A Golden Touch for Helping People Get Back on Their Feet

Productive Pittsburgh — a new organization co-founded by SI member Brian Long — shows the innovative ways the business community and nonprofits can team up for the greater good.

Brian Long (left); and Jim Settembrino

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Everyone, Pittsburgh community leaders Brian Long and Jim Settembrino will tell you, can stumble from time to time.

As Settembrino puts it: “Everybody has times in their life when the obstacles in front of them seem overwhelming, and it takes some folks to really push them in the right direction.”

That simple but profound recognition is the driving force behind Productive Pittsburgh, the new organization that Long, chairman of insurance firm Seubert, and Settembrino, a longtime nonprofit executive, have founded.

The organization’s main focus right now is helping Pittsburgh’s homeless population, with a unique solution designed not only to get people who are homeless immediate help, but to ultimately aid them in rebuilding their lives. “Our motto is a hand up, not a handout,” says Settembrino.

That makes Productive Pittsburgh — a new SI Nonprofit Affiliate— the perfect representation of what the Satell Institute is all about: business and nonprofit leaders coming together for the benefit of all. As SI founder Ed Satell’s motto goes, “Think WE, not just me.”

Help for People Who Are Ready for It

Brian Long, one of the very first members of SI’s Pittsburgh chapter, has a history of trying to support people in need. Several years ago he helped a young relative named Sean Gardner turn his life in the right direction, in part through some tough love. As Long drove Gardner — who struggled for years with addiction — to a treatment facility, “I told him he should be dead and I cursed at him the whole way,” Long says candidly.  

But Long also gave Gardner support and hope — and Gardner was able to turn his life around. Today, he’s been clean for 12 years and he operates a group of transitional homes for people in recovery.

In many ways Gardner’s story was the model for Productive Pittsburgh: to connect with people who are struggling but ready for help. “We wanted to try to repeat the effort in Pittsburgh and focus on the homeless population, fully recognizing that we can't help everybody. Not everybody is ready for it,” Settembrino says.

To that end, the organization has launched its Gold Card initiative. Since giving money to people experiencing homelessness is not always in their best long-term interest, Productive Pittsburgh has created an alternative. The organization has produced and distributed thousands of gold cards (which look similar to a credit card) to people in the local community. When people are approached for a handout by someone experiencing homelessness, they pass along the card, which lists organizations that can help the person get real help — from a bed, meal and shower to addiction treatment and beyond.

Productive Pittsburgh has partnered with several outstanding local outfits — Light of Life Mission, Gateway Rehab, and the Sean Gardner House — to provide the assistance that helps people rebuild their lives.

The city of Pittsburgh will host the NFL Draft in April, and Productive Pittsburgh has targeted that event as a benchmark: Their goal is to have gotten 100 people back on their feet by that time. It’s a goal that will not only help those individuals, but the community more broadly.

The Satell Connection

Longer term, Long and Settembrino are thinking even bigger for Productive Pittsburgh. They’ve begun a partnership with Point Park University, tapping into the energy and ideas of a new generation. Ultimately, they want the organization to be a connector that makes Pittsburgh a stronger place.

Brian Long has been a member of the Satell Institute since its inception in Pittsburgh, and he introduced Settembrino to SI earlier this year. It’s been transformative.

“It’s great to be around people who are more about their ears and less about their mouths and want to learn while they engage,” Settembrino says of the interactions he’s had with business and nonprofit leaders at SI events. “And you're talking about CEO-level people who are humbled by all the great work that is going on out there and want to get involved.”

Settembrino also got the chance to meet Ed Satell. “I got to hear directly from him, and it was really motivating. If everybody thought the way he does about giving back, what a different world it would be.”

Productive Pittsburgh is doing its part.