Banking on KC – Rebecca Kidwell of Geeks for Kids: Mobility for Every Child
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Kelly Scanlon: Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Rebecca Kidwell, the founder of a tech company called Synthesis Solutions, as well as the co-founder of Learn Math and Science. One of their initiatives is Geeks for Kids, a nonprofit that we're gonna be talking extensively about today.
Welcome, Rebecca.
Rebecca Kidwell: Thank you for having me.
Kelly Scanlon: You've built a successful tech company. It's called Synthesis Solutions, but this nonprofit company, the Geeks for Kids, what was the aha realization that connected the two worlds for you
Rebecca Kidwell: as a person who is a planner and uh, spends a lot of time on strategy, but that's not what happened here.
I was busy with three toddlers under three and running a new company, and I was not thinking about launching a not-for-profit. I. And I didn't even think of it for some years after we actually did it. Somebody just asked us, because we are technical people, and I was coincidentally present while Kaufman Foundation was talking about expanding robotics education for children outside of high school.
So kindergarten through ninth grade was not really a thing here in Kansas City yet, and I was the only technical. Person in the room when they were talking about it. And it just became a request that we trial one small robotics team program for them to see what it was like. We'd be the Guinea pigs and then they could roll it out to others.
And they said, just 10 kids. And we thought, well. We could probably do that, we could take some time off work one day a week and 10 kids, while it wasn't, it was 63. Oh, wow. And we'd never seen any of the equipment until it arrived and we opened it with the children on the first day. And bit by bit, that evolved to about 50 programs a year.
And Learn was Born.
Kelly Scanlon: And like I said, Geeks for Kids is an initiative of Learn. Um, let's back up for just a minute. For people who may not be familiar with Synthesis solutions, what's your primary focus there?
Rebecca Kidwell: Web application development, um, for process improvement and large companies. So we write custom web applications for things like risk management, inventory management, tracking systems, that kind of thing.
Kelly Scanlon:And so then you have Learn and then an outgrowth of that is geek for kids. They're custom electric cars for kids. A lot of companies scale in various ways, uh, digitally or through technology or whatever, but you've chosen to create an impact by developing real world tangible solutions for these kids.
So tell us about what Geeks for Kids does.
Rebecca Kidwell: Again, we didn't set out to do this either. It was really our. Middle school, nine to 11, 12-year-old kids who wanted to take what they were doing in robotics and build something that lasted, something they didn't take apart at the end of the year. And we went looking for something that would engage and excite them and fulfill that vision.
And it was designing and building something for other children. And that led us to what became Geeks for Kids. I think we who were initially involved and learned were very technical people. It grew to include business people and, and people who bake cookies and plan parties. But, um, at that time, it takes everyone and everyone, it takes them grateful for the people.
We're not geeky like us because we don't do all that fundraising, et cetera. But when we began, I think all of us were looking to take what we do professionally and make great use of it in new ways that grew our skills and lit our fire too. It's awesome to do whatever we do in our real jobs. It's really enriching.
To do it for someone else to light someone else's fire to make their lights come on. Yeah. Tell us about the Cars Geeks for Kids. Build custom electric cars for children with movement limitations. We also build a number of other assistive devices, so um, every child gets a car, but they also get many other assistive devices.
Typically, I think the key to understanding what we do is one of the. Biggest challenges our kids face is that they don't have the mobility to do all the things that other kids. And all kids should do, and that might not be, it is not for one reason. A lot of times when I meet someone initially, they think that we must serve children who have cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy, and we do.
But people come to us for many reasons. I'm sad to say little children have strokes and they have heart attacks and they have cancer, and they may have other conditions that have nothing to do with mobility, but result in a mobility problem like. Blindness. If you can't see, it's hard to navigate very well.
So bit by bit, we came to define mobility or movement limitations as anything that hampers a child's movement. And I think another misconception that people have about the children we serve is, well, they can get around in wheelchairs or strollers or parents can carry them. Also not true sometimes, but those wheelchairs and strollers can't go everywhere A child wants to go, and not every child can get a wheelchair or get it on the timetable that they need or get the type that they need.
So for these reasons. There's a wealth of need and a limited set of solutions.
Kelly Scanlon: Yeah. So how do you connect with these children? Do you, um, seek them through other agencies or do they just know about you because you've been at this for a number of years? How does that connection occur?
Rebecca Kidwell: So when we first began, we were receiving referrals through Children's Mercy, usually occupational and physical therapy teams, and then it was St. Luke's Children's Spot and Advent Health Britain Development Center. And, and, and, and now all the, as far as I know, pediatric and occupational therapy clinics in Kansas City refer, but word of mouth also began to grow and has become probably a 50 50 split between professional referrals or.
Medical referrals and families telling other families, and that's how we meet them.
Kelly Scanlon: Yeah. You can't keep a good thing bottled up, can you?
Rebecca Kidwell: No. It's like feathers in the wind.
Kelly Scanlon: How many do you serve a year? How many children?
Rebecca Kidwell: Well, we began with one and this year we'll serve 93.
Kelly Scanlon: 93. Just through Geeks for Kids,
Rebecca Kidwell: just through Geeks for Kids.
Kelly Scanlon: Briefly walk us through that process of building one of these cars.
Rebecca Kidwell: Typically when a family applies for their child, they fill out a survey that's like 10 questions I can't remember, but very brief. And there's a process of getting to know them and studying what is possible for them and what is difficult for them, what they like and they don't like.
Um, and then we write up a design plan. The team meets, and I should say we're an all volunteer team, so I, I think, makes for the best possible team. It is the most wonderful aspect of being on our team is that everybody so wants to do this. Yes. That they're willing to give their time every day, all the day they meet, and we go through the design proposal.
They say, yes, we can do that, or maybe we need to do this differently. If it's something we haven't done before, then a team is assigned to investigate and propose solutions. When we have a completed requirements and design plan, we talk to the family. Again. If there's something new today, we, there are many things that we already know how to build and so we don't have to go through that process, and then construction begins.
For the last five years or so that we've been doing this, we've built on a ready-made toy car because when we began, there were lots of things that rolled and we didn't really need to reinvent that wheel literally. Instead, we needed first to concentrate on drive systems and supports and assistive devices that make those common things work for every child.
So we have bought a toy car made by Fisher-Price called a Dune Racer for the last five years. Ish. It was discontinued in January. That's a huge design road bump we'll talk about in a minute, but we buy them as kind of a kit. That's how they're sold in a store. But we strip out the wiring, we. Reconstruct it in a variety of ways.
And then we begin putting in custom PCBs and computers and then those assistive devices like drive system supports and other things that help the child be safe and use the car comfortably.
Kelly Scanlon: So you start, so you start with a, a basic structure, but then. Uh, after that everything is completely customized to each child.
Correct. Wow. Pretty much. How long does it take to build one of these? About 400 hours per car. Okay. Alright, so some time involved there. What are some of the innovative approaches that you've taken to sustain your nonprofit financially? And you've mentioned the cars that you buy, the parts can't be cheap, and how has have Kansas City businesses played a role in that?
Rebecca Kidwell: They play a big role. So the cars today cost us somewhere between last year's average was $4,500 per car to build this year. We don't know until we close out our year, but I think it's going to be in the 5,500 or 6,000 because of so many cost challenges, how we support.
Gee, for kids is probably the least innovative of the things we do. And that's because we're really technical people. And until this last year, um, we had only technical people, principally only technical people on the design team or the core team of planners. That means we're not very good at that marketing, fundraising, accounting kind of stuff.
So our efforts weren't remotely. Innovative instead, they were very traditional and to a degree they still are. Prior to COVID, we funded all expenses out of the income from our classes and camps and the reserve that it had built over the years. And you know, we weren't making that many cars and we had had many years to build a reserve, and so we just.
Paid for it that way, or my company paid for it and that was great. But COVID was, you know, a nexus between the upward trend in car production and the downward trend to zero in income. And that's when we began to think. This does not work. Mathematically, we're good at math and that wasn't going to work.
So, um, zero plus zero still equals zero. Yes. Um, very clever, good banker. Um, so that's when we began to realize that we had to become more. Fundraising and marketing oriented. Today, about half of our income comes through corporate sponsorships, maybe 45% from individual donations, and then five ish or less percent from grants.
Okay. And so obviously the local community plays a huge role. Local businesses in particular in those corporate sponsorships. This year's budget. Was about $500,000 and we're going to exceed it. Mm-hmm. Because the cost of gone, everything that we had assigned a cost to is not the cost that it is actually going to be.
So you asked about innovation in the business side, and that's what we're trying to grow. Besides learning to simply do the basics that lots of people already do really well, like fundraising, we. Have begun and had always thought to one day patent some of our work license that content and then, but only for markets outside of the child, um, you know, product needs.
Kelly Scanlon: So are you talking about patenting and licensing so that other children can be served in areas outside of Kansas City or are you talking about using it for other applications?
Rebecca Kidwell: Other customer markets. So we already serve children outside of Kansas City, and as a result, our goal is to. Continue to serve more and more children wherever they are and for whatever they need, but maybe to license our products for use in the adult markets.
Kelly Scanlon: So another vertical there. Uh, same kind of idea, but uh, different age range. Yeah.
Rebecca Kidwell: The more we do what we do, the more we are asked, will you do this for my son who's 32? Or My walker's not nearly as good as what you are making. Can you make me one? Exactly. And we're like, oh, well, hadn't thought of that yet.
Kelly Scanlon: What kind of lessons have you learned, uh, about leading across all these sectors? You've mentioned it, you have the engineers and the tech. Uh, folks who volunteer in the actual creation of these cars and devices. And then you've got another group of people who help with the fundraising and the marketing, and you just, you just have a lot of different people that you're coordinating.
So, so what have you learned about working across sectors like that and the collaboration that's needed?
Rebecca Kidwell: I think everything I've ever done and I would say everything our team has ever done, has always been multidisciplinary and it really wouldn't be what we do. It wouldn't work and wouldn't produce the products we produce if it didn't have that rich, uh, varied tool set and that tool set being skillset right.
It's just richer day by day as more people join in and it's so relieving as people with different skill sets join the team. Do you have a coordinator or is that you? That would be me for the time being.
Kelly Scanlon: Say that's a full-time job, it sounds like
Rebecca Kidwell: For 20 years I've worked about a hundred hours a week.
Kelly Scanlon: Mm, my goodness.
Rebecca Kidwell: And I'm looking forward to the day when. That business team Yeah. Moves up
Kelly Scanlon: into the lead leadership role. That's a lot. That sure is a lot. So, um, you know, you've, you've delivered now hundreds of cars, uh, to children. Do you have any stories that you can share?
Rebecca Kidwell: Oh gosh, I. Really profoundly serious, sincerely mean when I say every single child is a story worth hearing.
I'm sure they all have many stories, but it's very hard. It's like picking one of your own children as a favorite, and that's not the case. But I did bring one just because I think this case, this child's experience. Is not what people think of. One little guy, his family applied on his behalf about three years ago.
His name is Milo, and uh, he was two. What his parents asked for was some way for him to join in with his sister and the neighborhood kids in this cul-de-sac where everybody gathered. Um, but they said he sat at the picture window and watched them play and never got to go out and play. So after he got his car, his mom sent us all these lovely videos, but one of the most mo moving was this picture of him out in the cul-de-sac with a line all the way to the end of the street of people waiting to be in the car with him.
And she said Milo was the most popular kid. Yeah. And then, you know, mean, you know, that's what we all want. But because that's the familiar, I wanted to talk about another case, and that's a child for whom we built a car this year and delivered September, October in California and she's 17, or she was at that time, 17.
That is not what people think. Wow. Um. They often also don't think beyond our city limits. They may not think of her condition or situation when they think of us or when they think of children with mobility limitations. And in fact, this child, uh, was pretty mobile along part of her life, even though she had.
Significant, um, health problems and had had over a hundred surgeries in her first 17 years. She was pretty mobile and then she developed on top of all the other difficulties, a brain tumor and she lost a lot of ground and was. Much less mobile and much less engaged with the world. And so her parents asked if we could make a car.
And at first I thought, oh dear 17, will she fit? And she's just a very petite person. And so age is not the determiner, but just whether a child can fit. Um, and when her mom talks about her, like all the moms. You just can't say no. Um, and she wrote and she said, on top of everything else and all these surgeries, the medications cause significant fatigue and physical disruption, and she knows that she can't do.
The things that she used to do and is pining for them. So having a car would let her make new friends and engage with those friends. Um, and it would be the most exciting part of her day to drive to the park. What we learned when we went to visit with the family and deliver their car was that Lily grace, though she, um, doesn't talk out loud in the ways we do, is the most.
Impish feisty, slightly naughty little girl. And even with all these problems, uh, she finds ways to, you know, tweak the game and Right, right. Engage other people in what she's doing. And it was wonderful to see her take advantage of a tool that.
We in the beginning didn't conceive of it's a hundred hours a week.
Kelly Scanlon: Yeah. Worthwhile, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, just segueing off of that, we all know business owners know running a business is hard. Running a nonprofit is hard. You're doing both. You mentioned you've been working for years, a hundred hours a week. What is it that keeps you going and how do you define success across two very different but interconnected roles here.
For-profit synthesis solutions business. Well, I think
Rebecca Kidwell: success in my work is the same in both places, but the outcome is not. Success is breaking new ground, solving interesting problems, helping people find better and new ways to do things. That's my real job and that's my volunteer job. But there is magic in making things that change people's lives radically and lastingly.
And I think that is the thing that makes, going to my job every day, my real job, I. More enriching because I've done something every day that
Kelly Scanlon: that's just, um, electrifying from your vantage point. How can small businesses, and I'm asking about small businesses in particular, because usually they're, you know, nose down, uh, not even sometimes having the time to take advantage of business classes that are available to them, uh, they don't even have time for that.
So how can small businesses integrate social impact into their core mission like you have done with. Importantly without losing the focus on their other business or their profitability.
Rebecca Kidwell: I can't say for sure how others might do it, but I can share how we did it. Again, not intentionally, but it was a fabulous accident when we realized we didn't have five to 10 kids in that robotics group, but 63, we just closed our company every Friday afternoon and took the whole team and went and taught robotics and we worried that it would affect production, but.
We grew that year from a million to a lot more. Um,
Kelly Scanlon: were people more productive because they were more on fire, do you think? Was that, or did you have innovations that helped close that gap?
Rebecca Kidwell: I think they were more productive because they were more satisfied. But I also think we learn new things. Ah, yes.
Lots of new things. Yeah. Maybe not things that are directly applicable initially. Mm-hmm. But they make our business richer. They make our lives richer. But in the end, I think they open new avenues for what we do. I won't say that's necessarily true for everybody else's experience, but I think when you and your team get smarter, have new capabilities, new connections in the community, I.
Then I think, um, success follows.
Kelly Scanlon: You mentioned that your core element of your car has been discontinued, your base is gone. What are you gonna do?
Rebecca Kidwell: Oh gosh, I wish I had the answer. Uh, we're getting closer. We had always, always intended when we had met the challenge of. Producing drive systems that met every child's need.
Pro producing supports that kept every child in that course and not on the ground or under the car. Important. Yes. Um, and these other assistive devices, and I'll explain what an other assistive device is in a minute, but when we felt like we had reached that pinnacle where we were meeting most kids' needs, then we wanted to make a next gen car from scratch.
Oh wow. 'cause the base car was never. Perfect far from, but sufficient for many of our kids' needs initially. But as we learned and grew, we realized that big kids want big toys too, and that the toys, quote unquote, in this case, tools like wheelchairs and walkers weren't sufficient, and that. Lots of people, many of them children get hurt in wheelchair tip overs and or even killed Those things began to expand our vision of what those next generation cars needed to be.
So it was always on our agenda. And 18 months ago we hit the milestone. We hadn't needed to build a new drive system. I mean, we build new drive systems all the time, but a new type of drive system for more than a year, and that was. Checkpoint, we knew when we hit that point we could start talking about investing more engineering development time in the next gener vehicle.
Well, the discontinuation of our base car is causing a major hiccup in that plan because, uh, you still have to re-engineer and retool for an entirely new base car, whether it's a brand new one you build or it's a new one someone else has built. So we've. Spent the last, we learned of this in late December, early January.
We spent the last few months buying every single other car we could find soon. I think we'll pick one of those other bases and use it for some time until we can get the next gen vehicle made.
Kelly Scanlon: Which will be your own creation. Correct. You'll have your own proprietary base car,
Rebecca Kidwell: I would say.
Kelly Scanlon: Bases,
Rebecca Kidwell: you know, we are, we're more aware now that there's not a one size fits all solution, but definitely proprietary
Kelly Scanlon: Beyond creating the new base for your car.
Um, more broadly, how do you see the future of geeks for kids shaping up?
Rebecca Kidwell: So is a big elephant. I mean, I don't like eating elephants, but it's a big elephant to eat in itself to meet the mobility needs of. Children all over the US and maybe beyond. And we already have a second initiative called Invent for Good, which is a daughter of Geeks for kids.
And it was born during COVID when our kids, our own students could not come in, but also all the fellow robotics teams and other students who were participating in Geeks for Kids couldn't come either to us nor even to their schools and their teams. So we rolled out an initiative inviting kids to work where they are with the people that they were sheltering with, to design and prototype some of the assistive devices that our kids needed and propose those solutions to us.
And we would mentor them over the course of their semester, school year, or sometimes beyond, to create those creations. So the grander plan for learns. Um, design build initiatives is to, to make more kinds of devices, to serve more children with MO mobility needs, and eventually perhaps to meet more children's needs beyond mobility.
But in addition to build our distribution network across the United States to build the Invent for Good program, which is both a design build. Resource for us and for them, but also eventually I think, could be a partnership that helps with some of that distribution. Because with distribution comes maintenance and with maintenance comes long distance right now, uh, support, and that's very difficult to help a person who's having a technical problem in Minnesota.
Kelly Scanlon: What is the advantage of keeping this as a non-profit versus a for-profit business?
Rebecca Kidwell: I don't think any corporation would let us give the cars away for free or other assistive devices. Um, we made a decision early on that we would charge nothing. Um, that's been a decision debated by many since then, but I'll speak only for myself.
My belief is life is hard for all of us. Some of the time, and for many of our family's life is hard most of the time, and we've been told by foundations I won't name and by others, but you know, there are many people you're serving who could afford to pay. I think we haven't walked in their shoes. Their lives are often, even if they are middle class or upper class, so weighed down by the many expenses, but also the emotional and logistical demands, the like of which I'm.
Grateful. I do not know that. I just don't think they need one more headache.
Kelly Scanlon: It sounds like there's so many ways that people and companies too could get involved in this wonderful mission that you're carrying out. Can you tell us about some of those? Yep. So first, let's talk about individuals.
Rebecca Kidwell: Again, this is a place where lots of people, probably, because Geeks for Kids sounds like a very geeky project and it is, but.
There are so many needs. We need people to help conduct interviews. We need people to help do design work. We need marketing people. We need bakers and sewers and party planners, so there's something that, that everyone can contribute. Grant writers, oh Lord in heaven, grant writers, um. Everybody can contribute, but also everybody can experience the joy that we experience on delivery day.
I know of it's like plugging your finger in an electric outlet in a really wonderful way. So for individuals. There's something everybody can contribute for companies. I would say that there are a number of reasons companies benefit from getting involved and there's so many we benefit from by their involvement.
Just like my company, I think it really grows your staff. I think it really expands your own and your. Teams network because we are a very technical group with lots of skills and an opportunity to be a resource in both learning those skills, but also. Meeting people that you need to know when you have a problem down the line.
Right. And I think it's a very enriching and nurturing thing to do something with your skills that matter. I spent many years as I think every parent has those bake sales and envelope stuffing sessions, and they're great too, but it's not the same as doing something that you are best at. Instead. So it's, I think a more enriching experience, the ways that companies can get involved from, you know, the other side of the fence, obviously our sponsorships, but also in helping with distribution.
I. We are looking for hosts so we can go to Cleveland and Denver as we are this year and have somewhere to park the cars to invite the families in and to host the events. 'cause we can't put our babies out in hot weather and the rain. And we usually have to deliver on the day we fly in and because yeah, fly back out.
We need distribution hubs where some people could provide some support. If the child rams his car into the wall and breaks it, somebody's gotta fix it can help with. Building a mentorship program for our Invent for Good teams because I'm, I'm the mentor for all 48 teams right now. That's not very sustainable.
Lots and lots of ways to plug in.
Kelly Scanlon: Yeah. And all of these are offered in more detail on your website, right? Absolutely. For sure. And what is that website?
Rebecca Kidwell: Geeks.learnscienceandmathclub.org.
Kelly Scanlon: That's kind of long. It is. I know. If you didn't catch that. That website, uh, just Google Geeks for Kids KC.
Rebecca, thank you so much for coming and sharing your story. Wow, I got an hour of your a hundred hours a week. Uh, that's great. I appreciate you sharing the story and for all that you and your teams and volunteers do to help these children. Well, thank you. It was a pleasure.
Joe Close: This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Rebecca Kidwell for being our guest. On this episode of Banking on KC Rebecca shared how her nonprofit bridges the worlds of technology and compassion, designing mobility solutions that empower children to engage with their peers, explore their environments, and rediscover this simple joy of play.
What began as a simple volunteer effort has evolved into a life-changing initiative that now serves nearly 100 children annually with plans to scale even further. Her story reminds us that the greatest innovations often arise when we blend professional skills with purpose-driven action. At Country Club Bank, we believe in fostering that same spirit, helping businesses, nonprofits, and individuals leverage their strengths to create lasting impact in our community.
Thanks for tuning in. This week we're Banking on You, Kansas City. Country Club Bank, member FDIC.