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Writer's pictureDYEEY EEL

Choose954 Podcast Episode #85 With Joan Godoy


Evan Snow: And welcome back to another episode of the Choose 954 Podcast, Episode 85, with Joanne Godoy, our upcoming AAF Creative Zen speaker this Friday morning. We’re very excited to have her share her thought-provoking and inspiring story with us. If you didn’t know about Choose 954, myself, Evan Snow, and my business partner, Mr. Andrew Martino, as local arts advocates and community builders, started an initiative to cultivate culture and community in my native Broward County in an effort to keep people informed about all the great things that are going on, to make Broward a better place to live and not just a better place to vacation—because we live here. The point of the podcast is to connect you, the listener, with inspiring people doing amazing things in the community, and Joanne has no shortage of amazing things that she does. So without much further ado, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself at a high level—who you are?


Joanne Godoy: Thank you, Evan. Now I want to move to Broward based on what you're saying. But as you were saying, my name is Joanne Godoy. I'm a proud Guatemalan who moved to Miami out of love, or because of love, six years ago. What I do now, which I think is a great definition of who I am as a person and my professional career, which is also my personal journey, is that I run a Miami-based social impact accelerator. I love those three words together because it means that it’s all about the people—impacting people’s lives, working with leaders and organizations that can do that faster and better, so that we can strengthen our communities. We say that we’re a Miami-based social impact accelerator, and the way we do that is by investing in leaders like you who are doing great things in the community, so that you can scale the impact you want to have. We try to engage locals around those missions and visions, co-create innovative solutions to accelerate change, and last but not least, because we work with leaders, locals, and build solutions, we try to build coalitions around issues that we all care about, so that we can solve those challenges and strengthen our communities, making them what we want them to be.


Under that umbrella, of course, there are many programs and projects that go underneath each of those umbrellas, but I think for the sake of this conversation, I’ll keep it there. I'm very passionate about solving social challenges and doing everything it takes and everything that matters to solve them so that we can all live beautiful lives.


Evan Snow: And that passion shines through. Anybody that’s had an opportunity to meet you, speak with you, or even hear you speak, and we'll give you guys an opportunity to hear her speak this upcoming Friday morning, can truly see that passion shine through. But why don’t you just take us back for a moment to how you got started on this journey in summary, and how this path led you to where you are today?


Joanne Godoy: I blame my parents. As I said earlier, I was born and raised in Guatemala, which is this beautiful, tiny country in Central America. It is so diverse in every single sense that you can think of, Evan, and that is both a blessing and a curse for the country. There’s a lot of economic disparity, significant racial disparities, and disparities between men and women. It’s a country with so many resources and possibilities, but not enough infrastructure to make those work for their own people. I was kind of thrown into the water of that from a very early age because my dad is an environmentalist, so we had access to exploring the country and seeing all these different realities. I was always passionate about learning and curious about people’s stories and what they could do with their own experiences. I wanted to be like my dad, but while he wanted to hug trees, I wanted to hug people.


After my teenage years, I decided to study psychology, mostly the social aspects of psychology, along with elements of community development and sustainability. That’s how I started facilitating courses in remote communities in my country. After four or five years of doing that, I recognized that it wasn’t only a matter of whether you have the will to become a leader, but also whether you have the context and infrastructure that will allow you to make your visions and missions happen. I became critical of the system and the obstacles in it, especially for people who have been historically marginalized. Fast forward, I gathered my frustration and passion and decided I needed to do something bigger. I got a full-ride scholarship to study in the Netherlands, focusing on the management of NGOs, which is what is best known in the U.S. as nonprofits. Since then, I haven’t really stopped. I lived in Costa Rica for two years, Chile for a year, went back to Guatemala to work for the UN, and then moved to Miami in 2017, where I started working for Radical Partners to do more of that work in an issue-agnostic way. We support people working on climate change, gender equity, poverty alleviation—you name it. It’s all about what you’re trying to change, how you’re going to address it, and how we can do that better and bolder.


Evan Snow: Amazing and very modest of you, very humble. There’s a lot more highs and lows to the story that Joanne will thankfully share this Friday morning as part of AAF Creative Zen, our monthly breakfast lecture series—a mini TED Talk where we bring in local people in the community to share their thought-provoking and inspiring stories. It initially served as my aha moment and inspiration that led me down this path of arts, culture, community building, and creative entrepreneurship, which is why I decided to pay it back and pay it forward by continuing to host these events for free for the betterment of the community.


We’re really excited to bring creatives into a new home this month inside the Alvin Sherman Library at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida. This first iteration will be inside the new Levan Center for Innovation on the fifth floor of the building. We’ve made free parking available, it’s a completely free event, and coffee and pastries are included. There’s an opportunity when the doors open to mix and mingle with fellow community members, which has led to a lot of great friendships, partnerships, and other great things that have happened in the community. The talk starts at nine with a brief introduction to help put everybody in a Zen state. We put the Zen in Zen by integrating a brief guided breathwork and meditation exercise led by my dear friend and coach, Chloe Revell of Rise of Nature Retreats, who’s a partner of this great event. Then we start the talk shortly thereafter and try to wrap things up by 9:50 with a little opportunity for some Q&A to get everybody out on their way if they need to get back to work by 10. We try to be respectful of everybody’s time. You can find the event on Facebook and Eventbrite under AAF Creative Zen, and we also record all these talks and put them on YouTube and social media. So if you miss one or want to go back and gain some inspiration from some of our previous speakers, you can do so. We’re really big on inspiration, and that leads me to asking you, Joanne— you’ve been a tremendous source of inspiration for me and my fellow Social Entrepreneurship Boot Camp members, and everybody else that’s been impacted by Radical Partners’ programs, but who have been some people that come to mind who have served as inspiration for you on this journey?


Joanne Godoy: So many. First of all, thank you so, so much, Evan, for the space. I’m excited to not only travel to Broward but to see you in your element, learn more about your community, and share my story. Hopefully, that will spark some inspiration in others, and I’m sure that through the Q&A and conversation, we will all leave that room feeling pumped and hopefully more confident about what we’re doing. So I’m excited for that.

Giving credit where credit is due, I’ll mention my dad. As I told you, I think his career as a Guatemalan professional bilingual environmentalist in his time really paved the way for me in terms of what a successful career could look like when you’re trying to change and save the world. He’s really been not only my dad but a mentor and sponsor, both in money and inspiration, when I was younger. So a lot of credit goes to him.


But when it comes to people who are relatively famous nowadays, I think now that I finally see myself and feel confident enough to perceive myself as a leader, there are particular people that I admire, follow, and try to shadow as much as possible because of the integrity and complexity of their leadership. I’ll mention Trevor Noah, for example. This guy from South Africa, who’s a comedian, leverages his platform to push certain social agendas and make us question certain standards of living. He also deals with different identities—being mixed with a Swiss dad and a mom from South Africa. I really admire his authenticity, the way he dresses, the way he talks, the amount of things he knows, and how he uses humor to advance important issues. He’s definitely someone I admire tremendously.


When it comes to female leadership and passionate leadership, Brené Brown definitely comes to mind. She talks about vulnerability, which we typically think of as a weakness, but she shows that it’s one of the bravest things you can do because it’s literally exposing yourself in every single way—whether you’re crying, angry, or fearful. And not only do you keep moving despite that, but because of that, you keep moving. That inspiration I always carry with me.


On the business side of things, Simon Sinek definitely brings a more practical approach to business decisions and economic decisions, but he always does it with people at the center. There’s no sense in advancing or growing a company if people are not thriving inside and outside the company. So those three are key pillars for me in terms of how to do business ethically, how to present myself authentically and bravely, and how to stay curious and eager to learn and explore the world as Trevor Noah, Simon Sinek, and Brené Brown do. And if they listen to this podcast, by all means, I would love to meet any of them.


But there’s a fourth pillar, Evan. I could go on for hours talking about names because I legitimately mean it when I say that people like you, the people that are part of the Social Entrepreneurship Boot Camp cohort, and the people you serve, are the pillar that keeps me grounded in terms of what’s happening on the ground. Despite all the good things we hear about the successes of social impact organizations, working with you all and your constituents reminds us that the world is still a messy place and that all these things coexist. So how do I keep my feet on the ground in terms of what’s needed and wanted by the people? And how do I listen to that so we can do better? And how do I keep pushing people at the top—if you want to see it that way—who are perceived as leaders or funders to look back to the ground, and vice versa? Being that bridge between reality and the future are key pillars in my life, and I always try to pay attention to these three people, but most importantly to the people and organizations in that fourth pillar I mentioned.


Evan Snow: Man, if my mother didn’t have enough reason to love this podcast episode and the talk coming this Friday morning—my mom’s a big Brené Brown fan and initially turned me on to her TED Talk and the power of vulnerability. I know she’s going to get a big kick out of that. Maybe we’ll find a way to tag Trevor Noah, Simon Sinek, Brené Brown, and some other folks to maybe get them to share either at Creative Zen or with Radical Partners one day.


You mentioned the Social Entrepreneurship Boot Camp. I just want to say in full transparency, it was something on my bucket list, target list, goal list for years, having seen so many leaders in the community go through the program, including our most recent Creative Zen speaker, Karen Prescott. When I initially found out about it and was encouraged to apply, I wasn’t in a position to join—I was actually still working my desk job as a recruiter, doing Choose 954 and some other things on the side many years ago. Fortunately, when the opportunity represented itself, I was in a position to make the time and space to go through this wonderful program, which if anybody’s been following my social media, you’ve probably seen postings about it over the last couple of months after we recently completed it in December. But for those who are not familiar with the Boot Camp, could you just give us a brief summary of what Radical Partners does to lift up leaders in the social impact space?


Joanne Godoy: I’d be more than happy to. As I mentioned, investing in leaders or social impact leaders is one of our main pillars at Radical Partners, and that’s the origin story of this organization, which belongs to Rebecca Fishman Lipsey, the founder of Radical Partners. The idea of the Boot Camp came out of very organic ways in which she was hearing and seeing social impact leaders feeling burnt out, not having enough resources to do what they wanted to do, and not having a clear pathway on how to go about it. So she decided to bring this group of people together, teach them what she had done and learned as an executive director, and create a toolkit that they could implement to not only sustain their work but scale it. She instilled this business and entrepreneurial mentality into the social impact ecosystem, which was a relatively new term at the time.

Fast forward to now, it’s the seventh cohort of this particular program, and we have a few others. But at the core of these leadership development programs are important pillars and tools for executing your work, such as fundraising—how are you raising funds to do this? Storytelling—how are you telling your story so the world knows about the work you’re doing? Team management and project management—all very related to the execution of that passion and ensuring that it’s effective and efficient. That’s the core of the program, but alongside those learning sessions and experiences, leaders have the opportunity to redefine themselves as leaders and think of their own brands, if you want to see it that way—how they want to be perceived. We invest as much as possible in the visibility of the leaders by posting about them, cheering them on, giving them opportunities to be part of panels, and referring them to potential funders to elevate their leadership. The third element is that camaraderie and peer learning in the community that happens among all of you, which is a beautiful thing to belong to a crew of change-makers. Systemically, it’s a great contribution because those working on poverty alleviation, gender equity, or climate change aren’t often talking to each other. So these leadership development programs serve as an opportunity to see how gender equity affects climate change, and vice versa. These conversations force all these leaders to zoom out and think more systemically about the solution and how to go about it, as I mentioned at the beginning—bigger, bolder, and faster.


Evan Snow: Amazing. It’s one thing to say that you’re providing these resources, but it’s another thing to actually do it. You guys really blew me away, being fortunate enough to go through this last cohort of the Boot Camp. From the programming to the speakers you brought in, the books provided (including “Start with Why”), the alumni opportunities to hear from people I admire and respect like Felicia Hatcher of Pharrell’s partner, and even the one-on-one coaching provided, it was truly one of the most rewarding, fulfilling, and fruitful experiences I’ve ever been through. I don’t mean to correct you, but you mentioned it was a Miami-based program. I would venture to say that now, with myself as a Broward native participating, Daniel Kleiman participating (who also lives in Broward), and even Mimi who also lives in Broward, it has really now become a South Florida program, and you’re starting to cover a lot of bases. That’s another reason why I’m really excited to have you share this Friday morning for Creative Zen to hopefully spread the word to our Broward community about not just the Social Entrepreneurship Boot Camp, but I don’t know how much representation we have with 10 Days of Connection, another phenomenal program that takes place with support and leadership from Radical Partners. For those who might not know, Rebecca, who started Radical Partners, is also now the president of the Miami Foundation, which is essentially the Community Foundation of Miami. They do some phenomenal work in the community, and it really does take forward-thinking, progressive, and altruistic leaders to make change like this happen—to create the space and container for innovation, motivation, inspiration, and continuing education and development. I’m just forever grateful for the opportunity to be considered and to have gone through the program.

Wrapping up, for those who would like to find out more about Radical Partners, where can they find Radical Partners on the internet?


Joanne Godoy: I love your comments and that question, Evan, because today, March 8th, 2023, marks the second anniversary of the day I signed and became the owner of Radical Partners back in 2021. So I love that you mentioned Rebecca and honored her as the founder. What you said about the Miami-based aspect is something we implemented when I took over because our work was very local for a few years. But part of my passion, going back to what I said about Trevor Noah, is that I really believe in the global aspects of things. We shifted the language to say that we are Miami-based, meaning that the fire started here, but ideally, people can come with their torches and take some of that fire to Broward, Palm Beach, or all the way to the Netherlands. So we’re definitely in that approach of having our hub here, but we’re more than happy to keep working with people in other locations.


To learn more about Radical Partners and what we do, you can definitely go to all social media platforms—LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook—and find us as “Radical Partners.” If you're interested in things happening particularly in Broward, 10 Days of Connection is one of the niches that has been most successful in our expansion to Broward, thanks to Corey Slime Meltzer, who brought it to Broward a few years ago. You can follow 10 Days of Connection on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram—our handle is @10DofC. The idea is to keep connecting across lines of difference, and that’s something you can do in Miami, in Broward, in a Zoom room, or wherever you are. If you follow any of those, you’ll find out about any of the free stuff we offer and some of the services we offer for a fee. You can choose your own adventure to accelerate impact wherever you are.


Evan Snow: Choose your own adventure, amen. Karen actually just dropped me an email and asked how we’re getting involved in 10 Days of Connection and wants to collaborate with the Bow Tie Kids Foundation. We’ll be brainstorming some ways we can do that up here in the 954. I encourage you all to check out everything that Radical Partners and Joanne have going on, and even what the Miami Foundation has going on. There are some really great things happening at the Alvin Sherman Library on the campus of NSU, not just Creative Zen, but they’re bringing in phenomenal speakers—astronauts, authors, Pulitzer Prize winners, and everyone in between. We’re really excited to bring this series of events with our monthly breakfast lecture series, mini TED Talks, to NSU.

If you'd like to find out more about these events and what Choose 954 has going on, log on to our website or social media at @Choose954. I’m an open book, so you can always email me with any questions at choose954@unitusgroup.com, and we’ll be glad to continue making an impact in our community and beyond. I participated in the Social Entrepreneurship Boot Camp under our Zero Empty Spaces initiative, where we activate vacant commercial real estate spaces to create affordable working artist studios. I received a lot of insight and guidance regarding growing and scaling, and also launching an e-commerce component, which we’re going to be fundraising for to help us make a bigger impact and give our artists an opportunity to sell their artwork online through our e-commerce channel. I’m forever grateful for everybody, including Magda, my coach, and everybody on the team for their support in this process. It was truly one of the best experiences I was ever fortunate enough to go through, and I could never give enough testimonials and praise—not just for Radical Partners, but for being amongst my peers, among fellow community leaders doing amazing things in the community, like Debris Free Oceans, Seaworthy Collective, arts programs, and opportunities to mentor youth. There were so many noteworthy causes beyond just Zero Empty Spaces. You can find out more about the Social Entrepreneurship Boot Camp on the Radical Partners website and social media.


We’re really looking forward to having you here, Joanne, to share your story this Friday morning, March 10th, at the Alvin Sherman Library on the campus of NSU at the Levan Center of Innovation. Free parking, free event, and you’ll be out of there by 10. If you need something to tell your boss about why you might be missing the first half of the morning, we have a truthful list of reasons why you might miss a little bit of work to gain some inspiration and nuggets to bring back to your team and workplace. You can find that on the Facebook event page or email me for the list, and I’d be glad to share it with you. You never know how one of these events can change your life, your community, or maybe even the art world and beyond as a result of the inspiration that comes from these talks. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to tune in, and I look forward to seeing you Friday morning and beyond.


Joanne Godoy: Thank you, Evan. See you soon.

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