AS303: Doing Charity Better, with Foundation Beyond Belief

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Atheistically Speaking. This is episode 303 and I'm your host Thomas Smith. Alright, today I've got a great show for you. Seeing as how it's the holidays, I actually thought about, uh, I wanted to do a show related to giving to charity because as you all well know, that's something that typically religious people get a lot of credit for.

Churches get their tax exempt because supposedly they're doing charitable work and maybe sometimes they are or maybe most of the time, who knows, either way I think it couldn't hurt to learn more about giving to charity and how to do it as an atheist, or even if not an atheist, someone who doesn't want any strings attached, someone who doesn't want any proselytizing, someone who wants the money to go to the right place, regardless of whether it's a religious charity or a secular one, someone who wants the money to be used on the people who actually need it and not on the people managing the charity, or, you some sort of middle men or women, middle people, might be getting a cut of funding that you would hope would be going to the right people who need it.

I don't want to do any sort of show on atheists giving to charity without acknowledging just how amazing it was that, uh, you know, listeners of Scathing Atheists and Cognitive Dissonance, and I think a lot of my listeners as well, gave to the Vulgarity for Charity campaign, uh, this this year, just that, just what a month ago, uh, so much money was put into the hands of people that really needed it, and I would, I was really proud to be any small part of that. I just wanna say, I know Noah over at Scathing Atheists did a diatribe about this somewhat recently, just how amazing it was, uh...

0:02:17 Thomas: All the the generosity of my listeners of his listeners of all our listeners, this little community that we have uh... it's it's incredible how generous you guys are and it's really neat to be a part of that. With all that in mind, I'm very happy to have Noelle George, the executive director of Foundation Beyond Belief here, to talk about what the foundation does. You'll hear that she talks about it a ton. They have several different ways they give, several different programs, and they vet the people and the charities that they give money to. All kinds of stuff like that. Really interesting stuff. First, Noelle and I actually talk about her background a little bit. But find out how she became an atheist and how that upbringing and that background led her to the great work she's doing now with Foundation Beyond Belief.

0:03:04 Thomas: Really interesting stuff, And I hope you'll find it very useful as you, you know, reach into your pocket to maybe give a little to charity this holiday season. I know I did. Joining me right is Noelle George, Noelle is the executive director of Foundation Beyond Belief, how are you doing today, Noelle? I'm doing great, thanks for joining me on the show today, so, could you start by maybe telling us a little bit about your background and then a little bit about Foundation Beyond Belief, what it is, what you guys do, that kind of thing.

0:03:30 Noelle: I'm good, how are you? Thanks for having me.

0:03:45 Noelle: Yes, background is that I grew up with no religion at all and when I, and this is kind of my going in and coming out story, but when I was about 13 I met, I knew of a girl at school and she, I actually looked up to her and she was kind of a friend and she said something about Jesus one day and I said who's Jesus and she was shocked and horrified and she said you don't know Jesus and I was like no is that your pen pal in another state or something.

0:04:23 Noelle: So, of course, you know, she said well you need to know Jesus and this is very important and you're going to go to hell if you don't, and so I went home and I told my parents we need to know Jesus otherwise we're going to hell, and I didn't know what hell was but it sounded bad, so I was like, you know, we need to know Jesus, and my parents, um, funnily enough, instead of talking to us about some people believe and some people don't believe and yada yada, they just took us to church.

0:04:52 Thomas: Oh, really?

0:04:53 Noelle: Yeah.

0:04:53 Thomas: Interesting.

0:04:54 Noelle: Yeah. Yeah. One of my many complaints about the way my parents did things, although, you, I'm sure everyone has those types of complaints. But so they took us to a Methodist church. It was a pretty liberal church, considering that it was back in the late 80s, early 90s. Um, I went to church and I got really into it. I, um, got baptized and I got confirmed and I went to church camps and church dances and met my first boyfriend at a church dance and got really, really into it, and it was good for me. I needed the community. I didn't have a lot of friends. I didn't have a good family life, I needed, you know, to hear with these people and they were saying, we love you, we accept you no matter what, you know, it was wonderful, um, and I remember one time I was at a church camp and, um, did a reenaction of the crucifixion.

0:05:03 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh.

0:05:44 Noelle: I was like, you know, that was the first time I really remember going, this is a little bit weird, and, um, it was just all a little bit weird. And, you know, if so, it felt good, but it was also kind of weird. And so, that was when I was about 16. And by the time I was about 18, had kind of gotten more confidence and come into my own and gotten a good group of friends. And this group of friends had some lesbians in it. And I started questioning my sexuality and ended up coming out as bisexual. And all of a sudden, these people that were like, we love you no matter what, we accept you, were like, oh, you know, this is not good.

0:06:29 Thomas: Like, no matter what, terms and conditions apply, actually. But yeah,

0:06:33 Noelle: Yeah. Yeah. So. You Know, I had already been kind of having questions and doubts, but I ended up leaving the church and coming out of the church. And my grandparents are on my mom's side are both atheists. And so it was not, it was not a traumatic leaving of religion. It was a very, you know, my parents kind of, they never pushed it on us. And there was never a, you must go to church or, you know, you might stay in church. It's just all kind of you if you need this it's here for you kind of deal. So I do appreciate that they did that.

0:07:07 Thomas: That's Interesting. Yeah, my parents made me go to church, but I think I went to a less exciting church because I was just bored out of my mind. It never would have grabbed me the way that your church grabbed you, because my church was just like, all right, here's a bunch of, you know, really elderly people kind of figuring out religion before they die, and it's the boringest, slowest moving thing that there could ever be, and I'm incredible. I just fell asleep in it. It, yeah.

0:07:34 Noelle: Yeah, the thing that really pulled me in with the community that was just something that I really needed at the time, as a teenager and as somebody that didn't have a lot of friends and didn't a lot people to talk to and felt kind of alone and isolated, it was that you, that community, that we accept you and we love you no matter what. And you, once it wasn't really providing that anymore, it was pretty easy for me to say, you know what, I don't really believe this stuff. I just, you know, I, I really, I really did try to follow, you know, the teachings, like I tried, um, you know, when I had sex with my boyfriend that I met at the church dance, you know, know, I felt really bad about it, um.

0:07:39 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:19 Noelle: And Yeah. And you know, so I really did try to, um, follow it. It wasn't just like, you know, I was like, whatever, I just like the people, you know. I did try, but it just ended up not working for me, and, um, because of the reasons that I mentioned, but yeah, this is another kind of coming out story per se. When I grew up in Seattle and religion was never really a big deal there, you know, it

0:08:19 Thomas: That's That's good. Trying so at What point did you realize, like, oh, you're actually an atheist? Yeah.

0:08:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:50 Noelle: Was if you went to church, but people didn't ask you where you went. And it wasn't a big detail, even back in the 80s and the 90s. When I was 27, in 2004, I think I moved to Houston, Texas. Texas, and I used to say that moving from Seattle to Houston was like moving another to another country, and I don't say that anymore because I moved to South Korea a couple years ago, and and that was really different, so I don't say that any more about Texas, but, um, when I moved to Texas, I was trying to meet people, and I was 27, and I had started, I just, just graduated college, and I started at a job with oil and gas company. And it was really conservative, especially the part of the company that I worked for, the specific division of the company that I worked for, was very, very conservative. And I was out in the field a lot in rural Texas.

And, you know, so many people, if I would say anything about, I'm having trouble meeting people, or, you know, how are you finding it? Where do you go to church is what they would would say. And I got asked that so many times. And, you finally, I was like, and I would usually say, like, I don't go to church, you know, I'm not really religious, I wouldn't say I'm an atheist.

0:09:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:02 Noelle: But especially not at work. So I started kind of trying to find my people. And I went to like a young Democrats meetup. And when I started going to the atheist meetups here in Houston. A couple of years later, I finally felt like I had found my people.

0:10:17 Thomas: Sounds like community is a very important part of it for you, even back when it was church community, just having some sort of community to call your own. Interesting. Interesting.

0:10:23 Noelle: Yeah. Yeah. It is for me. And you know, I recognize that it's not that for everyone, but when I first came into the atheist movement and I was going to the national leadership meetings and I, I was trying to get them to, um. Change up how they were were doing things a little bit. And I said, you know, we need to provide community, we need to do different activities and things like that. And so, know, that's always been my thing is to diversify our movement by, you providing different types of activities.

0:10:53 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, sort of like Sunday Assembly. Have you heard of that?

0:10:53 Noelle: Yep, I've totally heard of Sunday Assembly. Yep. You

0:10:58 Thomas: Yeah, I've never been, but it sounds like that kind of thing where it's trying to replace the, you know, community aspect of church without the God parts. Yeah. Another, I suppose another function of that might be charity, so we could transition to get a nice segue over to Foundation Beyond Belief. How did you get involved with that?

0:11:10 Noelle: Know, yeah. Yeah. Well, as I was into the atheist movement and, talking to people and listening, I realized that there wasn't anything, you Know, like volunteering in the atheist movement. This is back in 2008 or so. And I thought, what a great way to get involved in the community. Here we are talking about community again, but, you Now, in the local community, and so I started a charity called Secular Center. And it was based here in Houston. And it was about volunteering, getting, you know, atheists and people who don't go to church out to volunteer in the community. I feel like it's a great way to show who we are to show that we care, and that people are more likely to listen to our worldview and value our worldview.

0:12:08 Noelle: If we are out there um, providing valuable services, you to the community. So I started Secular Center and in, um 2011, um Dale had approached me about, merging um the organizations and it was a good time for me, um to do that. We had kind of had a mutual conversation about it beforehand. So So decided to merge Secular Center into Foundation Beyond Belief, and I started working at Foundation Beyond Belief under Dale. I was volunteering at first, and then I held various positions, and eventually Dale left, and now I've replaced him as executive director.

0:12:46 Noelle: So that's how I came to be with FBB. I really believe in the cause. I really belief in volunteering and doing charity work and showing that we're good people. Um, obviously, or I wouldn't have started the Secular Center, right?

0:12:46 Thomas: Oh, wow.

0:13:00 Thomas: Yeah, that's really neat. So one of the reasons I wanted to have you on was it's, you know, it's that time of the year when you start seeing all the, you non-secular charities. You start seeing the red bells and all that kind of thing. Could you talk a little bit about that? Like, is your goal in what you're doing with the foundation beyond belief, and how that intersects with religious charities and what they're doing and kind of the differences, if you want to go into that.

0:13:29 Noelle: So our goal is to, um, for humanists and atheists, um, I'll mostly use humanists in relation to Foundation Beyond Belief, just because of the definitions of humanism and atheism, um, but, um, the goal is for for humanists to be a visible leader in the philanthropic world, so we don't just want to be, this is our ultimate vision, we don't just want to be, um, you know, giving grants here and there and, oh yeah, those humanists, they do stuff. We want people to be like, what are they doing, we should be doing it too. We want to be the leaders, we want to be the trendsetters.

0:13:39 Thomas: Sure.

0:14:06 Thomas: Yeah. Be visible and so represent, non-believers or humanists in a good light and show the world that we do charity. Is that kind of like the idea?

0:14:15 Noelle: And not just show the world, but like, be transforming the world. In a an impactful way.

0:14:19 Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. Are some of the the causes in some of these. So you have grants and you have charity, you've got different components.

0:14:21 Noelle: Yes. We have four programs that provide humanists a way to transform their values into action. Um, one is our grant giving program, and this is the program where we have monthly givers who who give some, um, donation in anywhere from five dollars to, um, some give 150 or 500 dollars a month, and we aggregate those donations, and then we give grants every quarter, and usually we pick five charities a quarter, and we thoroughly vet those charities. And select five charities to give the grants to. And those charities are secular, except for Challenge the Gap, which I can talk about.

0:15:08 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:08 Noelle: They're completely secular identified. They are efficient. They do good work in their local community. Community, and they're usually ones that people haven't really heard of before. So they're new, you know, kind of exposing our monthly givers to different charities that vetted to our standards.

0:15:29 Thomas: Interesting. So it's sort of like maybe if I'm just random humanist guy who wants to help out, wants to give some money around the holidays or anytime, I suppose, but I don't feel like I have the tools or the knowledge or the time even to vet a charity. I don't know where the money is going. I don't really have the expertise to do that kind of of research, is the idea that make a grant or make a donation to Foundation Beyond Belief and the money goes to a charity that I can be sure is secular and is not, you know, requiring people to believe in anything to give them whatever help they need. Is that kind of the thinking?

0:16:07 Noelle: I mean, that's part of it, but part of it is also the fact that, you can give $10 here and $5 there and $100 here, but if you give $115, that makes a greater impact. And so, you know, by giving like $8,000 to $10,000 grants to these charities, especially when the grants break $10K, which we have done, but they don't always break $1,000, that's a significant grant to an organization. We get recognized in their marketing materials, and really –

0:16:22 Thomas: Okay. Oh, okay. That more visibility, because if I give $15 to one of these charities, no one really is going to notice, but it's visibility showing that, oh, this humanist foundation, you these humanists are doing good work here. They're helping out. Okay. Interesting.

0:16:45 Noelle: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right? That was the original idea behind Foundation Beyond Belief. That was what Dale started the idea with. One of the concepts that he was circling around was that believers give more than non believers, but believers are faced every week with the collection plate. And so this Foundation Beyond Belief is a non believers collection plate, you set it, you forget it, you know, you give every month, it helps people to give. More people are confident in knowing that we've thoroughly vetted the charities that we select, and they can always change it. So, um, this is one important point, that if they really like, we have five categories, we have poverty and health, human rights, education, the natural world, and challenge the gap.

If they don't like one of the categories, they can just change their allocations so that the the money doesn't go to that category, or if they don't like a charity one quarter and they don't want their money to go to the charity, then they can just change their allocations. And 100% of the money goes to the charities. We don't t keep anything for, you know, like some charities or some foundations a percentage off the top for their operating costs, and we don't do that.

0:17:17 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, wow. If I may ask, how are you able to continue operating that way? Is there some other way that you're able to cover those operating costs?

0:18:20 Noelle: Yeah, we have several different programs where people can give to our operating expenses. One is the Foundation 50. People can give $50 or $100 a month directly to our operating costs. One is through the Humanist Giving Program. People can always designate, or the grants program, people can always signate some of that money toward us, and a lot do. And we also, once a year, it's going on right now, we have our year-end drive, and we raise most of our funds to operate throughout the year at our year end drive. This year, the goal is $50,000. And just today, Giving Tuesday, today we have raised over $10,000 toward that $50.000 goal.

0:18:57 Thomas: Yeah, I was going to say we're recording it, but yeah, yeah. It'll air later, but sure. Oh. That's really cool. Let's get back to that. I I wanted to ask, if you don't mind, can you tell me, just give us like a good example of a charity you've selected and vetted, what they do and kind of why they passed scrutiny for you guys.

0:19:20 Noelle: As in how we vet and things like. That I

0:19:22 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking of an example. Maybe you looked at such and such charities, but this one stuck out to you. You know, why? Just to give us an idea of kind of what you're looking for.

0:19:31 Noelle: Except for Challenge the Gap, which is a category that we have. I'll just explain it quickly, that Um, it's a religiously identified charity that doesn't proselytize and works for the greater good, so um, For example, um, we've featured Baptist charities, we've pictured Quaker charity, actually we featured a Baptist charity once, um, because the Baptists aren't that great at um not proselytizing, but um, we've featured um Quaker charities, we've featured um, you, all sorts of different types of, you know, Muslim charities. One of the charities that we've featured with Texas Muslim Women's Foundation, and they work with domestic violence survivors, um, so they have to pass really strict standards, um, for us to make sure that they're not proselytizing and that they are working for the greater good. All the other charities categories have to be totally secular. The reason that we do Challenge the Gap is because we recognize that though people might identify as religious, they can still be working toward the common good without proselyting, and we want to reward that.

0:19:37 Thomas: Sure. Oh, okay.

0:20:34 Noelle: Because so many times we come across charities that do proselytize or that do do a religious litmus test or that do, do a prayer or something like that. And so we just, those charities that are working toward the common good without proselytizing, we want to recognize those and say, hey, we think what you're doing is really great. Right.

0:20:53 Thomas: Yeah, no, that's a good idea. Yeah. So that's just, what's the origin of that name Challenge the Gap specifically? Do you know?

0:21:01 Noelle: So, you The essence of it is can be a divide between religious people and non-religious people. And so we're challenging that divide. We're challenging that gap and saying, hey, we have something in common. We both want to do something for the greater good. And, you know, as I said, the all the allocations are completely customizable, so some people don't like Challenge the Gap and they don't put their money toward it, and some people love Challenge the Cap and they put all their money toward it, so it just depends on what the person's, you, personal giving philosophy is.

0:21:34 Thomas: Yeah, Sure, that makes sense. I like that approach of having one category that encourages charities that, while they may be not exactly secular, they're at least not proselytizing. That's pretty cool. So do you want to give us a specific example of a charity, maybe that's a recent one that you guys made a grant to, or something that, you know, sticks out in your your mind, of what they're kind of trying to accomplish with their charity and what the money is going toward.

0:21:34 Noelle: Right. Yeah.

0:22:01 Noelle: I mean, November is is Transgender Awareness Month, and one of the charities that we're featuring in quarter four is the Audrey Lorde Project. And it's a GLBTQ, community organizing, um, organization, it's in the New York City area. Um, another thing that I like about them is that they are led and for trans and gender non-conforming people of color. They also use the term two-spirit, which is the Native American term for transgender. And that really drew me to them, that they were inclusive of the Native American community because, you know, a lot of times the Native African community gets pushed, so, you know, right away, the way that they kind of frame their they're for, their their their audience and who they are run by drew us to them. And as we vetted them and looked at, you Know, are they secular? Are they cost effective? Is what they're doing working? And, you know, we just got great results. And so we decided to feature them. They're a very unique organization. And I do like to feature unique organizations. We

0:22:42 Thomas: Hmm.

0:23:11 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, cool. Can you talk a little bit about some of the other programs besides the grant programs? Programs.

0:23:16 Noelle: Sure. One of the programs that is close to my heart is the Beyond Belief Network. It's a volunteer network for local secular groups who are doing activist volunteer work in their community. This is what the Secular Center, as we merged Secular Centre into Foundation Beyond Believe, we started this program, and um, so we have over 125 local groups around the U.S. and even a couple international groups, and um, they are doing volunteer work in their communities, they report, they submit reports to us, which is basically, you know, just about their event, um, what they did, how many hours they logged, and then, um, we compile those reports and we tally the hours and we give, we give awards every year to the groups that, have the most hours or have the most events or have The Best Event Report and different things like that. So we give the Heart of Humanism Awards every year.

0:24:11 Thomas: Wow. Neat.

0:24:12 Noelle: These were FBB's first two programs. And as FBB grew, we started offering direct service programs. So we have the Disaster Recovery Program and the Humanist Service Corps, um, and these are the Disaster Recovery Program, we we started, um, with giving grants after a disaster to an organization working on the ground to help a community recover from a disaster, and then it evolved with, I don't know if you know Rebecca Vitzman on, um, she's the one who was on Wolf Blitzer show after

0:24:42 Thomas: Right. I was going to ask, actually, was she the one where it, what was it? The tornado or? Yeah. Yeah. And then it was like, actually, uh, I'm an atheist.

0:24:44 Noelle: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's her. Yeah, I always ask everybody, oh, do you know Rebecca Vitzman, and like a few hands go up. And then I say, like, she's the one who, and then everybody's hand goes up.

0:24:59 Thomas: Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah, yeah. I was, I was good. I thought that, but I was like now what are the odds that that's who you're talking about? But yeah, no, that's really cool.

0:25:09 Noelle: Yeah, so she, um, you know, she was proselytized to in the ruins of her home by volunteers years, and um, you know, she was in shock and she was, you, going through her belongings, and um, she thought there must be someone out here, out there, who's doing this without the proselytizing, and um, after she connected with us, we started the um Humanist Disaster Recovery Teams, which is the volunteering component to Disaster Recovery, our Disaster Recovery Program. And so we've already sent a team out to Columbia, South Carolina, earlier this year, to rebuild homes after the flooding there. And we have plans to send teams out to Louisiana. So, and lot of people are really excited about this program. So I'm going to give your listeners a link.

0:25:14 Thomas: Yeah yeah. Yeah

0:25:59 Noelle: If they want to learn more about the disaster recovery program specifically, can go to foundationbeyondbelief.org/HDR, and they can find out how to sign up from that link. Right.

0:25:59 Thomas: Nice.

0:26:13 Thomas: And I'm absolutely going to have a link in the show notes for foundation beyond belief, uh the main page and uh yeah definitely check out all it's great website too. Pretty easy to navigate.

0:26:20 Noelle: Right. Thank you. And the other program that we have, the last program, the most recent one that we've started is the Service Corps. And that is where people are working in the witch camps in Ghana. And actually, well, it's not scary. Scary.

0:26:34 Thomas: All right. That sounds scary. What does that mean?

0:26:42 Thomas: What did you just say? Witch camps? What did you say?

0:26:44 Noelle: I didn't say witch camp.

0:26:47 Thomas: What does it mean?

0:26:48 Noelle: Okay, so in Ghana, it's one of the most religious countries in the world and very superstitious and they believe in witchcraft. And so what happens is something bad happens or something really good happens in a village and they'll blame it on, and, you know, a woman, usually she's older, usually she's kind of successful, like they'll be suspicious of her success. And she won't have a man to vouch for her because if she has a man to vouch for her, then she can usually, you know, sidestep these accusations. So the ones that stuck with these accusations and aren't able to sidestep them agree to go to a witch camp to be rehabilitated. And I'm using air quotes and rehabilitated.

0:27:29 Thomas: My gosh.

0:27:31 Noelle: And sometimes they have to go with their whole family because there's nobody else, you know, like their daughters and their grandchildren or their children, because there's nobody else to look after those folks. And so there are whole families in the witch camps. And, know, the conditions are not good. Um, there are human rights violations, like girls, uh, being married at a young age, um, things like that. And so we work with a partner organization named Song Taba, um, to elevate the conditions in the witch camps and also to outreach to the villages. And, um, we have been able to reintegrate accused witches into the back into the villages, um, and we've been able to, um, do some sensitization work, is what it's called, where we um educate the community about things like medical conditions and things that witchcraft sometimes gets blamed for. Um, but a lot of times if the women go to these camps for rehabilitation, um, and they try to go back to their communities, the community says the rehabilitation didn't work, and so the women are just left in the camps and

0:28:37 Thomas: Yeah well cuz they could say that couldn't they? There's no I mean there's no like rehabilitation gauge. There's a witchcraft gauge they like measure them with or something.

0:28:37 Noelle: Um. Yeah. Yeah. There's no test. They just say, you know, if if the woman, um, angered one of the elders or something, then if that elder says, um, she is not rehabilitated, then who are people going to listen to, you know.

0:28:47 Thomas: Yeah exactly. Oh man you said it wasn't scary. That does sound scary. I don't like that.

0:29:01 Noelle: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not, I guess it is kind of scary, but not in the way that I, that

0:29:08 Thomas: That's what I I meant, I didn't mean like there's actual witches. I meant that, that really doesn't sound good. Whenever there's a, a witch. Yeah. Oh man. Anyway.

0:29:13 Noelle: Well, yeah, Halloween wasn't that long ago, so I'm thinking like which is you know, um, because I was switched for Halloween, actually. So, um, so yeah, I was thinking that kind of witch. But anyway, have volunteers on the ground there who are working to do all those things in the witch camps. And, we've you actually been able to save lives because we had a records project last year that screened for various diseases. And like, for example, we found a guy with really high blood pressure that had to be rushed to the hospital. And if if he had been in his, without medical care, then, he wouldn't have have probably his life wouldn't Have been saved. So,

0:29:21 Thomas: Yeah, Harry Potter or whatever.

0:29:37 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah

0:29:57 Noelle: Know, right,

0:29:57 Thomas: That's really cool. And not, not to mention, I mean, the dollars, I'm sure that you're, the grants you're giving, I'M sure are saving lives sometimes too.

0:30:05 Noelle: Right. And, you know, those easier to see the results of our on the ground programs than it is, you know, we try to highlight the results of the grants, but we're not always able to get the stories that we get from the Humanist Service Corps because we have volunteers directly on the ground there. So, and they're telling the stories and they'RE, you KNOW, elevating the people there, especially the Ghanaian volunteers who are, because we HAVE, American volunteers and we have Ghanaian volunteers. The Ghanaian volunteers, especially, you know, they, they know the community, they know the people and they tell the stories.

0:30:11 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah. Wow. Wow. Really cool stuff. So

0:30:47 Noelle: Thank you.

0:30:47 Thomas: Let me, let's, maybe we can close by saying, I mean, if you, if again, if let's say if I'm just random listener out there and I don't know, I want to give a hundred bucks to charity this, this Christmas or something like that. Can you give your, I mean obviously your, your, you're biased opinion is going to be donate to foundation beyond belief, but yeah, no, no. And, but that's fine. That's totally fine. Give me your pitch for that, your quick pitch for why I should donate there, or if not, I mean, what at least should I not do with that hundred dollars? Like, I'm guessing I shouldn't put it in the Salvation Army, you pot that they keep the money in.

0:31:07 Noelle: Yeah, I was going to say.

0:31:26 Noelle: Right. Well, I'll do both for you, actually. Um, I would say if you can give to Foundation Beyond Belief because, you you know, we are doing the work. We are out there making sure that humanists have a way to change the world through our programs. And there's no other organization that does what we do for humanists. And I would say what you shouldn't do with your dollars is, you give them without a little bit of research at least um if you if it if it's important to you that the charity is secular then you can do Google searches um you can I usually look at the website um like especially about the people um the history the mission you if you read that stuff it'll tell you um Christian charities pretty much they they want to shout from the rooftops that they're Christian and that they're trying to convert everybody.

0:31:27 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:18 Thomas: Yeah, oh, so they don't really hide it. They're just kind of like, this is what we're doing. Yeah because I'm guessing a lot of people who donate probably want them to be doing that.

0:32:26 Noelle: Right. And so they don't hide it. Some of the other religions, it can be harder to tell. We've developed kind of, you know, best practices for how we do that. You know, we look at the mission. We look at people. We look the people's associations. And we look the groups that they work with. You know that kind of thing. But another thing that's really important is if you can look at the 990, and I would say this about FDB too, at the 9 90 to see what their budget is.

0:32:55 Noelle: Look at the past couple 9 90s. If you can, it should be public. If it's not public, then if they don't publish on their website, then, you know, that kind of calls things into question.

0:32:55 Thomas: Yeah it's all public, right? I mean, it's all, yeah, yeah.

0:33:07 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:07 Noelle: We we publish all our 90s on our website.

0:33:09 Thomas: Yeah, you know, totally. I highly recommend that because I remember my personal weakness does happen to be for cats. I'm a sucker for cats and at my work, there was a charity drive where all these different charities came in and kind of made pitches and there was one for animals. There was a cat related charity. I was like, like, oh, I really want to give my money to them. And I decided just for fun to kind of look up their information, their paperwork, the form, I'm guessing that you said. And it turned out they just, they were sitting on just millions of dollars and they weren't, it looked like they weren't really particularly using it. You know, like it was their year in, year out, just millions of dollars in cash. AndI just thought, you know what? I'm not going to do it. That doesn't sound like they need this, so I'll take my money elsewhere.

0:33:10 Noelle: Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

0:33:57 Thomas: It's interesting. I don't think a lot of people know that if it's a 501c3 or whatever, you should be able to get all this information. It is public.

0:34:06 Noelle: Right. And we've, you know, we don't have, we always ask for the nine nineties. We always go back a couple of years to make sure that they're growing, you Know, or they're not, that there's not some red flags. And, we, uh, the charities that we select are smaller. Like we have a cap. Um, I think it's $10 million because if we're going to give $8,000 or $10,000, we don't want to give it to a $100 million organization that's just going to be a drop in the bucket. We want to gives it where it's going to make a difference. And that's another thing that you need to look at if you're going research your own charities. If you want to givethere it makes a difference, give to a one million dollar charity. You know, if you have $100 to give or if you have $1,000 to give, give to a smaller charity where it's going to really make a difference there.

0:34:32 Thomas: Awesome.

0:34:55 Thomas: Thank you so much. That is a great pitch. I like it. I would say, you know what? Why not? How about on behalf of my show, I will donate $100 to Foundation Beyond Believe. You sold me. Good pitch.

0:35:06 Noelle: You're kidding.

0:35:08 Thomas: No, no, I will. Yeah, I want to donate to that for the holidays. It sounds like I believe your pitch. It's good. I like the fact that you're public, you're transparent, and I like what you're doing. So thanks so much for coming on the show.

0:35:09 Noelle: Thank you. Thank you so much.

0:35:21 Thomas: All right. Anything else you wanted to say before we call it a show here?

0:35:24 Noelle: No, I mean, I think we've covered it.

0:35:27 Thomas: So Noelle George from foundation beyond belief thank you so much for coming on

0:35:31 Noelle: Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

0:35:49 Thomas: All right, got some time left. So I think it's probably a good time to make a bit of an important announcement. I know there have been a lot of announcements happening over here lately, but But I think this one will be a little more relevant to you than my quitting my job, although I don't know, me producing, having more time to make better content, maybe that's more relevant, but I need to tell you guys that I am changing the name of the show.

Now, this actually won't come as any news to my patrons, because the amazing people, the generous people over on patreon.com slash atheists have already heard this announcement, they already know the new name, they actually know two new names, one that I was going to do and then I thought of a better one, but I've already cleared it with my employers over at patreon. Com slash atheist, so it's a done deal, if you want to gripe at me, you know, if if you don't like the decision-making process, feel free to, but it's happening because it was virtually, I don't know, I want to say like 98% satisfaction rate on it, which is higher than I get for anything else. So I think it's a good decision. Let me go into why I'm doing it.

I think you likely will have noticed a change in direction of the show over maybe the past, it's been a while actually, maybe even a year, but maybe more like six months or so. Not always, but most of the time, I'm trying to do things that are honestly not even really terribly atheist. Atheist. Um, I'm always going to be an atheist. I am an atheist and my, you know, the community of listeners is atheist.

0:37:23 Thomas: And so I'm not making the show not atheist anymore. However, I am taking atheist out of the name of the show because as I've been trying to get guests and trying to get scientists on to talk about their findings, or I don't know, authors who've written something interesting, or just anybody, anybody who's going to teach us something, teach me something, thing, be interesting. As I've tried to do that, I've actually had more than a few people reject coming on the show because of the name. And I'm very disappointed about that. It does make me sad that I do still live in a time and place where I kind of need to change the name and take Atheist out of the name in order to be able to get whoever I want on the show. That makes me sad, but after thinking about it a lot...

0:38:11 Thomas: I've realized several things. First up, first and foremost, I've never been a big fan of the name. I thought of the name back when it was just me and my friend who were gonna start a little podcast, and it was a name that I thought that he liked, that I didn't even like that much, but he liked it, so I went with it. And then once you have a name of something, usually sticks, until, uh, you know, sometime after 300 plus episodes you change it. But, uh, I've never been that big of a fan of it to begin with, so that's step one. One is I'm not terribly attached to it. Step two is these guests and people who have declined coming on the show because of the name. And that wouldn't even be enough, except that my show hasn't really been that battle. For the most part, I haven't been doing a show, and I think you'll agree, I hasn't been a show that hinges too much on the question of atheism.

0:39:02 Thomas: A show like Scathing Atheist, I don't think they could change their name. I mean, there's pretty much, that's what they're doing. It's a great name. It goes with what they're doing. Their message is clearly in alignment with that and where they come from. But I mean, mine is, lately it's been issues of politics, of science, of philosophy, of just skepticism, and just any any which thing. Whether we're talking about GMOs or we're talking about vaccines or whatever it is, I've been really enjoying those issues, and you guys have too, and what I've realized is I can still talk about atheists and atheism and all that atheist issues and all of that stuff. I can still talk about that very easily on a show named something else, but it's actually been increasingly difficult to talk about other things on a show and get other guests on a show that has atheists in the name.

0:39:54 Thomas: So for all those reasons, I have thought for quite a while, actually, it's been in the back of my mind for maybe more than a year, I don't even know. But recently, with those couple of people who declined coming on the show, it has really been on my mind that, you know what, I want to just have a more neutral name. I want a neutral name that just says, you now, we are figuring stuff out. It just says we are having interesting discussions.

It doesn't really matter where you come from. I don't want people to prejudge it. I don't want people to think I'm like an angry atheist show. I want to just be able to have people on, talk about issues, and when you think about it, despite his reputation, Sam Harris has something like that.

I mean, his show is called Waking Up, he could talk about anything on that show, and sure, he's more Google-able than I am, so people kind of know he's an atheist, but still, a cognitive dissonance isn't really named Atheism Dissonant, you know, it's, it's not really in the name. Mine, mine, it doesn't have to be, you can still talk about all these issues and not have it in the name.

0:40:54 Thomas: So then, the search for a name began. And, as you might know, it's very difficult to find a name, but I finally found one that I like quite a bit, and then I found one I really liked, that I'm going with, and I can announce the name of it right now. The show is going to be called Serious Inquiries Only.

It's a play on, you know, when there's like a newspaper ad or a Craigslist ad or whatever, and it says "Serious inquiries only," and, I thought it's perfect for what the show is. I just want to talk about, I just wanna inquire into things. It really is what I'm doing.

And I just got the new logo back, I think I'm gonna put it up for patrons, patreon.com/atheist, it's really good, I love it, it's, it's this newspaper theme, it just looks awesome, so I think it really ties the whole room together, and it makes the name make sense, and I think it'll be really good, and most importantly, it does all the things that I've already talked about. The URL I have is going to be seriouspod.com I have it already, I just haven't moved the site there yet, but eventually it will all be there.

The things you have to worry about are nothing, because I'm gonna do it all for you, I'm going to redirect everything, I am going to change the name of everything but still have all the URLs point to the right place, so don't worry about that, I'll take care of everything, you can just be along for the ride, or if you're so terribly offended by my changing the name, you're free to stop listening, if that's something that affects you that much, it's a little weird, but okay, but no, you don't have to worry about anything.

0:42:26 Thomas: I just wanted to explain it. I'm doing it as soon as I possibly can. I'm not sure how soon that will be. Maybe next episode, maybe a couple after that. There's a lot to do. And it's been just one more thing that has made me so glad I'm quitting my job. So that's my plan. The show will not change other than I will be able to reach some people that maybe I wasn't able to reach before. And I'm excited about it. I think it's a really positive change. I, I think I still wanna, I could still even host debates on here if I want. It doesn't, there's no reason I can't have an atheist versus theist debate on serious inquiries only. It's, it sounds perfect to me. Sounds like the right place to do that. So I'm very excited about. You can feel free to give me your feedback, back, like I said, but the most important people in my life, that is my patrons and the people who are allowing me to do this full time, the response was overwhelming.

0:43:17 Thomas: And you know what I heard from so many people that really I'm kicking myself that I didn't do this sooner. I heard from about a billion people on Patreon saying, oh, man, finally, I can share it with this person or I can share with my family or I can show it here or share it there.

And so many people said that, like, yeah, I've been wanting to share it at work or share, you know, talk about it, but I've just been reluctant to because of the name, and I'm so glad because if we can share it with those people with kind of a, you know, a name that doesn't just scream at them that they need to run away and hide, but then maybe they listen to it, and maybe the ideas that, and the guests I have on here, maybe they will influence them, and that's exciting to me, and it's something that I want to do, so I'm very happy that I'm moving forward with this, so let me know what you think. I hope you're not too terribly offended by the name change, and as always, thank you you so much for listening, and I will see you guys on Thursday.