0070: There’s A New, Awesome VO Talent Association You Should Join

Raw transcript:

so if you’re a performer
and you
are
a little bit disappointed with the
support that you’ve been getting in
terms of the things you really need
uh the things you need in life the
things that an association would provide
for you well look at this guy waiting to
be on the uh on the podcast with me tim
friedlander is going to talk about
nava the national association of voice
actors and we’re going to discuss deeply
their biggest their biggest goal which
you’re going to love and we’ll do that
on this episode of the vo heroes podcast
[Music]
so usually when i see tim friedlander
it’s across the table
at some restaurant somewhere where we’re
getting together to talk about
voiceovers sometimes with the voices
anonymous group sometimes
with other organizations that we’re both
members of
but tim friedlander soundboxla and
you’ve probably heard of tim if you’ve
ever tried
to convert non-union work to union work
or just want to know more about
that process
whether you’re in the union or not in
the union
because paymasters can be very valuable
in either case
um but today what i want to talk to tim
about is something that he laid on me
like a bombshell
at the last
moment we were across from each other
and he was chowing down on a burger and
i was having my you know jambalaya or
whatever i was having uh he mentioned
just casually
that he has uh helped form a new
organization for the benefit of voice
talent
called the national association of voice
artists did i get that name right voice
actors voice actors thank you for the
correction okay national association of
voice actors
the url is nava
voices.org so nava voices.org or do you
want to pronounce it nava we’re going to
have to have a how’d you say entry as to
how you pronounce nava how do you
pronounce it we’ve been pronouncing it
nava
navavoices.org okay great
so
why another
organization for voice talent we’ve got
uh all these different people who want
to
uh organize us and have live events and
do
outreach and all that
i know the reason i know the answer to
this question but i want to hear from
you why another
voice actor voice artist
uh
organization
uh great question uh we
for for those who don’t know i’ve been
running the gardner collective voice
over collective gardner street workout
groups and we’ve been doing that now for
about seven years
and over the course of those last seven
years
we have
grown into a fairly large group of voice
actors
globally
primarily nationally uh primarily based
in los angeles and about three or four
years ago i connected with karen
guilford who runs the voice actors of
the nyc group opera in a closet
exactly and
she and i realized that we were doing a
lot of the same stuff we’re putting on a
lot of the same classes we
are
working with educating voice actors
we’re working on discussing how to
convert work which you mentioned earlier
converting from non-union to union
and a lot of these stuff these things
that we’re already doing
we started talking about figuring out a
way that we could
instead of doing these two separate
groups in new york and los angeles kind
of combine these into into one one group
and one of the other things that we both
have been doing is helping financially
with voice actors for the last about two
and a half years through through covid
um we had done this started with the
gardner collective
fund which was just other voice actors
in the la community donating to a fund
and we were helping out other voice
actors um
and then with unfortunately with the
unfortunate passing of brad venable um
in a little over a year a year ago um we
ended up putting together the converted
that into the brad venable fund and in
the course of the last year and a half
we’ve donated two other voice actors and
uh voice actors donated to our group
about 50 to 60 thousand dollars that
we’ve created
and
getting to
that kind of a level we needed to
do figure out a way to make sure that we
were doing this properly and the obvious
step for this was to combine our forces
and make a 501c3 that would allow us to
provide the benefits to the to our group
allow us to do it in a way that people
could donate to us and get tax
deductions and in order for us to be
able to handle this
transparently and clearly and
effectively for our groups
okay and that was for people that don’t
know
501c3 is a non-profit designation it
allows you to accept donations have tax
uh it has tax implications etc it’s the
right way to do these sorts of things
correct yes yep and there there you know
if you look at most of the other groups
that that you see in the voice actor
groups the one the organizations that
are
offering fairly large events you’ll
notice that they’re all 501 c 3’s um or
majority of them are we are currently a
public 501 c 3 which means that we are
open to anybody who wants to join there
are no membership dues currently and
there are no fees to join all right so
let’s talk about this for a second
because i tried to give you some money
the other day when i went to the website
and i wanted to join i wanted to have
the highest membership i wanted to you
know i want to be uh on team tim okay
and
there was no place where i could give
you money what’s the story on that so
currently in order for us to have
this public
um public uh 501c3 designation that
means that we have to be open anybody
who wants to join
and
we are
for anybody who doesn’t know
the way i operate like oh i have an idea
let’s just do it so we did this thing
and much so much i can relate with there
okay go for it uh and then we had to say
you know then we had to take a step back
met with lawyers and you know meet with
you know tax agents and everybody to
make sure that we set our set everything
up properly and currently have chosen to
offer this as a public 501c3 which means
no membership fees or no membership dues
we are currently have a membership
committee we have a board for the nava
board we have an advisory board there’s
about 15 people on our advisory board
and
one of the one of the boards is one of
the the committees is
figuring out how we’re going to
offer membership tiers and there will be
a free currently open free tier and then
from there there will be other tiers
that you can join um but that’s going to
be coming down the line once we have the
group a little more established and once
we are able to have a kind of a core
group of people who understand what
we’re doing and are
interested like you in
joining to get these other benefits that
that will be coming down the line later
so
that’s really
the big
boomer surprise in this is the other
benefits that will be coming down the
pike one of the reasons that you shared
with me that you created nava
it did i pronounce that right yes yep
perfect
is
a
clear
need
and lack of
insurance health insurance
for voice talent that aren’t members of
the union number one and number two
aren’t making enough money when they’re
in the union
to qualify
for
uh for the health insurance that the
union offers or they’ve approached uh
like here in california covered
california or obamacare or
healthcare.gov
and the prices are just crazy um
and the benefits aren’t necessarily
what they need to be
you
let me know that one of the core goals
of your organization is to
provide a possibility for people to
get health care
and that’s just huge man it’s just huge
uh certainly physical health care uh the
body
um is is something that we all need
especially
you know with the pandemic and and sort
of the added pressure of that
but mental health
uh uh the the
the business that we’re in that engages
us in negative ways all the time
uh when you’re running bear without
insurance you’re really risking your
future
yeah so tell me more about why
this is one of the core reasons that
that you’re creating this organization
it was it was kind of accidental
actually once we
once we formed an associate association
um what we discovered that was with um
changes in the healthcare laws about two
years ago is that a lot of these some of
the regulations were relaxed which allow
associations
of like-minded
like grouped people to provide health
insurance and there’s a group out there
right now freelancers union has been
doing this for quite a while they offer
group health insurance to freelancers
and they’re all that’s just general
freelancers if you were a freelance
artist uh freelance in any industry
actually you can join the freelancers
union um we yeah there’s lots of
examples of of
sort of mutual support organizations i
mean if you’re
if you’re a golfer you can probably join
some sort of uh you know a golfer
organization that that says oh by the
way if you want to go over here we have
mutual of omaha or whatever um
but in this case it kind of ties in
perfectly
with the very noble uh uh notion of
the memory of brad venable
uh for those of you who by the way don’t
know who brad venable is he was one of
my very first clients
and he went on to be very successful in
uh animation and video games he
unfortunately passed away
a couple years ago and everybody misses
him he was such a joy to be around
big old guy like me
and we’d be in the union hall together
and it was awesome anyway
brad’s memory really uh is is uh lending
itself to
you know this this notion of mutual
support
uh when your fellow voice talent is
struggling and you can help because you
may be doing a little bit better than
before uh it’s it’s like one of those
mutual aid societies so you see those
all over the place and is that what nava
is
that’s definitely definitely how it
started and that is our kind of our
primary purpose our goal is to help help
with
struggling voice voice actors as needed
that is part of our membership committee
as well is figuring out how we’re going
to
going to to handle the fund for those in
need but you know providing health care
is a great way to do that it’s going to
allow people to take some of that
pressure off if they’re able to get a
lower you know lower premium every month
if they’re able to insure their family
in a way they weren’t able to before if
they’re able to
maybe leave a leave a cobra plan that is
extremely expensive and find something
that’s going to be equally beneficial
for them um you know we are currently in
the organization stages of this which
means we have to develop we have to
create a pool which means starting next
week on um early next week we’re gonna
be gonna be well actually it’s already
going on as people are watching god as
we’re watching this for right now right
it’s open you can go to navavoices.org
and there is just the very top will be
complete the health care census it’s an
opportunity for people who are
interested in getting information they
can fill out their information they
become part of our our original pool of
submissions that will go to work to the
different health insurance companies
that were that we’re applying to and
based on this initial pool of people we
will get then
our benefits package or our premiums
based on this pool of voice actors i
imagine that you didn’t plan on becoming
a bit of an expert on all the different
health plans and health organizations
that are available out there
mentioned you mentioned one to me i
think it’s called cielo star
is one yeah i’d never heard of before
and neither had the people around me
that i’ve been talking about this with
and then there’s adnan blue cross and
blue shield
the big question would be for people who
have already been through the process of
either covered california or uh you know
national healthcare.gov
what’s the what what’s the advantage of
going to you are you looking for a lower
price point for people are you looking
for the benefits that really voice
talent need like making sure that
there’s ent coverage and things like
that what’s what’s the
all of those we with the with the
the groups that we’re looking at we’re
actually able to get uh national health
coverage in all states except for hawaii
and hawaii is very small they have
kaiser permanente and they have one
other one other small group that offers
healthcare in hawaii so um we’re going
to be offering the current information
we have and this is
all subject to change based on the pool
that we get and once the applications
are in and everything so based on the
information we have now we’re going to
get a national plan
that will be
the same rates across all states
okay and you’re looking for those rates
to be lower than what they could get on
the marketplaces that are currently
available for healthcare right as an
individual correct yes we won’t be able
to compete probably with you know with a
business plan with a company that’s been
in business for years that’s had
established
plans going forward you know we won’t be
able to compete with sag after
healthcare the the healthcare rates are
phenomenal for those who are able to do
it so right the the qualification
has become so much more difficult since
the kind of implosion during the the
uh the pandemic so i can certainly see
the demand for this and i mean this is
really i don’t want you to bury the lead
on this you know yes we
we see an organization we go okay great
maybe we can learn to be better voice
talent maybe we can learn about uh
opportunities in the space and maybe we
can learn about equipment and we can go
to a convention in vegas and get drunk
each night or whatever
but the notion that
this organization would actually help
make all of our lives better on a
holistic level
with uh the opportunity for health
insurance can you talk a little bit
about
uh
just the the and maybe you can’t i just
feel free to say no you can’t but you
know when you look at uh the thousands
of dollars a month that some people are
spending either individually or on a
family basis
for health insurance is there anything
you can do about that price point or
what are you aiming to do
our our aim is to make that a much more
um much more
beneficial price point a much lower
price point than what somebody could get
can you talk about numbers at all we
don’t have number numbers gonna be based
on our census pool and
um you know we have we we can’t we have
an idea of where we would like to be
based on what people have told us um
and what people you know based on what
we have heard people are paying um but i
i don’t want to put out numbers because
they’re they’re going to change it’s
going to be contingent on the company
whether it’s united aetna whether it’s
blue shield blue cross whether it’s
cielo star whether it’s oscar whoever
else comes to the table with this it’s
gonna vary it’s gonna depend on what our
pool is so our biggest our biggest our
first hurdle right now is what’s
happening currently which is creating
this the census pool and we’re putting
together as many people as we can we’re
reaching out we’re gonna we’re trying to
do oppress you know
groups like this we’re reaching out
we’re trying to reach out to other
organizations other magazines we’re
trying to reach out to online casting
sites and get this information out there
because this our goal is for this to be
a voice actors union regardless of
affiliation union affiliation non-union
affiliation phi core non-jurisdictional
whatever market you happen to work in
that this will be just to be clear you
said the word union you don’t mean a
competitive union with sag-aftra
you mean an organization an association
yeah
sorry yes we’re an association that is
uh does doesn’t your other affiliations
um
are all welcome in this association so
one
one more aspect of the insurance thing
that i just want to touch on briefly
people are always very concerned that
the doctors they want to see
are doctors that your insurance are
going to allow them to choose and you
said something to me again over your
burger that i was really surprised about
that the vast majority of doctors
are in multiple
uh programs that there’s there’s
coverage that we wouldn’t expect to be
as widespread as it actually is can you
talk a little bit about that
what what we’ve learned in the last
couple months is there is a most part
there’s a national database that the
insurance companies go off of the
doctors can be affiliated with and if
they’re on this database they’re covered
under that insurance plan and the
multiple different
um different insurance companies use
this same or similar database of doctors
to choose from again until we actually
get
the actual plans in front of us and are
able to say yes you can you know you can
and can’t keep your doctor or go with
you you know but it’s it’s the same
thing as if you were to change health
you know you change companies you work
for a different business and you go from
united to aetna you may not be able to
keep your doctor you might be like
health plan um but so what you know our
goal is to find the group that’s going
to offer the largest coverage
across the united states that’s going to
have the most access to the most doctors
that
as much as possible as we can get but
again this is all you know our goal is
right now is this pool is our census and
we need the most amount of people on
this pool from every state and we’re
going to get as many people registered
on this as possible all we’re doing for
this pool is gathering up information
that’s required by the healthcare
companies
which is
which those who go once you go to the
census you’ll see what’s on there we’ve
made it transparent we’ve made it clear
as far as what information is required
by the insurance companies and what
information we as nava are asking for
us to know where you’re coming from how
you heard about this some some basic
questions in there um also a couple
questions regarding uh where you are as
a voice actor in the industry yeah so
the url the url for this uh census which
is basically a form that you fill out is
on the screen right now and we’re going
to keep it up for the rest of the
the podcast listen tim friedlander is a
giver
let’s talk about tim as though he isn’t
really
he’s a giver he has a weekly workout vo
weekly workout he’s got the gardner
street collective he’s got the brad
venable fund he’s got this new nava
voices.org this new national association
of voice actors and
the
the goal here or the the the marching
orders if you will if you’re watching
this is to go fill out
this census form
and to
give
tim the ammunition he needs to create
this organization and to create the
offering
of uh of something that is desperately
needed especially among performers um
the the notion of of health care is just
it’s just vital you know this i don’t
have to sell you on this and then beyond
the health care thing which is truly for
me the most uh amazing draw
is the fact that it’s not being
organized by people who don’t understand
the industry tim also is really really
well versed in being
in providing pay master services and
conversion services and going from union
to non-union to union work and
like i see tim
looking at a problem and going how do we
fix this
and i love that about you man it’s just
it’s so awesome uh you’re talking to the
union all the time you’re talking to
people who are non-union people who are
fight court people who are are doing
non-jurisdictional work that nobody’s
even heard of before right there’s no
contract that exists for some of this
stuff
and so when i look at uh tim’s mouth if
it’s moving it’s time to listen and so
please visit nava
voices dot org there’s a big ass link
right on the front page for the the
census fill it out
help build this new organization if
there was ever
an organization that had the potential
for success
this is it
and i plan on supporting it any way i
can i beg you to take money from me tim
i don’t know what i need to do to make
that happen
if you need my support in any other way
i’m happy to serve
you tell me but i want to make sure that
people know
that this is something that they should
take action on right now because the
more information you have
the faster you can get to that position
correct correct and we’re looking at
potentially if all if all goes well
being able to offer health insurance
starting in september
of this year
wow with if that means you watching this
you have to help this happen so go fill
out the census form tell them what you
want tell them what you have tell them
where you are in your journey give them
the information that they need and let’s
get this thing going all right tim
friedlander everybody thank you so much
thank you uh i uh if you like what
you’re watching in this uh in this
podcast go ahead and smash the like
button so that it’s unrecognizable to
the next person that comes along uh make
sure you subscribe to the channel share
this with another actor especially
another voice actor
who may benefit from it by just going up
to the address bar grabbing the url and
shoving it along to them in a forward uh
and thank you so much for watching and
for listening i’m david h lawrence 17th
and i will see you in the next episode
of the vo heroes podcast
[Music]

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