Meet Mazi Mutafa, Executive Director of Words, Beats, and Life (WBL), a hip hop nonprofit dedicated to transforming individual lives and whole communities through hip hop in Washington DC. Say what? A hip hop nonprofit has to be the brainchild of a next generation leader, yes? Sho’ you right. Mazi is 30 years old and founded WBL because he saw innovative ways for hip hop music and culture to be a vehicle to transform individual lives and communities. Programs include an Urban Arts Academy and a Global Journal of Hip Hop. I’ve known Mazi for about three years now, first meeting him as a program assistant when I worked at Fair Chance, helping his organization to build their financial management capacity. Now I volunteer with WBL as a copy editor for their hip hop journal and donate to the organization. WBL has come a long way, and is now in a position to help other hip hop nonprofits flourish around the country through a new program called the Cipher: Hip Hop Business Incubator. Mazi tells us about life as a young Executive Director.
RT: How did you make your way into the nonprofit sector?
MM: My entire professional career has been spent in the non-profit sector. As a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, in 2002 I began my career as an assistant resident male counselor at the Maya Angelou School in Washington DC. I was overwhelmed to join one of the city’s most celebrated charters schools in the district. This was to be my opportunity to see one of the Districts most creative charter schools up close and personal.
As a resident male counselor, it was my job to, for lack of better words, be a big brother to 8 young men in the residence hall. These were students who in some case were court-mandated and in others school mandated to live at the school in order to impact school attendance. This was one of my best professional experiences which had some of the most unique challenges of dealing with a system committed to new ideas, but which somehow over looked the basic need of people to make connections with communities other than their school communities. One of the best things about the school was that most of the staff we under the age of 40. There was a connection to the students that that different than any other school I have ever worked with or attended for the matter. Maya Angelou was a place where for a time innovation was encouraged, success celebrated for teachers and students alike.
Interestingly enough, in time that dynamic, youth driven student centered work environment was eroded by a number of factors. Those circumstances eventually led to a number of staff either being let go or leaving. For me, what made this so frustrating was the nature of the work, the people and the kids. For me, Maya was a special place committed to dynamic outcomes. That was the reason teachers were OK with not being unionized. People believed in the mission so much, that it is often the case, they did not make sure they were taken care of.
With the acclaim came higher expectations for the school. The relationships of the faculty and staff with students and their families became secondary to a new crop of professional that came from “better” schools or were more qualified. I learned a lot from that experience about how to position a work environment. I was there for a little less than a year.
My next job was with the Institute of Cultural Affairs, (ICA) an organization committed to teaching participatory culture. I was the Mid-Atlantic coordinator for the “Youth as Facilitative Leaders” training. This was my first experience not only as a trainer but also as a consultant. Once again despite the greatest of intentions, the people with the innovative ideas were to close to them to see the wholes and not open to the insights of the younger staff. Unlike the Maya Angelou School, most of the staff were over the age of 60 and had been there for more than 30 years. These were lifers as we called them. Despite the participatory nature of the organization, young professionals like myself we hard to come by and even harder to retain. This was not because the lifers did not try. They gave the best they had to offer and continue to host trainings around the world.
This job taught me how an established culture rooted in what an organization has been as apposed to what it is going to be is a great way to stunt innovation. The models of facilitation were usually based on previous models used by the organization. So much of its innovation was only rooted in the learning’s from previous methods developed and used by the organization. I worked at the Institute for two years.
My next job was at Motivational Educational Entertainment (MEE) as the street outreach leader for the “Be on the Safe Side: Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.” This was probably one of my best work experiences despite the fact that this organization was not a non-profit. It was a for-profit with a social entrepreneur model. One of the best things about this program was the fact that it had a very narrow set of sought outcomes. It had youth committed to the program, many of whom had been there for the life of the campaign. As a workspace, it reminded me of what made the Maya Angelou such a great place to work.
Interestingly enough, I founded Words Beats & Life shortly before I graduated, but it was not until I departed MEE productions that I decided to step out on faith and become a full time Executive Director. I must say that I was so much better equipped to lead an organization after having had three distinctly different employment and compensation experiences. It was with those experiences that I transitioned Words Beats & Life from a 100% volunteer organization with a staff of 10 three years ago with a budget of$25,000 to a nonprofit that now has three after school sites serving 115 students years round that increases to 200 during the summer. We publish the world’s only peer-reviewed global academic journal of hip-hop. We have DC’s only small business incubator specifically dedicated to hip-hop related businesses. We have a full time staff of three with 14 contracted employees, four consultants and 9 volunteers with an annual budget of $243,000 last year projecting close to $400,000 for this fiscal year.
RT: What do you like about being an Executive Director of your organization?
MM: I think one of the greatest gifts and challenges of being an ED is being able to bring my whole self to the work place. I don’t feel that my ideas need to be restricted by anything but the budget, and even that is only a temporary restraint. I am able to be as creative as I actually am and find people who I agree enough with that we can work together to make my ideas better and produce programs and outcomes that people usually complain about not existing, but don’t know how to build the systems necessary to achieve the desired outcomes.
It is also wonderful to be part of a team of creative artists and entrepreneurs who are committed to transforming individual lives and whole communities through hip-hop. The reality is that together we have built a unique organization that is committed to community and personal transformation and achieving the desired outcomes. I also enjoy being able to help and learn from other young EDs and from seasoned non-profit veterans who want to be part of cultivating the next generation of leaders. It makes me so proud to know that we have more right than we have wrong and that we are doing what some many other nonprofits struggle to do.
RT: What does your average day consist of?
MM: There is no such thing. That is one of the things I love the most, I can literally do a different thing every day. As I write this I am sitting on a plane headed back to DC from Tennessee after having participated in a conference about hip-hop and the church. Tomorrow I will be tying up loose ends and preparing to fly to San Francisco to be part of a kitchen cabinet by one of our newest funders. When I return I will be working on assisting my staff in fundraising for our third annual Bum Rush the Board Hip-Hop Chess Tournament, working with the newest residents of our hip-hop business incubator, grant writing and securing corporate sponsorship for various summer activities. I am still in a position to be creative, but the bulk of my job now is representing not only the views of our organizations, but to share the outcomes of what we do with the world, and insure that it continues to be supported by numerous funders. We are slowly but surely working toward being a national resource, and a deeply rooted DC based organization.
RT: Do you think Generations X and Y are stepping up to lead in the nonprofit sector? How could/should we get more involved?
MM: Most definitely. I was talking to a close friend of mine the other day about my view that hip-hop non-profits represent the future of the non-profit field. They are not only attracting more people of color from the X, Y and hip-hop generation, but they are working toward building institutions that the next generation can eventually take the leadership of. Because we are hip-hop, we have an understanding of the informal apprenticeship programs that have existed in hip-hop since its inception, and has been given a new level of formality on the development of our organizations.
It is my hope that the seasoned and soon to be retiring non-profit sector leaders begin to see these organizations as training ground for the future leaders of their organizations. It will be up to the funding community however if this new crop of leaders is burned out by resource deprivation before they really even get started. A large part of what we are doing as an organization is making the case that supporting this emerging field is more than trendy, but a necessity if the sector hopes to develop a new generation of leaders who are connected to the next generation of service recipients.
RT: What one piece of advice would you give aspiring nonprofit leaders? What skills and qualifications will Generations X & Y need to take on future leadership vacancies?
MM: The number one thing is to not take on too much to soon. The communities that benefit from non-profits have so many needs. We have to continue to build partnerships that make sense and to be clear about how we grow ourselves as young professionals, our organization as emerging community institutions, and our visions as resources become more redily available. We have got to stop creating so many organizations, and be humble enough to merge some existing organizations and bring new ideas under the scope of the vision of already established organizations.
