Hello and welcome to Giving Ventures, a show to help you grow your giving and change the world for the better.

Our conversations with social entrepreneurs and generous philanthropists highlight innovative charitable efforts and smart ways to have more impact with your giving.

I'm your host, Peter Lipset, Vice President at Donors

Trust. This show is a production of Donors Trust, the oldest and largest donor advised fund

focused on serving conservative and libertarian donors of all capacities to simplify, protect,

and grow their giving. My colleagues and I talk with a lot of groups doing

great work. With Giving Ventures, we can share a bit of what we learn with you. So back in August of

24, an email hit my inbox from the American Federation for Children, announcing a new director

of implementation at AFC. And this was a role that was meant to

ensure the gains being made in launching educational savings accounts or ESAs, as they're known,

and other school choice wins actually stay in the win column. I remember immediately writing back

to my friend Tommy Schultz, who runs AFC. I was just so enthusiastic because this new role really spoke to a felt need I had but couldn't articulate because this isn't really my area. But, you know, I've mentioned on the podcast before that my family has had its own struggles with school choice implementation and found it's really hard. My wife and some others started a micro school in our

small little Virginia town, only to hit roadblock after roadblock, location, getting insurance,

having to deal with the fire marshal and going in front of zoning boards. And that's all

before recruiting kids and actually doing any teaching. Fortunately, they did get off the ground, but it wasn't easy.

And if we had had our other guest on there, maybe it would have been.

So all of that is preamble to why I'm so excited to have this discussion today on not just the

school choice fight and where it stands, but what are we going to do to make sure that

the legislative victories that we've had

actually stand the test of time, that families actually take us up on what is now an offer

in so many states? And for this conversation, I'm happy to have two organizations represented

and two key individuals from there. As I mentioned, Tommy Schultz from the American Federation for Children.

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