Eating Disorder Treatment: Genie Burnett's Nonprofit Journey

[00:00:55] Sanjay Parekh: Hi. Today, my guest is Dr. Genie Burnett with the Manna Scholarship Fund. Genie, I'm so excited to have you on today. 

[00:01:05] Genie Burnett: Good morning.

[00:01:06] Sanjay Parekh: Morning. Tell us a little bit about you and what got you to where you are right now. 

[00:01:10] Genie Burnett: Sure. I am a psychologist, a licensed clinical psychologist in Georgia and in Arkansas. And I became a psychologist because I, as a kid, had an eating disorder. And I went to a therapist, and she was a fantastic person in my life, very influential, and I decided to grow up and be one because I really liked it. I started Manna in 2006 after I got out of grad school, worked for another company, and realized that I wanted to specialize in eating disorders. And it was actually two companies. It was Manna Scholarship Fund was the nonprofit side. And then I had started Manna Treatment, which was my private practice. After ten years of running two companies, I was tired, and so I pulled them together. And went through a process of accreditation so that we could do three different levels of care. And we've just exploded and now I have an amazing staff of 15, 20, I don't remember how many. Sometimes I forget. So, that's kind of who I am. It's all of it in a nutshell. 

[00:02:30] Sanjay Parekh: So, Arkansas and Georgia are a very random pick of two states. Why those two states? 

[00:02:38] Genie Burnett: So, I was born in Arkansas and all my family is there. And I have actually recently relocated to Arkansas, and I am going to be trying to create a presence for Manna in the state of Arkansas because there's not a lot of treatment resources in Arkansas, especially for eating disorders. And our other subspecialty is trauma, like childhood trauma, PTSD, stuff like that. And then Georgia, because I've been here for 30 years, and I went to grad school here and started the business here. 

[00:03:15] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. When you started this 2006, you said was this the first time doing anything entrepreneurial? Had you done anything entrepreneurial as a kid? 

[00:03:31] Genie Burnett: Nope. I was a gymnast. I was a gymnast from 8 to 14. And that was almost a full-time job. We were at the gym 30 hours a week. Yeah, I mean I was on a gymnastics team, I competed. So, in terms of learning motivation and dedication and resilience and just the fortuitousness of just continuing forward, I would say that's probably where I learned that. Plus, my father was a physician and had his own practice for about 33 years. And he has helped me. He's on the board now. And so, he's been a guiding force in the business side of this. 

[00:04:17] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So that's definitely entrepreneurial. So, you did have an entrepreneur in the family.

[00:04:22] Genie Burnett: Yeah. Oh, yeah. My grandfather was a doctor. I, yeah, I got lots of people in the family.

[00:04:26] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So, your grandfather was a doctor as well. So long history in the medical field. 

[00:04:31] Genie Burnett: My grandfather, who, yeah, was a doctor and my grandmother was the first woman to receive her doctorate in education from Memphis State University. She was the first woman to receive a doctorate at Memphis State University. 

[00:04:46] Sanjay Parekh: Wow, that's amazing. 

[00:04:48] Genie Burnett: Yeah, I have some really cool family members. 

[00:04:52] Sanjay Parekh: That's great history to lean on. Obviously with your own personal challenges, that was what kind of drove you into this field and industry. What is it about this field that kind of keeps you going and interested kind of on a day-to-day basis?

[00:05:12] Genie Burnett: Oh, gosh. There are so many hurting people in the world. And anything that I can do to help lessen their pain. And the thing I love to do now, I don't work with as many clients now. I love training. I love teaching the junior therapists and my staff how to do what we do. And so, multiplying myself in that manner. And just the experiences that I've had and how to think about, not just like a behavior, but like the thought process and the brain process and all of those things that go underneath that. And teaching that is just phenomenal. I love it. I love it. 

[00:06:01] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, is that where you spend most of your time now? Is it in teaching? 

[00:06:04] Genie Burnett: Yes. In fact, just Tuesday, I did a three-hour training on PTSD with the Suwanee Police Department. So, I'm going out into the world and training. I've done more speaking opportunities this year. And I look forward in 2024 as I'm pulling out of a lot of the clinical aspects of Manna. And I'm starting to join the ranks of a true CEO, where I want to go out and I want to teach different companies, different police, fire, like all of that. I want to teach about how they can prevent themselves from developing a post-traumatic stress disorder or like how to cope with their pain. That's where my jam is right now. I love it.

[00:06:58] Sanjay Parekh: That's awesome. So, let's step back into when you started all of this. So, this was doing this start as a side hustle or is a full-on business in the beginning? 

[00:07:07] Genie Burnett: I can tell you this, the moment at which I decided to start a nonprofit. I was in private practice. I had started in 2006 with a dietitian and there was a client that came in because we were working with eating disorders, and a client came in and she didn't have, she didn't need our level of care. She needed a higher level of care. She needed to be in the hospital. She had already been in the medical hospital. She had already been in a more intensive program, like a residential program. But she only had four weeks’ worth of resources from her insurance. They would only pay for 30 inpatient days. And this is 2006, and so she walked into our office and I'm like, what am I going to do with you? You're way too sick to be treated at an outpatient level of care. 

[00:08:11] Sanjay Parekh: And four weeks is not going to get it. 

[00:08:12] Genie Burnett: Oh, my gosh, no. No, no, no, no. I called her dad's company, the medical benefits coordinator, the insurance company. I called everybody and they were like, we're sorry, but this is all she's got, and she's used it up. And so, we had this kid, and it was, like I'm not going to push you out of the door because you're likely not going to do anything. There's nowhere for you to go. And so, basically that was the moment at which, that was the person that spawned the Manna Scholarship Fund. And I had several clients before she came in when I was working for this other company. One of them was a very wealthy woman who had had an eating disorder and she had underlying trauma. And the dietician and I started thinking and talking and I did a bunch of research online and I found that there was one organization in the whole United States that provided scholarships for treatment. And I reached out to them and they're like, we don't have any more money. And I was like, oh, my goodness, this is what I need to do. And so, I said, can I take your application and morph it? And it literally started creating a life on its own. And so, I started the Manna Scholarship Fund and it's, it came to life June 27th, 2007. I put our first recipient, who was a client of mine in, in Ridgeview Hospital in 2008, the beginning of 2008. 

I had reached out to the woman who had I had seen before who was very wealthy. And I asked them to help start this organization. They gave me $15,000 to start and I put her in treatment. I worked with a doctor who didn't charge. It was just like, things just started rolling. And I was hooked. And then I developed, so I had seven or nine people that I knew. Some of them I had treated their children. Started, I created a board. And we used to meet monthly back then. Currently the board only meets quarterly. But we are a very, very different beast than we were back then. 

But I would say the first 10 years, we put 25 or 26 people in the residential or inpatient levels of care. And raised almost a million dollars in that time frame. And so that's 25 people and lives that we changed. And it was interesting because, when you're doing the stuff and you're in it. Like I had created this clinical team to review applications and make sure we were picking the person that had the most need, the fewest resources and the most drive. And so, I had a clinical team, and we would meet and bring it to the board and the board would vote and then we would call. It was just, it was so cool and so exciting. And there was one woman that I was talking with, 10 years after we put her in treatment, and these people, some of them were on death's door. We literally, one, one woman, we pulled out of hospice and plopped her in treatment for three months. We paid for her treatment for three months and she started getting better and it gave her enough support where, I asked her at the end of three months, do you want more? And she said, no. It's like, all right, you don't want it. We're not going to pay for it. But then when I did some follow up, later on, like 10 years later, I think I did a 10-year post, like after we had started all this stuff. So, in 2016 or 17. She said, I need you to know that you saved my life. She’s like, I'm still in treatment, but I have my doctorate now. 

[00:12:45] Sanjay Parekh: Wow. That’s awesome. 

[00:12:47] Genie Burnett: And I am doing well in treatment.

[00:12:50] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:12:52] Genie Burnett: That's amazing. It's amazing. 

[00:12:54] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I think about these things a lot of times and like the companies I've started, the businesses I've started and then it's the people that matter the most that even if the company goes away, that will always remain, and those ripples will continue to exist going forward. So that's an incredible story. 

[00:13:16] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox, committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901. Quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are available at Hiscox. com. Hiscox, business insurance experts.

[00:13:37] Sanjay Parekh: So, the Manna Scholarship Fund was all about that. So, you were raising money. I'm assuming you'd never raised money before. 

[00:13:43] Genie Burnett: Never. 

[00:13:44] Sanjay Parekh: So how did you figure that out? How did you figure out? 

[00:13:48] Genie Burnett: I hated it. I hate asking for money. But I'm really good at it now. 

[00:13:55] Sanjay Parekh: I think that everybody that does that says the same thing. So, how is it that you got started doing that? So, you had this one wealthy client that kind of kick started you. 

[00:14:07] Genie Burnett: She continues to donate. In fact, I'm having lunch with her today. 20 years we have been connected. She started as a client. She became a donor. And now we're friends.

[00:14:21] Sanjay Parekh: Right. So how did you find all the other folks that got you to a million or more in donations a year for this? 

[00:14:30] Genie Burnett: Yeah. When you are working with people over time, right, when their kids have eating disorders. There are, you just sort of amass these people that when their kids get better, they want to give you what they can. The real big change with Manna came when I combined the companies. Like I said, it was, I started these companies when I was 37. So, by the time I'm 47, I'm tired. I'm running two companies, I'm doing two sets of books, and I was tired. And doing all, it was a lot. And so, I decided, I was trying to actually sell Manna Treatment. And I got one bid, and it was so sub par. I was like, that is offensive. And I was watching all these other smaller companies that work with people with eating disorders develop programs that were different levels of care. And I said, you know what? I can pull everything under the nonprofit. 

So, I pulled the treatment program under the nonprofit. And because I was a nonprofit, I could ask people for the funds to, instead of having investors, I asked donors. And I ended up having to borrow about $60,000 to get us through this six-month period where we had to run the three levels of care without being able to take insurance and we got accredited. So, there's this Committee on Accreditation for Rehabilitation Facilities or several accredited accreditation programs, but we did CARF, and you have to run the programs for six months. And so, it takes money to pay people to run these programs, right? And then once you run the programs, you can apply, in the insurance company world because you're a CARF accredited and then they will start paying for the people to come.

[00:17:02] Sanjay Parekh: But before you're accredited, they won't pay?

[00:17:03] Genie Burnett: They won't pay. 

[00:17:05] Sanjay Parekh: But you've got to do it to be able to be accredited.

[00:17:07] Genie Burnett: Correct. So, I had to go into debt and then, and that was in 2017. So, in December of 2017, we were CARF accredited. And then in 2018, we start applying to different insurance companies. I had hired a woman to do this for me. She worked for another company. She didn't do what she said she was going to do. So, the first four or five months, I had it budgeted out. I was like, all right, this is how much it costs. And so, I've got it budgeted out, and by May of 2018, we should be able to have enough, we should be able to be on insurance so we can start charging insurance. There were a lot of things that I didn't know. 

Once we were CARF accredited, we actually could have been applying for, we could have been doing single case agreements with the insurance companies to get that money. But we didn't. She wasn't doing the applications. So, tenacious little Genie says, screw it, I will apply to all of the insurance companies. And I applied to probably seven or eight insurance companies, and I got us accredited with all of these insurance companies. And so, by November of that year, we were making, we were self-sustaining. But until then, thank God for the staff that were dedicated to the program. I would get in enough money like on payday to pay them half or a portion of their pay. And then I'm like, all right, I'm sorry, but the next little bit of money that comes in, I will pay you. And of course, I'm taking like the least amount. And trying to figure out how to make ends meet, credit cards are going sky high and all of the things.

[00:18:59] Sanjay Parekh: Standard entrepreneur story here. 

[00:19:01] Genie Burnett: It's terrible. But I had a guy, I ended up bringing this guy in to do the billing, and the six weeks that he worked for me, he brought us from, walking, crawling, to, we were self-sustaining. Then he had to leave because he got a full-time job. So, I'm trying these other people to do the billing and then finally I reached back out to him a year later and I said, listen, I need you. What do you want? And we were starting, because we were on insurance then, we were able to not only pay, like we were self-sustaining, but we were also then able to give scholarships for people in house, as well as out of house. But it was still not as much as we needed. So, I reached back out to him a year later, brought him on board in January of 2019, and we went from being in debt in 2019 to 100 percent out of debt in 2020. And then amassed a huge, I say a huge, but a lot of savings. So that we could then start doing more and more. And I've learned that financially you need to have at least three months’ worth of bills in savings. So, we've got. a bunch of different savings, a bunch of different accounts. One is savings. One is for one program. One is for scholarships. So, we have like our money in chunks. 

[00:20:49] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So now everything is moved into the nonprofit, right?

[00:20:52] Genie Burnett: Everything in 2016. I merged the companies. 

[00:20:56] Sanjay Parekh: So, everything is a nonprofit now at this point? 

[00:20:58] Genie Burnett: Everybody works for a nonprofit. 

[00:21:00] Sanjay Parekh: What does that mean for you then moving forward? Obviously now you can't sell it, really, right? You could merge it with a nonprofit, but that doesn't really mean an exit for you. 

[00:21:10] Genie Burnett: I actually could break off the Manna Treatment component and sell it. Because the nonprofit actually has multi functions. And so, we could still separate out, raise money, and put people in a resident or any of the levels of care. And I could sell the company, the CARF accredited company, the Manna Treatment. 

[00:21:34] Sanjay Parekh: But then, Manna Scholarship would get the money from that, right? Because it is... 

[00:21:39] Genie Burnett: No, not necessarily. Not necessarily. I could separate it out and sell that company to someone else and use that money, obviously, man, I wouldn't get a whole chunk of it. I would get a little payout. But we would not, we're not in that place. We don't want to do that. Because we love the team that has been created in the last five years. I have created a leadership team. Because part of a CARF, the CARF accreditation is what's your exit plan? And here in the last three years, I've been thinking, is this my next CEO? Is this my next CEO? Who's my next CEO? This cute little girl came in about three years ago, almost four, three or four years ago in January. And she started out as an intern. And it must have been four years. It must be four years in January. She started out as an intern, and she was just larger than life. And she was like, you're going to love me. I said, I am? Okay. And I just loved her energy. And, we have similar belief systems and it's just, and so over the last four years she has gone from an intern to employee to a lead clinician to her in January of ‘24, no, ‘25, she is going to be my next CEO. 

[00:23:25] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So, you've got your plan then for your exiting. So, what does that mean for you then after that? 

[00:23:31] Genie Burnett: I don't know. It's not that I'm never... 

[00:23:38] Sanjay Parekh: That's actually a great answer, by the way, because a lot of people feel like you've got to know what's next when you're not the head dog.

[00:23:47] Genie Burnett: So, what I know is that Manna is too big for me, because I've been the single CEO running Manna, growing Manna, and it's getting too big for me. And I function, I was an only child, and I function best in a team. And so, I've created this team, we've got a leadership team, and there's six of us, me and five other women. And they represent different parts of the company. So, medical and administrative and clinical, and just those five, dietary. So, we have been, for the last year, I've been, we have been meeting as a leadership team We are now at this place because I am stepping away as the clinical director in January. I've got Kelsey coming in as the clinical director. And so, I can take that off my plate. And so, what I'm going to be doing this next year in ‘24 is teaching. We're all going to be, we're in this place where we're creating our own, what is it that you want to do to help Manna move forward? So, we're creating the job descriptions and what is it that you want to do? What do you want to learn how to do? What do you do best? And so, we're dividing up the responsibilities of what I've been doing and how I've been doing it with them. And really creating like a C-suite for Manna.

[00:25:35] Sanjay Parekh: If you're talking to somebody that's contemplating doing what you did, starting a side hustle or a small business, what's that one piece of advice that you'd give to them? 

[00:25:47] Genie Burnett: Make sure you're doing good for more than just you. 

[00:25:57] Sanjay Parekh: That is a great piece of advice, and I don't think that needs to be expounded on beyond that. Dr. Genie Burnett, thank you so much for being on. It's been a pleasure to have you on. 

[00:26:10] Genie Burnett: Yeah. It was fun. It went fast. www.mannafund.org

[00:26:18] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business Podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit hiscox.com. And if you have a story you want to hear on this podcast, please visit www.hiscox.com/shareyourstory. I'm your host Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, www.sanjayparekh.com.