact because not only is the neighborhoods you drive through and say, well, that feels good because all these people own homes. It's less likely to ever be gentrified 'cause there's so much, such a volume of them.
Danny: So it can't just be a single tear down. The other is when we do the homeowner training, our homeowners get to know each other during that process. Mm-hmm. So when you move in, you already know some of your neighbors, so you start building community already. We have some unique situations where, um, I love to tell this story where in, in one of our neighborhoods, there was a woman from Iraq, had been here for about 15 years, uh, was a single mom and had a child.
Danny: Another, her next door neighbor was an African American mom with a [00:26:00] single mom. Now, what are the chances An Iraqi woman and an African American woman become best friends, but through the classrooms they started becoming great friends and they end up living next door to each other and they baby set for each other.
Danny: And that's the miracle of saying that's what community can happen when you break down the walls of what perception might be. And they just get to know each other. There's an Iraqi woman and an African American woman best friends, and I just love those kind of stories.
Carli: It makes me think too, how powerful to have.
Carli: A hundred families that are learning that level of financial literacy. Mm. And that can't help but trickle down to the kids. Right? Right. Absolutely. They have to know when you're volunteering a hundred hours when their mom and dad are taking classes that trickles down and then you get in the school systems and you have all these families worth of kids in this local community.
Carli: Yeah. That have that level of understanding. I feel like that has generational impact. It does right here in Middle Tennessee that you're planting financial literacy, not just for these families now, but for the [00:27:00] kids that come up behind it.
Danny: We have so many of our homeowners that are say, that say to us before they move in, even if I had not been able to purchase a home, if I just gotten this educational part and learned the budget part, which I never understood fully, you know, and I see it now.
Danny: Where I'm so focused, not on, you know, when I get my paycheck of just spending or catching up, but trying to always focus on having money the last day of the month and almost using the envelope effect and having money and teaching my children that. And all of a sudden I have savings, I have reserves, and they just say how valuable that meant it was, uh, was for them to have that.
Danny: So, you're right, the financial literacy. It, it starts to change and understanding the compounding of time, value, money, mm-hmm. That says, Hey, if you move in this house today, it may not have a lot more value in three to four years, but you know what, if you can stay in that home over 10 and 15 years mm-hmm.
Danny: The value does come and you start building equity, which is, you know, we also work with the Nashville, uh, school of law and our homeowners get to have the wheels prepared for free through the National School of Law. So it's generational that says, [00:28:00] Hey, the equity you build in your house over time will, could be, will be passed on to your children.
Danny: So it is something that changes that cycle of poverty that says, now all of a sudden we're starting to build equity over time, and it, it really does, passes on to the next generation.
Spencer: Danny's, CEO, you end up making on average three or four decisions a year that really matter, right? Like an effective CEO.
Spencer: Yeah, you make decisions on a daily or weekly basis, but in terms of like impacting the trajectory. It's three or four. Right. And that's why you're in the role. So when you think back over the last handful of years, or even over the last 15 years, what are some of the decisions that you've made that you feel like really altered the trajectory for Habitat for Humanity?
Spencer: Is there something that comes to mind for you? Oh, there's
Danny: one that comes to mind right off the bat. When we entered into COVID, um, we had, everybody had choices. [00:29:00] Every organization had a choice. And some chose to kinda shut down and some chose to ignore. And because we have such a diverse group of people that work with us and we, that support us, we said, you know what?
Danny: We're not gonna pick, we're gonna do both. We made the commitment to say we're gonna continue working. We felt like we were an essential business to, to it's home building, offering the stores. So we, but we also respected both sides. So we said we're going to continue building, but you know what? Instead of having 25 people on the build site today, we're gonna have 12 and you're gonna be 10 feet apart.
Danny: And we used to always have like you, here's some old gloves. Here's your hard hat that was used 30 times. Here's some safety glasses. We made decisions since every day you come out you're gonna get a brand new hard hat, a brand new pair of gloves, brand new things. 'cause we want it to be clean. We want you to be, you know, we, we want you to be separated.
Danny: So we continued doing what we did. Uh, but we respected the fact that there were people that had real concerns over the COVID. So we did not choose, but we said we, what we, our choice was to say, we're gonna respect [00:30:00] all, but we're gonna continue on what we do. I've seen so many nonprofits who chose one path or the other, and I think have regretted that they really made a really hard decision one way or the other.
Danny: Mm-hmm. And I think by trying to listen to both sides again, that's that bringing people together. That it was the right decision. It almost propelled us to do more because they saw us actively, you know, and we had several who said, we're not gonna bring any volunteers out. We're not comforting now. We said, that's fine.
Danny: You know, come back next year. We had several. We said, we want to come out, well, we'll be there to take care of that, but you're gonna have to do it this way. Mm-hmm. We're gonna be a little bit less separated instead of having, we've had, you know, eight people in a room painting a room. You get two people in the room painting, so they're separated and things like that.
Danny: You're gonna be masked, things like that. So I think that was a really important decision that our, our leadership made and really propelled us to do. Again, showed an example of how you can still honor both sides and respect the dignity of both opinions and still accomplish what you wanted to. And I think we didn't lose either side to say.
Danny: Both of them felt like we listened to their [00:31:00] concerns and, and we, we tried to meet both. So that was really important for us to do that.
Spencer: Stewardship is also something that nonprofits are always measured on and looked probably closer than any other business, uh, and Habitat for Humanity. Uh, is it 88 cents on the dollar for money given Right.
Spencer: Converted into the mission. So can you talk a little bit about that and the stewardship, that mindset and just the, the structure of Habitat for Humanity in general? Just how all that plays together to be able to. Uh, hit that 88 cent threshold, which is a hard threshold to get to.
Danny: Well, you know, I never saw myself being in the nonprofit world.
Danny: Uh, so when I got into the opportunity to work for Habitat coming outta banking, uh, you know, there's that talk about margin and, and mission and, and you have to have the mission mindset to wanna serve your fellow man, take care of people, do the work of your ministry. But the other part is you've gotta have the margin, no margin, no mission.
Danny: So we really came in to say we wanna be good [00:32:00] steward. We want to be, we wanna bring expertise, we wanna bring some financial expertise. We, we have some other areas in, in, whether it's in education, construction, which made us more the efficiencies and things like that. We wanted to be as good. And you know, I say this, I was a president of a bank for 15 years.
Danny: The team I have at Habitat, my leadership team today is the strongest team I've ever worked with. Uh. I, I, I'd love to joke to say I've got a Vanderbilt graduate. I've got a Harvard MBA, um, you know, lipsom graduating, just goes on down the list. I'm an Alabama graduate. I'm like the lowest man on the totem pole as far as intelligence.
Danny: But we have a great team. They, it's, it's amazing team of people who made the decision to say, you know, my goal is, you know, I wanna be paid for what I do, but I also, my bonus is gonna be in seeing lives change. You know, there's just some special people that made that choice to say it's not gonna be in stock options.
Danny: It's not gonna be an ownership of the, of the business, it's not gonna be those kind of things, annual bonuses. It's gonna, my bonus will be when I get to stand there at a home [00:33:00] dedication and I see the homeowner crying and saying, I'm so thankful for this opportunity. And, you know, you're a part of that.
Carli: If ReStore is one of the top retailers in the country, there's habitat everywhere. Everywhere you move, you could find a ReStore.
Carli: Yes, there's habitat. What makes Tennessee, particularly this greater Nashville area that you steward? So special. What is unique about this Habitat outfit that maybe other thing places don't have?
Danny: Well, one thing I would say is, you know, we've had a lot of people move to Tennessee from all over the country, and most people tell me that, they'll say, Danny, you need to be aware.
Danny: Nashville's unique. We are very philanthropic town. Mm-hmm. We have a town that goes back to whether it was, uh, the frisk and the Ingrams and the, uh, the Turners and all the people that have, you know, that became large company holders. They, they were very involved in the, in the nonprofit community, and they really like part of their, their, uh, profits and part of their strategy was to [00:34:00] support nonprofits.
Danny: We have over 800 nonprofits in the middle of Tennessee. We're one of the most philanthropic areas in the country, and so we we're very blessed by that. We don't ever take that for granted. So people tend to the, and companies that come to Nashville are very kind of quickly taught that if you're gonna be part of this community and part of the chamber and all that, part of your goal is that you need to support.
Danny: Local area nonprofits. So, uh, again, we are very fortunate to be in a community where major companies, major churches, major, everything comes you know, step forward and want to help and be part of things like Habitat for Humanity. Uh, the other thing I would say is that we are, uh, we're really team building.
Danny: Uh, uh, we, we try to be a value, uh, proposition for them as well. We understand, 'cause we, somebody of our team came from the business community. We understand that. To for them, not just to write a check, that they get to participate. So you get to write. It's not just writing a check saying, well, you did something good.
Danny: If you support us, that means guess what, you're gonna come out on a Saturday or Sunday and get to know the homeowner personally, you have this [00:35:00] phenomenal team building ex exercise. We have multiple people there with construction staff and some supervisors on site that are volunteers but have been around forever.
Danny: That will help you have a great day to learn to use tools and skills that you've never had, and to get to know who the homeowner is, and it's a great experience. So we hear more and more people who, when they say. I want to contribute, but I don't wanna just write a check. I really want to participate. And Habitat HA offers that.
Danny: And I think that makes us very unique as well as someone think that says we're very hands on. That all the, all the volunteers we have every year, they get to really experience what their money goes toward.
Spencer: Danny, habitat for Humanity is traditionally known for homes, but. I've heard that you all are branching out into a new space, doing a little bit of ballpark action.
Spencer: So why don't you tell me about what you all are doing in North Nashville?
Danny: Well, we've been in North Nashville since 2000. Well in the two thousands and we started to build relationships in the community. And one of the things that we saw was a big part of that community was the Parkwood Ball fields, which are [00:36:00] these, uh, uh, it's historic, probably owned by the community.
Danny: Uh, African American ball fields have been around since 1966. If you talk to people, how many people have played there? Mookie Bets played there. Golden Tate played their, oh wow. All these professional athletes played it at, uh, Parkwood Ball fields, but it had been run down so, uh, badly. So Habitat. Working with their board said, we wanna do something special here and make a a difference.
Danny: So we started about three years ago working and, and we're able to raise two and a half million dollars. Have put artificial turf, brand new, uh, dugouts, new fencing, uh, new concrete sidewalks, everything there. We just had kind of a media event last week. We were able to raise money through working with Major League Baseball, the natural sounds, the Morgan Wallen Foundation, spear Foundation, multiple supporters who came together to, to help do this habitat.
Danny: Took no money for doing it, but we wanted to do something for that community. We'd been part of it. We had built in that surrounding area. Um, well over 300 homes, so we knew some of, a lot of our families would enjoy it, [00:37:00] but it's just such a wonderful thing that we can partner and be viewed as saying we want to do not only build homes, but we also sit and understand that there's more than just homes in the community.
Danny: It is about having access to ball fields. We also getting. Worked with Metro Parks and Recreation where there's gonna be putting a 59 acre park right beside the ball field. So we helped, we have some, uh, capacity through our, our supporters and our brand to bring people together, do something extraordinary.
Danny: We'd made that challenge three or four years ago. It was responded, and it's just an extraordinary thing that's happened there. Yeah,
Spencer: that's awesome. Danny, you've had hundreds of thousands of volunteers that have. Uh, put their sweat equity, uh, into helping over the years, an unknown number of thumbs that have been smashed by hammers and all kinds of things that come along with it.
Spencer: Right. But are there any particular stories that stand out to you amongst the, the volunteers or the stories over the years that. Uh, just stick out to you.
Danny: Well, one of the great ones was in 2019, we were fortunate to host the Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter work [00:38:00] project where, uh, they have gone all over the world every year while they were alive and they would build homes.
Danny: Well, they chose Nashua in 2019. They came here for a week and spent time with us. They went to, uh, we had, uh, a night at the Ryman, a night at the Blue Bird, a night at the, uh, at the Opry house. But we also had 'em on the build site for five straight days with 500 volunteers from around the country who, and really around the world who came in to build 21 homes.
Danny: Garth and Tricia were part of that. We had just, it was an amazing event. So the great story for President Carter, he is serious about building. Wow. He was nine, five years old. He showed up every morning at seven o'clock and would work past lunch every day and then go out at night with us. But my greatest story was one of our, my friends and best volunteers, uh, had a chance to go over and talk to President Carter while he was doing a little bit of work.
Danny: And President Carter was cordial and, uh. And he finally looked up to him and said, you know, if we continue talking, neither one of us are gonna get anything done. And my friend said, yes, sir, I get it. And he went back to work and it was just like, uh, president Carter was very serious about trying to, you know, be a leader and, and helping [00:39:00] neighbors and helping the families.
Danny: They, uh, one of the great parts, they have these, um, bels, uh, and own every one of these 21 homes. Every one of them were put together by President Carter and painted by Ms. Carter.
Carli: Is
Danny: that not. Great. And they're, you know, these 1200 square foot homes in North Nashville and they have, uh, the work of the president, Ms.
Danny: Carter on every one of those. So they were great experience to have them here. They were wonderful to see out there. Just such an example at 95 and 92, still out there working every day. Danny, you're working 95-year-old men, five straight days. He was out working me, he was pushing me. So it was, it was really great to have that,
Spencer: um.
Spencer: Danny, one way that we like to finish every podcast is I have, three short fill in the blank sentences. Okay. Uh, with a blank at the end that, you can either fill with a word or a short phrase, Sure. Okay. Alright. All right. Here's number one. Alright. A common misconception about Habitat for Humanity. Is blank. Very easy.
Danny: A common misperception about Habitat for Humanity is that we [00:40:00] give houses away for free. Hmm. Our homeowners purchase the homes, pay the full value of the house at 0% mortgage, which is what makes it affordable, but they purchase their own homes.
Spencer: I had that misconception. I really had no understanding of the significant mortgage. Hence, banking and your background, like I see the Lord's hand at work there. Yes, it is. Yeah. Number two. Nashville needs Habitat for Humanity because blank
Danny: Nashville needs Habitat for Humanity Because we bring people together.
Danny: You know, we are in a blue city and a red state, and habitat's a place where those two people can coexist and do it with fun and enjoy it. You get to know each other, break down the barriers, and, and I again, learned to realize that we have so much more in common than we ha that we think than we ever thought we had.
Spencer: Hmm. I really liked your spirit, Danny, of how you. Confront the differences rather than kind of keeping it
Carli: mm-hmm.
Spencer: Under the rug. I mean, you really confront and bring up the elephant in the room. Yeah. And it kind [00:41:00] of takes the charge out of it. It does. And I, I love your leadership about that. Well, thank you.
Spencer: Okay, number three. If I could wave a magic wand as Habitat CEO, I would do blank.
Danny: If I could wave a wand for as Habitat Co, I would want everyone to experience the unity that's felt on a build site. Mm-hmm. Um, or in a ReStore where people are coming together and building community and seeing again the commonalities we have. So I just. And, and goodly to share in. You know, and I believe that's putting God's love into action by doing that.
Danny: And we build hope for people, people that don't have much hope today. And when you see, uh, you, whether you're a homeowner recipient, or someone helping that person, it gives you hope. to say, there're good things still going on in this world. Hmm.
Spencer: Danny, it's been a real [00:42:00] treat to be able to have you on here today.
Spencer: we've covered a lot of ground from a hobby horse to getting to this moment here. and I can really see sometimes it's easier to see the Lord's hand when you look in the rear view mirror, and it's really clear in your life from my perspective, and that the skills that you developed. You know, starting off as a nuclear engineer, uh, and the work there to journey all the way through construction and banking and all of those pieces.
Spencer: It's come together in a really special way. Mm-hmm. And how much you impact Nashville's community. But doing it unapologetically with a faith minded mission is also something that could have very easily been compromised along the way. Right. The spirit of unity to say, well, we all wanna be here and we don't wanna be offensive, and so we're just gonna let that part go and let our heart speak.
Spencer: Right. But instead, the [00:43:00] mission has really seen incredible blessing. so it's a real privilege to get, to give you a little bit of an extra megaphone here, to talk about what you do to educate. It's clear that this ministry is alive and well. So congratulations and good stewardship. Danny. Thank y'all very much and really enjoyed the time.
