What is Equipment Finance Cares & Why YOU Should Be a Part of It

My wife Brooke started Paperclip Publishing in the middle of 2020. I offered to assist her with her marketing and overall company direction, I mean why not have another pandemic hobby right?

As we started to interview authors to begin this journey with, I immediately thought of my long time industry friend, Lovern Gordon. Lovern and I met at my first conference in 2005 and I was familiar with her foundation, Love Life Now. We had a conference call, the stars aligned and fast forward to January, Lovern completed her domestic violence memoir with the Paperclip team. Working with Lovern on this project, listening to her story, experiencing several others come forward with similar stories and learning the statistics was gut wrenching experience. Lovern and I were on a marketing call in March (book release was on June 1st 2021) and we were discussing how to leverage our almost 40 years of combined equipment finance experience to drive awareness
to the domestic violence epidemic that is plaguing our world.

Another COVID hobby of mine was creating the “Fireside Chats with Jesse" YouTube series. This platform provided me an opportunity to interview/showcase equipment finance professionals in the industry. On these chats we discuss several thought leadership topics from industry trends, employee retention, best practices, etc. I had done a few of these with a few people in MN and over the years have established several relationships with people in the state. Lovern was booked for a NEFA event where she was going to have one of her first official book signings. Looking to capitalize on the trip I asked a few organizations if they would be interested in learning more about Lovern’s project. There was an overwhelming show of support to not only hear her story but to learn from others in the industry as well. Let’s face it, people were eager to get back to in person events.

I then reached out to Deb Rueben to see if she would be interested in moderating a panel for an event. Deb being the “awesome” individual that she is jumped at the opportunity. Two weeks and several phone calls later we had event sponsors, panelists and a venue for the event. I was even able to get a few other individuals to discuss the foundations that their organizations support.

All we needed was a name and it wasn’t hard to come up with, thus Equipment Finance Cares was born. Four months and two completed events later the Equipment Finance Cares initiative is in full swing. We recently formed an advisory council and have our third event coming up in November. Some highlights from our first two events: over 100 attendees from 56 different equipment finance organizations, 11 foundations showcased, with over 3k in net proceeds donated. I would personally like to that Blair and NEFA for their support of the EFC initiative. Along with the 25 different sponsor organizations, without them these events would not be possible.