Mesa businessman, 9-year-old `exec' share valuable lessons

The Business Journal of Phoenix

by Tara Teichgraeber

The Business Journal

The 9-year-old chairman of a nonprofit agency is going to help a lot more sick kids thanks to a Mesa, Arizona businessman.

And both she and her "angel" -- four times her age -- came away with valuable experiences:

She learned the importance of networking.

He enjoyed the satisfaction of charitable giving.

Taylor Marie Crabtree, whose agency raises money to provide teddy bears to children with cancer and other blood disorders, hopes to expand her operations, thanks to a $10,000 boost from Greg Crane of Mesa.

Crane, chief operating officer at YP.Net, attended a Young Entrepreneurs' Organization event last summer in Phoenix, where he heard a presentation by Taylor Marie of Vista, Calif.

The fourth-grader, who founded Taybear Co. when she was 7, was there simply to give a talk. She wasn't expecting to raise money.

"When she started talking, I turned my (business) card over and thought I'd give a couple of hundred dollars," Crane said. "Then I thought, oh, maybe $1,000 and then, what the heck -- $10,000."

Taylor Marie didn't even see the IOU until she was at a restaurant later that day. She was flipping through all of the business cards she collected when she saw the note on the back of Crane's card.

"I had no clue what to say," Taylor Marie said. "I was just amazed that someone would donate that much money to a kid's organization."

Crane said he simply wanted to help.

"I didn't want to give the gift to get something in return," said Crane, whose company is an online directory service, formerly known as RIGL Corp. "We gave it because we thought it would help her and a lot of other people. She's going to touch a lot of people's lives."

Now Taybear Co. has twice the giving power. The money also helped her attain official 501-C3 nonprofit status.

She has set up a board of directors with herself as founder and chairwoman and has retained legal counsel.

Now on order are 5,500 bears. Each will be delivered to Taylor Marie, then distributed to children.

She hopes to spread her concept of "kids helping kids" to other states, where a local chapter would be headed by a 10- to 15-year-old child who would contact hospitals to check their interest.

The donation also has helped her find a new bear supplier -- Build-a-Bear in St. Louis -- which will donate an additional 10 percent of each order and a silkscreened T-shirt for every bear. "It's really kind of fun and inspiring to watch her," said Taylor Marie's dad, Ken Crabtree. "She's had to cut back on some of the sports, but Taybear is another opportunity for her to develop skills other children might not and carry them into adulthood."

Taylor Marie -- who hopes to one day become an ocean diver or a biologist -- says she has learned "lots of math" as well as how to count money, use Quicken computer software, speak to large audiences and to organize for the new times ahead.

But more than anything, she learned that she can inspire adults, not just kids.