In this episode of “Bruins Built This,” a Daily Bruin podcast highlighting student and alumni entrepreneurs, Podcasts contributor Jack Garland interviews Jermeen Sherman of Community Up about how she combines her business and advocacy skills to build organizations that uplift vulnerable Black and brown communities.
Jack Garland: Hello and welcome to “Bruins Built This,” a Daily Bruin podcast about UCLA students and alumni entrepreneurs. I’m Jack Garland, a podcast contributor, and today we’re joined by Jermeen Sherman, founder of Community Up. Community Up is a social impact consulting and advisory practice that partners with community-based organizations, government agencies, advocate groups and philanthropic institutions to design, validate and operationalize strategic initiatives and social service programs to improve well-being and life outcomes for vulnerable Black and brown communities. We’ll be discussing where Community Up is now, how it got there, and where it’s going. We’ll also hear about UCLA’s role in Community Up’s success. And finally, Jermeen will share some advice for current and aspiring entrepreneurs. Jermeen, welcome to the show.
Jermeen Sherman: Thank you so much for having me, Jack.
JG: So we’re going to start with the goal and the mission of the company, what drives the company, and what the model of the business is?
JS: Yeah, of course, you know, at a really high level, Community Up seeks to position communities that are impacted to be decision-makers, and the thought leaders in sort of changing those conditions. And so at our core, we work with, whether it’s advocacy groups, nonprofit groups, government agencies, to design social impact initiatives that work and that are really aligned with the way people really live their lives, that are community-focused, that are human-centered and that just acknowledges the humanity and dignity of communities. And we do that by embracing sort of design strategies and design practices that put impacted communities at the center of decision-making. You know, I started Community Up in 2020 – I think it’s the end of 2021 – after spending some time at LA County’s Department of Children and Family Services as a chief of staff really looking at how to improve outcomes related to kids being removed from their communities of origin. Also, lots of projects focused on optimizing, like mental health programs for youth. And there’s this common theme of, you know, really senior decision-makers, elected officials making significant decisions about communities that they frankly knew nothing about – had never visited. A good colleague of mine, Sonya Soni, a medical anthropologist, and I launched a project in South LA with a group of foster youth. We gave them digital cameras, and we told them to go out into their communities and document experiences of their built environments. And, you know, those kids took awesome, hilarious photos of their walks home from school and how they played and how they did their homework and what they had for dinner and it was such a casual experience of just photography. We were able to identify quite a few commonalities between their experiences, and ways that we could reallocate existing resources to be more responsive to what they needed, whether that’s safe places to play, or ways that we might better leverage, faith-based communities to be responsive to things like food drives and preparing students to go to their prom. These really, you know, small things, or things that may appear small to us, but were really meaningful to students, or to the youth in care. And so that was kind of the impetus – designing that project, being able to write and publish about that project and kind of extrapolate some design principles that might apply across geographies. That’s one of our core principles, is really just, how do you design programs, interventions that put impacted communities at the core of solutioning?
JG: So it sounds like the main drive of starting the company was flaws that you saw where you were working previously, and you thought that you could change those problems, to have better results for your goal?
JS: I mean, for sure, I think that, you know, the impetus – was maybe born much sooner than that. I think that through both personal experience and observation, I learned pretty early on that the world isn’t a fair place, that opportunity and access aren’t equally distributed. And so I come from a community where folks are extremely talented and innovation runs deep, but access could be a real decision maker in what your life looks like – what your opportunities look like – the jobs and the educational opportunities that are afforded to you. And so I knew that I wanted to work in a space that opened doors, that really elevated communities that were oftentimes shut out of those opportunities. So I think that’s where I had the idea. My very first job right out of grad school was with a community-based organization called the Atlanta Urban Debate League, a super amazing organization that went into the lowest performing schools, identified the lowest performing students, and taught them debate education as a means to really cultivate critical thinking, research, conflict negotiation skills. And that work was later funded by the Department of Justice as a gang intervention project. But what really worked is that we saw kids change the trajectory of their lives. Kids who had lived their entire lives in a five or six mile radius in public housing authorities were able to really be a part of dreaming beyond their existing experiences and communities. And so seeing those kids go off to college, and start design careers, build their websites and do amazing things was kind of the affirmation that I needed – it’s a question of opportunity and access and not of talent or willingness or grit.
JG: Right. It sounds like improving your community and doing the work to get that done, and to see your goals come true is part of your DNA. So could you tell us a little bit about your background, how UCLA fits into that and the steps that you took for your career that inform your business?
JS: Yeah, of course. You know, I like to say that the trajectory of my own life was forever and positively impacted by a couple of very chance encounters and mentors who really helped me to believe that I could design a path that worked for me and that I could do that and be comfortable financially. I grew up in Atlanta. I like to say it’s the area that T.I. raps about. It’s changed so much now that the area’s been gentrified, but I grew up in Bankhead, single mother, went to some of the lowest performing schools – I think many of them are now closed. But I had a couple of teachers that just really took an interest in me and would enroll me in summer camps and would suggest that I try this activity. And in high school, I learned about debate – not that I necessarily enjoyed the activity or wanted to argue – I just thought the perks were pretty cool. You got to travel and get on a flight and go to different campuses and compete. And so I signed up for the perks, and I kind of fell in love with the activity. It was a way for me to cultivate research skills and to learn about the world and perspectives that I hadn’t yet encountered. So I did that for a couple years. It’s largely how I was able to afford my undergraduate and graduate education. And it was while I was debating, that as I mentioned, sort of was a volunteer in the Atlanta Urban Debate League, I had a pretty robust volunteer schedule, primarily around kids who didn’t necessarily have the fairest hand. And once I moved to California for business school, I had to pivot a little bit. Cost of living was substantially higher. And I kind of ventured off into a different industry. I had an amazing time but was building and designing learning experiences for international corporate audiences that would never benefit the communities that I come from. So I think I was around 27 or 28 when I thought about what’s the work that has fulfilled me in the past? What feeds my soul and how do I get back to that? And so I decided to go to business school because I knew I wanted to work for a nonprofit. I love the work that I did at the Atlanta Urban Debate League. I love sitting around the cafeteria tables and doing homework with kids and kickball with the grandparents and that kind of stuff. But I wasn’t very good at the strategy, right, or the board management or the fundraising. And so I wanted to fill that gap. I considered, actually before business school, a public policy degree, but I was a little concerned about seeing a ROI on that, given that it was my second master’s. And I really liked the flexibility that I thought an MBA would afford. So I went to Anderson just as the social impact specialization was launching. And so I really had to kind of carve out a way to make that curriculum my own and to really focus it on where I wanted to build a career. So really knowing that I wasn’t the traditional student that was looking to go into finance or consulting or whatever that looks like. I really took advantage of the net impact organization and the consulting challenges there that really allowed me to get some consulting experience under my belt and to really lead in a way that felt meaningful to me. I remember one of my favorite projects was maybe like a 10 week project that I did in partnership with a Family Justice Center in Hawthorne that was looking to expand and centralize their services. And so I was able to develop a fundraising strategy, designing some programs and partnership cultivation strategies for them. I also took advantage of the sort of, gap experience, the capstone project. There’s a company based in New Zealand that made custom wheelchair seating for folks with really severe physical deformity. So not a nonprofit but had a really, I thought, a great mission and a financial model that looked well beyond sort of profits and in a way to really be of service. And so that was another opportunity for me to spend some time on-site with a global company to design a really cool go-to-market strategy. And so I appreciated the ability to translate traditional business practices around efficiency and management into settings that I felt like we’re really more focused on enhancing the human experience. And, you know, there are also the Anderson professors. They are really open to— classes are designed to be actionable. And so you want to talk about real world examples, what you’re dealing with in the office, and to leverage the collective thought of your peers to problem solve. And so I took advantage of that, and I would bring to the classroom the projects that I was working on as an intern in a county government office. Or I’d say “I want to pilot this Pay for Success model in this social context piece, how does that work?” Or like, “Hey, I learned about a social impact bond, how does this work? Help me apply this to this kind of context.” And I remember my favorite class was actually, surprisingly, a behavioral economics class that really helped me to think about how folks make decisions. And particularly how to talk to corporate audiences, philanthropic audiences when you’re asking them to step outside of their zone of genius and to do work that’s much more community-focused or like building out their CSR initiatives. I also think during my last year – I graduated just before, or during COVID – there’s a venture course where you get to form a team and actually build the basis of a legal business entity. And you pitch your idea, you vie for folks to join your team. And my idea was, I knew that there was this legislation happening in the social services space called the Family First Prevention Services Act that would really change the way that services were delivered and require interventions to be evidence-based. I was able to work with a group of seven or so colleagues to build out a consultancy that would work towards that validation. And so just overall, Anderson gave me lots of really cool moments to experiment, to learn, and to really leverage the experience of peers to fill the knowledge gaps. It’s been fortuitous. Since I’ve graduated, the Pritzker center, for example, funded that research project that I talked about in South LA on campus. It’s been a really cool community of folks who are really interested in making positive change in the world. And I’ve been able to really hold on to some cool mentors and thought partners as a result of my attendance there.
JG: What are some initiatives that Community Up is working on right now? And are there any big plans for the next year or more?
JS: I’m in an interesting spot right now. This conversation has really focused on the work that I’ve done primarily focused on really vulnerable communities. Right now, I’m taking on a project at the other end of the spectrum – so connecting Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs to access to growth capital to scale high-growth businesses across a few industries. I’m working with an organization called Black Ambition. It’s a celebrity-backed opportunity fund that’s really working to close the wealth and opportunity gap from another direction. This kind of ecosystem looks very different, but it feels really nice to be able to work in such a resource-rich environment and to also think about how the most privileged community can also be a part of that transformation, what innovation looks like in communities and how, when a business is built, what does that mean for the workforce and how folks are employed and what sort of new opportunities are created there. I’ve come on as the managing director for that organization, Black Ambition, running the national prize competition and the search for organizations that we can fund, building out a really curated suite of corporate partnerships that supports those entrepreneurs from a learning and training perspective. And then really being responsive to what entrepreneurs need to really do some targeted barrier busting. That’s what I’m working on now, really excited about that work, but recognize that I’m kind of at a point where I need to make a decision on whether or not I grow Community Up or if I take a beat to finish this work and circle back to it. But I expect over the next few years to very much remain active, particularly as it relates to thinking through how to optimize outcomes for youth in foster care and systems that impact youth more generally, like juvenile justice and mental health as well. So I got a couple side projects that I collaborate on with myself, my network of folks who are committed to this work. But right now, my focus has been on Black Ambition and really scaling that opportunity to support minority entrepreneurs.
JG: Do you have any advice specifically for minority entrepreneurs that maybe you’ve been sharing with Black Ambition, or that you would just like to offer our viewers?
JS: Yeah, I think that like, I think the biggest, the most additive course of action for me was surrounding myself with people who were also building things and surrounding yourself with people who think that you’re awesome and dope because they will uplift you. When building a business feels difficult, when you’re having to make some really critical decisions, or you’re working in uncharted waters – making sure that you’ve got a community of folks who can support you, who can listen to you, who can share their networks makes a world of difference. The other – I was at an event yesterday at the gathering spot here in LA with a trailblazing entrepreneur – one of the things that she said was that early on in her journey, when she didn’t have dollars to kind of scale or do anything, she invested in herself and making herself an asset and learning as much as she possibly could and being valuable to others so that folks were coming to her for advice around the thing she was trying to build. And that’s how she really made herself a commodity in the space in which she was innovating. So those are two things that I keep top of mind that have been helpful to me.
JG: Thank you so much, Jermeen. I just want to turn it back to you for one more section to see if you have anything else you want to share. The floor is yours. If you don’t have anything else, that’s alright. But if there’s anything that you don’t want our viewers to miss.
JS: Awesome. No, thanks for the opportunity. I don’t know that I have anything specific to add, but I certainly appreciate the opportunity to share a bit more about Community Up and my journey. I guess, overall, I encourage listeners to think about how they can be of service from whatever vantage point that you’re working or living in, how you can pay it forward and help others through volunteering of your time, your expertise, but really thinking about and acknowledging that the world is difficult to navigate and if you can help someone along, it makes a world of difference.
JG: Great. Well, thanks so much, Jermeen. That was fantastic.
JS: No, thank you for the opportunity.
JG: Thanks for joining us today and sharing your story and all of your expertise. “Bruins Built This” is brought to you by the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper. You can listen to this show and others by the Daily Bruin on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud, and a transcript of this show is available at dailybruin.com. Thank you, and we’ll see you next time.
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