Celebrating 6 Years of ‘Transforming Silence Into Language and Action’
Written by the Better to Speak Team
Better to Speak is SIX! Since 2017, Better to Speak has worked to use storytelling to highlight important sociopolitical issues through the lens of Black youth and young adults. Our goal is to continue building a platform for Black youth-centered-and-led storytelling and community outreach.
Keep reading to learn more about the milestones we reached since July 2022!
We celebrated one year since the launch of our contributing writers program
These voices and perspectives have added so much nuance to the stories we are able to share on this platform. We’re excited to continue working with our existing writers, welcoming new folks, and exploring how to create more opportunities for our community!
We plan to continue improving our editorial process with the contributing writer experience front of mind. We are also working to continue refining our editorial voice to make Better to Speak a go-to (re)source for storytelling by and for Black youth and young adults.
READ MORE: Happy One-Year to Stories and Our Contributor Program! [CASE STUDY]
We brought on our first official paid team member and recruited our first team of volunteers
Experimenting with how to best grow our internal capacity taught us what roles best support our work, what opportunities our peers are seeking, and how Better to Speak might be able to grow in the future. We’re forever thankful to the OG Dream Team – Victoria, Andra, and Anthony – for their contributions last summer.
We’re excited to share we just onboarded our new Development Coordinator, Desiree’ – who you can learn more about here.
We attended our first conferences and events repping Better to Speak
The Powerful IDEAs Career Fair + Expo brought 1/2 of The Dream Team to D.C. for an amazing two days of networking and learning about opportunities in progressive politics.
READ MORE: The Dream Team Takes D.C. for the Powerful IDEA Expo
We also attended the Online News Association ‘22 Conference in LA where we learned about all things digital media – including how to build an effective newsletter portfolio, how to best engage your communities and audience, and how to build sustainable organizations.
Heads Up – We’ll be at the CBC Foundation Annual Legislative Conference in September! If we can expect to see you there, let us know you’re coming, too! There are discounted tickets for Emerging Leaders under 25 – purchase your ticket here.
We reached ✨award-nominated ✨ status for our content and community engagement work
Better to Speak: The Podcast was nominated at the 2022 Black Podcasting Awards for “Best Black News/Informative Podcast.”
The State of the Young Black Advocate was also nominated for our Freedom Summer activation for a 2023 Powerful IDEA Award for “Organic Digital Content.”
LISTEN: Better to Speak: The Podcast
The VOX ATL FY22-23 Board of Directors at the organization’s annual ‘Vox-a-Palooza’ event
Our founder now serves on VOX ATL's board of directors and as a member of Press On’s advisory circle
These opportunities allow us to be in community with other leaders in the nonprofit, organizing, and journalism/media spaces – to firstly support amazing organizations that are leading efforts to uplift youth and their voices and transform journalism at large; and also to learn more about fundraising and organizational growth and development.
Donate to support uncensored teen expression and journalism with VOX ATL
Donate to support movement journalism in the South with Press On
She also participated in the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program and Georgia Co-Op Academy programs to learn how to take Better to Speak to the next level
We’re currently working to implement what we learned from each program, namely how we can move forward with our plans to launch our membership program and collectively works towards cooperative governance!
“[W]hen EJCP5’s 100-day journey officially started, I experienced a similar feeling of excitement and intimidation, realizing that aside from the technical knowledge and professional network the program offered — this was a major boost to my confidence in myself as a young founder and in Better to Speak’s potential.” – Kési Felton, Finding my voice (again) as a young Black journalist
READ MORE: We’re making things official in 2023 [Annual Launch Blog]
The Dream Team needs your help to continue amplifying the voices and stories of Black youth and young adults through our contributing writer program. Can you contribute to support?
Publisher’s Corner – 5 things I learned in Year 5 of Better to SpeaK
I’ve been feeling very overwhelmed with gratitude for the work that I’ve had the opportunity to carry for six years now, and also very grounded in the humble awareness that I feel like I’ve done all I wanted to do by myself through Better to Speak and that it’s time to evolve.
Meaning – we’ve been here since 2017 with plans to stay around and I acknowledge that the growing pains this year have been very heard and felt. They’ve been a sign that, as we look ahead, it’s time to prioritize making some needed changes for our growth (which we’ll be sharing more about very soon!).
As always, thank you endlessly to everyone who has poured into Better to Speak over the past six years and into me as a result. Here’s a little more about what I’m personally taking away from year 5 – year six here we come!
Move from a spirit of gratitude, humility, self-belief, and curiosity.
Learn and research as much as you can to explore all the possibilities – and give yourself permission to make decisions and move forward without feeling like you need to know everything.
Don’t be afraid to talk about or engage with money – it’s what you’ll need to have space to do good work sustainably.
Be creative and nimble in your approach – there can be multiple paths of growth toward the same goal(s).
Remember your why & that building meaningful things that last takes time.
As you may have already seen, Better to Speak is currently on a public-facing break – largely from publishing and partnerships – to focus our resources on fundraising and development until September. While this is a bit of a transition for me personally, I’m excited to move forward with our current internal projects that I hope will be an investment in Better to Speak’s growth and future.