We were lucky to catch up with Aaron MacDonald recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Aaron, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
My friend, Mike Harris, and I came up with the idea when he retired from the Grand Rapids Police Department. After asking him what he planned on doing he said he wouldn’t mind doing something part time or may be starting a business of some sort. He asked me if I would help him out since I had started a couple small businesses in the past, and of course say Said yes. I asked him what kind of business and he said maybe a nonprofit or something to help kids. I told him with a nonprofit. You have to solve a problem and then asked him what problem resolved? He replied “racism“ without hesitation. He is African-American and I am Caucasian and had slightly different views in the beginning, but both wanted to solve the problem. I said “in my opinion, you can’t solve the problem unless everyone feels like they’re part of the solution“ and after putting our heads together, we came up with something that would include everyone and an organization that everyone could feel part of… we decided to try to come up with a name for the organization, and later that day as I pulled in the driveway, it hit me from nowhere….”BOAR” or Brothers Of All Races. I gave him a phone call and couldn’t wait to tell him the name I thought of and he loved it! We decided that we needed another sister organization called SOAR “ Ssters Of All Races” to work in conjunction with BOAR.
We decided to take groups of kids in and introduced them to each other from different walks of life, different racial backgrounds, different, social economic, backgrounds and regions of geography. We thought it would be a good idea to bring speakers in to talk to the kids to motivate, tell their stories, and show how the world should be united. We trademarked the phrase “united as one race… The human race” and use the slogan on our website and apparel to spread the word.
Before long, we added to the program, not only other guest speakers but also business owners who also had a need to fill employment gaps and promote diversity in the workplace. What a great way to make this connection with positive youth, and open minded, business owners! The program started growing from there and hits on the website started popping up from around the globe!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My background consist of growing up in Michigan, starting out, working various jobs to put myself through college, such as factory, work, lumberyards, and various industries until I reached my goal. I started out at Grand Rapids community college, transferred to Grandvalley State University, and found myself working in commercial business to business sales. I worked in a few different sales industries, such as commercial, sales, energy, sales, medical device, sales, and Renewal By Andersen sales currently. It’s very demanding working full-time and finding time to grow/build a business and stay on top of all the little things that need to be done to make sure things run smoothly. .
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
The cofounder of the company, Michael Harris, and I met at Grand rapids community college. We went to school before the days of Internet and social media so it’s time with Dan. We lost touch as many people do. Fast forward to almost 15 years ago as luck would have it, we both walked into the same store and were able to stay in touch ever cents. We quickly became best, friends, business partners, and ready to make a difference in the world! Our personalities are very similar and both very high energy! At one point in the business meeting, we had a very well-known large organization, offering to buy us out, which we probably refused. The representative of the organization appreciated her reasoning and respected our decision, but we both thought it was funny that they gave some feedback that made us both left. They said “you guys are both very high energy are you!?” We laughed because it was not the first time we’ve heard this… but never in a direct manner by someone who really didn’t know us. We make a great team and have each others backs. He’s more like a brother to me and we know we have something really special here! One of the most enjoyable things we’d like to do is wear our shirts or hoodies out in public, and it never ceases to amaze me how many times people stop us and complement the shirts, the message, and ask where we bought them. Then of course, we tell them that it’s our company and can’t help but smile with pride! Before we had our trademarks in place, we actually took a trip to Florida with the T-shirts on and decided it would be smart to take them off because we were stopped roughly 12 times in less than an hour while walking down the boardwalk. Lol.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When we were first getting started, we realized how much overhead was going to be involved in getting products, websites, other professional services, etc. in place. Instead of stressing ourselves out, taking loans and selling everything we had we decided to reach out to potential donors. Mike had a good friend who we first met with who is very wealthy and has a good heart so we knew he would love this organization. He was correct and he did love you organization, but gave us a great lesson in business, although we didn’t necessarily want to hear it this way. When I finally beat around the bush and of over a lunch meeting and asked him for a donation, he probably said “well if you believe in yourself enough, you’ll put your own money into it And you’ll make it happen!“. Then he said if we did this and made it work to come back and show him what we had done and he would help us out at that point. Definitely wasn’t what we wanted to hear but I completely understand where he’s coming from today. we put our own money into it, all the hard work, and about one year later give him a call to meet him again. He was very impressed with what we had done and kept his word writing us a nice check to get things, pushed along, even further! The lesson was that you will value something a lot more when you put your own hard earned money into it, and you are invested in this way. I think he wanted to make sure we were serious about it and willing to take the risk. It was a great lesson that we will no doubt try to teach others!
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.brothersofallraces.com
- Instagram: Brothersofallraces
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brothersofallraces?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/brothers-of-all-races-sisters-of-all-races-3887a1260