212 | Engage Black Boys to Change Race Conversations with Gerald Moore
Our guest on the pod this week is Gerald Moore. Gerald is the founder of Mission Fulfilled 2030, a social enterprise working to engage 100,000 Black boys in technology careers.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Engaging Black Boys in Tech Careers with Gerald Moore Transcript
SPEAKERS
Gerald Moore, Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience, and it's already transforming many lives. Before I introduce our guests and our topic today, I have one request. If you could go over to iTunes or whatever app you're listening to this show on, hit the subscribe button. Do review, it helps tremendously. Thanks so much for considering it. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Gerald Moore. And our topic is engaged black boys to change race conversations. Gerald is the founder of mission fulfilled 2030 the social enterprise working to engage 100,000 black boys by 2030 in technology careers, Gerald, welcome to the show.
Gerald Moore 00:58
Thanks, Paul, for having me. I'm so grateful.
Paul Zelizer 01:01
Really excited to have you here. And boy, there's a lot to talk about here. We're going to talk about your work and how you're scaling and how you're connecting with black boys what you're doing with black boys and how you're engaging them and technology. Before we get to all that really important work, Harold, were called to wear printers. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or resiliency practice that you personally use to bring your best self to this really important, but not always really easy work.
Gerald Moore 01:34
Definitely, Paul, because there's a lot of giving, and a lot of people in the nonprofit space get burnt out. But um, I tend to want to start my mornings with a meditation. So I'll do a 10 minute guided meditation, I try to work out four to five times a week, first thing in the morning so I can get that blood flow and and just really get a good feel for today. I also like to take a midday walk, I love nature love getting out. And that's typically where I have my best ideas. So between the meditation and the workout regimen, and just taking walks and getting out in nature, and I'll take that walk with no cell phone, like there's no communication so I can really get the experience of being in nature and my surrounding so those things kind of keep me motivated and kind of keep my health and mental fitness together.
Paul Zelizer 02:26
Love those practices. And it's kind of like you just picked you know, if we'd like wrote them all down and and you wrote yours and I wrote mine on a piece of paper be hard to tell whose paper was whose? Because it's like you just read my routine there, buddy.
Gerald Moore 02:39
Yes, I can. Yeah, yeah, it's really basic man, if people can really just do those things and just kind of stay true to themselves, I think we'll be healthier as a people.
Paul Zelizer 02:52
So this passion and this idea of helping black boys is to get a sense of why this is so important to you. We have to help our listeners understand a little bit about where you come from and what your experience was like growing up. If you were going to give a short origin story of like, why Gerald cares about this exact word. And listener is trying to get a sense of Yeah, what would help you come into this space with so much clarity and so much passion? What would you want that listener to know?
Gerald Moore 03:27
Well, I will want them to know that as young black males, we're not monolithic. People tend to look at young black males as athletes and entertainers, and this is the only space that we can thrive in. But for me, I was an at risk youth. I was at risk at 12. I had my first police encounter a 14 I got expelled from school. At 15. I did the infamous scare straight program in upstate New York at 17. I father, my first child, and when he was three months old, I have full custody of him. So by that stage, I was in the mode of what almost a perception is of the young black male and that I met every negative stereotype. But what the people didn't know, and what my school didn't know that I was an engineer and a technician at 10 years old. That's when I started taking things apart. That's when I started tinkering. That's when I started reading about engineering and technology. And unfortunately, while the school was trying to teach me something else, I was teaching myself how to become an engineer. So having a son at that early age and having full custody of him, the trigger really switched and what I knew I needed to do with my life because I knew that the baseline of my life would be the start of his life. So in that I was able to get into Norfolk State University got a degree in electronics engineering, and found myself at age 26 with a six figure salary working for one of the top salting firms in the world. So I believe that young black males who fall in those same categories that I fall in, can still be productive with the right mentorship and the right guidance, and having programs that can channel that engine energy in the right direction. So having worked for corporate for 20 years, and not seeing young black males come into the field is black males make up less than 5% of the high tech and STEM workforce. You know, I went back and said, hey, how do I find those young black males like me, that should have an opportunity to participate in tech and stem where the stereotype of somebody in tech and stem for them as a white male, but I realized that representation does matter. And I have to be vocal and visible and create culturally relevant content to get them to move in that direction.
Paul Zelizer 05:59
Before we hit record, he told me a story about school wasn't engaging your you were scoring off the chart, right in terms of some of the tests that school districts use, but school just wasn't engaging you instead, you were learning about engineering. And you told me the story of your first paid gig, right? Tell me tell our listeners, because I think this is just such a like, if we were gonna sit down, like what's wrong here? Why are so many young black men not being engaged? I was like, this is just classic, like school is amiss. But you were doing these incredibly complicated audio engineering things at the same time. And yeah, can you tell us that story?
Gerald Moore 06:43
So at 14 years old, like I grew up in a neighborhood, that for me, you know, I didn't know that I was living in a low income underserved neighborhood, I didn't know that I was going to a title one underserved school. You know, it just was what it was. And growing up, I have friends that were street pharmacists, and, you know, and doing some things that were illegal at the time. But at the same time, I loved music, I loved engineering. And my father used to go to this, this bookstore called worldwide news in upstate New York, and when he would go cuz he worked on cars and stuff. And when he would go, I would go and I would go pick up the car, audio magazine magazines, and I loved it. And I would read the magazines from cover to cover, I would go and just sit there and beg my father to purchase a magazine for me. So I start developing this passion for audio engineering. So at the time, you know, hip hop is great. And, you know, everybody wanted the boom and system in their cars. So some guys I grew up with, they had some cars that they wanted to soup up and install additional head units and subwoofer systems in their car. So there was a shop that was around the corner from us. And this guy was making a killing, you know, installing car stereos and subwoofer systems for the guys in the neighborhood. So one time, I'm sitting and I'm talking and one of my good friends that I grew up with older they were older than me, you know that four or five years older than me, and they were talking about this new system that they were going to get installed with their car. And I said, Hey, I can install that system for you and save save you a bunch of money. So they knew that my father had tools and stuff and one of my other friends was like, yo, Gerald can do it, Gerald can do it. So they let me install this head unit and subwoofer system. And our custom designed it a custom designed it and I made my first 14 $100 cash. And, you know, when you're making that kind of money doing tech things, like the value of school, just kind of like okay, for what, right? I'm learning about Christopher Columbus there, I'm learning about all of these things that didn't have any bearing on my life at all. But yet, here I am, 14 years old, and I can do these advanced audio design things and I could calculate to small parameters. And I was caught I was doing calculus, I didn't even know I was doing calculus. But I had this book from Radio Shack that taught me how to measure the volume of a subwoofer and build a box that's perfectly made it to that, that subwoofer. And I'm doing these things. And I didn't even know that this was advanced, like it was just something that I was interested in. But it's these types of things that we're not doing in school. So, you know, and I once I did that for this one gentleman like, next thing you know, I was doing cars every weekend.
Paul Zelizer 09:45
It was Game Over, right? Absolutely. Like Bring it on, right? Yeah. So think about the listeners just for a second. At the same time, Gerald, you're like not doing particularly well. academically by standard grade measures, but you're making 14 $100, for your very first install of this advanced audio system that required you to do a ton of math and science to get it done. Right. So that actually sounded good. So is that fair to say? Absolutely. And
Gerald Moore 10:17
I was a D student, I was a D student in school and a D student in math, not because I couldn't do it, it just wasn't interesting. It wasn't interesting and how we were going about it wasn't interesting. So and then, you know, it's still and it's unfortunate today that academics is still not cool. Right. So one of the things that I want to do as well, when mission fulfilled is show that academics is cool, because I do a lot of things, I do a lot of things that are deemed cool. And, you know, the inner city and what our youth are looking up to.
Paul Zelizer 10:54
So, how typical is this story, near experience, we're going to get into the work that you do at black boys. But when you go, and you just came back from Chicago, and you were talking to some middle school, boys, and some middle schoolers, and you were telling stories like this, I mean, were their heads nodding like, Man, this guy is talking my language, or they're like, What is he talking about? Like how stories like this land? And do young people come up to you and say, Oh, my God, that's my story.
Gerald Moore 11:22
Absolutely. And, and most of it is we talk about, you know, when I talk to kids always say that, hey, I'm embarrassed to be talking to you, because I'm trying to tell you that you should be the best student that you could be. But yet, coming out of eighth grade, I was a D student, right? So I immediately get their attention. Because they're like, well, you mean, you're your D student, like you're an author, you're cyber security engineer. So if you were a D student, how did you get there, right. So instantly, I have a connection, because they actually want to make it like kids want to make it out. And then I can engage them in the conversation of this is where I was, and this is why I was failing. And this is how I became an engineer. Right? So just making the connection, and then showing them and also the educators how they can make an investment in these young boys to kind of get them to do what they need to do to be successful. So one of the things is, when I talk about my childhood, there's instantly that connection. Yeah, I did that. I did that, man, you just like us, right. So once you have that connection, then it's a lot easier for me to talk about, okay, don't make the same mistakes I made. And you can have a better life like you can have an impact on your family, you can have an impact on your community. And that's a lot of times, you know, people don't come to young people and talk to them in that way. They talk to them from a view where they're looking down on them, where I come in and say I was you, like I was you if it were not for this situation, I wouldn't have made it, I understand where you come from. And I think that once you can make that connection with young people, then they can hear you, they can hear you and actually take guidance and take mentorship much better.
Paul Zelizer 13:21
So if you're new here, you may not know about my spiritual highlighter listeners, you've been around for a while, you know, I like to circle things like energetically, you know, imagine a big orange highlighter and Gerald what you just said, if you were a D student, dot, dot, dot, then how did you like make it into like one of the biggest consulting firms, six figure, you know, income and 20 year career, and now you're doing the social enterprise, and you're traveling all over the place, and you wrote a book and like all these cool things, you can just imagine the wheels that are clicking. So I just want to circle that listeners, because our title listen to our title again, engaged black boys to change race conversation. So one of the things I'm hearing if we're speaking about the boys themselves, child, one of the things I'm hearing is there some just really honest storytelling. That is one of your strategies for engaging young black men. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. Any other strategies when you're when listeners are thinking about how to engage black boys, really good storytelling and selecting stories with a real awareness of what it's like to be them right here right now. That's one, anything else that you think is helping you move the needle towards this 100,000 young black boy goal that we're going to talk about in a second?
Gerald Moore 14:43
I'm developing technology that's culturally relevant. Right. So when I was speaking at a school last week in Chicago, we brought up the question is what does stem look like? Right and overwhelmingly, the students shouted out, you know, that's something For white men, right? So I said, Well, what does a cyber security engineer look like? Do I look like a cyber security engineer? And they were like, no, you'd like a basketball coach. So, you know, to just dispel what the stereotype is. And again, representation matters. like growing up, my parents, my parents were blue collar. My father worked in a machine shop for 30 years, my mother kind of worked at Kodak, then a few few other different places, but we didn't know any professionals. Like I didn't know any engineers, I didn't know any professionals, period. Right. So when we have kids in these communities, and they don't know any professionals, and they only know what they see on TV, you know, representation that are so for them to see me. And I love hip hop music, right? So so we all have that in common. And, you know, just to see me and to know, okay, he, he's an engineer, like we can change what the face of engineering look like, and not have it be something that they consider that stale, or nerdy, or something like that. Because when I get a chance to speak with the kids, they don't consider me a nerd. But not knowing me. And then knowing that I was in cyber security engineer, they would consider me a nerd until I actually get a chance to engage them. So a big part of it, is to just dispel the myth, that tech and stem is not for black kids.
Paul Zelizer 16:38
So three very granular strategies I'm hearing so far, Gerald, and I want it I want to mine all this is worth because this is such an important topic. Number one is storytelling, making sure you're selecting stories that are really custom selected for that particular audience. And you're you've got so much lived experience, and you're really great storyteller, you have me howling and almost crying in the same the moment, or one right after each other when we were talking and getting to know each other a little bit before we recorded, you're just a great storyteller. Number two is being mindful of, you know, culturally appropriate or culturally oriented technology and just aware of the biases that technology is a white people's thing. And in many communities of color, and for you to say well, like technology, like Do you have any apps on your phone? Right? Do you guys listen to music? And do you like good sounding like there's ways in which you're helping bridge like, there is a technology rich environment you like, you know, gaming diner, or whatever, you're helping them find examples of technology, and helping them realize that somebody built it, and that somebody like you has had a very successful career and building some of these things, installing that system for 1400 bucks. And back, you know, this wasn't yesterday, you and I are about same age, right? It was not yesterday, you were making 14 $100 per install. That's I don't know what it would be in today's dollars, two grand, three grand, right? Every right? Like some significant money as a 14 year old if you understand enough about the science to do something like so helping them bridge that technology can be for somebody like them if it's intended to help their specific community. And then the last one I'm hearing you say, is that representation really matters. And you talked about how few people that look like you are historic have historically been in tech, we also talked before we hit the record button, that only 2% of teachers, right? are men of color is if I understand correctly, that absolutely stat that you caught it right? We never less than 2% less than 2%. So you put all that together. And when you start to speak to groups where black boys are in high concentration there some Head Start nodding, some light bulbs start to go off. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. Absolutely. Never changes the conversation, right? Oh, wait, tell me more about these STEM careers that are six figures and you get to build cool shit, right? Like, I want to hear more about that, right?
Gerald Moore 19:24
Absolutely. And kids want to blow stuff up, like I talk about, hey, let's take the opportunity. Let's blow some stuff up. Hey, let's, let's let's create. And I think that, you know, the stigma of being called a nerd. or doing getting an attack is still, you know, a fundamental issue in these communities. But what I helped them to understand is that once you have a smartphone, you actually are a technologist. Because you know, we're again, we're the same age and I told the kids in Chicago, I was like, Listen, everybody, hold you Smartphones up the power you have in your hand right now, the computer that it would have taken when I grew up would take up this whole room. So you guys are you guys have power beyond belief. And all you have to do is trigger your mind to take you from being just a consumer of technology to a developer of technology. And I'm here to show you how to do that.
Paul Zelizer 20:25
And what happens when you're in a room and you say that, right? You know, you build up, you tell stories, you help the light bulbs go off? And then you say that line in that room? Gerald, what happens?
Gerald Moore 20:37
So then I can I can go in and say, okay, think about all of the designer names and brands that you know, right? And I always leverage I can leverage daymond john from Shark Tank, right? daymond john from Shark Tank created fubu. And most young black kids know who he is, right? And he created merge. And all young kids know why because all of our YouTube, our YouTube folks and our Instagram, folks, they all have merge, right? So I can tell them, okay, how difficult is it to do that. And we can leverage free tools, we can leverage a tool like Canva, right and make a design and come up with our creative, creative stuff. Right, put that on a T shirt, we can leverage teach it within, which is another free open source software, too, we can put that out to the public, then we can take our social media tools that we're using as just toys. And now we can come become entrepreneurs. Now that we have that together, now we can build a website to showcase our brand and our product. Now we can turn that website into a mobile app. And as I lay out that timeline, and how we can make these things happen, the wheels get discerning, and they Well, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that, and I'm going to do this. But what happens when we do that process. A lot of boys that we work with in our utuc entrepreneurs program, they'll say, well, Coach Moore, I want to change my button to this color, I want to move this on the screen. So I'll say well, you may have to learn to code, some CSS for that, or some PHP. So now I'm not forcing them to learn the code, they want to do it for themselves for their own product, because now they actually have a product that they're proud of that they created. Then when we moved to the app piece, I'm like, Okay, now you have your app, and you have this baseline app, but you don't want yours to be just like everybody else's in the template that I gave you. So how can we make some changes? Will coach more I want to do mine this way? And I can say, well, yo, you need to learn how to code some PHP, or or some Python, right? So now they're interested in coding, because now it's something that's attached to them. It's my product, right? So once they have a product, so now they're invested. And then we can see where they go from there. Like a lot of schools are pushing coding on kids, right. But my son, my own son, he's a graphic designer, he hates to coat. But our schools are not telling him that, okay, you can give because you're a graphic artist you can get in UX UI design. Because in the workplace, you're going to have a back end coder and somebody who develops the front end, that's who you are. Right? So by going through this process, all of these different roles I talked to them about fall out, and I tell them, okay, as a back end coder, this is what your career could be, as a front end developer, here's what your career could be, as a product designer, developer, you may not be technical at all, but you can still be in tech, because you have a good mind and a good eye for what things should be. Right. But we don't, we're not doing that with the young people. So through our program, were able to take them through, you know, the nuts and bolts of what it means to truly be in tech and stem in a way that's non traditional. Because what we're taught that is that when I talked to a lot of kids, and I talked to him about tech and stem, the first thing they say to me is I'm not good at math. And I'm like, what does that have to do with anything, I've taken a lot of math, but yet to this day, as a cyber security engineer, I wouldn't do any calculus on the job. So breaking things down, and helping kids understand where they fit and how they can participate in the culture is something that we need to do and that I've really looked to go hard at doing when I'm engaging young men.
Paul Zelizer 24:30
So in a minute, Charles, I want to ask you and get into the specifics of how you're working with young men of a kind of programs and how people find you and the revenue streams. One of the main reasons people listen to this podcast, but before we do I want to widen back and just 100,000 right 100,000 that's in mission fulfills mission, right? You want to work with absolutely 100,000 black boys by 2030 and engage them in tech and STEM careers. Why 100,000 and talk to us like, how do you balance? Here's this one black boy that I'm speaking with and telling stories and working on his app or, you know, here's a room full of graduating middle schoolers, and I'm talking to the class of 30, or 100, or whatever 500, whatever it is. And how do you start to how do you balance? Here's this one individual that you're being human with, and helping open the door with that top level of like, if this is really going to move the needle of what's happening in our culture, I need to be thinking like 100,000 at a time, how do you personally think about that balance? And when do you like work the muscle of here's this black boy, right in front of me? And when do you work the muscle have to move the needle? We got to scale this thing? Yeah, I
Gerald Moore 25:50
think when I think back, I think about that question all the time. So when I got my 501 c three nonprofit status in 2019, end of October 2019. And in 2020, what happens the pandemic hit right soon as we're about to go live and, and really pursue this vision. Right. So for the vision, I don't even know how I came up with the number 100,000. It was just like, Gerald, you got to impact 100,000 in 10 years, right. And when I thought about mission fulfilled, 2030 people asked me, Why is it called mission fulfilled 2030. And I said mission fulfilled. 2030 is actually past tense. So for me, I've already impacted 100,000 into the future. And I knew I needed to impact 10,000 points a year. So I immediately Well, how can I do this. So I created a learning management system. So I was like, I can create programs that I can distribute virtually. And fortunately, the pandemic actually panned out for us, because now we have a situation or people are more ingrained in virtual education. So I can roll out a youth tech entrepreneurs program, and actually reach 10,000, you know, without reaching them individual. But I do like to do live programming, which we are getting back to now. But when I get those, those when I'm in a room and I get a young man, I'm always really engaged. And I find that that engagement and that one on one situation is definitely much better. And probably, I believe that my success rate probably goes up 100% when I get an opportunity to engage a young man one on one. But definitely what I've done is I've reached out to leveraging LinkedIn and reached out to tons of black men in tech all over the country. And what we're trying to establish is these national hubs, where these gentlemen can actually leverage my learning management system and teach what they know. So it's not just Gerald, there's a whole community of men that are now reaching back to engage these young boys. And again, representation matters. And the more we can expand this mission and get more people involved, the more one on ones we can have that are not Gerald, but other men who have come up in the same situations and understand what it is to navigate these spaces as the less than 5% of high tech and stem that black men make up. So, you know, looking forward, it's not just Gerald, it's this whole community that we're developing to change the narrative of tech and stem.
Paul Zelizer 28:44
I don't have a copy of one of those awesome black tech entrepreneurs this afternoon, who you know, Mike Davis, a big shout out to Mike.
28:51
Absolutely.
Paul Zelizer 28:52
Cool. Well, let's do this. I want to take a break and hear a word from our sponsor. When we come back on here very specifically, what are the programs and offerings that mission fulfilled? 2030 has? Do you have a business that's about making the world a better place, and you want it to grow both in terms of helping more people and your income, so you can live a good life? If so, I'd like to talk to you about podcasting for a second. And here's why. When I was looking into podcasting, and learning about the data, three things really stood out. First of all that podcast listeners are what we call early adaptors. Love new ideas, and we're pretty quick to implement them if they had all make sense, then we try them without a lot of drama and pretty darn fast. Number two podcast listeners are what are called natural leaders, at work, and at home, in our community, church. people turn to us when they're in moments of needing to make a decision to say hey, you're somebody I trust. You know a lot about a lot of things are the kind of thing I'm trying to make decision about and wonder if I can run something by you. And number three podcast listeners make more money, not just a little bit more, but a lot more money. So think about that you're an entrepreneur, or a social enterprise leader and you want it to grow and you want to help more people and you want to make more money and you put those three things together. Do you see where I'm going with this listeners? If you'd like to learn how you can use podcasting to help grow your social enterprise, where partners has a podcast success team will walk you through every step of the way. If you want to be a guest, like Gerald's being a fabulous guest today, we'll help you find great shows that are a good fit for your message and learn to get polished as a guest. We have a masterclass called becoming a world class podcast guest, right? If you want to be the host of a podcast, which tips should I use? And what's the skills of being an interviewer and also promoting your service in a way that feels relational and is also effective every step of the way. If you'd like to find out more, you can go to a where printers.com forward slash podcast dash success. And thank you to everybody in our podcast success team who sponsors this podcast. So Gerald, help us understand like, Okay, I get the big picture of why you're doing it and why this is so important. And I'm a listener, and I have a thing that I want to grow. And I learned how to grow it by understanding how other people have grown their social enterprise. So the second part of the show, we like to joke about putting on our social entrepreneur glasses, so put on your glasses and unpack mission fulfill 2030 with us. And for instance, like when I thinking about you all and how does it actually work as an enterprise? Maybe the most, you know, concrete, and place of leverage in your brand is something called tech school for black boys. Tell us about that.
Gerald Moore 32:08
Yeah, so when the when the pandemic hit, and everything started shutting down, I knew I had to figure out a way to keep moving and keep expanding. So I bought a program to help me launch my own learning management system. So in that I launched the free Computer Science program for black boys. And I thought, really, I was doing something that was really hyper local, I was only trying to do it in my local area. But when the pandemic hit, I just put it out virtually. Next thing I know I have 500 boys enrolled in this program, globally, like I had 10 kids from Africa, I have five kids from the UK, I had kids from Canada and I had kids in the US. So when that happened, and this was for a fee. Right? So So part of it was free. And then part of it was for fee. So I gave, I gave the first half of the curriculum for free. And then the second half the continuation of it was for fee 70% of the people still signed up for the paid version. So I was like, Okay, I have something here I have something here that I can expand, that goes beyond what we're doing with mission fulfilled to kind of create revenue, because I'm not a nonprofit professional. So I don't know what I'm going to do for grants, I don't know what I'm going to do for funding, I figured that people would pay for the courses. And then those individuals who could not afford it, I would figure out a way to give them scholarships based on those individuals that paid. Right. So when that happened, I was like, Okay, I still have to look at this as a business, right? It's a social printer, right? So developing a platform and developing the programs, I realized that I need to be able to make revenue from this. But however leverage the revenue from this to give back to those less fortunate and underserved is what I really need to focus on. Because I know that this is a need. I know that we need to fulfill this particular program with individuals that are underserved and not just people who could afford it that say, Hey, I would love my kid to take a program that's led by an African American male and taking stem. Right. So I needed to really balance when I launched mission fulfill because I wasn't in to this day. I haven't received any grant funding. Everything that we've done has been crowd sourced and I'm very grateful and thankful to the people who see the vision, you know, and go to our website and make donations Go to any of our fundraising pages to make donations. But when I looked at it, you know, it was something that was really hyper local that, you know, I just thought, Hey, I'll make a few dollars here, because when I launched the tech school for black boys, I was still employed. So I really wasn't giving full time effort to it. Right, I was just like, Okay, this is something where I felt like I could give back and show a face. But then once it really took off, and the feedback that I got from it, it was like, okay, now's the perfect time for me to leave my job, run this nonprofit organization, really build it up, and really build up the tech school for black boys and have an impact and meet the vision of the organization. So that's kind of how they work together. And the fact that we can for profit, get students in the tech school for black boys, and then leverage the revenue from that, to actually fulfill them fulfill the vision of mission fulfilled, and actually support some other students on that side.
Paul Zelizer 36:06
Beautiful. So it's kind of like a freemium model, you give away half the curriculum, people try it, and you have a 70% conversion rate into your paid program. That's awesome. listeners, if you haven't studied these kinds of things, let me just say, That's freakin awesome. Gerald, it speaks to the fact that you really got your finger on something that really needs attention. And people are saying, you know, okay, let's give this a go. Basically, if I'm a parent or teacher, I'm like, well, it doesn't, it can't hurt. Let me like bring this to community, in terms of boys are so black boys are so often left out of the conversation, here's something for them. It doesn't cost anything to try. And then they start using and they're like, wow, this is pretty good. Mom or teacher or grandma or grandpa, this is awesome. Can you help me keep doing this and 70% of them find a way to pay you for the ladder? The second part of the curriculum is that is that fair to say?
Gerald Moore 37:04
Absolutely. And, and what has happened since since the pandemic, and you know, all of our schools had to convert to virtual learning, I was really having a difficult time getting into the schools. You know, there's a lot of bureaucracy and dealing with the schools, even in situations where they know, okay, we need representation in this space is really hard to dealing with the schools. And I have pretty much decided, you know, what, forget the schools is too much of a pain for me to do. And at the time that like, I don't have a staff, I don't have any of that stuff in place at the time. So the pandemic allowed me to really get out there and educate some students and then come back with our results in the data. Now schools are calling me to say, Hey, we're interested in this program that we've seen, and that we've heard so much about, Hey, I have my dear students at our school that are coming to say, why don't we have the tech school for black boys? Why are we participating with mission fulfilled. So now, I have a better revenue opportunities on the mission fulfilled side because now I can partner with schools who have budgets to run these programs. So I think looking into the future, we have a better opportunity to scale with schools, because now when we go to a school, and we're dealing in an elementary school, we may be dealing with third grade to sixth grade. So that may bring us 300 students right there. And then we grow them in the middle school and the middle school may bring us another 300 boys. So right now schools are coming. And we're looking pretty good for the fall. And in our ability to actually scale and leveraging the school districts.
Paul Zelizer 38:51
And before we started the recording, we talked a little bit about this business model. So some language for our listeners would be some of it is b2c, some of it is mission fulfilled to an individual black boy who's in third grade or whatever. And he says to his parents, I'd love to do this, or his parents say maybe you want to think about doing this and they sign up as an individual. b2c means business to customer, right? It's a social enterprise to one black boy or one black family. And that's how you started but now you're going b2b business to business, or, in this case, social enterprise to school district where like you're saying, Gerald, each school juristic that signed up could be 300, and an elementary school and 500 boys at a middle school and maybe 800 kids in high school that feel appropriate for this. So there's a scale there are different pricing, anything you could say about pricing, when it's an individual boy versus when it's a school district and how you think about that differently.
Gerald Moore 39:56
Yes, depending on depending on the programming, right? So My first thought was, I know this is a great program. So but I don't have any track record. So my initial thought was, let's get kids and like, like you said more of a freemium model. Once I got kids in, I was able to convert them to the paid model, down the pay model for a 10 week program. We were charging like $300 $300, a student per class. In the tech school for black boys, we have like six different programs, right? So we're looking at if we can continue to, if we can get a boy to take half of our programs, in a year's time, you're talking about $1,000 per student, right? So that's what we're looking at. When we're dealing with the school system. There's a couple different models, we're looking at a school may say, Okay, we got 30 kids who want to get in the program, how much is it going to cost per student? So Cal, say, Okay, we'll give you a discount, we can do $200 per student for a 10 week program. or other schools may say, okay, we want to roll multiple kids in this school for all four quarters. How can we get a site license? Right, so now we're talking Okay, for licensed if you want all your kids to be able to do this program. So now we're talking, you know, 15 20,000, for them to just license the program, and we just send them codes to open it up for the whole school. So we're definitely leveraging multiple models. And you know, we're developing more models as we grow and more schools and organizations reach out to us. Like we also have this youth tech, we have a it fundamentals program is we're calm to certified program, deliver. So calm T is one of the foremost it certification bodies in the world. So we have this it fundamentals program, that we're targeting juniors and seniors in high school, and we have a school in Rio Alto, California, that actually signed up three boys in this program. So this particular program has a price of 15 $100 per student. Now we take the students through this program, and we guarantee that they will pass the certification test. So once they pass the test, right, these students are guaranteed to be able to get entry level, Help Desk jobs, and what we're seeing is that a lot of black and brown boys are not choosing to go to college or being told that they can't get into tech. So this is our entry level program to help kids get into tech, that are marginal students, because that would a C average, you know, you're not going to get into anybody's engineering Computer Science Program. But through this program, we're able to get kids certified and then help them and match them with tech companies that are looking for entry level Help Desk and then these kids can actually grow in the tech space. So and that's a 15 $100 price tag. And we're just rolling that out. And we're seeing that schools are really interested in that program, as you know, for for kids who are not scheduled to go to college or junior college or anything like that. So I think we're going to be really successful in the fall with that program. Because it's more of a workforce development piece, and not just learning the basics of a skill, we're actually preparing them for work. So I think that's something that's going to be successful for us and in a new ventures. So the fall will tell. So right now, we got four schools that we're working with, with that program, and we're hoping to really expand that.
Paul Zelizer 43:45
Just thank you so much for being willing to get into the specifics of your business and your business model. I'm so grateful. It's a huge reason people listen to this podcast, and it's one of the things we try to do a way to be of service, it's great to talk about having a positive impact and making the world a better place, which I'm a huge fan of. But if you can't pay your bills, it's like what you're doing isn't sustainable and what you just laid out for us as a business model. You know, I'm putting on my social entrepreneur glasses and I'm thinking okay $300 when an individual student but they might take multiple classes, maybe $1,000 average per boy that gets engaged. School District 510 15,000 to do a license set aside 15 $100 to do this fundamental class on like, Gerald's gonna be just fine. He's gonna help a lot of people and he's gonna eat really well, right, you're gonna, you're gonna be able to live a sustainable life. So listeners just notice the attention and the granularity Gerald has on his business model and how he thinks that up multiple streams of revenue, some of them direct to an individual boy in his family, some of them to school districts, some of them for Workforce Development, right? multiple streams of revenue, nothing's exchanged, not asking for $150,000 per kid, it's reasonable in any motivated person could probably figure out a way to have this happen in their family or their boy. But if they can't, they're scholarships and other ways that they're working to be inclusive. And I'm going to predict, Gerald, you're gonna live a pretty good life with plenty of income to, you know, live a stress free life of like having food in the refrigerator and a roof over your head. So thank you, and good job.
Gerald Moore 45:32
Thank you, Paul, for having me. I'm really appreciative. And if people want to support mission fulfilled, you can go to mission fulfill 20 thirty.org hit that Donate button is we're doing great things to support a great cause and looking to build out our team and looking to support boys nationwide. So definitely, we have a good business model. But we still need to get people to support the vision, because the visions, you know, the vision, the ultimate vision goes beyond what our current what our current budget is. So definitely, mission fulfilled. 20 thirty.org and hit that Donate button. It's a great cause.
Paul Zelizer 46:09
We'll definitely have a link in the show notes, listeners, and yeah, go find out about their work and go support it. Gerald, before we let you go on and talk about your book, you have a book called motivate black boys tell us about the book and what could somebody find if they were to pick it up?
Gerald Moore 46:25
Awesome. The book motivate black boys I actually wrote the book is I was selected as a black enterprise monitor man for the work that I was doing in the tech space. And somebody said to me, like Gerald, you're you're the subject matter expert, and how to go from graduating high school with a 1.69 GPA, getting an engineering degree and finding yourself working for one of the top consulting firms in the country. Like how did you do that? Right. So I actually decided to document it in a book. Like there were things that my mother did, right? When I was young, and there was things and things she did wrong, right? That and then there was things that my father did right and things he did wrong. And then just things that happened in my life that helped develop me into the person that I became, you know, what happened to me in the education system, like I had teachers that who despised me, and actually discouraged me from trying to be great, right? And then I looked at, okay, if I was to tell a young men how to be successful today, how would I model it? And there's a chapter in the book was called the five steps to the Epiphany and what a what a parent should do to to get their son on the right track. And really simple things that that we know, like being involved, ask questions, you know, stop making all the decisions for your children, let them make some decisions, and then guide them like we want to make all the decisions for our children. Goal setting, right we don't we don't teach our kids how to set goals. And then make sure they stick with those goals. And one of the things I learned about incorperate, right, every year, you have your, your evaluation and the tech consulting space, you kind of do this self eval situation, right, where you write down your goals, and you're working to those goals. And then someone evaluates those goals and makes a determination on whether you're going to get a raise or get promoted. And some of those things, but for our children, we don't force them for the most part to do anything, right when Christmas comes, they're going to get it because they're our children. And we want them to do better than we did. And we just kind of give them but my thought process is, well, let's let them set goals and let's let them work to the Air Jordans. Let's let them work towards getting that next gaming system. Right. So let's put some things in place that are going to help them in the long run and in the future. So the book is kind of a comprehensive of what my life was, what I did to make it and what you can do to help your son make it. The book ended up being I was a first time author. The book ended up being an Amazon bestseller on the first day. Like I didn't even know what that was until somebody told me Gerald your books Amazon bestseller I was like, Okay, I wasn't looking at the stats. I just wanted to help people. And yeah, so it's awesome book, it's actually going to be one of a five part series. So the next one is motivate black boys self discipline for black boys. So that book is going to release in the fall.
Paul Zelizer 49:30
called definitely circle back around when it goes live because I'd love to help get the word out about that. There's we'll have the the in the show notes, the book, tech school for black boys, mission fulfilled 2030 website and some of the other resources we've talked about. JOHN, I could hang out and talk to you all day, and I wouldn't do that to you. And I wouldn't do that to our listeners. Aside from all the great links in the show notes, which we'll make sure to include if there was something you were hoping we would get today and we haven't gotten to it on this really important topic, or there's something you want to leave our listeners with. As we start to wind down the interview,
Gerald Moore 50:09
what would that be? If you want to help us make a huge impact on the world, text hero squat 241444, we have a 10,000 black boys initiative. And what people don't understand when I talk about getting black boys and attacking stem, this has nothing to do with race, everything to do with our nation. Right now there are 4 million unfilled tech and STEM jobs. And as a nation, if we don't come up with more tech and stem talent, all of that talent will be outsourced. Our billionaires, our billionaires don't care that much, because they're they're pretty much set. But we have to develop tech and stem talent across the board. And this is not a black and white issue. This is a national issue. I just know that I've only been a young black male and a black man. And I know that I can impact that demographic. So this is a national issue. And if we don't, together as a community, make it better for us, then a lot of our jobs are going to be outsourced. So you know, it just behooves us as a community to make this country the best it can be, and to serve, you know, in any capacity to increase what's happening here and in the US, and for the betterment of the nation. So it behooves us all to kind of be in service to all organizations, and people trying to make this nation a better place.
Paul Zelizer 51:38
Thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you, Paul. I appreciate it. So that's all the time we have for today's interview. Before we go, just want to invite you, if you have an idea for a topic or a guest, we love listener supported topics and guests, you can go to the word printers website and go to our contact page, we try to be really transparent about how we select folks and you'll see our three criteria. These are the lenses, we're looking through a potential story, a potential guest or potential topic. So please go to the website, go to our contact page and tell us your idea. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in your work.