W.K. Kellogg Foundation

And watch this.

I'm actually about to go do a gig for the Kellogg Foundation.

And I called my boy and was like, hey, my mom want to come to the library.

I want my kids come to.

That is the power and the mercy of God shining forth and breaking through this, not just the bondage of slavery, but the chains of human sinfulness, which held us now as Jesuits kind of in a certain kind of sinful bondage.

How are we going to heal from this? And so, I think we've talked in subsequent podcasts about the reconciliation process, the dialogue with the Kellogg Foundation, the creation of the foundation, the going public with the foundation.

But when I look coming on the 10th anniversary, the two things that stay in my heart and my soul are how much more deeply I understand the faith and the fortitude of the ancestors, and now how I see the prophetic vision of their living descendants who want to choose a path of hope and healing, which I think is what our country and our church most need right now.

Yeah, the last time we had you on and talked with several of the other descendant leaders with you, we spoke with Joe Stewart and Cheryl and Branch and you, Tim, and talked about this idea for this foundation that was being announced with the commitment from the Society of Jesus to contribute a significant amount of money to get this foundation going.

Welcome to the latest episode of our Charity Spotlight series here on the C-Suite Podcast, where we're partnering with Be Loud Studios and Kellogg Foundation for an episode all about the impact of youth voice.

Be Loud is a New Orleans-based non-profit focused on amplifying youth voice through audio production, podcasting and radio, working together with Kellogg Foundation through an ongoing partnership.

We'll hear all about the power of media and audio production, as well as what we have to learn from young people.

I'm your host Freya Cooper, and I'm joined online by Alex Owens, founder and leader of Be Loud, and Ali Kiro, who manages the partnership from the Kellogg Foundation side.

We'll also have the opportunity to speak to Kim Win, a young person who participated in Be Loud and hear what she took away from the programme.

So to start us off and give our listeners some context about the organisation, Alex, why don't you tell us about the challenges you saw young people facing in New Orleans that actually inspired you to create Be Loud?

Yeah, I mean, that's really interesting, that kind of whole idea of audio first, you know, actually enhancing the storytelling by not having the video actually being able to tell a different kind of story and enabling voices in a different way.

It's really interesting there.

When we started, we mapped out who are the institutions that have comfortability out on tribal lands.

And impact investors came first to mind, folks like the Candide Group and, you know, the Kellogg Foundation.

And we had seen them like participating in like, you know, housing initiatives or other different like youth development and growth.

A lot of them had made commitments to helping transition communities because they realized that economies and all the social dynamics were all intertwined.

Question about the mechanics of investing.

So, and I can use CataCap as an example as one of the investors.

And you mentioned Candid Group and WK Kellogg Foundation.

I think Halloran Philanthropies and also Schmidt Family Foundation are also investors, as well as many others.

But it has grown.

What we did was adopt the framework that Kellogg Foundation was using, which was truth, racial healing, and transformation.

Okay.

And so that's why we started the Cincinnati's National Day of Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation.

So who sets the agenda? How does the money move? What has already been built? And what does it mean to invest in Haitian-led institutions rather than approach Haiti primarily through a crisis response? One pretty incredible example of deep partnership is Pockets of Hope, which is a W.K.

Kellogg Foundation campaign launched with their partners that happened here at, on the sidelines of UNGA at CGI, the Clinton Global Initiative, in 2023.

The Kellogg Foundation committed 30 million over three years, and challenged other funders to collectively donate and add another 60 million, and that today has surpassed to 120 million, which is truly incredible.

The Kellogg Foundation used its decades of experience, and I was just talking earlier, um, with, with a member of the Kellogg team.

They've been working there since the '30s.

So they used their decades of experience and relationships in Haiti to help other funders identify trusted institutions and organizations and make their own d- direct investments.

There's a lot of new money coming in.

Mm-hmm.