Coeur d’Alene resident takes giving back to a new level.
You grab the microphone; your hands are shaking. Stepping onto the stage, you turn to face the audience. The televisions are splayed across the room, their volume lowered, but the sports games and shows are flickering in your eyes. Your senses are blurred. Is that the bartender, his voice carries across the room as he asks a couple what they would like to drink?
The pool tables are empty, save for a few small children rolling the cue ball across the green felt, their little hands barely able to reach the top. There are close to 100 people looking intently, waiting patiently to hear you speak.
All eyes are on you.
A camera set 3 feet in front of you starts recording. You take a deep breath and begin.
Five minutes.
That’s all you have to convince everyone in that room that your non-profit is worthy of their vote — and their money. You have five minutes to tell them a story that will move them. It’s a small amount of time to win over the crowd. Your competition: two other people, representing their own non-profit foundation.
Once the stories have been told, the audience turns in their ballets. Numbers are tallied, and soon, the winner is announced. Each audience member donates $100, money that is pooled into a larger pot. For this gathering, the pot totaled $11,500.
This is the Impact Club Coeur d’Alene, a local chapter of a national movement that pools money from its members and donates it to charities. The Impact Club’s philanthropic mission spoke loudly to Cole Turnbull, who in 2017 brought the Club to his hometown of Coeur d’Alene. Since then, the chapter has grown to over 114 members and has contributed $75,000 to local charities in Kootenai County.
Some people intuitively know that they want to do more in life.
Maybe it is due to the loss of a loved one at an early age, or maybe it is simply having the presence of mind to know that they want to make a difference with the time they are given.
Cole started taking steps of change early on.
He was only 3 years old when his father passed away. Having grown up with stories and pictures of a father he can barely recall, he chooses to remember the values and work ethic, the love his father showed to those around him, and the contributions he gave in the once small town of Coeur d’Alene. Cole glances away as he recalls one of those stories.
His voice filled with pride, he talks about how his father was an instrumental part of building the Turnbull Athletic Field at Canfield Middle School in the 1980’s. His father passed before he could see it to completion. That story of how his father worked toward building something, donating his own time and money toward those baseball fields, has stayed with Cole throughout the years.
Cole is building his own a reputation of hard work and making an even greater impact on the community by helping to build a platform of giving.
After attending college at Arizona State College, Cole moved back to Coeur d’Alene in 2007. He had big dreams of working in real estate. The economy had other plans for him.
Trying to make a name for himself as a Realtor in a struggling economy, Cole had to work two jobs — one as a valet at the Coeur d’Alene Resort. That experience, Cole says, taught him to hustle.
“It was a good experience, but as far as getting me to where I wanted to go…it didn’t move the needle.”
He had other pursuits.
In October 2016, Cole began what is now known as “Coeur d’Alene Advice Givers,” a podcast that invites local business owners, entrepreneurs and non-profit leaders to speak about their experiences in their field of expertise.
His idea not only helps businesses get more attention, but for Cole, it has allowed him to hear their failures as well as their successes, teaching him more than he would ever gain from any self-help book.
Working in real estate is a good career, but Cole isn’t a guy satisfied with doing one thing. The podcasts have allowed him to pursue other interests and broaden his knowledge.
“I get to pick the brain of business owners and people that go through a lot of the same issues and challenges that I do on a day-to-day basis, as well as helping them get their name out there and get recognized,” he says.
Over the last couple of years, Cole has begun stretching his business skills and rethinking his career goals. He started building a media company as well as trying his hand at other business ventures.
“Right now, the economy is great,” he says. “But I don’t want to be showing houses and buildings my entire life. I don’t necessarily want to get out of (real estate). I want to take a more business-owner approach.”
He perks up, excited to share his thoughts.
Cole doesn’t want to rely on real estate as his only source of income. The ebb and flow of the industry doesn’t settle well with him. Instead, he sees real estate as a vehicle to get to where he wants to go.
He reflects on the moment when his thinking began to shift.
“It was probably when my wife became pregnant that things changed for me,” he says. “Play time is over!”
He says this with his trademark side smirk. It is a part of his charm. He is proud to be a husband and father. And he knows now that he has a legacy to build for his daughter.
In 2017, Cole partnered with his friend and mentor Ryan Fletcher, a real estate agent from Vancouver, to begin a local chapter of Impact Club. The Club, which Ryan founded in 2016, uses a platform designed to make massive impacts in our community. There are no fees, bank accounts or individuals who benefit. Every dollar donated goes to local charities.
The Coeur d’Alene chapter is one of 16 around the nation. Anyone can be a member and it is easy to sign up. Each Impact Club member contributes $100 quarterly — nothing more, nothing less. Members are encouraged to come together at a local establishment for drinks and appetizers and hear three local non-profits tell their story. The Club members vote on the most compelling story, and the winner gets a check that same evening.
Kelan McKeirnan, a local firefighter, is not only a member of Coeur d’Alene’s Impact Club, but he has benefited from its generosity. In December 2018, Kelan represented the Kootenai County Police and Fire Memorial, which helps provide financial support for local Kootenai County first responders and their families who experience unforeseen illness, injury or death.
As one of three speakers at the Club event, Kelan had only five minutes to tell not only his personal battle with stomach cancer but also his son Maddex’s battle with bilateral retinoblastoma, a rare type of eye cancer that he was diagnosed with in 2017 at barely a year old.
There was not a dry eye in the room as Kelan told the story of how he struggled to balance work and care for his son. For Kelan, whose charity won that night, the Impact Club does precisely what its name says it does.\
Story continues after a quick message from our sponsor below.
“It truly makes such an impact to see the people who are benefitting from this club,” he says, noting that after a 14-month battle, his won his fight with cancer. “Having it be local and stay local is what is important to me.”
To date, Cole has hosted seven Club meetings. His first, he admits he felt a bit of fear. Fear that no one would come; fear that it wouldn’t be successful.
He remembers the nervousness that crept over him as the kick-off drew closer. With less than 30 days to campaign for the event, he wondered if he would be able to convince people to attend and donate. That fear subsided as so many gravitated to the concept. The day of the event, more than 70 people signed up to become members.
“I can’t put into words the ultimate high it was to be able to hear these stories, and within an hour, hand this much money to a foundation with an incredible story,” he says.
There’s also a bittersweet feeling. Cole’s voice lowers as he talks about his mother. His face fills with sadness. She passed away shortly after attending the first Impact Club event. He hopes he was able to make her proud.
The energy Cole put toward promoting and hosting that first Club event remains today in all of his endeavors. He shrugs at the thought, as if to say, “It’s not that big of a deal.”
It’s his family he wants to make proud. Family drives him. It’s what fuels the passion for everything he does and what makes him work so hard.
He contemplates the things that stoke the fi re within him. He pauses, then with a look of a man who is internally driven by helping others, he sums it up with one word“Gratitude,” he says. N
By Theresa Whitlock-Wild
Photography By Joel Riner
As Featured In: Summer/Fall 2019 CDA
