Lucky Duck Foundation tackles homelessness with strategy and compassion

The CEO of the Lucky Duck Foundation has been telling me for months he’s too uninteresting to be profiled. “I’m just a dumb jock,” claims Drew Moser, flashing a boy-next-door grin. He finally consents to an interview about himself, he reasons out loud, “because any publicity will probably be good for the foundation.”

The Lucky Duck Foundation deserves major kudos. It’s a prominent philanthropic organization that makes noticeable dents in local homelessness. Lucky Duck has programs for seniors, youth, and unsheltered people of all ages. A core belief is housing, but taking care of needs promptly — like handing out sleeping bags before winter each year — is its calling card. 

Moser may be a jock, but he’s no dummy. Yes, he was a senior shooting guard for the University of Redlands basketball team in 2005. That’s when the Division III Bulldogs used an unorthodox system to set an NCAA record for team scoring, averaging an astounding 137.8 points per game. 

After graduating with a degree in business, Moser was still hooked on sports. He took a job as a high school basketball coach. Wondering if he could coach at the college level, the Spokane, Washington, native began a volunteer assistant coaching job with the University of San Diego basketball team. 

By 2010, he was job hunting. He didn’t want to leave San Diego because he’d met Whitney, an Iowa soccer player who worked in admin at USD. (Today they have three children, Blake, 11; Beau, 7; and Remi, 5.) 

After volunteering with San Diego’s Hall of Champions, under the umbrella of the San Diego Sports Commission, he was hired, and worked his way up to president. The Hall of Champions is where Moser met Pat and Stephanie Kilkenny, co-founders of the Lucky Duck Foundation. (Quick name breakdown: “Lucky” is a nod to the Kilkennys’ Irish heritage. “Duck” is an homage to the mascot at their alma mater, the University of Oregon, where Pat served a stint as athletic director.)  

Stephanie and Moser share a number of business-minded traits, including being detail-oriented, strategic thinkers. Moser recalls telling the Kilkennys: “Hey, I can’t write checks like you guys can, yet. It’s my goal someday, but now I can give you what time and what little talent I have to help the cause.” Lucky Duck had been an all-volunteer organization until Moser became employee No. 1 in 2019.

The foundation started out as a broad philanthropic entity. Business guru Dan Shea and late Padres owner Peter Seidler, both board members, convinced the Kilkennys they could have a more focused impact if Lucky Duck just took aim at homelessness issues.

Seidler and Shea had been helming something called the Tuesday Group since 2016. It’s a consortium of San Diego business people who brainstorm on homelessness. Being impatient, like all the best entrepreneurs, Tuesday Club members try to speed up the progress of solutions by bending the ears of politicians or other movers and shakers. The Tuesday Group evaluates ideas and programs; Lucky Duck, a 501(c)(3) with bylaws, a board, and a government structure, can set funding plans in motion for those programs deemed “best-in-class.”

From the beginning of his stint with Lucky Duck, Moser has been the liaison between the one-two punch nature of these symbiotic entities.

“Drew is such a detail-oriented, mission-driven and all-around credible guy,” says Dan Novak. The former general manager of Channel 4 San Diego and head of global marketing at Qualcomm, now retired, is on the executive board at Lucky Duck and has been a Tuesday Club member since its beginning. 

“We don’t hand out buckets of money, but we do agree on projects and on ways to measure them,” Novak says. “Drew drills down deeply into the proposals. He’s good at development. He’s not shy about making an ask. And he runs all our symposiums. Drew is a highly respected, thoughtful superstar.”

Novak adds: “And I bet you had to twist his arm to get him to talk about himself.” Indeed, even though he’s the public-facing TV spokesperson for Lucky Duck, Moser refuses to single himself out for any of the organization’s accomplishments.

“I’m all about teamwork and I guess I see myself as the point guard on the Lucky Duck team,” he says. “I know all the plays and direct the traffic. Pat and Stephanie are the head coaches. They cast the vision and empower the team. Our board is the coaching staff and donors are the fan base.”

The “basketball is a metaphor for life and business” angle seems like a good way to wrap up Moser’s story. Then, as if revealing something about himself was a requested deliverable, he adds one more thought.

“You say you want to get to know the real Drew, and I rarely talk about it, but faith is a pretty big part of my life,” he says. 

He goes on to quote UCLA basketball coaching great John Wooden: “If I’m ever prosecuted for my religion, I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me.” 

That’s a buzzer-beating, game-winning revelation. luckyduckfoundation.org