OuttaDeeBox Podcast

Celebrating Community Achievements and Youth Empowerment with the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club Michael Johnson

• Dee Star • Season 5 • Episode 8

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What if you could be part of a community that values impactful achievements and celebrates its heroes? Join us for an illuminating conversation with some incredible guests who have recently received a prestigious presidential award from AmeriCorps, thanks to an unexpected nomination by DeMarco Plays. We'll also explore the vibrant local theater scene, featuring Raphael Raglands' successful stage play, "Motown in the Living Room." Our discussion extends to significant community milestones, like the advocacy and fundraising efforts that led to the commissioning of a historic statue of Vail Phillips, marking a new era in representation at the state capitol.

Ever wondered what it takes to organize a major community event that could potentially create jobs and attract nationwide attention? We dive deep into the intricate challenges and meticulous planning behind the upcoming white party, celebrating 25 years of the Boys and Girls Clubs. Get invaluable insights from key individuals such as Latonya Jackson and Jamal Boyd, along with support from Governor Evers. We'll discuss the motivations behind supporting the Boys and Girls Club, viewing it as a life ministry rather than just a job, and how individuals and businesses can contribute through sponsorships, volunteering, and donations.

Let's tackle some hard-hitting issues, like the disparity between investment in education and incarceration in Wisconsin, and explore innovative solutions such as a public workforce high school with unionized teachers. Our guest also shares their upcoming sabbatical plans, emphasizing the necessity of personal growth and family time after years of transformative work in youth development. We wrap up with words of wisdom for the youth, stressing the importance of perseverance, learning from failures, and surrounding oneself with inspiring individuals. Discover how diverse connections and self-reliance are key to achieving success, all while offering a heartfelt wish for continued progress and inspiration.

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Speaker 1:

How's life been treating you?

Speaker 2:

I can't complain man. Really really I cannot complain. Everything has been going very, very well for me.

Speaker 1:

Okay, good stuff.

Speaker 2:

And things have been going well for you too. I see Trying man trying trying Tell us about this presidential award or recognition. What is it? What's going on with that?

Speaker 1:

I'm not too sure about it. So this brother out of Indianapolis recommended me and a couple of our donors for a presidential award through AmeriCorps. I had no idea that he was nominating us, so he informed us last week that we won this national president award through AmeriCorps. Demarco Plays Antoine Taylor is the CEO of that organization. He's been working with us for about a decade. Demarco yeah, DeMarco on our white party events. So he worked with celebrities all over the country. He does stage plays and he booked a lot of the talent for our events in Madison. It was my understanding that he nominated us and myself, Corey Marino, Diane Baldwin and John McKenzie, I think, got the award together before I worked here in Madison.

Speaker 1:

That's serious yeah no doubt, no doubt.

Speaker 2:

So what does that entail? Does that you guys got to go to the White House, or they come here? What happens?

Speaker 1:

No, it's not a White House event, it's just. I'm not sure, I don't have all the details yet. I just know it's AmeriCorps, and a national organization bestowed an award on you like this, so I'm excited about learning more. But we heard about it through DeMarco Plays and his organization and honored that we were even considered.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing and you know, speaking of plays, I actually went to a play this weekend in Stoughton. It was called Motown, in the Living Room, oh wow, with Raphael Raglands.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's my man. It was hilarious, was it?

Speaker 2:

Oh man, it was a really really good play.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he sent me an invite. I happened to be out of state this weekend. I just got back last night, but I didn't know he was doing stage. So he's doing stage plays, or was it a movie? It was stage play, oh wow.

Speaker 2:

It was really really good, Did he?

Speaker 1:

get a good turnout. Yeah, that's good stuff.

Speaker 2:

When I was there it was almost sold out. Wow, wow, I think he did two weekends in a row, wow, and now he's going to the Bartell next Okay, and then he's like you know, he's going around making the videos for my son.

Speaker 1:

He have done probably a half a dozen videos for boys and girls clubs over the years and he also did a movie. We did a two hour, two and a half hour movie called the club about 10 years ago and it's the first time I think in the history of the overture center where there was like 3,000 kids that filled up that theater from his playing. He did a great job working with us and that's a great man yeah, he always speaks very highly of you.

Speaker 2:

We actually interviewed him and he told us the story, like how he connected with you and how you guys sold out the Overture Center. I was like wow, he was like man you know, since then me and him been, you know, been tight.

Speaker 1:

You know, he's been grinding for a long time, For a long time. So really really great, great guy. Man wish him nothing but continued success.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Tell us about this white part.

Speaker 1:

Man, it's going to be history in the making. It in the making. It's funny. On my Facebook page today I had been advocating for a statue of Phil Phillips and it was just a thought in my head. After the George Floyd, you know, protest, it was a group of young people that was downtown, you know, demonstrating and made me aware there was a lack of representation at the state capitol. So four years ago this month, I wrote a letter to the governor and to the state executive board requesting that there be representation at the state capitol and because of that, in three weeks we will have the first sculpture of an African-American woman on state grounds anywhere in the United States.

Speaker 2:

That's major man. It's major, that's major man. So we decided that and you'll thank you, man, thank you, thank you. So it I'm going to give it up for that man, thank you, man, thank you, thank you, that's major.

Speaker 1:

So it took us four years to get it done.

Speaker 1:

We've raised over $600,000 to have a statue commissioned by a guy named Ratcliffe Bailey who, during the making of the statue, passed away. So we'll be honoring him as well. And then we're going to honor 25. This is the 25th year anniversary for Boys and Girls Clubs and we'll be honoring 25 trailblazers who have helped to set the foundation for the work that we do at Boys and Girls Clubs, like Jacqueline Hunt, her son, julian Hunt, from John and Joellen McKenzie to Dwayne and Tia Malone, and I can go on and on and on of alumni members who've gone through our club and now work in Hollywood or are now developers and medical professionals. And so, now that I've been here 15 years, I've seen kids grow up and make something of their lives. So our white party is going to be a celebration of our 25 years, is going to make history with the unveiling of Vail Phillips, and we're going to raise $600 and hopefully $50,000 to support young people in this community through programs that we run in our schools and our after-school programs.

Speaker 2:

So what can people expect at this event? Take me through the day.

Speaker 1:

So before the unveiling, we're going to have a and this is invitation only the people that helped us raise the 600 plus thousand for the statue from the Milwaukee Bucks to foundations in Milwaukee, to foundations here in Madison. We're going to have a closed VIP event where we're going to honor those donors in the assembly chambers where the governor gives his state address. From there the unveiling is, I think, from 5 to 6. That's going to be open to the public so anybody can show up at that time and we're going to have about 15 speakers, from the governor to myself, to Val Phillips' sons and other dignitaries. And right at the end we're going to have a drape around the statue. We're going to hit a button and then the statue will be unveiled outside. From there everybody will walk into the state capitol. We have the entire building to ourselves.

Speaker 1:

When you walk in you're going to see lights, a DJ, a live band. There's a band called the Funkadelics from Chicago. It's 13, 14 of them. You're going to see a DJ, a live band. There's a band called the Funkadelics from Chicago. It's 13, 14 of them. You're going to see a DJ. Dj Shorty is going to be DJing outside.

Speaker 1:

Shorty Entertainment. He'll be outside he just found out on Friday. Then we're going to have a principal inside, another DJ, kyrie Brooks. Oh yeah, dj Kyrie, yeah, dj Kyrie. So he'll be inside DJing. And then we're going to have wine and food something you've probably never seen inside the state capitol. And then we got a bunch of celebrities coming from, you know, laurence Tate, to Leon who played in the Temptations, to James who was on General Hospital, and about a half a dozen other. You know celebrities that will be at this event where people will be able to mix and mingle and take pictures with them. We're hoping that people will be being all white that's a requirement and you'll just see a sea of people in white honoring Val Phillips, honoring our 25 trailblazers and also raising money for kids. We're going to have good food, good wine, great entertainment and have a bunch of fun. I heard you're going to be involved in the white party interviewing people.

Speaker 2:

I didn't say that I was going to go bring it up.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate you taking on that assignment One of the things you asked what people are going to expect. We're going to have about a dozen photographers that are going to feel like you're walking into the red carpet with paparazzis there. Wow, we're really going over the top.

Speaker 2:

So is there any special surprises that you have this year, or are you keeping that under your hat?

Speaker 1:

We always have surprises. Just know, when you come to our events, it's going to always be a surprise, it's going to always be an experience and that's why this event was named the number one A-lister event last year by Madison Magazine, because we recognize talent locally, regionally and nationally around kids in our community. You'll see every race, every gender, people from different socioeconomic classes coming together to support young people in this community. You know, for those who have not bought a ticket, don't wait till the last minute on this event, for the most part always sell out, but you can expect to have a great time, meet a lot of great people, see a lot of people dancing and then you'll be a part of history because of what we're doing around Val Phillips.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, you know. Which leads me to my next question what role does community partners and sponsors play?

Speaker 1:

You know it wouldn't happen without them. You know so, boys and Girls Clubs. We don't have the muscle, the financial muscle, to put on these kinds of events. So you know we have to depend on our community partners who sponsor the event, donors, who community members that purchase tickets to offset the cost, to not only put this event on but to raise money for our kids. So it is impossible to do this without some community support. And you know we're just the magicians who help pull off the vision and execute on it. But it takes the will of the community to support a project like this.

Speaker 2:

So what are some of the biggest challenges in organizing an event like this, and is there any spotty that's special, that you want to kind of give a shout out to? That helped you, because I know you can't do it all by yourself. You can't.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So you know, when you do an event like this, you always got to worry about you know logistical things Right. So shout out to you know Latonya Jackson she's our event consultant, who started her own nonprofit and we convinced her to come on board to manage this project. Jamal Boyd, from Cincinnati, who has come on on a short-term basis to help organize this event. A shout-out to Governor Evers, who supported the erection of the statue from day one, including the executive residency board.

Speaker 1:

But when you put on an event like this, it takes about three to four months to plan, because you have to get the licenses, you have to get a liquor license, you have to hire security, you have to plan every little detail, you have to send out invitations, you have to book all the entertainment, you got to make sure that the decor is done right, because you want it to be a special day or a special evening for all the guests that arrive. So just shout out to my board, to our leadership team, to latonya jackson and her staff and to all our donors who helped to support this event so what particularly motivates you to lead and support the Boys and Girls Club, particularly through events like this?

Speaker 1:

To me it's a ministry. It's part of my life. I grew up in a Boys and Girls Club. I grew up in poverty. For me it's waking up every single day to make a difference. You know the minute your feet hit the ground. Every morning, you know, I think about how I can utilize my life to change somebody else's life, and that sometimes by just making connections and being a bridge builder to connect resources to young people and families in need. So I don't really consider my assignment at Boys and Girls to be a job. It's a ministry that I think God has led me to and I enjoy doing it. I've been doing it now for 15 years in Madison and for 25 years across the country in a variety of different settings. After the white party, I'm going on a sabbatical.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was going to get to that but you jumped, so let's get into it. Going on a sabbatical yeah, I was going to get to that but you jumped, so let's get into it. What are your long-term goals for the white party and its impact on the Boys and Girls Club?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I would love to see you look at some of these other cities like Louisville, cincinnati, miami, chicago, even Milwaukee right, you have Summerfest there. In Cincinnati you have the music festival. Those are large economic engines for the city and you know music and entertainment is fruitful for the soul. So I'm hoping that it grows to the point where we can bring tens of thousands of people from across the country that will utilize our hotels, that will raise money not just for Boys and Girls Clubs but for charities throughout. You know Dane County Similar to what you see with Broadfest, right, but really celebrating the art of different races and cultures, where you know you may have something around country hip hop and all these different musical themes, where you're also bringing entertainment and celebrities from around the country to our city and you know it's interesting.

Speaker 1:

You come to our event and I could feel that we could do what Milwaukee or Chicago or Cincinnati is doing. I'm hoping our white party could turn into a weekend event where I look at what Juju is doing with his block party. I would love to see somehow those events merge and it becomes a celebrity. In Indianapolis they have the Black Expo and they have these workshops on Saturday morning. I participated one year in their celebrity basketball tournament and I wasn't a celebrity but they asked me to play. I remember saying, man, how cool this is. It was like 15,000 people watching these celebrities play basketball.

Speaker 2:

They're in a whole league now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, why can't we do that and have somebody like Ice Cube bring his three-on-three Right? So I think you know it might take a decade to get there, but I could see us doing that here. You know in Madison and what happens when you do that you create jobs because, let's say, a venue like that, bring in $10, $15 million to the city, you can create another 100 full and part-time jobs of people planning spending a whole year. You know planning something like that and they do it in other cities and then you attract people. The hotel industry will benefit from it, then your vendors will benefit from it, and we just don't have those kind of cultural events here in Madison. It's getting better, but it's not at a place that I think we should be, and I'm hoping the white party could become that.

Speaker 2:

So how can individuals and businesses get involved in supporting the white party?

Speaker 1:

and the Boys and Girls Club.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, go to wwwbgcdcwhitepartycom and we have a whole sponsorship package on there. If you want to be a sponsor, contact me. I'm active on LinkedIn. I'm active on Facebook. You can email me.

Speaker 1:

At Boys and Girls Clubs, we're always looking for people to give of their time, their talent and their treasure, and all three of those things fuel our work at Boys and Girls Clubs. Some people like to give money. That's great, but we also respect time and talent, because you cannot be a successful nonprofit if you don't have an army of volunteers, if you don't have an army of volunteers that are talented and you're capitalizing off their intellectual capacity. They help you think how you can be of service to young people and families and those who are the most need in our community, and so that's how people can get involved Time, talent, treasure. Contact us. Let us know how you want to get involved.

Speaker 1:

Right now, we want people to purchase tickets. We're looking for sponsors to wrap this up. Right now, we've raised $595,000 of a $625,000 goal, so we always want to exceed. To me, when we meet our goal, we failed our kids. I don't like meeting our goal. I like to exceed our goal, and sometimes people think, when you work for a nonprofit that you have to be fragile and we're thankful. But we always got to raise the bar raise the bar for our kids, raise the bar around our fundraising activities, raise the bar around how we operate. I've always tried to set high expectations for our organization, so I'm optimistic that we will exceed our $625,000 goal.

Speaker 2:

Are there any new initiatives or projects in the pipeline that you're excited to share?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, In about two weeks, this community is going to hear about our involvement in a public school that we want to build with the McKinsey Foundation. John and Jo Ellen are long-term supporters of Boys and Girls Clubs and they want to build a high school around workforce, teaching kids how to become entrepreneurs, how to start their own businesses, how to become plumbers, carpenters, healthcare workers engineers and there's not a high school like that that exists right now.

Speaker 1:

So we're starting those public conversations in a few weeks and I don't want to go too into the details, but it's coming. Like Deion Sanders said last year, we're coming, this school it's coming and it's going to get done. I believe we've hired the right people to make this happen and we're really excited about what the possibilities are. But we want to engage the community. We want to get feedback from them on that. The other thing I'm excited about we're rethinking. You know we did an analysis of all the different things we do at Boys and Girls. I didn't realize we do a special event every single month, from our Youth of the Year, the College Son of the Year, to College Sonnet Day, to Golf Outing, to our Shamrock Shuffle, to the White Party, to the Bike Ride Moving Group. It's so many different things that we do to coach for kids. So our team was like, wow, we do something every single month. So we're rethinking you know the number of events that we do next year and whether or not we should partner with other organizations or support another organization around.

Speaker 2:

You know our growth and so so so you guys kind of like scale back a little bit or just kind of put it on. Put it on somebody else like let them take the lead. You guys supported from yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I don't ever believe in scaling back, but just rethinking, right. I think scaling back sometimes can get you in trouble, and so I told my team like we won't scale back, but we'll rethink how we do business. And rethinking might be like just what you shared, it might be partnering with somebody, it might be sponsoring with somebody and leveraging other resources so we can be more effective.

Speaker 2:

Well, that sounds great and I was thinking about that. Would I be interested in going to a school like that? That was the first thing I thought, you know, because there's so many kids that regular school is just not for them.

Speaker 1:

It's not. It's not. I mean, in this country we know only about 51% of working age adults have college degrees, right, you know. And so there's other. You look at the, that's almost half of America Right. So every kid won't graduate from high school. Then you have a lot of kids that do graduate and don't have a path forward. So we believe that there should be a dedicated high school in Madison that's tied to introducing kids directly into careers, right, not?

Speaker 2:

only that, because there's generational plumbers. There's generational plumbers there's generational, exactly, exactly people like hey, man, my dad is a plumber and I want to get into the business.

Speaker 2:

Well, you could be going to high school exactly doing it now and you know my son wants to be a content creator, so he's always watching and he's always, you know, doing little things. So to let me know he's interested and he wants to do it, he likes to edit his little videos on my phone and stuff like that. So I'm like man in Sun Prairie. This is Sun Prairie Media Center has a program for kids to you know, teach them and everything, and I teach them too.

Speaker 2:

So I was thinking about that like man. That'd be really cool for an older kid to get that type of experience. Absolutely you know plumbing and carpentry and things like that and they can make so much money coming out of high school. It'd be crazy and that would change the entire community. No doubt, when you have young adults with that type of disposable income, they're not going to save it, they're going to put it back into the community.

Speaker 1:

Exactly they're buying groceries.

Speaker 2:

Taxes, yeah, taxes Like that actually helps the entire community.

Speaker 1:

I mean, they become taxpayers and not, you know, liability to the tax system, right? And so it's a like. I was meeting with Rene Mo from United Way the other day Shout out to Rene, yeah, good people and great organization. And we were talking about like we don't, as a country, value education and you can see it with how we invest in young people In Wisconsin. She was sharing with me that we spent almost $300,000 to incarcerate a young person $300,000. But we spend about $16,000, $17,000 to educate a child. So there's something fundamentally wrong with that equation and so we have to create opportunity equations for kids to offset the balance of that. And sometimes you got to leverage public and private funding.

Speaker 1:

And so I just want to be clear as we start this process we want to do this with MMSD. We want to work closely with Joe Gothard and the school board. We also want to work with Mike Jones and MTI and we want this to be a public workforce high school using unionized teachers. But we may have to negotiate with them a project labor agreement because this school has to look very, very different. My understanding, less than 0.5% of MMSD students participate in apprenticeship programs and workforce programs. There's an elementary and middle charter school, but we want to be the high school and we have a reputation and a long history with MMSD. We invest about $2 million a year in our kids at MMSD, so I believe we're their largest public-private partner and we want to continue it. But we want to expand to help the district create additional pathways for our kids.

Speaker 2:

That's a lot. Just even have that thought process to try to put the pieces together, to even try to make that happen. You know, realistically. How far are you out seeing that actually?

Speaker 1:

About four years. You think it would take about four years? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So tell us about this sabbatical.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, sometimes you know you got to recharge man. You know you grind every day for 15 years. You take a church and turn it into a boys and girls club. You take a house and flip it into a boys and girls club. You take a facility like this that was the corporate headquarters of a pharmaceutical company and you flip it to a workforce center for young people. You create dozens of jobs, meaningful, family-sustaining jobs. You build up the assets of an organization and that takes years and that takes time away from your family. So I'm fortunate that my board for years they've been saying, man, you should take a sabbatical. So I'm going to go to Africa. I'm going to go a couple of places, some with my family, some on my own, and I've never been out of the country by myself. I've actually never been anywhere by myself, and so I'm looking forward to taking about 45 days off.

Speaker 2:

So when you say by yourself, what do you mean?

Speaker 1:

So I've never stayed, I've never went on a trip by myself, without my kids or without my family. So I'm going to Africa by myself, just you and your wife. No, just me, just you. Me and my wife are going to take a trip that we're planning together with our kids, and then one without our kids, and then I'm just doing one by myself. I always wanted to explore Africa, so I think I'm going to Liberia. There's a non-profit that I'm associated with there and I think I'll be doing something with them. So I gotta work out the details you know around that, and sometimes you just gotta get away and so even on your vacation, you're still gonna be working but working for a different cause.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I won't be sitting on the beach, that's just not me. I won't be chilling, so you're saying like about 45 days.

Speaker 2:

So how long do you give yourself before you start checking emails?

Speaker 1:

So that's something that my board and my colleagues have asked me not to do, because every time I've taken vacation, I'm always still plugged in. So what I committed to doing is checking in once a week for about 30 minutes. I'm going to try my best to do that. I'm going to actually take my emails off myself on my assistant. She'll be able to, you know, read them and respond. So we'll have a plan. You know around that I'm leaving three people in charge of the organization, you know, while I'm out and we'll see how it goes. But that's, that's the plan.

Speaker 2:

That's the plan. Yeah, Before we get out of here, is there any words of wisdom or any lessons that you you've learned that you would want to share with?

Speaker 1:

the youth. Yeah, just man, don't give up. Every winner had to try over again. I think I just posted that this morning. Right, success comes by failing sometimes. And just surround yourself around people who are better than you.

Speaker 1:

Iron sharpens, iron Birds of a feather, of a feather flock together, right, and there's a whole bunch of different sayings. But if you surround yourself around people who are doing unproductive things, you're going to become an unproductive person. If you are surrounding yourself around people who are doing amazing things, it is more likely you're going to be amazing. So I've always I would say last four or five years I've been trying to surround myself around a variety, and I think I shared this with you in the last podcast. I've always tried to surround myself around a variety, and I think I shared this with you in the last podcast. I've always tried to surround myself around a variety of different people People who have GEDs up to people who have LLCs, to people who are worth millions. But I also have friends who are convicted felons and friends who own real estate and friends who are in highly compensated positions. But each one of them, I learn from all of them and each one of them gives me a balanced approach to life. So my advice to young people be willing to be coachable, be willing to learn. Surround yourself around a diverse group of people and go get it.

Speaker 1:

Nobody's going to give you anything. I had a family member who wrote a message the other day to our family. I love her. She went out and got a college degree but she felt like our family didn't like fully support her in that process and I respect her opinion.

Speaker 1:

But at the same time, once you become grown, nobody's going to give you anything Nobody. You might get lucky here and there, but for the most part, when you become an adult, nobody's going to pay your rent. Nobody's going to pay your car note Nobody's going to. Nobody's going to pay your car note Nobody's going to. Now they might do it once or twice, but nobody's going to just give you anything. You got to go out and get it and so that's my advice Go out, hustle, grind, stay focused, write out your plans, continue to be a lifelong learner and you'll look up and be like man. This is what I've made of my life and that would be my advice. So I appreciate you giving me a platform to talk about this important work. I appreciate the connection that you have to Madison 365 and even in your own growth and development, and happy to be connected with you in this way and wish you nothing but success as you grow your podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

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