Brian Walker on Diversity and Measuring Impact

Brian: I tell filmmakers all the time, you're not gonna change the world. let's be really transparent about that,what is the power of your film?

Like why did you make the film? A lot of it is introducing people to something and then open them up to. The organizations and the actions that are available every single day, but that people just don't know about. how do we just make those connections? that's what, for me, success looks like.

you have to create an ecosystem of storytelling

And, you have to continue to measure it as well. And I don't think that we have the capacity most times to do that work at that level, but I can be strategic with the time and with the capacity that we have, to reach the goals that we establish for each campaign,

June: Welcome to Story for Good, the podcast where entertainment meets impact. I'm your host, June Neely. There isn't a single filmmaker who doesn't want their film to mean something or to have some sort of effect on their audience or the world. So how do you measure the power of your film?

 This is the topic of today's discussion with my guest, Brian Walker, the CEO of Picture Motion a social advocacy and marketing company. I can't wait for you to hear this, so let's get into it.

 Welcome to the show.

Brian: Thank you, June. I appreciate it.

June: So I always start off with, you know who you are as a person and

how did you get your start in the industry? So could you tell us a bit how you started in the entertainment industry and

what kind of brought you to social impact?

Brian: Yeah. I, kind of always tell folks there's no straight lines to this work. there was definitely a lot of like interest and passion. I. For, doing social impact early on, but, finding the right spaces, the right opportunities, is a lot of time. Is timing and serendipity a bit.

so I'll give a little bit of my background. I grew up in a small town outside of Philadelphia. it was called Abington, it's a small suburban community. grew up there in the 1990s, so really interesting period, because I think people don't understand the history of integration in our country and what that means for, the last.

Few decades, particularly of, folks who look like myself, being in suburban communities and being really a part of the first few generations of integration. And so I,experienced,I grew up there from the time I was five. really was one of the first in my family to be in a suburban community.

And my father's Jamaican immigrant, my mom's from Philadelphia from the south so I had a unique lens on that experience. No one had gone through engaging predominantly white communities with, all of the things that come with that. racial tensions to multicultural, empathy and acceptance.

And I think I. Those things shaped who I am and what drove me to my early interests. as a young child, I wanted to be a civil rights attorney because of that. I was interested in, social justice, things early on. they really weren't framed that same way, but definitely was passionate about.

Creating social change for people because of experiences that I personally faced. and so went through middle school into high school really with an interest on following that as a career path. and I went through this program. I,got arrested, I'll be honest. I got arrested, had my own interactions with the criminal justice system.

At the same time, I was also like really active in like student government and wanted to be in, politics. And a lot of things just like changed for me during that period. first and foremost, when I got arrested, I had a really unique experience. I actually got arrested with five white kids from that community, and, we kind of got slaps on the wrist and I had cousins and even my older brother who, when they were in North Philadelphia or in other places in the city, like if they interacted with the criminal justice system,

It was a hammer, it was, them being incarcerated or being placed in the system really early on, and so I saw. My privilege through that experience,and recognized it and recognized the kind of disparities in our criminal justice system. And then I also went through this program called Presidential Classroom for kids who are interested in politics.

And I went to DC and spent a week there and I felt like I was not represented in that space. I didn't see any other. really, black and brown, political leaders, let alone staffers and other folks. And so that really put me on a very different perspective and started thinking like, is this the right place for me?

does policy matter in a sense? and it wasn't that I was devalue in it, it was just like, what is more important? And I realized stories are really critical. That was when light bulb went off my head. I was like, I want to produce stories because stories tell people how to interact with communities, how to shape their narratives and perceptions about communities and so I started really going down.

Writing a script in high school, thinking about producing film. And so I really just dove deep into entertainment, the latter part of high school and decided, having gone through a, the suburban experience that I wanted to go to an HBCU. And, I went, was applied and got accepted to Howard for undergrad.

and so I went there, you know, have a really amazing history of, black folks in culture and entertainment and that's what really developed my initial foundation for pursuing a career in the entertainment industry. I. I did everything that was possible just to be successful in entertainment at first.

and, I was a business management major, so I used that as my advantage. I was like the business person when it comes to films and, productions my cohort and for people that I knew who were producing at the time. and then I decided, I would move to LA when I graduated and.

Pursue a full-time career. And I was accepted at New Line Cinema for an internship and then went on to get a job there and, continued working throughout that pathway. And and then at some point I was at Fox right after, New Line. I decided I wanted to go back to school.

I was considering the JD MBA as a, an approach I decided just to do the JD MBA, once I started, and get my law degree and, I went back to Howard actually, for my law degree because of their legacy and history in law and entertainment. And, it was during that experience, during my time during law school.

I spent time at CAA actually, and, learned about new generations and what they were interested in, through a market research firm that I was working and learned that social impact and social entrepreneurship were like really? Really important traits and characteristics for what they were looking for in entities that they, respectedand supported.

And they were thinking about millennial generations at the time. This was 20 10, 20 11. but it was also thinking about like Gen Z a generation really early on in their stages at like teenage years and. even younger. and so it the light bulb went back off my head and started thinking, okay,I'm going to a civil rights law school with a focus on intellectual property and entertainment.

I have a really amazing understanding of racial justice issues and so I kind of went for that as the next step in my career and what I would do in my work. and I was lucky to have a person at Participant Media. Who was, on the HR team and, when I got outta law school, maybe a couple months after, I took the bar, she opened up an opportunity for me, over there and,kind of started there and, things just,started to build from there. had no idea. What social impact and storytelling meant, and what was it grounded in? But I knew like I wanted to be in that space and I got a chance to work on a couple campaigns and that kind of gave me an initial,view on, a company that was really deeply engaged in that work.

And also a lot of entities that were deeply engaged in the work and things just picked up from there.

 these opportunities happened I kind of jumped at it and, didn't look back..

Track 1: I love that you just, you fell into it and you're like, wow, this is an interesting space. And that's where I came from too. I kind of fell into it as well. what was the first impact project that you worked on and, what was that like?

Brian: Yeah, so it was that Participant during that period, I was there for just over two years. And I was initially hired to work on a campaign for a film called Teach, which was, Davis Guggenheim film. it was about four teachers and the challenges they face in a school year and, the power of teaching overall. it was funded by actually,Bill and Melinda Gates. and they had done research on the lack of, recruitment and lack of, interest by the next generation in teaching that they saw that, more and more teachers retiring.

And there was not enough, students in the pipeline to fill the need of teaching. And so the goal of the campaign where it was 18 months, actually the largest campaign I've ever worked on, was really to,generate positive understanding and interest by the next generation into teaching. really using culture to do that. So the film itself was the base or the,anchor of the campaign? It was,actually,premiered on CBS. It was, narrated or kind of hosted by Queen Latifah. I think it got like 6 million views on its CBS airing. so we, then use that as a base to build a more strategic.

Campaign where we engage teacher communities, we engage recruitment communities, we encourage, colleges and universities, high schools and, even some younger student programs on both recognizing really amazing teachers, as well as.recognizing recruitment programs for teachers themselves and we had a thank a teacher, microsite online where people could go and thank a teacher.

I used to host Twitter chats. I remember this was back in 20 13, 20 14, where we were cultivating a community of teachers and educators how they could talk about their wins and, the challenges that they face. we developed other, actual, content.

So a couple of short films. the lead on the campaign, she was the producer of the film and a really incredible content producer. And so produced a couple short films on some really other amazing teachers and then we even worked with a program called Road Trip Nation, which is, an incredible,professional education, organization and program where they produce.

Documentaries actually on a road trip they have this green RV or a whole fleet of Green RVs but they take like a cohort usually, three to four, young people. They could be in college or just outta college, and they go on like a mini cross country, road trip and interview people about.

their career pathand what they love about it, what they didn't like about certain aspects of their career. And they learn a lot about their life experiences as a way to, connect people,with real life,experiences generally. But we actually produced the first ever thematic, specific film.

It was called Roadtrip Nation kind of teach. and so it premiered on PBS But it was a, an extension of the teach campaign overall. and so having that as an opportunity to do all these different things, create an ecosystem of content and storytelling for different audiences, for different stakeholder communities.

learning about the power of education. I had a real inclusive lens on our work. that was the first opportunity for me to learn, how campaigns can work and be successful.

June: Wow, that's really cool. All those different facets that come together, just trying to convey this, similar message. You know, in your time working in, social impact, was there a profound moment or achievement where you just sat back and you're like, wow, like this is why I do what I do.

Brian: That's a good question. so I, I would say, one of the times when it felt, was, actually with Black Panther, So when I was

at Disney, I. I joined Disney, right as Black Panther was being released, and I joined in my role, working under the Chief Diversity Officer for the enterprise nurse inclusion team, where I wouldoversee, multicultural activations the whole enterprise.

or in a sense like build the framework for our. activations.we had a lot of corporate activations and then all of the business units under. the kind of corporate entity of Disney, they leveraged a framework that we would develop this is the direction that we think really creates cohesion across the enterprise.

and as a part of that, got a chance to develop like our. Our presence at conferences and major events. So like Essence Fest or NAACP annual conference or, other things. And so there was an opportunity we had with the NAACP conference in 2018, right after a couple months after the film was released.

And, myself and another Howard grad actually, we worked together to put on a hackathon or like a mini hackathon for, students in NAACP ACT-SO program. I dunno if you're familiar with ACT-SO program, it's like a multidisciplinary,talent contest where,

people engage in.

Literally competitions from the local NAACP chapter level all the way up to the national level. And so they have a conference specifically for those students during the larger NAACP annual conference. And so we curated or we put together a workshop for students.

It was a way to promote, uh, Black Panther,as a film, everyone loved it at the time. It was a cultural. moment and we were a big sponsor of the conference I wanted to do something with the students. and so we put on a, like a Wakanda hackathon where, interesting enough, the guy who is a, he's a imagineer.

who also went to Howard. He, he studies biomimicry and idea of biomimicry is like using natural elements and characteristics from nature and, from natural places and our world, to drive innovation, and critical thinking. and so we use that as a,base for.

This hackathon event that we put together where students could get into teams and develop a technology, a Wakanda esque technology from their understanding of, of Wakanda an innovation that they feel like they could use in society. and that was,a really cool just way to use storytelling, to use culture, to use like the power of, innovation and technology.

To, I think, leave a really great, impression on those students, and how they could leverage their passions for purpose in the future. and I thought that was really cool. also just a Black Panther lover and as a, a black creative and entrepreneur that was, it was like indicative of all the things I, really admire.

Same. definitely a big fan. And that's, that's really cool that you are able to incorporate that science side of Black Panther, which is part of what I love about that movie. And then bio mimicry, like I've never actually. Heard of anyone who studies that, but that's really interesting.

June: That makes me think of, I'm assuming that's where you see animals that camouflage, so then you're trying to mimic that camouflage technique.

brian_1_02-09-2024_131105: completely.

like the idea of a tank honestly is is like a caterpillar. So if you see like a tank at the bottom, the way it moves, the motion itself is like how they thought of like tank innovation. and there's so much innovation in society.

That is built from, plants and animals and you know what we see in these spaces?

June: That's really cool.so you've worked at a lot of other organizations like Color of Change. you mentioned Disney already, and then you were on the board of, Made in Her Image, so a lot of your focus, has been on like diversity in front of the camera behind it,

and then also in the stories that we tell, what does this focus mean to you and why?

Brian: it kind of goes back to that initial,spark of interest in entertainment and storytelling in high school. at the time, I was thinking about just the power of the story itself. And, I didn't recognize all the systematized approaches and ways that, better storytelling and more authentic storytelling, comes to fruition.

And I think, particularly when I was in, in college, I have this unique opportunity. I was,being mentored by. Another creative and storyteller, from like my freshman year on, and he started a program,at the Cannes Festival called, Creative Minds in Cannes, one then grew up to be, the Creative Mind Group, an organization that kind of takes students.

To film festivals and teaches them about the entertainment industry and really provides 'em with an initial pathway for that work. and so I, like I said, I had business background. I was working with him from, early on in the inception of the program. and a lot of it was built because he went through a program at Cannes, American Pavilion program.

no knock, but he didn't like his experience. It was more like he didn't like it because it didn't provide enough of an opportunity, but it also, it was not representative, there were people who just did not look like him. and he did not necessarily have as much of a ideal experience as he would've liked.

And so he came back and started this new program. we started off with HBCU students as a primary audience And we learned, how much of an incredible opportunity it was for particularly students who've never been to France. 'cause it was, it's in Cannes France. To have that experience, to be in a global sales marketplace and, to learn about all of the different aspects of entertainment and media.

through that lens. and so that was a definitely a early catalyst for me to say, Hey, how do I make sure I embed this in my work and what I do? I went on to be the COO of that organization for a number of years through, through law school and just continue to do that work in many ways.

even when it wasn't like popular and it wasn't necessarily like the thing. this was

2005 to 2012, the diversity framework diversity,marketplace was not that,intriguing. No one people barely heard about it or cared about it, and so it was just something we were just doing and really never really taking credit in that sense.

June: But, It gave me a good foundation to understand pipelines, to understand, what are the gaps that, organizations miss when they don't have folks represented. and what that means for storytelling overall. I feel that is so important. there's definitely a narrative of when, there aren't people who are representative of whatever culture, of whatever race who aren't in the room, and the stories are somehow about them, but then It's less, authentic in a way, because it doesn't have that person who's representative from that community they're not there to have their say

Brian: Yeah, because it more than just putting us in front of the camera, we needed to be in, spaces of content development itself and throughout the lifecycle of entertainment and media. now I'm on more of the marketing side, but definitely I was on that kind of content development, early stage production workand all of those stages.

It's important to have representation. I did a study when I was at Color Change on Race in the writers room report, and it was really about,trying to bring light to the gaps with diversity programs and diversity hires that were happening across Hollywood at the time.

early in the, kind of the inception of this new, eraYou know, most of it was compliant based. diversity inclusion. It wasn't like culture transformation. It was more of like just a checking off the box. And a lot of that was built on a diversity hire, having a quota in a writer's room, having one black person or one person of color and that being okay and that being, a representation of inclusion.

When in fact, really it undermined the idea of inclusion in so many ways and, created even more hostile situations like black and brown writers and other underrepresented, creatives as well as the people on set. Because what it does is it validates, like white men who were leading these spaces that they were.

That, there were no problems, when in, in fact they left most of the people,most of the black and brown people who were in those positions powerlessand, vulnerable to,a termination at any point because of the idea of diversity hire was so fickle,as a practice.

I think it's an important, element that should be inclusive in every stage, every part of the industry. and definitely it comes with also the transformation of the culture as well.

June Midroll: /You're listening to Story for Good. If you like the show, please follow and subscribe to keep updated when new episodes drop. And if you're looking for more social impact goodness, but in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter at storyforgoodpod.com./

June: In your career path, what eventually brought you to Picture Motion as their CEO?

Brian: I started working with Picture Motion actually during my time at Color of Change. it was I think back in 2016, I was leading the office at Color of Change for Hollywood and, was, a lot of my work was on consulting writers' rooms in, in Hollywood,on different aspects of, racial justice and civil rights.

so a lot of it was the writer's room engagement. A lot of it was also, working with influencers. so a lot of black influencers and even some white and non-black influencers themselves wanting to use their platforms for racial justice. and so we also started getting pitches from different, like film producers and from organizations like Picture Motion who were producing.

Content and looking for a lift, looking for, validation and support from an organization like Color of Change. And, This kind of intersected with Rashad Robinson, who was the president of Color of Change. He had, a long time relationship with Ava DuVernay,,picture motion actually, got the cam from, Neon.

 for the release of the film and a impact campaign at the time. And so they had reached out to us as Color of Change and really wanted to see how we could partner and we were, we jumped in head first. It was definitely an incredible opportunity to have a really deep discussion on criminal justice reform.

and so I helped to curate some of the early, activations around the campaign and just started learning more about Picture Motion. Interesting enough, the founders, Wendy and Christie, they worked a Participant right before I was there and just left to go start Picture Motion just before that.

So a lot of connections there and,once I made that first connection with them, I just started, working with them and building a relationship. even as I transitioned from Color of Change to Disney. and saw their work and was always fascinated by what they did.

And, as much as I love DEI, I think, the broader social impact landscape is,really critical and there's a lot of intersection there. And, it is more than just marketing and getting folks, the right folks to create the content. But it's, I believe stories have a deeper purpose and, ability to create everyday impact.

And, some of it we have to be really intentional about it. That was one of the things that really brought me to want to be at Picture Motion is developing spaces where we can really use content to drive action and education and, like real change,for issues that are outside of Hollywood.

I love, the motto on the Picture Motion site, stories can change the world. we make sure they do. that's such a, clear yet amazing description of what it is that you guys do. can you talk a bit about, what Picture Motions process is and what is it that they do?

yeah. Picture motion. we work with, what I see as the world's leading storytellers and distributors and nonprofit organizations. storytellers and kind of distributors, they bring us film and television

But yeah, we work with content creatives and people who create stories. Most of them are documentaries. 75, 80% of our work is built around documentaries or docuseries, so nonfiction content. But we, essentially develop, impact forward marketing strategies and campaigns for, these projects and these titles.

a lot of the kind of. creatives themselves, they have a deep passion for the issues that they are, telling stories about. Even if they're not representative of those communities, they want to see social change in many different ways, whether it be, gender justice issues, whether it be climate justice, whether it be, disaster relief, whether it be, the accessibility.

to better education for, underrepresented students or, students of all backgrounds. as content creatives, they care deeply about these issues. A lot of times though, they don't have the capacity nor the understanding to how, like to use their projects to drive tangible change.

And so that's what they come to us for. and so we, for all of our campaigns or all of our titles, we will do a deep dive in developing a strategy, on how to use the project to drive some level of theory of change. That could be individual behavioral change. It could be, being a catalyst or,a contributor to a larger ecosystem of advocacy around an real issue.

 how do we, obviously engage audiences in the right places and how do we educate them and inspire them to take the best actions? And sometimes that means giving them those actions really clearly. and so through our strategy phase, we're working to talk to many of the NGOs and the local nonprofit leaders and community leaders.

and then we also think about who those audiences are, and we talk to some of those folks. So a lot of our audiences are educators and both at the, primary kind of, middle school, high school age group as well as college, and professional development. venues as well. And then faith centers are a big audience for us.

nonprofit organizations themselves, as I mentioned, are big audiences. Policy makers actually utilize our content to kind of advocate for issues that they care about. and then other kind of general audiences might be relevant depending on the project. But, after we have a chance to interview these folks and understand like what are the ways, what are things that they need most?

And how can a film or a project help to support that? Then we try to connect the dots, create the strategy that is about marketing, is about, audience growth, but is also about activating people to use their position, whatever, wherever they sit. to create change, in a sense. And that's, that's a lot of the work that we do, and we execute those strategies a lot of times.

So sometimes it might mean, doing a multi-city screening tour where we, co-host different,screenings with localized partners. we did that for American Fiction just recently, where we did a six city screening tour and we had places like Birmingham where we have a relationship with the, the mayor and they co-hosted the screening or we were here in la I, I hosted a screening where I had five to six other organizations that work with, black creatives.

'cause the film is about, black literature and black storytelling and, folks like Bishop Crenshaw. Brought out a massive amount of people to the screening and we briefly talked about the power of these organizations and how people can get involved. so that's really some smaller ways.

We've worked on policy driven screenings and events on the hill. we're actually working on one right now and Islamophobia and hate, or we might develop websites. We might. do digital strategy. We've done that for Apple on a variety of projects, on whole host of issues.

 we do a grassroots screening tour, which is a big part of our work where we develop a really turnkey experience for community hosts to have access to films and even sometimes thought leaders to, have conversations. and they can do that both virtually and in person. and, we also, might engage influencers subject matter.

Leaders around, promoting the content as well and really being strategic about amplification and promotion. and so we lead a lot of those conversations. and a lot of this work Is built off of our strong relationships with local community organizations and all these different partners. we have an advisory board ourself about 12 to 13 organizations I think it is now. including organizations like ACLU, Planned Parenthood,Color of Change,even organizations like Color Congress,interfaith Power and Light. and so they represent a lot of these issues that we really care about.

Team Rubicon, who does disaster relief, like they represent these issues and we learn from them as much as possible. And then we go out to the larger,national and kind of even global landscape to work with localized,leaders to elevate the content itself and use the content to, accelerate their work.

June: Wow, that's amazing. So many different ways to, create these campaigns and, be effective with each, project that you get.

brian_1_02-09-2024_131105: how is it that you measure the impact that it has had and whether you know the impact was a success or not?

Brian: no, of course, ofof course. I think, I, this is the hardest question, or the easiest question if you wanna frame it that way. At the end of the day, we come up with a set of goals with all of our campaigns that are very specific to the issue, that are also aligned with the capacity of the budget.

And you know what the film. What's possible with the relationship that we have with the, the content creative themselves, the distribution organization. So some of that is built on increasing the reach, especially when we're working with larger distributors,Nat Geo or Apple or others, they're looking for viewers a lot of times.

So that's the biggest driver is Just introducing more people and, but being strategic about it. So leveraging, really critical, really great organizations, is about working with the right people to do that. some of our campaigns we are definitely a lot more, systemic, a social change driven, so it might be.

getting petition action signed. It might be, actually signing up people for volunteering or,hopefully getting to a place where we can register people to vote consistently throughout our campaigns. Like we're looking for ways that we can do thatand obviously those, a lot of those are quantitative approaches to our measurement.

But there's also a qualitative,measurement as well, like. what is a change in perception, that we can, instantly and,really superficially measure, based on someone's experience around the content. So surveys are a definitely big part of our work.

asking people right as they finish the content or if they've been a part of. the campaign as a partner, asking them the complete surveys on, how does this content make them want to do things differently in their lives or, they could be a policy maker themselves and say, Hey, I want to introduce another new legislation, or I wanna vote on a piece of legislation that I know is coming down the pipeline..

or it could be a corporate leader saying, Hey. I know I need to introduce a certain training into our ecosystem because that's gonna help us. Like a great example, we worked on the film Aftershock. it's a documentary about the black maternal health crises. premiered on Hulu. we worked with the directors,directly on that one.

And then we extended campaign about eight months, along where we did a grassroots screening tour. We developed a discussion guide. We had multiple, like larger events.we helped 'em with their website..and a lot of it was strategically engaging the medical field across the board on ways that they can, learn about their biases in, patient care, particularly with black birthing people.

and how that,, impacts, the maternal health crisis and, the mortality rate. Overall, some of those organizations that screened it were healthcare, companies or insurance companies or hospital networks and medical schools were a big part of that. a way in which they might just incorporate the film and.

The discussion materials and two, their syllabi going forward. and, just making sure that they're even thinking about bias in their curriculum,and their, the interactions that they have with other partners. I, it really depends on what the project is, what the issues are.

And what's the actual ability for a film campaign to create change? Because it's not like what I also want to, let folks know constantly.

I tell filmmakers all the time, you're not gonna change the world. let's be really transparent about that, but also let's be really smart about that and know what is the power of your film?

Like why did you make the film? A lot of it is introducing people to something and then open them up to. The organizations and the actions that are available every single day, but that people just don't know about. and so how do we just make those connections? A lot of times, and that's what, for me, success looks like.

sometimes you're able to say, Hey, one film could change literally, a policy, but it's rare. like from the first teach campaign we worked on you have to create an ecosystem of storytelling and. A, a zeitgeist for more storytelling to take place around the change that you want to see.

And, you have to continue to measure it as well. And I don't think that we have the capacity most times to do that work at that level, but I can be really strategic with the time that I do have and with the capacity that we have, to reach the goals that we establish for each campaign,

brian_1_02-09-2024_131105: so if I'm, a creator, filmmaker, and I want to, connect with picture motion, what is the best way to do that?

Brian: Yeah, you can just, come to our website, picture motion.com. You know if,there is a contact us button in the, right side of the screen. and, you can fill out our initial survey for, potential projects. you can check out our case studies there. I just uploaded our impact report.

From last year and, and then we have our advisory board on there. So,it's a great way you could follow us, at, citizen pic mo on, Instagram, on, Facebook. overall,we're definitely here and available. I try to attend different film festivals pretty regularly.

Or different events. so I was at Sundance just a couple weeks ago and was at, real screen as well about a week ago, which is like a nonfiction documentary. a summit, the industry. looking at South by Southwest, probably Tribeca will look at that as well. And I spoke even at Doc NYC last year and maybe looking at this year.

 so yeah, we try to definitely be active in the spaces. and then if you're a teacher, an educator, you can also,reach out to us at hello@picturemotion.com and find out about our current films and, ways that you can subscribe to our newsletters well, to learn like what we're working on Also.

June: So with every interview I do, I always end with, five kind of rapid fire ish questions. so the first one is name one TV show, film, podcast, that has had a profound effect on you and why.

Brian: that's a great one. I would say, you said TV show or movie.

June: Yeah, Either one.

Brian: I would say I.

Different World. I'll do that one. 'cause that was definitely, had me thinking about HBCUs.

June: what is the cause closest to your heart?

Brian: I would say economic justice.

June: And the next one, name one nonprofit. You would love to lift up right now.

Brian: that's a good one. yeah, there's so many and I don't wanna be, preferential. I would say, planned Parenthood, I would lift up, I think they do amazing work. I think that issue is so critical right now and could also be a catalyst for. protecting our democracy.

Yeah, for sure.if you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?

always wanted to collaborate with, Ryan Coogler. I've worked on some of his work and we've interacted, but never got a chance to work with him directly.

June: And then the last one, which is a little bit silly, if you could choose one song to play every time you walked into a room, what would you choose and why?

that's a good one. I would say I'm a big Stevie Wonder fan. I would say, I love the beat on superstition, Signed Sealed Delivered like it. Most of his like classics. I think it's the best music, It is like a great beat to just announce that you're here and you're ready.

Brian: Totally. Yeah.

June: Well,thank you to listeners for, listening to this episode and thank you Brian for coming on this show.

Brian: Thank you, June I really appreciate it. Had a lot of fun.

June Outro: Thank you for joining me today on this episode. Story for Good is created, hosted, and produced by June Neely. For more information about the organizations or projects talked about in the show, or for media and sponsorship inquiries, visit us at storyforgoodpod.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe to the show, and be sure to share it with a friend.