Brandon Steppe: “Shoulder to Shoulder” Mentorship That Changes Lives
Hey, Grant.
Grant Oliphant:Hi, Crystal.
Crystal Page:How are you today?
Grant Oliphant:No. I'm really good. We just wrapped up a conversation with Brandon Stepp from David's Heart Foundation. Extraordinary leader and extraordinary work.
Crystal Page:Yeah. I've seen his TED Talk, and he just uses such visual language. I'm excited to to discuss this interview.
Grant Oliphant:Well, you are the one who tipped me off to his TED Talk, and it is hit this conversation with him is everything you'd expect from that TED Talk and more. It just gives so much insight into working with young people, the power of creativity, why it's so good for mental health, why it is a jumping off point for better, stronger communities. Honestly, as America's looking for ways to rebound and grow stronger, let's start here.
Crystal Page:Shall we dive in?
Grant Oliphant:Let's dive in.
Crystal Page:Let's do it.
Grant Oliphant:Okay. I am here with Brandon Stepp, the director of the David's Harp Foundation, and what a joy it is to be with you. Thank you for being here.
Brandon Steppe:No. It's definitely an honor, Grant. Yeah. This is an amazing setup. As a media person, I'm like
Grant Oliphant:I know. I'm a little I'm a little intimidated talking to you. So but we're gonna we're gonna dive right in. You know, I was I was reading yesterday, in a story that the the worst place to begin any story is at the beginning.
Grant Oliphant:But I'm gonna begin at the beginning to the extent that your story has a beginning, which is the moment when you decided to leave a nice corporate track that you were on and a and a management job that you had to follow this dream of starting something literally in your garage
Brandon Steppe:Right.
Grant Oliphant:But not a tech company. I mean, kind of a tech company, but Yeah. But a musical tech company focused on kids and young people.
Brandon Steppe:Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:Tell us a little bit about what made you make that decision.
Brandon Steppe:Sure. So I have to backtrack a little. So I would like to take the credit that I left for that altruistic purpose, but that's not the case.
Brandon Steppe:Right? So like anything, I left to start a business in a garage.
Grant Oliphant:Not necessarily that business.
Brandon Steppe:Not a tech company, definitely not that business. And in the process young people found out about that garage recording studio and wanted to be in it.
Brandon Steppe:And so I was very hesitant to let them in because I was also trying to start a business but one young man named Rayvon was persistent, he wouldn't take no for an answer and so came one day said hey I want to be in this recording studio, I said, alright, I'll give you a shot tomorrow, be here at 03:00. And so he came at 03:45, and I was like, hey, you missed it. It's too late, you missed it. He's like, alright, just give me another chance. Like, I'm I'm working.
Brandon Steppe:I was like, alright. So the next day I said, be here at 03:00, so the next day he's there at 02:30. Right. Right? And I didn't know school didn't get out till 03:30.
Brandon Steppe:So they could cut school to make it to the studio. And I said, oh, you didn't have to do that. You should have just told me.
Grant Oliphant:Mhmm.
Brandon Steppe:But that is the power of that platform. And, yeah, but so I I ended up leaving that corporate job and being in that space thinking I was gonna do music and also media production, but young people absolutely changed my trajectory.
Grant Oliphant:So yeah. And and when you say they found you, how did they find you?
Brandon Steppe:Well, they found out through the grapevine as I was hammering and banging in that garage, creating a a really nice recording space. And a young man named Hara walked up and kinda was the first brave one to peek his head in. Now and I'm from Southeast San Diego originally, and this was in the the community of Emerald Hills.
Grant Oliphant:So Okay.
Brandon Steppe:Once he knew, everybody knew. And the young people started to not just know about the studio, but then want to participate, right, to be in that thing, to make music. And we weren't a nonprofit, and I wasn't thinking nonprofit, but what I saw was the power of the platform of music when this young man Ray Vaughan would come in, like literally, you could see him just become a kid again. And this is a young person that was contemplating gang membership and contemplating doing different things that weren't going to be healthy. And so I found myself then seeing the power of this platform, not quite sure what to do with it.
Brandon Steppe:You know, what do I do with it?
Grant Oliphant:Well, what what gave you the idea then to to change what you had intended to do with that business and having it become a social enterprise?
Brandon Steppe:The real catalyst was a moment of legacy and, like, a sense that I needed to give back to the community. Mhmm. And that coupled with my with my faith, man, this is an opportunity to pour into a young life. Mhmm. And, you know, what's my direction here?
Brandon Steppe:Do I really wanna do music? I was just coming off that corporate job looking like, oh, maybe I could do a different corporate job if this doesn't work out. But the opportunity when it was matched with the energy of these young people and the desire to be in that space, it was it was really undeniable at that point. And that's when you start using the the term calling. Yeah.
Brandon Steppe:Like, I know I'm supposed to do this with these young people.
Grant Oliphant:And did you start by starting a nonprofit, or did you start by just serving the kids Yes. And then the nonprofit came from that?
Brandon Steppe:I started by serving the kids. Yeah. So we went two and a half years informally and really wanted to see what what it was like and and we learned a lot from young people, a lot a lot actually about how and why they wanted to show up, about what they wanted to do. And then, you know, as they were growing in music, I was growing in mentorship, but really for all the wrong reasons, you know, like, not because I was good at mentorship, because I wasn't. Was I was struggling with that aspect.
Brandon Steppe:It's like you see a young person, you're like, oh, I wanna tell you
Grant Oliphant:I'm going to fill them with my knowledge.
Brandon Steppe:Yeah, right? Mean, I'm from Southeast San Diego, I had a chance to navigate that in the nineties, some of the stuff that they were looking at, and I'm like, well, I could tell you how to get through this. Really, that's arrogant. At the end of the day, you don't have a relationship with someone. It's very difficult to speak like that.
Brandon Steppe:And even when you do, it's not easy.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Brandon Steppe:Right? So you have to earn
Grant Oliphant:So when you say when you say you learned a lot from the kids in those first couple of years Mhmm. Sorry to put you on the spot, but what were the first the top couple of things you learned from them in that early time?
Brandon Steppe:The very first thing was I'm not a great mentor. That was, like, the very first lesson out the gate. Like, that of voice in a person's life, a young person's life is earned. And so I earned that through a really traumatic personal moment where I was walking with my wife who was pregnant at the time with our first daughter Jasmine and was struggling with a high risk pregnancy where she was diagnosed with bilateral cysts on her ovaries that potentially were cancerous and they wanted to do surgery. Was really traumatic.
Brandon Steppe:And then our daughter was also diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome on the same day. Oh, Yeah, so it was a really traumatic moment. My wife was hospitalized, and so I was going from the hospital back and forth to the recording studio, and then just had a moment with these young people where couldn't put on the mentor mask. I was like, oh, and it was just like, guys, I'm struggling. Tears in front of teenagers.
Brandon Steppe:You know? It's like Right. Right. It's a scary thing. You're like, oh, tears in teenagers.
Brandon Steppe:What is happening?
Grant Oliphant:This is a moment you describe in your TED Talk.
Brandon Steppe:Yes. This is the moment. Yes. To where I discovered for the first time what it meant to to actually be honest and transparent with the young person. Mhmm.
Brandon Steppe:Let them see who who I was and and allow them the opportunity to communicate to me. And so we call that flashlight first now, it's one of 10 pillars in our community that really has become a practice of earning relationship with young people. It's cultural inside our organization, but it's also our lived experience best practice.
Grant Oliphant:And flashlight first, meaning Yeah. So shine a light on what's happening for you?
Brandon Steppe:Or That's a great question. So typically, we, as an adult, we shine a flashlight on a youth. And we're telling them what they need to do, how they need to show up, what they should do, but instead, shine the flashlight on myself, or our artist mentors now shine the flashlight on ourselves. We check-in with them, it's a high low and a hope check-in, they get a chance to really know who we are, our high, our genuine low and our hope. And in the process, if they're willing, they walk in that light with us to start a conversation.
Brandon Steppe:And emphasis on the end, if they're willing. So it's a community where adults are being transparent about who they are. They're plugging young people into authentic art and opportunity, but young people don't have to participate in that. They can pass in that check-in space, and it comes back around to the adult. And ultimately, all the young people always participate because it becomes a space of belonging for them.
Brandon Steppe:Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:Love that. Yeah. I don't know if mythology is the right word, but all origin stories come with elements that become legend in the telling of the story. And in the telling of your story, part of what comes out is in the early days trading better grades for music time, basically.
Grant Oliphant:And I'm curious how you did that given that you weren't a teacher Right. Who could actually offer better grades. Right. So what was the nature of that transaction, and how was it not transactional? Because you're you're not actually describing a transactional relationship.
Brandon Steppe:Right. So what happened was the studio started to fill up faster than I could have capacity Yeah. And still make a living. I was like, alright. What are you all willing to pay to be here?
Brandon Steppe:Right. Right? Young people. And at the time, they were obviously not willing to pay money. Right?
Brandon Steppe:Right. Which is okay. Right. I was like, well, you're gonna pay something. You gotta pay your grades.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah.
Brandon Steppe:And there's a young man named Austin who is 37 now with kids. It's like, How did that happen? I don't know. I don't know where this grade came from, but he was one of the first ones to trade his good grades for recording studio time. And I just made a simple deal with him.
Brandon Steppe:He wanted more than I was willing to give as far as time was concerned.
Grant Oliphant:Mhmm.
Brandon Steppe:I said, well, okay. For an A you can have an extra hour, for a B you can have thirty minutes, C nothing, D nothing, F nothing, deal? And he's like, yeah I don't have any A's or B's or C's or D's right now. And I was like, oh, okay. So he's like, but I'll try.
Brandon Steppe:I was like, alright, cool. So he tried his first six weeks in the progress report and he came back with Cs and Ds. And then after eighteen weeks, he was he had A's and B's. Wow. It was phenomenal.
Brandon Steppe:And that wasn't the that's really not the goal in developing relationship now, but the opportunity to say what can I use this platform for besides, you know, connecting? Is this value? How strong is this platform? That's when I knew we needed to make it a nonprofit in 2009 when I saw this young man go from not trying in school to trying. And there was moments when I had to call a teacher and there's moments when I had to ask a counselor, hey, you know, what's going on with this this kid's grades and how can we help support him and what supports do you have there?
Brandon Steppe:And I I left the the pure art connection that we had to join this mentorship moment. Right? These mentorship moments that are now commonplace for us. But but, yeah, that that transaction, that simple transaction for a young person really was, inspiring to them. And I was like, okay.
Brandon Steppe:Well, what else can you do with this thing? Right. You know?
Grant Oliphant:Well, what was it do you think and casting no shade on school. No. But what was it about being around music and media Mhmm. And you that they found valuable?
Brandon Steppe:Well, I I think so youth voice as a concept is some you know, you can kinda probably Google youth voice and and learn some things, but young people wanna show up in that way. This is this is this was part of their core identity that wasn't a developed portion of it. And and that's such an important thing in in our community because there's a thousand other potential identities that a young person can take on. Mhmm. And some of them are positive.
Brandon Steppe:You know? But singer, songwriter, producer, engineer, all of those kind of identities in the art give a young person something to latch onto. Mhmm. You know? And to grow in because these are not just arbitrary titles, these are actually real world jobs that people do right in this very room.
Brandon Steppe:And so I think when you're starting to talk about a young person and why they want to show up and why things are powerful,
Grant Oliphant:Mhmm.
Brandon Steppe:If you don't start with them and what they wanna do, how they wanna show up, then you're you're probably just building something that you're gonna have to rebuild. Right? Especially with the kids we serve. If if they don't like it, they're leaving. You
Grant Oliphant:know? Right. Right.
Brandon Steppe:Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:Well, and I wanna come back to part of your answer there was about youth voice and, you
Grant Oliphant:know, what I've watched happen in that in that realm over the last decade or more is that young people in many ways are becoming the teachers around the technology. Yes. And I imagine you're experiencing that. I I
Brandon Steppe:handed my I handed my phone to a young person for the first time a couple months back.
Grant Oliphant:What's that? Yeah. What's that like? It was embarrassing. It's a moment.
Grant Oliphant:Welcome to it. Welcome to adulthood.
Brandon Steppe:It's I not a watershed moment, man. Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:You have talked about how one positive relationship Mhmm. Can transform a young person's life.
Brandon Steppe:Absolutely.
Grant Oliphant:And, you know, I'm I'm thinking that when you were starting out in this process, you weren't necessarily thinking about justice involved youth. No. But later you added that. Yes. I'm curious to hear from you why you began to develop that emphasis and and one story that really captures for you the importance of that one positive relationship.
Brandon Steppe:Yeah. So the story actually is is from the '19 late nineteen twenties is the so my I'm a fourth generation
Grant Oliphant:You think I you you think I remember that, don't you?
Brandon Steppe:I don't I don't think you remember that.
Grant Oliphant:Then I like you better.
Brandon Steppe:But my my grandfather, Cecil Stepp, who came to town with his mother, who was coming from Kentucky at the time, leaving a situation, a familial situation, and bringing her children to San Diego to be with my aunt Rebecca Kraft. And so here's this woman who's come all the way from Kentucky on the train, made it to San Diego with these three boys, and is now raising three boys as a single mom in a time when that wasn't very common in the community. Her boys were part of a community, and part of that community was a little dry cleaning operation that was on Imperial. An old Imperial used to be called Black Broadway. That's what they used to And call there's a gentleman there that had a store and my grandfather really took a liking to the gentleman, learned how to do dry cleaning.
Brandon Steppe:And so there's this shoulder to shoulder connection of them learning dry cleaning. But in the process mentorship came to be part of this situation. And I think when you start talking about like how are you developing relationships, why are you developing relationships with this particular demographic demographic of young people? I think it all stems from this really core thing in our community, which is the handing down of information and the natural shoulder to shoulder connection that we've had in the past as we focus on something else, the love and support that can be passed on in the process. And for young people in the juvenile justice space, that's everything.
Brandon Steppe:What we found is it is the best way to connect with a young person in that Mhmm. Because they're so used to connecting face to face with people with logos on their shirt. Mhmm. Right? Here.
Brandon Steppe:Sign this. Alright. Good to meet you. Client relationship. Right.
Brandon Steppe:And we don't come in like that. We come in with a recording studio in a backpack, and we put it down on a table, and it's shoulder to shoulder. And it's making music and doing things kids love. So our our our journey into that space, started in 02/2017. Our our partners, Juvenile Court and Community Schools Mhmm.
Brandon Steppe:Asked if we were ready and willing to go into that space. At the time, it was the youthful offenders unit inside East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility. We decided we wanted to work with young people that were experiencing the greatest level of incarceration in our community, and they allowed us to do that. And from day one
Grant Oliphant:So technically, the hardest kid.
Brandon Steppe:Technically, the hardest kids. I'm like, let's go all the way to the Yeah. Hard spot. Right? I mean, these kids love music Yeah.
Brandon Steppe:And our artist mentors are relevant. So, of course, there was a synergy there Yeah. In the beginning of a conversation.
Grant Oliphant:Now you run a program called Beats Behind the Wall. Yes. Is that the program that you're talking
Brandon Steppe:about? Is Beats Behind the Wall. Yeah. And
Grant Oliphant:and is the idea that you you go literally behind the wall and you and you do what with the kids? What is it that you're giving them an opportunity to do that they're not getting?
Brandon Steppe:Absolutely. So Beats Behind the Wall started as us bringing these mobile studio backpacks inside East Mesa. Yeah. Those recording studios are something the kids didn't have access to at the time. Right?
Brandon Steppe:They didn't have access to the technology inside, but you would say, hey, alright, we're gonna do music today, and the kid, oh, I wanna go back to my room real quick and get a stack of papers this thick of poems and raps and songs. They had been writing and tapping on desks and making music. Yeah. And so we were bringing in the thing that they were able to connect to quickly.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Brandon Steppe:Okay. Since then, there are other programs, music programs in the facility, even recording studios now. But the differentiator is music is music, but these kids' music made by the people that actually make the music is the thing. Right? So we have producers that are artist mentors that are the people who actually make the music.
Brandon Steppe:Adrian's in the room right here. There's a young man, Adrian, who's one of those people. Adrian. Yeah. He's here.
Brandon Steppe:But that those those artist mentors is what we call them. Yeah. They're proficient artists first. Relevant culturally relevant music. They know the kids' music that they love that they wanna make.
Brandon Steppe:So that's the the entry connector piece in that space. The kids wanna make their music. Yeah. They wanna make their music, not your music or my music Right. You know, but their music.
Brandon Steppe:So
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Which is what it's all about. Yeah. So I want you to continue the story to the sort of second half, which is when kids come out of the facility Yes. As I understand it, you're there to meet them. And what does that transition look like?
Brandon Steppe:Sure. So what happens inside is we're earning a relationship with a young person through music. And really, it starts with these pillars that I mentioned flashlight first.
Brandon Steppe:There's 10 pillars. It starts with that groundwork that is creating a space of belonging even inside brick walls. Right? From that, we're able to let young people come in on that entry floor, which is artistic expression, and we add system navigation to that. So we're showing up in the back of courtrooms as young people are having their
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. You were just sharing before we started recording that that you spend a lot of time in the back of courtrooms.
Brandon Steppe:Literally just out of court to advocate for young people, but really to be present. So as they're going through that process, the anxiety is high, right? This is not a low anxiety place, so to have a familiar face there, to share with the judge what our experience has been with that young person, and to add that to process, but really more just to show up for a young person, to be present. There's a lot of times when we're the only ones there. So from that, we add that next layer and we start to challenge young people inside.
Brandon Steppe:What is that challenge like? It's artistic challenge. Okay, you can talk about this or that, but have you ever thought about talking about your life and where you're from? Are you able to reimagine your art in a way that will allow you to reimagine your release? And from there, then we add on, okay, now you did that, what opportunities do you want to access that are a challenge to you?
Brandon Steppe:Right? We can take this art and maybe get you to do something for someone else. Or do you want to try to take this art and maybe, you know, have a professional opportunity with it? We do some stuff like that. And then at the very end, at the top level, we start talking about navigating probation successfully, getting back in school, doing the things that people typically you think would be talked about at the beginning, but really art allows us to earn that relationship.
Brandon Steppe:Right. So by the time a young person is ready to come home, it's not a cold handoff, and, oh, see you later. Right. And it's not even a cold opportunity when they're walking back in to say, let's try something different. They've already been trying different things, and we're able to then walk them back into community, back into a production facility where they already know the faces, where they are already been challenged to try something different, with an opportunity to do something different to have a different outcome.
Grant Oliphant:So through your lens as a a person doing this creative work with young people, what is it that society gets wrong about these kids, in your opinion, and that the justice system gets wrong about these kids?
Brandon Steppe:You know, I think I think the hardest thing in the justice system is balancing safety with relationship. Mhmm. The term coach was from a time past in the juvenile justice system in our community, and really the opportunity to connect with young people can be both safe and relational. I think that's the one thing that there might be confusion about. And I think it's for good reason though, because people in the past have abused those relationships in certain cases, right?
Brandon Steppe:And it's kind of ruined the idea. But what we're showing is that you can be safe and relational with a young person. And in fact, if you're not relational, then you're probably not going to have an outcome that's positive for the community. Ultimately, it's going to be that relationship. And in spite of the system, there are great people within the system that are also very relational.
Brandon Steppe:There are very relational probation officers that connect in spite of the system. There are very relational public defenders and and district attorneys that connect in spite of the system with young people. And I I might take my hat off to them, right, because they're doing that in spite of the rules in the system. But we we're different than that because we're coming in specifically to do that. So I think that's one thing if they were gonna rethink, it's like, how can we recenter relationship in this process?
Brandon Steppe:Because a brick wall, I guarantee you, is not gonna rehabilitate a kid or even habitat a kid.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Brandon Steppe:Right? Right. A brick wall is not gonna do that. Time in that in the in that room of brick walls is not gonna do that. If it's gonna be done, it's gonna be because someone is willing to walk with that young person.
Brandon Steppe:And we call that walking in the mud. Right? Walking in the mud. That's what we call it.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. And you call that process of coming out, walking kids back into the community too. Yeah. So there's a theme for you.
Brandon Steppe:Our journey. Sometimes it's walking, sometimes it's pausing and just being still and understanding that there's struggles, and we have really a whole relational framework around this.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:In your in your experience, working with young people in this way, only reestablishes a relation a relationship with a group of people Mhmm. Who they can hopefully trust or they learn they can trust. And it also gives them some tools to express what's going on for them. Absolutely. Talk to us a little bit about what you see as the transformational effect of that.
Grant Oliphant:I mean, that is one of the premises of what you referred to earlier with youth youth voice work is that some of the frustration and and dysfunction that comes out with young people is from not being able to adequately express what it is they're feeling or experiencing or seeing.
Brandon Steppe:Mhmm.
Grant Oliphant:So how does that work in your in in your world?
Brandon Steppe:Yeah. I think specifically with young people that are justice involved, there's this opportunity to meet them in art, and in the art they love hip hop in particular, right, where it might be really hard for you to sit on a couch and have a formal mental health session with with someone. Might be difficult to talk about things. But when that pen comes out and you're able to rhyme that
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Brandon Steppe:The space transforms. The idea and the circumstance that the initial trauma thing can transform because now we're having a positive experience around a traumatic moment. We're celebrating high fives that you got through that verse. We're celebrating the metaphor, the similes, the beautiful structure that you brought to this traumatic moment. And it starts to heal in a way that I don't think very much else can.
Brandon Steppe:Healing is found in music and it has been probably since the beginning of time, right? And that way that we experience music when you're making it is even more, right? When it's your music. Right.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Brandon Steppe:And so young people are celebrating their stories in different ways that imagine. Like I've heard young ladies that have gone through really traumatic moments, being able to write songs and smile in the midst of retelling of this story when everybody's kind of trying to fight back tears. They're able to release this in a way now where they can celebrate, and it's just something that in the brain that just is rewired by that. And I'm not the scientific one to be able to tell you exactly what that looks like, but I've experienced it so many times over the last sixteen years that it's just real, you know? Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:At Prebys, we've launched this initiative called Healing Through Art and Nature, and the premise is pretty much what you're just describing. And I'm curious why since you're doing this work every day Mhmm. Why does society struggle so to see the connect you know, because I think the the immediate impulse is, oh, the the child is depressed. We should medicate them. Yes.
Grant Oliphant:The the young person is acting out. We should medicate them. Sure. Why do we struggle with this idea that maybe what they need is instead to be heard in a way that speaks to their soul.
Brandon Steppe:You know, I I think there's obvious economic, you know, underlying issues with medicating kids. I mean, that's that's just a thing. Right? There's a company selling that. So that aside, though, I think that we minimize the impact and power of art because us artists are very passionate about it and it starts to sound a little fuzzy.
Brandon Steppe:That's not a popular thing to say in my artist community, but we know the power of art and we're not shy to tell you, and at some point if you haven't experienced it, then you're just kinda like, okay, that's we're also a little eccentric, you know, a lot of times, so, you know, these are my people, I can admit can admit You could admit
Grant Oliphant:it, right?
Brandon Steppe:But I think also in the society that we're in, art is not financially valued in that way, and artists aren't typically until they are, right? But just the run of the mill artist, a young person having the experience, if you're not seeing it, what you need to do is get that kid a job. Right. Right? Like, that's what we're running into regularly.
Brandon Steppe:We're able to do the job thing now too, which is cool, but we'll talk about that, I'm sure. But but I think the value of things is commingled with other values. Right? And ultimately, we're not listening to how young people wanna show
Grant Oliphant:up. Mhmm.
Brandon Steppe:Overwhelmingly, they wanna they wanna be artistic. Mhmm. Overwhelmingly. I mean, it's like, as a primary identity, these young people see themselves in that way, especially in a time in our community where it used to be sports and and and entertainment kinda was the the stereotypical thing that people said about my community. And sports now is being minimized because there's this kind of elite thing that's happening with teams and there's not as many like little leagues and that's pay for play type things, so you need to be really good really soon.
Brandon Steppe:So at eight, nine years old, kids aren't necessarily even seeing themselves as being the next baseball basketball player because they're not on the travel team. And so that thing's kind of drawn up, and more and more kids are now coming over to this art thing as something that they can actually participate in. So that's just a really powerful, powerful thing that's happening, you know.
Grant Oliphant:There's an illusion
Grant Oliphant:I wanna come back to the workforce point you made a moment ago, but I I do wanna ask this question. There is an illusion among the adult world, I think, that young people are so wired in and dialed in that, you know, they're the stars of TikTok. They're the drivers of all the all the energy around those videos. Sure. That so the illusion is they know what they're doing and they don't need you.
Grant Oliphant:So why do they need a David's harp? How do you enter into the equation? I can see providing a positive adult relationship for young people who need that. What else? What else comes up for you?
Grant Oliphant:Sure.
Brandon Steppe:I I I think what you're seeing is outlier. Mhmm. Right? There is a group of extremely talented young people, some with access, some without, that are accessing things through their phone in a way that they didn't have an opportunity to before, which is amazing, right? This like direct to the thing Internet phenomenon.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Brandon Steppe:Okay. So that that's cool in media, but that's still such a small fractional percentage. The amount of young people that have a YouTube page that they're hoping for that have 50 views is a lot. Right? It's a lot.
Brandon Steppe:Yeah. It's the world.
Grant Oliphant:That's the world, yeah.
Brandon Steppe:So very few things pass that threshold. So we enter in in a space where we're like, hey, your phone is great, but if you think that's amazing, wait till you come into this state of the art recording facility Mhmm. State of the art cameras, state of the art recording mixing boards, and you get a chance to be in the spaces that the people that you are idolizing are ultimately in sometimes, right? And so there's always been that. The same thing with the recording studio at the garage, it was like, yo, this is the real thing.
Brandon Steppe:I wanna be in it. And I have a really good board of directors in particular, Brenton Miller who's like, hey, we're gonna make the real thing for kids. It's always gonna be the real thing. So there's that. We offer that, which is the real thing.
Brandon Steppe:And then as we've grown, we also offer access. So access to the actual local creative economy, access to doors that kids can't walk in. This week they were at Sony at the AI summit shooting video and content for Sony. Access to be able to say, hey, little bro, little sis sib, stand on my shoulders and let's let's see what you can see from up here. Right?
Brandon Steppe:Stand on the shoulders of the artist mentors that are around you, the people that have been doing this for a long time, and let's see if we can get you to the real thing. So that's the value proposition for young people. Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:It makes a lot of sense. And, you know, you mentioned Sony as an example of, you know, you're providing them with exposure to podcasting and not only how to do a podcast, but how to be in that business. Absolutely. How to not just be an influencer, but be a producer of content for all kinds of clients Right. I imagine.
Grant Oliphant:Right. Which is partly why we, again, Prebys, recently awarded you a $400,000 workforce grant. Yes. And
Brandon Steppe:Thank you, by the way.
Grant Oliphant:Well, you that's not why I'm bringing it up. You're welcome. You did. It's it's totally deserved, and it's it's actually our honor.
Brandon Steppe:But I'm bringing it up because I'm curious to hear you talk about why support in that realm is important to what you're trying to do with these young people. Absolutely. So once again, 2017, a young man named Jesus Villegas and David Higueretta came to me, another young lady named Nat, they came to me and they were like, hey, we want to make money, we want to make music videos and I was like, okay cool, you want to make music videos or do you want to music videos or do you want to make money? Let's just stop for a second and figure out. Right, what's the motive What are asking me?
Brandon Steppe:I came out of corporate so I would rather make music videos but what are you asking me? And they're like, no we want to make money. Okay cool. So there's a Kendrick Lamar lyric that says I've been hustling all day this away, that away through canals and alleyways just to say money trees are the perfect place for shade, and that's just how I feel. That's the lyric.
Brandon Steppe:And that is a really, really, really, really, really, really on point lyric when it comes to some of the young people in our community. They're like, we want to show up in a way that we can participate so we don't have to do something that we don't want to do necessarily to be able to eat and live. I don't necessarily agree with the money trees per se, right? I don't think there's a perfect place for shade. However, it is relevant and it's important, right?
Brandon Steppe:So I think just that right there as a starting point to the conversation, these young people came to me, they're like, hey, how can we participate? I said, corporate video seems like a relevant opportunity in our community. And we went and did the market research, I was just coming out of a corporate kind of mindset but like okay, where can you really participate? So we found that young people just above the weekend warrior kind of video producer that's doing it on the weekends, there was a spot between a thousand and $2,500 a video underneath the bigger companies that that wasn't really enough for them to get started Right. Or mid level companies that they could participate.
Brandon Steppe:So we pulled the creative community around. Evan Yamada, who is now the Biz Pod director, but then was just a international photographer, brought creatives around. And we had this conversation. How can these young people enter into that space in the market? And we learned a lot about what it was gonna take, and we reverse engineered that with the young people that opportunity.
Brandon Steppe:And so from 2017 to '19, they took the journey. They founded the organ the the BizPod program, which is our workforce program. And in 2020 they launched their company Warehouse Media. Wow. January 2020 really turned real quick into March 2020, right, and COVID hit.
Brandon Steppe:Yes. And by the end of COVID they had made $68,000 because they were helping people put content on the internet at a time when that was really needed. So from there, that initial bump is now this BizPod program and has turned into this release set of micro enterprises that young people are are building. And your grant is huge because it allows us to use philanthropic dollars to empower these young content creators to to build their creative resume. So they're literally taking, we're paying them with your grant, they're hiring other young people as they get out of juvenile hall, they're taking that money, they're creating content for smaller nonprofits, and that content is for free to the nonprofit.
Brandon Steppe:They're able to then rise. Right? And Yeah. And we're we're building an ecosystem outside of nonprofit that will outlast nonprofit because now they own it. Right.
Brandon Steppe:And ownership is really is really important.
Grant Oliphant:That to me is the classic definition of a social enterprise because you are you are figuring out how to turn it into a self sustaining model
Brandon Steppe:Yes.
Grant Oliphant:For the people who are involved. I'm I'm torn between staying on the philanthropic track or the or the or the work track, but I I do wanna I wanna finish this theme that we've been exploring of of what comes of this process when you value people, when you let them express themselves, when you give them outlets to and to to participate in the creative economy. And the way I would, you know, I thought your your explanation of the Kendrick Lamar lyric is so profound. And and what came up for me was just acknowledging that every human being needs some level of money to feel like they can relax. You know?
Brandon Steppe:It's true.
Grant Oliphant:And so I I don't dishonor that at all either. Right. And I I think what you're trying to do is figure out the connection between money and meaning. Very powerful. I mean, you go deep with so as you've as you've looked at the young people you've worked with, I've heard amazing stories.
Grant Oliphant:You've you've had young people who have and I think you had one who started a clothing line while he was in in JV. Well well, not this guy, but, yeah, another kid, Kyle. You started a clothing line and and amazing. And and you've had others who have become alumni of the program and come back to be counselors or mentors in it. Mhmm.
Grant Oliphant:When you look at that, like, what stands out for you? What are the stories that stand out for you?
Brandon Steppe:I mean, there's there's quite a few that the young man, Kyle, that you're that you're referencing is not Adrian who's in the room, but Kyle, very powerful. He he he started in our digital arts program. So a young man named Matthew Martinez founded that. He wanted to do tattoos inside juvenile, learn how to do tattoos. Probably wasn't gonna happen.
Brandon Steppe:For good reason Yeah. I would say. And so we created a digital arts curriculum. Matthew Martinez and I sat down, and we decided that we were gonna do this Walk a Mile in My Shoes where you would start with a sticker and develop a t shirt and then do a pair of shoes, a pair of Converse shoes, and you'd learn how to design these things.
Brandon Steppe:that got popular inside, and this young man Kyle then took that to the next level. Kyle decided he was going to not only design t shirts, but he was gonna be the first ever young person in juvenile custody to run a business. And that's what we decided. We partnered with South Bay Community Services to get the infrastructure together and with probation. And Adrian, who's who's here with us, walked with this young man through the process of creating this business.
Brandon Steppe:And he was successful. He successfully launched Braveheart Attire. Yeah. You can go on braveheartattire.com right now and and Amazing. Yeah.
Brandon Steppe:He has his business. He's since then been released. He's not just back in the community, but he's actually up in, at Fresno State now and thriving and paying helping to pay for his expenses using his business. So those kind of things are like not something we planned. Right.
Brandon Steppe:It's about walking journeying with young people and listening and building structure lattice around their vine. I mean, they truly are the beautiful thing. I'm not like, hey, I'm gonna build a workforce program. Right. No.
Brandon Steppe:It's like, okay, how can we take your the things that you love, that you wanna do, and help you to structure them to where you can actually see the things that you wanna see come from them as well? Yeah. That's been been the whole thing, whole time.
Grant Oliphant:Amazing. Yeah. And and so in some ways, it happens organically around the kids, the the young people themselves Absolutely. And what they need. And I, you know, I feel like we should since you brought, you mentioned Adrian, I I and we unfortunately don't have time to bring you into the podcast, but I wanna acknowledge your being in the room and Yes.
Grant Oliphant:Thank you. And doing that work. So thank you very much because it it's a beautiful example
Brandon Steppe:It really is.
Grant Oliphant:Of how it comes together. Okay. Back to philanthropy for a moment. Sure. Because I there's a there was a moment of few years ago, a couple years ago, where you got a million dollar Mackenzie Scott grant Yes.
Grant Oliphant:Which also can be a beautiful thing, or it can be a boulder that sinks a boat. And I you know, I've because it's a big grant out of the blue and unexpected. And how did it how was that transformative for you? And how did you navigate getting that? Well, first off,
Brandon Steppe:I almost missed it. And there's that. There was what? I almost missed the grant.
Grant Oliphant:I've heard this story a lot from people,
Brandon Steppe:so it's true.
Grant Oliphant:Yes. So tell us yours.
Brandon Steppe:So, yeah, so I just say it's it was very beginning of her giving. So she was working with a consultant, and also that consultant was trying to be discreet, and it just sounded fake. It sounded like a scam, right? Like, we want to talk with you, I think it would be very advantageous if he was like, right, okay. But ultimately, when we found out that we were gonna be given this amount of money, I sat down and I just exhaled a little bit, like, okay, what are we gonna do with this?
Brandon Steppe:Because as a small nonprofit at the time, I think we were like $300,000 in budget, and obviously, I mean I wasn't paying myself quite yet and we were struggling to figure out how this was gonna work, the temptation was that, okay, we're gonna put this towards general op, but I just had this feeling of like we needed to stop and wait for a second and listen to the community. And so that's what we did, and I have a really good board of directors that was wasn't forcing that, right? They were like, okay, let's stop for a second, take a deep breath, and figure out what we're gonna do. And in that process I saw young people in our community were struggling with housing, like deeply struggling. So this BizPod program, kids are building businesses and sleeping in cars and sleeping on couches and it was just too much.
Brandon Steppe:And so we saw the opportunity to take that and invest it in a home, so we purchased a home in Southeast San Diego. Is that what you call transformation? Transformation house, So that home was actually built by local man with a beautiful family who had a heart for the community. He was teaching people on that property how to do masonry work. This is the exact same thing as BizPod, but Right.
Brandon Steppe:This very informal thing that just happens in community. And he passed away and his family was then ready to to kind of pass the asset along. And we walked into that space that is six bedrooms and four bathrooms and then an adjacent piece of property that that is developable and saw we could build a village for young people here.
Brandon Steppe:so but the question was how is it going to be different? Right? And that answer came from young people too. Was like, alright, look, what you need to learn how to pay rent, right? If you're gonna be in a space, how's this gonna work?
Brandon Steppe:How much can you pay? We looked at their finances, $500 a month. I said five times $126,000 dollars is about the nut that it takes to get an apartment in San Diego. Right? First and last, plus move in, plus, you know, your next month rent.
Brandon Steppe:So we took that $6,000 idea and turned it into a concept of you can come to the transformation house if you're in BizPod working, and in that process you can pay $500 a month, it'll be saved in escrow for you, and it'll be given back to you as first, last, and move in when you graduate after twelve months. And so that's what we were
Brandon Steppe:doing, and we had our first successful young person launch out into a space in Escondido, and it was going great. And then we start thinking, wait a minute, we've built a continuum of support here. A twenty four hour continuum of support that might be valuable in the justice space. Like, what would it look like if a young person could be in community at the house, experiencing a family environment, at the recording studio in a relationally centered workforce environment instead of being in prison, right, instead of being in the justice And so that vision and that dream is part of has now entered in as part of what this is. It's like this, wow.
Brandon Steppe:A young person could actually do that. And and there's a senate bill out there, 08/23, that might allow for that in that way.
Grant Oliphant:And yeah. And this is your your idea of really putting together a system that's an alternative to to incarceration.
Brandon Steppe:Yeah. As a community based alternative. Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:With creativity at the core.
Brandon Steppe:With creativity at the core, with relationship at the core of that.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. So I would say Mackenzie Scott's big gift actually had a profound effect for you and your organization. Profound. Yeah. You know, I've gotta say, sitting with you, you have an extraordinary energy.
Grant Oliphant:You've got this degree of calm about you that, you know, yes, you're worried about your eyesight as we get older, so is everyone else. But I am. But you
Crystal Page:you've
Grant Oliphant:got this amazing calm. And how do you stay grounded in the work and what you're doing?
Brandon Steppe:I mean, me, it's Saturday walks. It's prayer walks. So I'm a man of faith, so my grounding really comes in my faith. And and also, the community itself keeps me really grounded. Like, young people are not just some people that we're working for or but literally we're a community.
Brandon Steppe:So 50%, you mentioned all these young people, 55% of the young people that have graduated the program are now our staff. We have a goal of 02/1930, by 2031 to turn my business card over to them, the next generation. So like I'm the founder, we'll be passing that along. And for me, like the community itself is grounding. I mean, you gotta come see this Grant, because you're walking through and there's just young people just doing amazing stuff.
Brandon Steppe:Stuff that I didn't even think would I mean, it didn't even seem possible that we'd have digital artists working here and there, and we just had a a young lady who was hired by the county of San Diego to do content creation, and and then you got, like, young people that are navigating probation and really struggling, right, with an ankle monitor and
Grant Oliphant:Mhmm.
Brandon Steppe:And trying to figure that whole thing out, but they're in a place and in a space that's safe. And they're getting a chance to work with these kids, and they're hiring each other, and the funny stuff that comes along with kids working is life giving,
Grant Oliphant:Like give us an example.
Brandon Steppe:Like sitting at a Monday morning meetinbg
Grant Oliphant:You're meeting clearly thinking of something.
Brandon Steppe:It's always something, right? There's always one or two kids that are pushing the envelope in the best possible way, So as much as you build structure around the vine, they're like, woah, I'm coming out here, right? Yeah, there's That's also life. It's always something every day that is funny, but young people are just so full of energy.
Brandon Steppe:How can you not be grounded especially this next generation? They're they're fearless. I mean, they're they're fearless. You
Grant Oliphant:know? Which I find fascinating because it's certainly not what we read about young people. You know, we read about young people being anxious. Sure. We, you know, we read about epic levels of of anxiety in in the young.
Grant Oliphant:And there's so much discussion about mental health as there should be. You know, you you and I have touched on that. Mhmm. But you're saying there's another part of the story here. There is.
Grant Oliphant:And it makes me wanna ask this question, and maybe you can get at that in the context of this broader question. You know, we have an audience that cares about community, cares about what's going on in the world right now, is worried about what's going on in the world right now, and wants to engage and be helpful. What is it that you think the young people you're working with most need the rest of us to hear and to know about them?
Brandon Steppe:That's a really good question.
Grant Oliphant:And is it that they're fearless? Is it that they're they're courageous despite their being afraid? I mean, what
Brandon Steppe:I think the young people that are in our community that are walking through these justice spaces and spaces of trying to figure out basic needs and necessities, I think they're telling a different story. They're telling the story that if I get a chance, I'm gonna do it. It's a little different. The anxiety for them is less, it's more tangible because it's really around resources and issues and struggles that they're actively walking through, right? Like the anxiety comes when they're late for a probation meeting or they have something that in their family that's happened that they feel that they can't communicate to a system.
Brandon Steppe:And those are the anxious moments in our community. And so I think the broader community is dealing with a lot of anxious moments that I don't want to minimize either. Right? Like the anxiety of how do I show up in kind of more privileged opportunities, right? Which is, I'm I'm like, I don't wanna minimize that because young people genuinely are struggling, and I don't wanna parse out struggle.
Brandon Steppe:Right. But but the young people in our community are like, I finally found a place that will invest in me. Yeah. And not just run me up on stage, but invest in me, right? And you're part of that community now because that investment is really for them.
Brandon Steppe:And so I think they want you to know they can do the job. They also need a little bit of grace and support in the process because they're growing. Right? So I can do the job would be where where we're coming from. I can do the job, and just give me
Grant Oliphant:a shot. I'll show you. You know? So what's next for David's harp?
Brandon Steppe:What's next? I'm almost scared to ask that sometimes. He started trading good grades for studio time and ended up with a micro enterprise. Yeah. So there's a there's a couple visions.
Brandon Steppe:One, we have that village that we're creating, right? We're in the process of creating stable, family centered relational housing. And that's the different, not just housing, because I don't think housing is enough, But stable family centered housing where young people can launch from. They call it the launch pad, by the way, which is so much better than transformation.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. I like that. So Yeah. That that's a great name. I like their name.
Brandon Steppe:I like I like their name better. Yeah. And then the second the second second project is so we're in Monacre Warehouse, which is a 28,000 square foot brick building on the corner, F And Sixteenth
Grant Oliphant:Mhmm.
Brandon Steppe:G and Sixteenth. And that building, before COVID, Moniker Group, the company that's out of Point Loma, was running an event space in there. And we were able to walk young people out of a nonprofit into an event space where they could work and help manage that. They were doing audio and video. There was a creative suite of people upstairs that were that were doing content creation and branding,
Grant Oliphant:and so
Brandon Steppe:I'd walk kids through this warehouse and they were their mind was blown. And it strategically sits right in between Southeast San Diego, the orange and blue lines, and the more affluent communities in, you know, north and west. It's like this perfect meeting space where the community, broader community, was coming and interacting with our community. And so I have a vision to rebuild that into an opportunity youth center where young people are not just in a nonprofit space but have access to a broader community because there's value there for them as well. So this event space concept or like a coworking space concept all in this building with young people that are navigating probation is a dream.
Brandon Steppe:Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:Beautiful. Beautiful. You have said creativity is the language of hope. Yes. You know, I people feel all kinds of ways about the concept of hope right now.
Grant Oliphant:Sure. But I tell us a little bit about what that means for you.
Brandon Steppe:If we can imagine it as artists, the opportunity to stop, to just tune out for a second, to use our creativity, to imagine something different is the essence of creativity. Right? To see nothing, to see a void, and to fill that void, and to fill it with beautiful things. You know, that's, I think that's not just the essence of creativity, but it's the essence of creation. And so to look at it in that way, and to allow young people that time and space to stop, to be creative, to even see how to fill the void in their own heart, is the opportunity that I think creativity gives to the broader conversation.
Brandon Steppe:If we can stop for a second, see a void, and think about how we wanna make it beautiful and fill it, I mean, that's very useful, like the void in this cup is useless. It's useful because it's a void that we can pour water into. But without that void and that time and that space, I mean, it'd be a block of a block of glass. In the same way creativity provides that, you know, it it is that. It allows us to be that, You know?
Brandon Steppe:So it's super cool. Beautiful. Beautiful.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. I'm gonna leave it there. Brandon Stubb Yeah. What a delight. It's a pleasure.
Grant Oliphant:I really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today. And more importantly, for the extraordinary work you're doing in the community.
Brandon Steppe:Thank you so much, Grant. I appreciate it.
Crystal Page:You were right. That interview was even better than I could have imagined.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Quite extraordinary for me. I I didn't have to spend one second during the course of the conversation wondering what to ask next because everything that Brandon said led to the very next thing. And we kinda ran out of time, actually, as as is always the case with the best interviews. But he touched on so much.
Crystal Page:Yeah. I think the number one thing that stood out to me in this episode was he listened to the kids. Yeah. And that's what shaped the entirety of building out these micro enterprises as he calls it.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. That was a powerful, powerful thought. You're right. That that he discussed at the end how, you know, as he's juggling the competing demands of running this enterprise and running a business and responding to philanthropists, he's also gotta worry about what's on the kids' minds and what they want, and that's how he designs the business. And and you can tell.
Grant Oliphant:So when he talks about transformation house, which the kids have relabeled Launchpad
Brandon Steppe:Mhmm.
Grant Oliphant:Which I love better, it is you know, that came from him having conversations with the young people about what it was that they need. The respect and engagement that he has with with the young people in in his growing ever growing program is a product of relationship he invests and the and now his team invests. So I think I think that is one of the most important takeaways from this is the power of listening. To me though, the other one that I really have to come back to is the power of creativity, you know, when we that that that quote about creativity being the language of hope Mhmm. The way he thinks about hope as a living thing that is animated by creativity, and everybody fills that in for themselves based on their own creativity, incredibly powerful in a time when people really are wondering how to hold on to hope or what hope looks like in a in a very challenging period of history.
Crystal Page:Right. Yeah. I guess I just appreciate everything. I think this episode speaks for itself. Mhmm.
Crystal Page:So I recommend we leave it there for today, Grant, because you were just so on fire in that conversation.
Grant Oliphant:That's a very nice way of telling me to stop. Alright. And I'll take it.
Grant Oliphant:Awesome. Yeah.
Crystal Page:Thanks, everybody.
Grant Oliphant:Thank you. This is a production of the Prebys Foundation.
Crystal Page:Hosted by Grant Oliphant.
Grant Oliphant:Co hosted by Crystal Page.
Crystal Page:Co produced by Crystal Page and Adam Greenfield.
Grant Oliphant:Engineered by Adam Greenfield.
Crystal Page:Production coordination by Tess Karesky.
Grant Oliphant:Video production by Edgar Ontiveros Medina.
Crystal Page:Special thanks to the Prebys Foundation team.
Grant Oliphant:The Stop and Talk theme song was created by San Diego's own mister lyrical groove.
Crystal Page:Download episodes at your favorite pod catcher or visit us at prebysfdn.org.
