Ohana Capital Partners Launches the Rise Palisades Fund to Empower Fire-Affected Families with Hope and Home
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews Ethan Alexander, Chief Business Officer at Ohana Capital Partners, on-site at the Original Mixer in Los Angeles. Ethan shares how losing his own home in the Palisades fire led to the creation of the Rise Palisades Fund a community-focused initiative funding pre-construction planning for displaced families. With a mission rooted in rebuilding lives, Ethan is turning tragedy into tangible impact.
About Ohana Capital Partners
At Ohana Capital Partners, they believe that a family mindset is the foundation for building shared success—uniting founders and family office investors around trust, collaboration, and a commitment to lasting growth.
Watch Full Interview:
Full Unedited Transcript
I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. Alright, so today I’m in Los Angeles, California. I’m at the original mixer. Big shout out to Kathleen who invited Mission Matters here.
We’ve been covering this event now for two years straight, and my first guest on the show today is Ethan. Ethan, welcome. Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. All right, so how’d you learn about the original mixer? Let’s start there. Uh, Kathleen, I mean, how do you like, contain that amount of energy?
Kathleen’s fantastic. She’s actually been a good friend of ours from Ohana Capital Partners, which is the group that I’m with. And she’s made some introductions that are just absolutely incredible. Yeah. Um, the people she knows, but also the pulse of what’s going on and what needs to be addressed. Hmm.
It’s really unique in the way she. Brings people together. How long, how long have you, I’m always curious about this ’cause she’s been in this business a long time. Roughly how many years? She’s been a long time. Have you been We’ve only to working with her maybe a year, a little over a year right now. Oh wow.
So it’s still a new conversation. That’s amazing. Oh, you’re a treat. And I, by the way, hold on for everybody at home. I don’t get a commission for this. I’m covering this. None of two’s, but you’re in for a treat, man. It’s like, I met Kathleen now going on three years ago. Nice. The other business partner? Uh, for a co-founder for Mission Mattis Shirac.
He’s known her for many years. Yeah, of course. Just this whole Los Angeles consulting group community now newer to the community, but I’m just curious your overall, the community as a whole. Yeah. What’s your first impression now? Well, where do you, I mean, there’s so many different aspects of the relationships that are involved here, but it’s the idea that we’re all learning from each other, sharing ideas, finding solutions.
Yeah. Essentially that’s what we all wanna do, is just make a better place. And that actually kind of goes into the foundation and the stuff that, what we’re working on now. There’s a lot that’s kind of going on in the Palisades right now. Mm-hmm. I don’t know if you’re remember that. Oh, but that was like a tragic week.
Oh, remember I lived here for so many people here. Yeah. Of how could you have, of course. How could you miss a fire? Mm. Especially of that magnitude in Los Angeles for everything that’s been going on. Yeah. Time moves fast. We’re five, six months now since that. Mm-hmm. There’s a lot of family still dealing with that.
I’m dealing with, I actually lost my house. Oh, our entire neighborhood. Yeah. I was there that day, that night, dealing with all these different things. But it’s not just that experience, it’s everything forward from that. Mm-hmm. So what we did, Ohana Capital Partners came together. We’re working with a lot of different family offices.
Mm-hmm. Kathleen has brought a lot of those introductions. Yeah. Relationships and questions forward to also help other families in the Palisades because where do you start? Yeah. There’s a lot of people that haven’t actually. Built a home before, gone through pre-construction. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So what we’re trained to do is give people a vision and help them with those first couple of steps to get through it.
Yeah. So a bunch of family offices we work with have provided funds that we now have put forward into what we’re calling pre-construction. Mm. So the idea of an architect surveys, engineering plans, designs, yeah. Literally everything to get them to RTI, which is that mm-hmm. Ready to build. It’s amazing to hear the stories of the families I’m talking to.
Mm. Of the history, the love for the Palisades for Los Angeles itself. Yeah. But it gives them that vision that, wait a minute, I’m not alone. Mm. I’m a part of this community. I actually can do something to actually rebuild. Or in some cases we’re helping people get that plan and that vision so they can sell the property.
Mm-hmm. At maximum value. Yeah. Because if you have plans and permits and everything else, and somebody can buy that. They can start the next day, they can really start building right then and there. And what we’ve seen is like a 20, 30, maybe 50% upside of the value that can go to that family in need. Wow.
There’s also other aspects where we’re helping families completely rebuild or to build a spec house. Mm-hmm. So we’re very flexible, let’s say. Mm-hmm. Based on what their needs are, what their history is, what the family wants. Mm-hmm. And it’s really been an an incredible opportunity to. Not to use the same term, but help Palisades rise back up.
Yeah, yeah. And it’s such a process. There’s so much emotion involved in that stuff. Mm-hmm. But we’re, we’re trying to make a difference. Mm-hmm. I love the Palisades, I love the community. I love the network, which we’re missing right now. Mm. And I think that’s part of la I mean, being absolutely another Absolutely.
Yeah. Part of this, we’re missing part of our family right now. Yeah. And we do wanna make a difference. How did you get the idea for this? So how did the, how do, how did Capital Partners get the idea? Like, where’d that stem from? Literally my own experience. Yeah. Because. I lost my house. I was there to see it burn.
All the different things that kind of went on. But the first couple of that’s gotta be traumatic. Like I can’t even, I’m trying to even fazz a lot on what it is to sit there and watch like something that, that you’ve walked into many days of your life. We just built it in 2018. Oh wow. It was a new home.
Wow. So we had two children there. I have two young boys, five and seven. Ah, so they’re literally there. That’s their house. I thought. That’s what they know. Yeah. Yeah. The memories, the, like, all of those things. I think sometimes people think about a home, but they don’t always think about like what that home represents.
What it means, like the, like the other things that just, you know, I, I would sort of ask that vision. What would you do right now if you saw on television A fire? Oh, man. And that happened to be your home? Yeah. And the fact that you can’t walk in and be comfortable, period. Just go home. You can’t even go home.
Yeah. We literally, we all brought a bag each. Oh. And that’s what we walked away with. The rest. Oh man. Go on. And it’s not just me, seven, 7,000 of us. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So my story’s not unique. There are much more tragic, much more loss. Yeah. Than. It’s really what happens is in that type of situation, you lose the network of relationships that you have because you can’t walk next door.
Yeah. You can’t say, Hey, I need help with this, or can you help about that? Yeah. So we’re having to reach out to different C members, like the disconnect community of people that were in your life. That support network. It’s your community. Yeah. That’s your neighbors. So what we’re doing is we’re trying to bring some of that back as best we can.
Mm-hmm. We’re all over the place now. Yeah. ’cause essentially nobody has the home they knew and grew up in or lived in, or. All of these things, but what we’re trying to do with Rise Palis agents, give some of that vision, create some of that opportunity, bring some of that network back together. Yeah. And just move forward.
Keep moving forward. Nobody’s coming to help us. That’s sort of the weird thing in this whole presence. Yeah. That’s the, yeah. There’s not like a group out there. It’s all based on relationships. Mm-hmm. Trust neighborhoods. Yeah. To say, let’s pan together. And right now we’re with Rise, we’ve got around 10 different properties that we’re working with.
Mm-hmm. All in our general area. We’ve grouped up. Architect. Builders Planners Property survey. Yeah. Landscape architects, the, they’re all coming together to help, not just one. I think sometimes people don’t know that. Like they don’t think about, like even outside of money, you need resources, you need planning, you need, and this is at scale.
Yes. This is huge. It’s like let’s build enough city, like out of. Or a suburb out of, you know, scratch. Completely. Yeah, completely. And all the things that like that entails. It does. So what we’re doing, and actually it does, you don’t have to work with our people, but our fund is actually covering the cost of that preconstruction and that ranges anywhere from a hundred to $350,000.
Yeah. Most people are like, what? And where does that come from? Yeah. I mean, I’m just trying to survive right now. Right. So we’re trying to give them that comfort level to move forward to give them some of that. Mm-hmm. Vision. And sometimes we just do like, do you like a picture like this for your house? Or would this be great for your home?
Wow. Of this on your property? What a story and story. You can literally see people gonna go like open up, right? They come back alive, they of, they can start to see their home again. Wow, man. And that’s those little steps we wanna start taking. There’s a lot of people doing things to help out. I’m not saying we’re doing anything.
Of course. No, it doesn’t. Not to take away from it though. I don’t Exactly don’t. I don’t think you have to take away from that. Like it takes everyone. Let’s all work together on this. Of course. Of course. And, and that’s what we’re trying to, we’re actually again from Kathleen from some of these other relationships.
I literally have builders, architects, designers, other people coming up saying, I’ll help. Wow. I, I will, I will cut my costs in half. Wow. Just to help 5, 10, 20 families. I don’t care. I’d love to hear it. That’s the human spirit right there. That’s like people pan together. That’s the, you hate, I mean, I hate, I won’t say you, but I hate to see that sometimes we have to have these type of like things that happen to bring back certain parts of humanity.
Yes. But. But when it does happen, if we can take that away from it Exactly. Like that’s a, I’m a silver lining type person. Everybody that listened to the show for a long time, you’re probably, oh, there goes Adam preaching again. You’re right. I am preaching again. So just get with it. But we need the preaching, we need, there are so many people who are isolated right now because of this.
Yeah. What we need. So I have two asks. One, yeah. Do you know a family we can help? Right. Anyone A block. Yeah. Anywhere within the Palisades. Malibu, just the general area that was affected by the Palisades fire. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, we’re trying to be focused again. It’s one of those we don’t, we can’t really cover all the right course.
Unfortunate regions. Yeah. We’re focusing on what we know and where we live. Yes. In that sense. The other part, the other ask I have is, okay, one of, you know, a family two. If you want to be a part of our fund, help a family out, make a difference. And that’s kind of where Kathleen’s come in, where she’s brought these different family offices mm-hmm.
And private equity and different investment groups saying, let me give you some, do what you can. Yeah. And we have reports and it’s the idea that we’re gonna pay that back. It’s not like a grant or, or charity per se. Mm-hmm. We’re in just like, I invest in companies every day in tech companies. Yeah. All we’re investing in the Palisades.
Amazing. We’re investing in the people. Hmm. And that’s sort of the essence of, well, why we exist, yeah’s amazing in our community and it’s what we wanna do to make a difference. Last thing I want you to do, Ethan, look into the camera and tell people how they can connect. Like tell them how they can do exactly what you said and if they wanna follow you as well, and your other work and your investing, how do they do that?
Perfect. My name’s Ethan Alexander with Ohana Capital Partners. The fund itself is called the Rise Palisades Fund. Reach out. My number’s on there, my email’s on there. I mean, I’m being transparent. I’m trying to get to as many people that we can help be a part of this. Mm-hmm. Make change happen. If you can’t work with us directly, make change happen to your own community.
Yeah, it does make a difference. Amazing. And thanks for doing these things. It’s absolutely, I’ve been a fan for a long time. I love it. This is the way we connect people and create change. Amazing. And for everybody at home, just so you know, we’ll definitely leave the links, uh, in the show notes so you can just click on the link and head right on over.
And. Speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way, your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. Then Ethan, thanks again for coming on the show, man. Appreciate you. Thank you for the opportunity.