Bridging Creativity and Business: Craig Swistun's Multifaceted Journey Through Charitable Giving and Entrepreneurship

Trevor Botkin: 0:00

And welcome back to when Leaders Connect, the Corporate Connections podcast, where we like to sit down with our members and talk about what inspires them, what they're great at, what gets them up in the morning and maybe where they've come from and some of their journey to where they are today what gets them up in the morning and maybe where they've come from and some of their journey to where they are today.

Trevor Botkin: 0:25

My name is Trevor Botkin, I'm the National Director of Corporate Connections Canada and it is my incredible pleasure today to have on the show Toronto 2 member chapter director. And I don't know what else to say about you, craig, but Craig Swistun, craig has been a member for quite some time and with an extensive background across a number of different fields, and we're just going to actually jump right in instead of doing a big, long formal introduction of Craig. Both of us come from Winnipeg originally and that's kind of something we've always held clearly dear to our hearts. So let's, without any further ado, craig Swistun, welcome to the show. I should have said welcome back to the show because technically this is your second episode. You were early in season one.

Craig Swistun: 1:10

I'm happy to be back. I want to jump in on kind of that Winnipeg thing. I don't live in Winnipeg anymore and I know you don't live in Winnipeg either, but I think being from somewhere else, wherever you are in life, if you're from somewhere else, you bring with you a bunch of different experiences. So as a Winnipegger living in Toronto, it's very different because we get the opportunity to move in different circles and come with different perspectives for things than people who maybe grow up in one city. So I think that traveling, connecting, meeting people, moving around, getting new experiences such an important part of what we do as curious individuals. So go Winnipeg.

Trevor Botkin: 1:47

Yeah, go Winnipeg.

Trevor Botkin: 1:47

I mean also, I think being a Winnipegger in Toronto means you're the only one with jumper cables and a shovel in your car right Maybe not the shovel anymore, since you don't get as much snow in Toronto, but yeah, it's a funny thing.

Trevor Botkin: 1:59

And back in the day when I was managing that restaurant, I was King and John. That was actually before TIFF had taken over the parking lot that was there and it's interesting, as I stood outside a number of times I had this experience where most people in Toronto kind of head down, walking with purpose or intention towards wherever they were headed and usually not smiling and not saying hi, or intention towards wherever they were headed and usually not smiling and not saying hi. And I remember one gentleman in particular was walking by head up and looked at me and I looked at them and I smiled and I said hey, says hi. I said where are you from? And he goes Winnipeg. I said, of course, it's the one gentleman with his head up walking around. And again, anyone that comes from a smaller town, I think, where your paradigm is always you probably know somebody or are related to somebody, or you know somebody who knows somebody. So you're kind of always a little bit more open to those opportunities just because it's a small town.

Craig Swistun: 3:01

Yeah, I think the big cities afford some level of anonymity, yeah, which sometimes look, sometimes we all need it, but sometimes it makes it hard for us to build community and build meaningful connections, because everybody we're dealing with, interacting with on the subway, on the streets, is somebody we don't know. Yeah, we don't know their story and it's hard for us to go up and figure that out sometimes and see if there is an opportunity to make a connection or make a friend or go for a coffee well, it's also it's.

Trevor Botkin: 3:26

It's big cities are big and in in sprawling, and toronto continues to sprawl, and I think that's something that's always so interesting when you say let's grab a coffee and you realize it's a two-hour time commitment. Just you know it's 45 minutes to get there and half an hour coffee and 45 minutes back, so it's a it's a bit of a challenge sometimes as these cities continue to grow. Let's take a step back and talk a little bit about where you started, because I know your journey has not been linear. And then, professionally, you started in marketing.

Craig Swistun: 3:56

Yeah, yeah, I mean I'll try and keep it brief, but I did start in marketing. I attended the University of Winnipeg. I'll try and keep it brief, but I did start in marketing. I attended the University of Winnipeg. I did a degree in English, literature and economics and I was pursuing my master's degree when things changed and I moved to Toronto and I immediately jumped into more of a marketing role in a design capacity. I ended up working in book design, where we were designing not just regular books that you would read but also textbooks for the school market, which is a little bit more of a specialized design area. And it was strange, because how does a guy with an English and an economics degree end up in design? But there I found myself and from there I moved straight into advertising and, always on the creative side of advertising, I became a professional designer, member of the professional association that at the time existed in Ontario but now is a national organization, and I found myself as a designer. So I worked in advertising.

Craig Swistun: 4:58

As I said, I worked in corporate Canada. I started design studios, both privately. I had a design partnership and I led creative teams inside Corporate Canada. And you know, one day people said, oh, you're this marketing and creative guy and you're working in finance Isn't that a strange thing? And then, the more I worked inside Corporate Canada, the less I was thought of as a creative person, the more I was thought of as a marketing person working in finance, which was trending towards working in the financial industry, but still always having a foot in the creative, in the creative community. And so I've always sort of lived a double life, with one foot in the creative community and one foot in the financial community. But I think that everything I've done in all of my marketing background, all of my design clients, all the clients we have, I've kind of informed where I am today, which is in the financial community.

Craig Swistun: 5:49

One of the challenges we have is communication and education, and I think the skills that you acquire over 20, 25 years of marketing, advertising and brand can come to play to helping people understand who they are, where they are, where they need to be going. And so I think that it doesn't matter where you come from. There's no experience that ever really tears you down or this is ever really lost. We just have to find the opportunity to learn from that and incorporate those things into what we do on a day-to-day basis. Whether it's a good experience or a bad experience, we can always learn. So yeah, how does a kid from Winnipeg with an English degree end up working in advertising, starting their own design firms and now today runs a discretionary investment management company that focuses on working with high net worth families, but especially charities, nonprofits and endowments? It is a strange journey. I get it.

Trevor Botkin: 6:39

It's interesting when you talk about. I think all of us understand this idea of high net worth individuals as a wealth advisor and I don't want to get into that side of it as much. But what I've always found interesting is there's two volleys. One is this idea of helping charities be better stewards with the money they have, because I think most charities are a bit reactionary in terms of you get a dollar, you spend a dollar, and usually because it's shoestring. But also in terms of helping donors understand that just giving money to a charity is probably the least efficient way to donate to charities. So I think coming from that aspect I think is really interesting. So I would love kind of your take on that, because I know so many people in our community are philanthropical and do have the means to donate, sit on boards and are in charities paradigm of just get on the phone, call people ask them for a buck is probably the least efficient way to help support the charities that, certainly in Canada, have never had more need than they do today.

Craig Swistun: 7:55

Yeah, look, let's start at the top. I mean, there's over 86,000 registered charities in Canada that you can choose to donate with. So, if you're an individual, one of the things we try and encourage our clients to do is to really sit back and evaluate the charities that they're choosing to support. So it starts with what are the causes you care about most and what is the change you want to see in the world. And once you sift through that 86,000 charity lot, you tend to find that people can get focused on the causes that are important and what it is they want to support. That's the first question what is the change you want to see in the world? Then the second question is what is the most effective way for you to do that?

Craig Swistun: 8:37

Generally speaking, gifts of cash are the least effective way to do that. Now, charities love to get cash. They need cash to operate. It's just that when you give cash, when you donate your cash to a charity if it's a registered charity you're going to get a tax receipt. People are familiar with this. I get a tax receipt for my donation, which helps me offset some taxes. I feel good giving and I feel good getting a tax advantage, but they're unaware that there are other ways that they can give that may have additional tax advantage, and I don't mean to suggest that the reasons people give is to get a tax receipt. That, to me, is a terrible reason to support anything you should give because you care about what it is you're supporting. But if you can get a tax receipt, if you can get more tax benefits, you should look at that.

Craig Swistun: 9:19

And so part of it is how do you teach people who are philanthropically minded, who want to support causes, that there are better ways to do that, whether that's instead of donating cash from their bank account, they can donate appreciated securities from their investment account. And most people are not aware of these things. These aren't hacks or tricks. These have been on the books for decades. Just educating people about the ways to give can enable them to support their causes even more, even greater. And that's kind of where it started, which is how do we teach people how to become better at giving, how do we teach people to become better at supporting the causes that they care the most about? And that was really the genesis of kind of where we are as a business idea, and once we ran through all of my existing clients and did these training sessions.

Craig Swistun: 10:07

In these education sessions, we realized that it's not enough for me to just educate my clients about it. I want to educate everybody about it Right, and so I write about it. I want to educate everybody about it Right, and so I write about it. I talk about it, I publish e-learning content so that people can, on their own time, go and learn about this stuff, because what's important to me is that we work hard as a community of Canadians to close the very real giving gap that exists in this country.

Craig Swistun: 10:32

There is a long-term trend where donations are on the decline that's not my numbers, that's Statistics, canada and CRA but the costs involved in running a charity are up. Inflation doesn't just hit us at the pocketbook, it also hits charities. So, with donations down and costs up, how do we close that gap? I think education is one of the easier ways to close that gap. Teach people how to give more efficiently. I think education is one of the easier ways to close that gap. Teach people how to give more efficiently. So that's a big component of what we do.

Craig Swistun: 11:01

For sure, no-transcript, and you're right you may have an army of volunteers that are simply calling and asking for cash, because that's what they've always done. You can't rely on tactics and strategies that worked 40 years ago, in 2024. And so we try to work with charities and nonprofits to encourage a little bit more of an innovative approach. We try to take the relationship that we have beyond simply managing assets for them, but into the other areas that would be important for them to succeed. So, just as an individual or a family made it a financial plan or a tax or an estate plan, charities don't need that. They need strategies to educate their board, to invigorate their donor base, to incorporate you know, integrate CRM ideas into their overall marketing mix. So for me, it's all the marketing background, all the finance background. It comes together at that inflection point where donors and charities collide to create meaningful change in the world.

Trevor Botkin: 12:12

Wow yeah, they really dovetail beautifully, don't they collide to create meaningful change in the world? Wow yeah, they really dovetail beautifully, don't?

Craig Swistun: 12:16

they. That's the hope. The hope is that the joint fixes, but the truth of the matter is that financial literacy and financial education are so poor in our country that it doesn't come as any surprise that some of the wealthiest, most philanthropic people are giving inefficiently.

Trevor Botkin: 12:32

Well, it's not taught right. I mean, our education system is woefully behind or inadequate in terms of the realities of today. And so, you know, I look back on my own education in math and you know, thankfully I have a phone with me with a calculator on it for some of the more complex math, but at the end of the day, you know, in terms of like, doing your where, your taxes, uh, filing all of that, all of these challenges that that are day-to-day in terms of how to you know how to set yourself up for prosperity. It's, it's, and I don't mean wealth, I mean you know financial freedom and that, and I think we're seeing a shift in Canada. I think what's interesting is, you know, when I was much younger, canadians didn't have the debt they have today and we've kind of emulated our cousins to the south and taken a page from their book in terms of just staggering credit card debt, credit card debt, and it's just, it's again, it's a lack of. It's the other side of the marketing where, you know, we're constantly being pushed to buy, to consume, to do that without any regards to you know what the flip side of that is, which is, you know, as interest rates go up. You know most people can't afford it.

Trevor Botkin: 13:53

I was listening to a podcast yesterday about just the cost of owning a car. My last car I paid cash. I'd use my other car to flip it and do that. I don't pay anything on my car, but hearing people pay $1,800 a month for a car is staggering. I mean, that's an apartment. It's interesting. I think there's a lack of financial literacy.

Craig Swistun: 14:18

Yeah, and there, excuse me, there is and, and you know you mentioned sort of we talk about affluence, we talk about things. What's important is that you know you want to have conversations with with people individuals, charities, whatever to really suss out what their long-term goals are and to be able to point out individuals, charities, whatever to really suss out what their long-term goals are and to be able to point out, hey, maybe $1,800 a month payment on a car is preventing you from accomplishing something else you want to do in your life. And that's sometimes hard to have those realistic conversations, but those are the conversations that we need to have. Financial education, financial empowerment is so important, but it's easier for us to relate to that from I'm an individual and I spend money. But it's equally true for the charities in the nonprofit sector.

Craig Swistun: 14:59

Right, it's. You know, is our marketing most effective? Are our donations climbing or are they declining like everybody else's across the sector, and what can we do about it? Means that you know you need to be having those serious conversations at a board level, and one of the challenges on both sides of that divide is sometimes the answer is uncomfortable. Sometimes the answer is you can't afford the car payment or you have to innovate and try some new communication strategies, and we're pretty good at being at the center of difficult conversations when it comes to that, for sure.

Trevor Botkin: 15:32

Yeah, I think that's fascinating. I wanted to shift gears slightly or dramatically, depends, I guess, where this goes and talk a little bit about your podcast and the work you've been doing with startups, with smaller entrepreneurial businesses and I know it started here in Canada, with startups with smaller entrepreneurial businesses and I know it started here in Canada, but you've since branched out to businesses truly globally on that, and so I want you to talk a little bit about that because I think it's such an interesting, it's such a fascinating discussion in terms of talking to business owners and looking at where that journey began, what the idea was behind it, and then introducing them, and not for any sort of gain they're not clients of yours, they're not, you know, it's just this kind of exposing or elevating these businesses to bigger markets just because they're great businesses.

Craig Swistun: 16:36

Yeah, I appreciate the question, Trevor. Sometimes it's hard for me to talk about because I don't want to break my arm to pat myself on the back, but this is really a selfish project. I enjoy meeting people, I enjoy hearing about new ideas, but it didn't start that way. The project actually started. The podcast is called Before the Business. We're in our third season. We've got over 30 episodes that tell the origin stories of an entrepreneur.

Craig Swistun: 17:00

But it started in the pandemic, actually, and when the pandemic first hit, it seemed obvious to me that the people who were going to be hurt the most were the Main Street businesses, the Ma and Pa businesses, because we were told to stay home, we were all in lockdown, and so we started by compiling a list of at that time it was 14 businesses we tried to communicate out as broadly as possible. Hey, here's 14 amazing businesses from across the country that you should check out. Almost all of them were selling something you could go online and buy and support this business. They may not be from your community, but they're from a community East Coast Globe in Bonavista, Newfoundland, or you know. So we try to encourage people to do this, and as the pandemic evolved, we started to see that there was some positive benefit. People were buying from these companies a little bit. It all helps, but what I realized is that I was getting more out of it, because I just love talking to people and understanding their journey, and there's a distinct shift that I can point out in the podcast, where it went from me trying to help people sell their products to me trying to help understand who they were as entrepreneurs, because it becomes a bit of a masterclass in entrepreneurship, Because you're hearing business owners talk about things they did that went really well, but also things that they that did.

Craig Swistun: 18:24

They did that didn't go well. And so if you're thinking about being a future entrepreneur, here's 30 people telling you their stories and they're not telling you prescriptively how to do something. It's a shared experience. They're sharing their experience and then you as a you know, as someone who maybe is an entrepreneur yourself or is thinking about starting a business, can synthesize your own response. Hey, you know, this person had that challenge and that's how they overcame it.

Craig Swistun: 18:49

And it's very similar to the work we do in forum within corporate connections, which is, it's not prescriptive advice. Nobody's telling you what to do. They're sharing their experience and how they overcame a challenge and I think that's very powerful from a learning perspective. But back to the selfish nature of it. I've had the great pleasure of interviewing and recording and producing episodes now for over 30 amazing businesses and entrepreneurs, and I learn something each and every time we do an episode. And I learn something each and every time we do an episode. The podcast has now evolved to how can this small little platform that I've created help entrepreneurs tell their story so that they can go on and make more meaningful connections with their clients. And it's just, it's nice to see, it's a lot of fun, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of fun to do it, but the selfish project that generates a good amount of joy and connection, for me for sure.

Trevor Botkin: 19:42

What would you say? The biggest surprise has been for you over the course of 30 episodes.

Craig Swistun: 19:47

I think there's a couple of themes. There's one thing that continues to resonate is are you an accidental entrepreneur or are you an intentional entrepreneur? I think more people that we've interviewed have gone into their business with intent. I intend to do this. This is something I want to do. This is a path I choose, but there are a fair number of people and I think more the artists and artisans where they turn something they love to do into a business, and so they didn't go into it with a business degree or a business plan, they just went into it, and so that's one of the key themes.

Craig Swistun: 20:40

No-transcript. The reason they became an entrepreneur was was really because they were rejecting the grind culture that seems to permeate the entrepreneurship space today. Sure, they became an entrepreneur to run their business their way. Yes, it's hard work, but it doesn't mean you have to get up at 6am. And the third thing is the notion of mentorship. We were going down this path until we met this individual who gave us some great advice and we turned our sails around. So, intentionality versus accidental how do you stay grounded as an entrepreneur when times get tough, and who do you rely on for advice and mentorship when you need it most. Those are kind of the three main themes, that kind of underpin where we've come from.

Trevor Botkin: 21:26

And I think that vulnerability, that willingness to and I experienced this myself just this week where you know, you mentioned form and I belong to a form as well, and within my chapter, which is different than Craig's chapter for those who don't know us both and, um, normally I I'm loathe to ask for help. I'm the I'm the last one, uh, to say, yeah, things are aren't round. And you know, I was like, you know, screw it. Today I'm, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna say how I feel and what's going on. And and it was interesting because, you know, I think we take for granted, especially when you're with successful business owners, that they too have the same stresses or the same challenges or have experienced similar challenges, and so we always think that, you know, our poop is special or you know our struggle is no, no one's ever struggled like I have. And so, you know, in sharing what I was at that moment going through and part of it was, you know, just cash flow stress, which I was stressing on cash flow, and someone says they laughed I said Trev man, cash flow never goes away. As a trev man, cash flow never goes away. Now, the bigger your business gets, yeah, you may have more cash, but you're always going to stress on cash flow. That's the nature of cash flow. More employees just means more stress and more pressure on that.

Trevor Botkin: 22:49

But what was interesting was you know when they started sharing, you know how they have overcome certain aspects that I was talking about, and then you know some of the books they've read and and you know that kind of for me is this the first piece of it. In right away there's a shift of going okay, I'm not special, and as a middle child, I always want to be special, but when it comes to business challenges to not be special and that is instantly a relief. And the second piece of it is hearing affirmation from other people of saying no, like you're on the right track or whatever it is in that validation, to say it's small tweaks and most of us want to burn the house down and start building over. And those who have been there, done that and have the scars will say no, it's smaller adjustments that make the biggest difference, and so I think that's a profound thing.

Trevor Botkin: 23:44

I love what you're doing with Before the Business. I've had the great pleasure of being in your office where you've shared with me some of the products that they've sent to you, so I'm a big fan. I remember when you started during the pandemic, because we'd all gone virtual. Obviously, everyone was meeting virtually and you had this incredible idea and if people want to check it out, it's on Spotify.

Craig Swistun: 24:08

It's on all the major platforms. Before the business, there's a companion website, beforethebusinesscom, where really what we just try and do is give a one-page profile on who these business owners are. So if people could say what am I interested in? Oh, I'm interested in Afro-inspired soup. Let me listen to the founder of that company talk. And so BeforeTheBusinesscom, spotify, I guess. Google Podcasts is now down, but all the major Apple. We're using GoodPods a lot more lately. Goodpods is a social sharing app for podcasters, kind of like what goodreads does for books. It gives people a chance to interact directly with the content creators. But yeah, it's available pretty much everywhere I'd never heard of good pods.

Trevor Botkin: 24:50

I'm learning something today myself. And if a small business, if a community based business, uh, is out there today and they want to reach out to you and say I want to be on for the business, should they just go to the website and sign up through there?

Craig Swistun: 25:04

Yeah, that's easiest. I mean, the one tenant we've held pretty dear is we don't really take requests from unsolicited businesses because we don't have experience with the owners or with the products. So everything that we've done to date is by referral. So I'll flip it around Trevor, if you know a great business that's doing something really cool and really amazing that could use a little bit of a push, and I say, just get the opportunity to get their story out. Those are the folks we want to meet, because when they're recommended and referred, we already know they're great people.

Trevor Botkin: 25:37

Right, that's awesome. And if there's a charity that's listening today, or if there's somebody that sits on a board of a charity and they want to talk to you about the first part of our conversation in terms of financial literacy for charities, what's the best way for them to either find your blog information Because I know you've been prolific in terms of just sharing educational things on there or to reach out, either directly?

Craig Swistun: 26:00

Yeah, so we do a couple of things. We do a weekly market update, which is not really about charities. We also publish a newsletter every second month that focuses specifically on the needs of charities. They're all on the website at lexiconfinancialgroupcom. I'm being more active on LinkedIn than I ever have, if you want to hit me up on LinkedIn, but all of the content that we produce, whether it goes on LinkedIn, whether it goes on our website is on the website at lexiconfinancialgroupcom.

Trevor Botkin: 26:30

Beautiful, beautiful. Well, craig, thank you so much. I don't know if I say it enough, but I really appreciate having you in the community, not just because of what you do, but I think, with the stop playing with stuff on your desk. I don't want to hear that. Come on, man, I just lost my thought. I'm going to edit this out. Everyone's just going to know. This was a raw moment and the humility and the sense of, I think, the sense of play that you bring to it where, as so many financial people I've met over the years, you know there's a stress because it's people's money and they carry that stress and you have the same professionalism, without all of the stress because, at the end of the day, distress because at the end of the day, it's it. You know life should be more fun than you know. Ah, you know hair on fire running around dealing with stuff. So I just wanted to acknowledge that, yeah, I appreciate that, trevor, and I don't.

Craig Swistun: 27:29

You know, I think one of the things that is, that is a golden thread through everything that I do, is community. You know, we learn so much from the people around us and the people we surround ourselves with, and I find life is a lot more interesting when you surround yourself by people who are maybe not all in the same industry that you are, because sometimes you know people will say you have to specialize, specialize, specialize and put your heads down. And if you want to maximize, you know, the output of your business from a financial standpoint, you need to really dive in. There's some truth to that. It's just not who I am.

Craig Swistun: 28:02

I like doing different things, I like meeting different people. Before the business couldn't exist if I didn't have a 20 year career in marketing, advertising and design, not because of the technical skills that you accumulate along the way, but the people in the relationships that you that you accumulate along the way and stay close to. Because how do you go to a network and ask for referrals if you don't have a network? So community is super important and I think that the more we can do to foster and nurture positive community, the better off we are not just as individuals, but also as business owners in this country.

Trevor Botkin: 28:33

I love that. I couldn't have said it better myself. So, craig, thank you for joining us today and for everything you do. Thanks, trevor, and to everyone listening today, thank you for being here and hope to catch you at the next podcast. And this is where leaders connect.