In Part 15, we covered your family history and Ireland’s history over hundreds of years which brought to light the many parallels between systemic exploitation in Ireland and the U.S.

It also highlighted the advantages of home ownership not just to your family, but to society as a whole.

It was good to dig into some of the details of that story – from Margaret and John 150 years ago through six generations of their descendants.

In Part 14, we covered Level UP’s goal to make homeownership possible for everyone who makes $30,000 per year, which is $15 per hour, or more.

Can your Apps help everyone who’s poor?

That’s the goal.

Level UP Apps are D-I-Y tools to escape poverty. But not every poor person is in a situation where they can use Apps.

In our first few years, our Apps will help to Level UP poor but working people and people who are willing to work but excluded.

Our Housing Stability App targets the segment of workers who cannot qualify for home ownership. This group of people includes up to 65% of the U.S. population which is almost 220 million people.

How will these people find out about your Apps?

Two main ways.

Word of mouth, from a person the Apps help to their family and friends.

Secondly, through our target market which is businesses and organizations who will use our Apps and platforms to address problems they face in their culture and infrastructure.

These companies will interact with people working to make ends meet, and our Apps will be the tools that these companies use to upgrade their practices while simultaneously helping level-up their employee’s lives.

What sort of issues do these companies face?

Many companies are not “future facing”. This means they are not prepared to excel and/or do well in the emerging social and economic environment.

Issues like building diversity, being more inclusive, and/or upgrading their workplace culture by replacing discriminatory practices are a stretch for them.

In essence, they can’t solve new problems from an old mindset. This is our niche. Our Apps help them to cross these bridges and function in the new and more equitable economy that is rapidly emerging.

Can you say more about diversity?

Yes. Examples of diversity include cultural background, religious background, ethnicity, disabilities or differently-abled people, sexual identity, varied neural capabilities, age, family structure, financial situations, and others.

Discriminatory practices have different rules, preferences, and often barriers blocking people based on these differences, and others.

What’s Level UP’s expertise in diversity?

In addition to poverty, we have similarly put a lot of effort into researching and understanding the benefits of diversity. You can read about this in our handbook “Built for Diversity” - also available in our Resources Section.

Can you expand a little on how Level UP sees diversity?

In our work – and in our perspectives on diversity, we start with “people first”.

Each person is unique from the get-go, because of our genetics, our ancestral contribution, our family of origin, and the culture we grow into. We become more diverse through our personal experiences, preferences, and choices, and by the worldview we adopt and develop.

Yes.
Just by living life we are all diverse and have something unique to offer. I think that one of the most important things we all bring to our work is who we are.

I agree with that sentiment.

Let’s take a look at the similar but very different lives of myself and Rodney, who are now working closely together as co-CEOs of Level UP.

We both started working at a young age. While I was working on the family farm and in a supermarket in Ireland, Rodney was working at a supermarket in Alabama.

I emigrated as a young adult, so my formative years were spent outside of the US. He was born and grew up here.

My experience with societal conflict is based on Ireland’s historic struggle with Great Britain, whereas Rodney grew up in the wake of America’s Civil Rights movement.

A fun Level UP fact is that Rodney and I are both the oldest of six siblings and we each have close personal and working relationships with our youngest siblings, Crystal and Mary, both of whom are building Level UP with us.

I love it.

We both experienced poverty – me superficially – because almost everyone was poor together before Ireland joined the European Economic Community. But Rodney’s poverty experience was more profound and impactful because he had to fend for himself and his young siblings in an often hostile and dangerous environment with virtually no resources and more adversity than support.

From our youth forward, we have both accumulated diverse life experiences. Between us, we have worked in 35 of the 50 states. We have each had at least 5 different careers, cumulatively founded over 20 companies, worked for good causes, helped build families and communities, and worked to keep them healthy.

We both lived and worked in the South and were activated by the “system’s” legacy of discrimination and oppression, which we experienced on a daily basis – but from different viewpoints, mine from the outside, Rodney’s on the inside.

We have walked different paths but ended up working together on the same goals. Together, we are one example of how diversity makes us broader, better prepared, and ultimately more sustainable.

Does Level UP address poverty or discrimination?

Both.

Our Level Up Apps provides companies with opportunities to replace discriminatory systems with nondiscriminatory systems that strengthen the company and improve the workplace experience and quality of output. Many of these are the same solutions that address poverty.

Can you define “discriminatory systems”?

These are systems that treat people differently based on certain types of diversity.

Discrimination itself runs the gamut from discernment at one end to prejudice at the other. Discernment is an important personal skill. Knowing who to trust, what to give our time to, and where to invest our money – these decisions all require discernment.

On the other hand, prejudice shows up when we avoid doing the hard work of discernment by making assumptions. When society uses the term discrimination, it often means “prejudiced or discriminatory systems”. These are not people but mechanisms and systems that create disadvantages or barriers for their target populations.

Do many companies and organizations use discriminatory practices today?

Yes.
We don’t accuse people of using discriminatory practices, but their workplaces often do – and many of these go unexamined even today.

How will upgrading these practices affect the companies that use them?

Incorporating Level UP Apps will lead to higher productivity and increased profitability for our clients. They will build a friendlier, more supportive, and energized workplace. These benefits are supported by research and studies. And also highlighted in the story I told of my friend Jeremy and his European factory.

Which of your Apps is most relevant to building diversity?

Well, all of them really. They all address systemic oppression and the cultures that experience the most oppression are our minorities.

This is how the degenerative cycle works. It picks groups to target for consumption. Today, that’s minorities, such as Black and Brown people from every culture and people who have a non-mainstream cultural and/or sexual identity. These oppressed minorities, in the not-so-distant past also included Irish, Polish, Germans, Jews, Mormons, Native Americans, and of course Gays.

Our U.S. history of oppression is beautifully traced in Rodney’s book “This Land is Your Land”, through historical events combined with stories of real people. It’s available for download on the website in the Resources Section, and also in an audible version.

The Level UP Apps address societal bias, which is reflected, and often exaggerated in our business and social systems. And addressing this bias is forward movement for us all.