We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ishaan Patel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ishaan , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

My nonprofit, Under My Umbrella serves the underserved community through our 4 programs. Our Neighbor Outreach program distributes hot meals, water, hygiene products, and basic essentials each week to our unsheltered neighbors. Our Rainy Day Program is where we fill in small but urgent needs in our community. Our UMU Youth Academy is our youth outreach program where we bring sports, the arts, and music to youth who may not have access to those activities. Our Holiday Outreach is our longest running program that I started in 2015 where we share the holiday spirit by providing mini trees and mini menorahs to families and seniors.

Recently, we helped a local single mother who was in need of groceries. She was working 3 jobs but was just a little short that week for groceries for her and her children. We were able to help right away. We asked her what exactly she needed so she gave me a list. Then I went to purchase the groceries and deliver them to her. She was extremely grateful and I felt fulfilled and happy that even though my nonprofit is small, we could help this family.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Ishaan. I am a junior in high school. I have a younger brother who is also a co-founder of our nonprofit and a rescue dog named Moro. I have done outreach with my family for years but we officially formed our nonprofit on 9.9.2022. My mom always volunteered and found ways to include us kids. Once we got a little older and could help more, we started doing outreach on our own like with our Holiday event and our weekly downtown distributions.

The most important thing is to get started. You don’t have to start big, you can start small and take little steps to help. Everyone can do a little something whether it’s decorating brown paper bags if you are a younger kid or helping sort clothing or helping to fundraise or whatever you can do to help. My mom always says that if you do something consistently and make it a habit then it doesn’t feel like extra work, it’s just something you do like brushing your teeth or working out.

I am most proud of Under My Umbrella’s ability to have our community come together to help those in need. We have ways for everyone to help whether you are younger or older or 1 person or a group. What sets us apart is that we are just regular people serving our community the best we can.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

There is no manual for doing the work we do because many times, we are the first to do it or we have not done it ourselves before. For example, the first time we wanted to do a coffee bar for our downtown unsheltered distributions, we had no idea what do to. We had to get Cambros to make sure the water stayed hot. We had to purchase creamers and sugar and coffee. At the time, none of us were coffee drinkers so we bought coffee but not instant coffee. When we got to downtown to distribute, people were excited about getting hot coffee but when we tried to make it, the coffee didn’t dissolve. We ended up only gaving out the hot cocoa that we had as backup. And we learned that we needed to buy instant coffee. The next week, we came back with the correct type of coffee which the people enjoyed. The lesson is that mistakes will be made but you learn from them and you move on and do better next time.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe that our reputation is based on transparency, hard work, and meaningful ways to help. For example, UMU has a spreadsheet that lists every donation and every distribution that anyone can access. We also have a public spreadsheet of all resources that we share with other nonprofits. We show every step of the work from the preparation to the distribution to the clean up afterwards and our family is involved in every step. My grandmother will prepare meals for our unsheltered communities. My brother and I will help prep, pick up donations, load the cars, serve, etc. My mom helps us stay on track and keeps us all organized. It is hard work though. Our distributions during the school year can be difficult since my brother and I are still in school. Our after-school distributions often take hours because of traffic and I have to do homework in the car. But it is worth it because often times larger groups do distributions during the weekends so we try to fill in the gaps by going during the weekdays especially in the summer when water and hydration is important for those experiencing homelessness. My nonprofit also focuses on meaningful ways to help. Direct and mindful outreach is how a small nonprofit like ours can make a big impact. If you need a pair of socks, we bring you a pair of socks…not 10 tshirts. If what you need is a phone charger, we try to bring that. We always ask the people we help what we can do to help them best because they know what they need that can best help them. And sometimes it’s just talking to someone or helping them walk back to their tent with supplies. I think we do a good job leading by example and knowing that we are also learning while leading and striving to do better every day.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.under-my-umbrella.org
• Instagram: under_my_umbrella_dfw
• Facebook: UnderMyUmbrellaDFW