Connecting Top Talent with Sustainability Organizations with Kristy Drutman

Hi. This is Paul Zellizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact, profitability, and quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to the work of Christy Dropman.

And our topic is connecting top talent with sustainability organizations. Christy Dropman, otherwise known as brown girl green, is a speaker, consultant, media producer, and environmental educator passionate about working at the intersections between media, diversity, and environmentalism. As a young entrepreneur, Christy has educated 100 of thousands of people across the globe about modern day environmental issues through speeches and media content, as well as facilitates workshops centered around environmental media and storytelling in cities across the United States. Christy is also the cofounder of the Green Jobs Board, a climate tech start up bridging the equity and inclusion gap within the green economy through conversations, resources, and pathways to bring more diverse talent into the environmental field. Christy Dropman, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to be on here.

I was saying before we hit record, we have a really robust and growing climate sector here in New Mexico. And just last night, we had a meetup called NM Climate, and several startup founders are like, Paul Paul, I need I need a blank. Right? I need a PhD in mechanical engineering who could join our team. Right? So I was like, oh, I'm talking to Christie tomorrow. So this is very, very good timing for what's happening here in New Christy, tell us a little bit this passion about environmentalism and climate and talent. Like, give us a little bit of sense. How did you put your finger on this is something that is an issue that you wanna help with, and why here and not one of the other gazillion things you could do with such a talented individual?

Yeah. I mean, it really came from my own experiences of being an undergrad and being really passionate about climate issues and wanting to build a career path in it, but then realizing that it was really difficult to find jobs in this space. And I realized that, you know, even despite my passion and how much, you know, I knew about opportunities, relatively speaking, maybe even compared to some of my classmates, it still wasn't really a clear road map on, like, what to do. I wanted to build a career specifically in climate media and journalism. And definitely at the time when I was looking, there wasn't many resources or opportunities to figure out what that looked like. And so for me, I just realized that there was just a lot of gaps in information sharing around these opportunities. And so, you know, my background, for people who don't know, I come from a media and content creation background and built a platform called Brown Girl Green using social media and built a pretty sizable audience and platform engaging people around the world about climate issues. And from there, I decided to start a content series called Green Jobs Board, where I was basically curating resources of opportunities, fellowships, and jobs that I found online.

And what happened next, I didn't really expect it. It gained a lot of momentum and traction to where, you know, a lot of people asked, could you turn this into something bigger, a bigger organization or entity that could, you know, gain traction to support us in our job search. And so, yeah, we just got really excited about wanting to turn this into a company because people asked for it. And, yeah, 2 years later, here we are, you know, reaching over a 150,000 job seekers and, you know, over almost a 1000 companies and organizations who are all hiring to connect the dots on climate. But it all started ultimately because of my own journey and realizing how just hard it is. Like, you care about the planet, you wanna do good things, but yet, the resources and the skill set to do it is not necessarily, like, the most abundant or easily accessible.

Yeah. And when are we talking about when like, going back to your early iterations and just getting started with Brown Girl Green, when were you getting started?

You know, I got started with Brown Girl Green back in 2018. And so, you know, that was, like, early days of doing a lot of, like, environmental media content creation and really starting out in the space to, you know, realize I wanted to spread awareness online about climate issues, but didn't exactly have the venue or the platform to do it and didn't see many people who look like me represented in the environmental storytelling space. And so, yeah, when I was finishing college at UC Berkeley, I decided to start my own podcast called Brown Girl Green, where I went around interviewing different environmental experts and leaders about the importance about diversity and inclusion and being able to get more people in the climate conversation. And from there, I was able to build a pretty substantial platform and just lots of momentum to get people excited around the possibility of climate solutions and taking action.

Beautiful. And we'll put a link, listeners, to Brown Girl Green Podcast in the show notes as well as the other things that we cover, any resources. So, Christy, if somebody was I mean, it's hard to imagine, but I feel like I wouldn't be doing my job as an interviewer if somebody didn't really have an understanding of how not having a diverse workforce in sustainability organizations is a thing. Right? That that is an issue. Right? But if somebody wasn't real familiar, could you talk a little more about historically how the sustainability in the climate sector maybe hasn't done a great job of that? Can we say is that fair to say?

Definitely not. Yeah. I would say that when it comes to the climate sector, there's not great diversity and inclusion of women, of minorities to especially be in leadership roles or running boards or leading rooms when it comes to these topics. We even saw that at the grand global stage of the UN climate negotiations with, you know, only a very small percentage of the leadership in these negotiation rooms identifying as women. So this is literally, like, the rooms that are deciding, like, what's going to happen with global emissions and decarbonization and what the world's going to do moving forward to address climate change. And, yeah, it doesn't address, you know, the fact that women are the top caretakers and stewards of the earth and, you know, are responsible for collecting water and food and protecting the shelter for their families, but yet they're not in the rooms for talking about these issues.

So we're mostly gonna focus on the talent part of things, which is the green jobs board, but I just wanted to highlight your awesome work. And listeners, I can't encourage you enough to go listen to Brown Girl Green, the podcast. Go connect with Christy on the platforms. Is there any platform you're not on as Brown Girl Green? Is it like I know you're pretty heavy on Instagram. Yeah. Give give our listeners a sense of where should they look for that part of your work.

Yeah. Yeah. So Brown Girl Green, you all can check it out on Instagram and LinkedIn. And then, also, I recommend following on TikTok, brown girl green, and then I would say, yeah, brown girl green dot com for my website.

Awesome. So I'll put all those in the show notes, and that's another episode for another time. Today, we're talking about talent. And like I said, I was just we had 35 people on Monday night. Today was Wednesday. So it's very fresh and and several climate startups here in New Mexico are are they have the funding. They're ready to rock and roll, and they're like, I need people. My hunch is that's not just a New Mexico thing.

Is that fair to say, Christie? Yeah. You put your finger or just you heard feedback like that and you decided to wade into that space that getting talent for sustainability organizations, for climate startups was something you were really excited about. Give us a little more sense of the context. Like, what were you hearing from climate organizations and sustainable organizations in terms of their struggles on that side, like employers? And then you mentioned it, but I'd love to hear a little more depth. What were you hearing from people and potential employees about their struggles and how that kind of matchmaking wasn't there was a lot of friction in that process. What what were you hearing on both sides of that journey?

Yeah. I would say that, like, the biggest thing I kept hearing from organizations is that they don't know how to find qualified diverse talent for their roles. And then on the job seeker side, it was like, oh, I I have these passions, and maybe I have x degree or x skill set, but I don't know how that translates into a job. And I don't know how that job translates into a bigger, broader career. And so there's a lot of conversations around, yeah, like, what does it look like to be able to address some of those issues? And the biggest thing I realize is the lack of information. It's a lack of education on both sides. And so there needs to be, you know, a two side solution or intervention that's addressing the lack of information and, you know, connectivity between job seekers and organizations. And that's exactly what Green Jobs Board is, you know, set out to do.

I love that language, a two side solution. I hadn't heard that before. That's really cool. So tell us, like, how have you gone about trying to build that into bake it into the actual workings of the Green Jobs Board?

Yeah. So, I mean, for us, the biggest way we've done that is through, you know, online storytelling and reaching our audiences using things like social media to really engage, you know, a more diverse broad audience because, yeah, like, when we started this out, it was mostly, like, it was rooted in the principles of brown, go, greener on the need for better diversity and inclusion in this space. And so that got translated over to Green Jobs Board by, you know, us not allowing things like unpaid internships, requiring salary transparency, making sure that we are, like, finding the balance of highlighting, you know, BIPOC run organizations and entities. And that's, like, for people who don't know what BIPOC is, that's black, indigenous, and people of color organizations and businesses. And, yeah, we just embedded that into the DNA of, like, what we were trying to do. So to, like, just be recruitment in a new way that, like, wasn't, you know, behind this gate kept wall, but actually, like, you know, lowering the barriers to entry and making it more accessible for everyone.

So a lot of attention to transparency is one of the strategies I'm hearing. Is that fair to say?

Yeah. I would say transparency, accessibility are 2, like, really core tenets of of what we're building.

And then on the job seeker side, so part of it is is some education and visibility for the kinds of opportunities. And, also, I would imagine knowing you a little bit from what you're doing online anyway is to make it accessible and feasible for somebody that looks like you to say, oh, yeah. This is here's a career pathway that's available to me. There's other people who look like me and think like me, and there's job opportunities for people who are hungry to have candidates that have my capacities and also my background. There there's a place where I can go look, and you're helping put that on the radar as Green Jobs Board is this is what we do here. Is that fair to say?

Yeah. I would definitely I would definitely say that's, like, a big part of our our mission, and what we wanna do is, you know, we wanna make sure everyone feels, like, included in that conversation. And I think that requires, like I said at the beginning or a few minutes ago, a lot of education and conversation.

So my understanding is you've been out at about 2 years now. Did am I remembering that correctly?

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. We've been out and about building this and and building this community for the past 2 years.

So one of the questions I get a lot from social entrepreneurs and climate founders is, like, how do you get started? Right? There's so much to think about that moment. So so wind it back 2 years ago and, like, give us a sense, like, what was your team? Who was on your team as you were starting to, like, okay, we're going to do this. If this is a yes, like, who's in the room and what were some of the early conversations about the technology you need funding, etcetera? Like, just give us a sense of those early iteration conversations.

Yeah. It was basically, like, mostly just me and my cofounder, who was my childhood best friend who has 10 plus years in product and tech. His name's Usman. And, basically, Usman and I built a lot of, like, the product and the branding behind Brown Girl Green. So we already had, like, this, like, relationship together, you know, thinking about climate and storytelling. And then Green Jobs Award as a series, you know, came out, and Usman was kind of designing, like, the branding and the ideas around it. But like I told you before, this just started out as a content series on social media. It was not supposed to be a company.

And so I like to say it was like accidental entrepreneurship because, yeah, I didn't go into this being like, oh, I'm gonna make a bunch of money or like, oh, I'm gonna build this into a business. It just, like, happened, and it was very organic because it just built a lot of momentum. You know, companies and organizations organically were like, hey. Is this like a product and service you charge for? It's like, I was getting business, like, really organically. Like, I wasn't going out and seeking it. And we just started to build a lot of momentum to the point where we were like, wow. This is, like, really getting a lot of traction to the point where we, like, decided to just make it its own Instagram page. Like, that's how it started.

And, you know, that was, like, our beta in a lot of ways or has been our beta because that's, like, our you know, been our primary way of of driving traffic to some of our posting. And, yeah, during that time, like, once that first launch, we had, like, thousands of people following us and tons of organizations sending inquiries about how they could, like, utilize us. And I think a big part of that was because I already built a pretty substantial other business before that that, like, fueled the momentum behind it. So, like, for me, like, as a content creator, like, I had a lot of friends of mine who also built pretty big platforms, you know, doing content creation. And they went on to, like, sell candles or merch or chocolate or flowers, whatever. And that's typically, like, the influencer business model. And but I wanted to do something different. I didn't wanna just sell things.

I wanted to kind of utilize my, quote, unquote, influence to build something else, and that's basically what Green Jobs Board was. So big part of the platform of the business got built off of the social media influence and content creation business that I had before. So I always like to tell people that, like, it didn't just come out of nowhere. It was like it already had a lot of momentum because of my first business. And with my best friend, it was like we just started, like, really organically start iterating, like, okay. Let's make a brand for this. Let's make a website. Let's start figuring out how to actually, like, see what we do with this momentum and be strategic about it because now we're getting all these inquiries and tons of people wanting to work with us.

And it's like, what do we do? And then my assistant that I had with Brown Girl Green, she, you know, had been with me at that point for about 2 years and was like, you know, I'm gonna move into project management. Now she, like, runs basically the entire job platform. She's now, like, our, like, head of partnerships, Caitlin. And yeah. But she was originally just my assistant. Like, she originally started off with just, like, helping me manage my books. And then as time went on, it was like, oh, you were you're, like, actually project managing the operations of this whole company. And so that happened also really organic.

And then what happened after that? And then, yeah, then we started hiring some salespeople. And and then from there, we just started hosting events and creating strategic partnerships. And, again, this was all kind of leveraged through my networks with Brown Girl Green. And then, yeah, over the past 2 years, we've hosted we've hosted about 4 events that have been pretty big, 2 of them being these Green Jobs Pavilions, which have been basically these 3 day well, this year, it was a 3 day summit during Climate Week New York City where we brought businesses, organizations, government, job seekers together to talk about the future of the green economy. And I and I bring this up because as a business, you know, we started off as just an online marketplace, and now we're becoming something that's actually coming out into the world. We're partnering with universities. We're doing events, and we we wanna be so much more than just a job board and just an online presence. We wanna actually, like, really dive deep and penetrate into the industry and make, you know, ripple effects happen.

So that's been kind of the journey. It's been a lot of, like, oh, we're we're suddenly a company. Okay. Let's figure out what this is. Okay. Like, now people are really legitimately using us as their go to recruitment tool. How do we keep providing value to our clients? And, you know, that's been that's been such a journey in of itself because we just didn't expect it. So, yeah, I'm grateful for the journey.

It's been such a learning curve. Definitely out of my comfort zone, but I love it, and it it's definitely, like, where I think the world needs to go.

In some ways, Christian, I'm a I'm a real advocate of doing market research in one form or another to know that the world actually wants what you're building before you get too far down the path of, like, chasing down the money and building out a team. I sometimes see folks do things fast backwards in my opinion. Right? We need money and we need, like, all these people, but we don't really know if the world wants it. In many ways, at least sitting over here, and I'd be curious if this resonates with you. It's like the social media platform and the responses you were getting in those inquiries coming in that even though you might not have used that frame, that was market research. You were putting it out there and you started to get this really robust response from the marketplace saying, we need help with this thing and you have the network. It's almost like the market taught you what it would needed in this space. And now that you're leaning in and building it, you know there's a really strong desire and really strong customer base.

So now you can build it without a lot of uncertainty about is this wanted. Is that at all fair to say?

100%. Yeah. I would say, like, having this be a beta product and just, like, the momentum and excitement we got from so many people, especially young people to build this out and tell us, like, how helpful it's been for them, I I think really helped us have the confidence to turn this into something bigger.

Cool. In a moment, Christy, I'm gonna ask you a question about what did you have to do as a leader to, like, be receptive and be agile and all that good stuff and a bunch of other questions about what it actually looks like as a business. Before we do that, I just wanna take a really quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Are you passionate about making a difference but feeling stuck on how to take your mission driven business to the next level? You don't need a lengthy coaching program. You need targeted advice from someone who understands the unique challenges that social entrepreneurs face. With my strategy session package, we'll focus on your most pressing decisions, whether it's clarifying your value proposition, optimizing your marketing strategy, launching a new product or service, or adjusting your pricing to align with your mission. These sessions are perfect when you know the direction you wanna go, but you need someone with experience to help you get there. If you're ready to unlock your potential and amplify your impact, book your strategy session now.

The link is in the show notes. So welcome back, everybody. I'm honored to be here with Christy Drepman, and we are talking about connecting top talent with sustainability organizations. And right before the break, Christy, we were just talking about how you got this incredible, like, wave of interest from your social media presence through Brown Girl Green, and people were saying, we need help. We want diverse talent that we're struggling to find it on both sides of the equation. People who, you know, wanted to work in climate organizations, couldn't quite easily find their way in. The organizations themselves were saying we want diverse talent, but we're really struggling to find the talent we need. And you said, okay, let's do this.

Talk to us a little bit about I'm always fascinated by leadership, especially when we're building something so important as a climate resource. What what did you who how did you need to be open to learning to be the kind of leader that your community was asking for?

Yeah. I would say that, like, I needed to be willing to take risks. I think entrepreneurship comes down to taking risk, but and I know that sounds a bit cliche and very general, but I would say that, like, it's a big part of it because a lot of what I feel is needed in the climate space is creativity and innovation and doing things less conventional. And I would say that as a leader, I had to not necessarily be focused on having all the answers, but just to do the thing. And I think that's been a big part of building Green Jobs Board has been like, yeah, I don't have all the answers on what a perfect workforce recruitment platform is going to be, but I can definitely tell you what people don't want to see anymore and what they don't like. And so I'm like, okay. Well, that's at least very helpful because people don't like, you know, having these job platforms that are just overly saturated. They don't like seeing that there's not salary transparency.

They don't like to enter organizations where there's not people who look like them or there's not good, like, resources to help them up the career ladder or there's not good pay, frankly, things like that. And so I think for us, you know, we're just trying to have a very transparent platform that allows people to make those decisions on their on their own and to to feel the most agency in that. And so for me, I think also as a leader is is if we as a company are practicing transparency, I also have to be transparent. So I'm very honest with people. I'm like, hey. Like, this is what I'm learning about my journey. Like, these are the things I didn't know. Like, it's crazy.

Like, it was a few days ago. I went to a conference, and I just posted that I'm I'm learning about how to put together a solid pitch deck. I got so many messages from people that follow us just being like, oh my gosh. Could you teach me how to make a pitch deck? Or, like, what does that look like? Like, what does that mean? And it's fascinating to me because I think when I've gone into a lot of different climate spaces or tech spaces or business spaces, it feels like, oh, if you don't have an MBA or you you weren't in those spaces, well, guess what? You're gonna have to pay probably 600 to a $1,000 to even learn that information when there is, I believe, a whole new budding generation of climate entrepreneurs and people that probably want to start their own businesses, but I have no idea, like, where to get started in that. And so for me, I'm like, let me not be a gatekeeper. Let me be transparent. Let me practice things like mentorship, you know, giving back what I've been able to get. And I think practicing that form of, like, active reciprocity and circularity as a business leader returns you tenfold because at least with what we're doing, the more we're able to provide value to the people in our community, the more they're going to want to come back and use our business rather than it being like, oh, this is only for, like, the selected elite.

And, you know, we're done with that. Like, we don't want to we don't want to be that kind of platform. And so I think by welcoming more people in, it's actually giving us a higher competitive advantage as a company in the long term.

Nice. So one of the biggest questions I the 2 biggest questions I get, Christy, at this point, if I can hear my listeners, this sounds awesome. Question is they're both about funding. They're both about revenue. Right? So number 1 is, okay, cool. How did you fund the start up? That's the first one. And and then we'll go with the second question is about revenue. What does revenue look like now from what sources and who tends to be your clients? But let's start with start up funding.

Like, did you get any outside investment as you started to go into okay. This is now going to be a real company, and it's gonna provide these services to these kind of people. Did you take outside investment? Has this been a bootstrapping journey? What what does it look like getting this up and running?

Yeah. This has been a completely bootstrapped journey. We've been a revenue generating business, which I'm, like, knock on wood, has been really incredible. Really grateful for what we've been able to, like, build over the past couple years. We've actually, like, had some interest in investment, but we're taking our time because we just want to really build a really solid product and keep iterating on, like, what we're building, to put it out in the world to make sure, like, by the time we do go for investment, we really, like, know what we're doing, relatively speaking. And so, yeah, we we've taken out some loans, and now we're applying to a lot of grants, so we're kind of in that direction. But, yeah, as of now, we've just been, like, a bootstrap revenue generating entity.

Cool. And what do revenues look like now?

Yeah. I mean, I would say that, like, you know, where we're at now is is definitely on how do I explain this? Like, I would say that, like, I I guess I'd rather speak to, like, the how we've diversified our revenue streams, which has been interesting. So, like, right now, you know, companies, organizations are, you know, working and partnering with us on, obviously, like, showing their jobs to job seekers. But in the future, you know, something that we want to build upon is having more of these events like I mentioned. Like, we're hosting this event called our Green Jobs Pavilion, but we also wanna do some other events working with employers to, like, again, like, make it a more curated job seeker experience where they can, like, connect with job seekers and make it more of an educational experience. So I think for us, that's been a big part of, like, how we want to, like, grow our revenue streams is, like, off of just the posting in the advertisings to think about, like, okay. How can we holistically, like, build, you know, a bigger business model that, like, has companies and organizations also be a part of our story? So that's something worth worth thinking through long term.

Beautiful. So as somebody who's now got 2 climate brands up and running and so much traction, if you were gonna that that think about 2 populations of makers. First of all, that early stage founder in the climate or sustainability space. They know that's what they're they're they're committed to it. They see that the world's on fire. They have an idea to make it better, and they're, you know, early on in the journey. What what would be your top couple of recommendations for somebody in that seat?

Like, what would be my can you say that first part one more time?

Yeah. Early stage climate entrepreneur. They're passionate, but it's really early. What would you suggest to that person?

Yeah. I mean, I would say definitely figure out, like, realistically, like, what revenue could be generated from your business. So, like, being really honest with yourself and, like, your cofounders and the people you're working on and, like, what would the revenue streams be? Because while, you know, obviously, you could get really good investment, you know, investors are going to want to see a return on their investment. And so you have to really be able early on to kind of have a hunch on, like, okay. This is probably going to grow or expand or be able to get more people excited about what we're building so that way we can, like, continue to grow the revenue stream. So I would say, like, figure out, like, by what you were saying, like, doing more market research, seeing, like, what other people in similar industries or positions are doing. Because even though you could view that as quote, unquote competition, you could also view that as, like, oh, yeah. That's great because that shows that that's actually a profitable business.

And so if we hop in on that but take our own approach, most likely, that probably will have good return rates. So I'd say that's really important, doing your market research, making sure you actually know how you're gonna make revenue. I would say also learning to not be so perfectionist. I think I got caught in that a lot, and it really slowed me down. I would say it's better to just try things out and fail fast as they say because you'll know right away, like, oh, yeah. That that doesn't work. And then, okay. Great.

Move on to the next week. I think there's been times where, like, I've been caught on an idea, and it takes me months to execute because it was just stuck in my head. And then I'm like, actually, that wasn't even that great. I probably could have just gone that over with, like, months ahead of time and then moved on to something else. But then I was caught up on that, and I wasted a lot of time and resources. So I would say be very efficient with experimentation is also a really key thing I would recommend to people.

I love that. Be very efficient in experimentation. Great great way to say that. I I too have sometimes held on to something too long, trying to make it perfect as opposed to get it into the hands of the kinds of people I hope to use it. So, anyway, I I I cosign that 100%. Yeah. And what about somebody who's been out of it a little while and you they've done some homework and they're getting the kind you're in a really blessed position. I hope many, many, many, many more climate founders get to this place, Christy.

Words like you're starting to build the thing and the interest is strong. Right? Like, it's okay. Buckle your seat belt time. Right? Oftentimes called growth stage. Right? So somebody who's a growth stage leader in a climate or sustainability organization that got traction, that there's plenty of people interested in buying their thing, and and they have a different set of problems or a different set of issues. What would you suggest to somebody who's in that growth stage?

I would say, you know, I'm in that stage right now as well still, I would say, and I would say what would be the advice I'd give to myself? I would say definitely build an advisory board. That's, like, where we're at right now. I've, like, definitely started figuring out, like, who could be advising us on different categories of the business. I think I I view it from the focal point as, like, also from, like, my content creation hat where it's like when I was blowing up on social media, it was like, okay. That's great. But now you you need, like, an accounting. You need a lawyer. You need you need a management agency.

You need probably assistance. You need salespeople. Like, I would say if you have that moment, then, like, start getting your ducks in a row, especially accounting and especially legal. Like, I know that that's not as, like, sexy or exciting, but, like, I swear to you, like, the sooner you get that done, the less stress and headache you are going to have later on. So I would recommend getting your infrastructure right, getting your books right because that's just gonna make you more strategic in the long term. And, yeah, find good people who believe in what you're doing early on with that momentum and lock them in to advise you and to grow what you're building.

Great suggestions. Thanks for that, Christy. So dream with us a little bit. Like, where do you think Green Jobs Board is 3 years out, 5 years out, 10 years out? What what are you building towards as best as you could see it from this moment?

We want to be the go to climate recruitment platform of the future. Like, where you go to find a job is going to be on Green Jobs Board or whatever we end up calling it in the future. I'm sure it'll have a different name in the future, but I'm excited to listen to this interview in the future because I'll be like, oh, wow. Remember when we used to be called Green Jobs Board? But, yeah, you know, we'll be this go to platform that, you know, local governments, workforce development agencies, universities are using to get people to mobilize and get into the climate workforce. And I think for us, you know, we know that the stakes are so high. With a warming planet, we're trying to keep the planet under a 1.5 degrees Celsius warmed threshold. And in order for that to happen, there needs to be enough people employed in these industries to actually transition our economies and our world towards, you know, renewable energy, towards, you know, conservation and preservation efforts, etcetera, etcetera. And so for for me, ideally, I would love to be able to say in, you know, the next 5 to 10 years that our ability to scale and build that traction with different industries actually does lead to emissions reductions.

We could actually track that data to show that, you know, the organizations that we are helping to employ and train and skill up people actually leads to tangible emissions reductions, leads to tangible ecological restoration. That would be my dream is, like, we could show the data that shows that, you know, getting people excited and giving them good paying jobs long term makes them reinvest back into their communities and ultimately help protect the environment in the long term.

I I couldn't agree more, Christy. When somebody reaches out to me and they're kind of freaking out about what's happening climate wise, and they're asking, you know, what can I do? My 2 biggest there's lots of things we can do, but my 2 biggest suggestions for us on a personal level is what do you do for work, right, if you work for an oil company and then you're like recycling. Sorry. Right? It's just what you do all day long every day matters and recycling is great. Right? And then the second one is where do we invest our money? Or do you, you know, who host your retirement account? And and if you're, again, if you're investing, the the the resources you have into places that are working against the well-being of the earth all day long, and then you're buying jeans that have some recycled fabric in it. Yeah. That's that's not gonna work. Right? So what you do for work and how do you invest your resources are the 2 biggest decision on I know of on an individual level.

So if you're listening to this and you're somebody who's like, I really wanna help the climate, take a look at who you're working for. And if you don't like it, go check out the Green Jobs Act.

Exactly. And and, you know, and and I think for us too, like, you know, I think a big thing we also hope to help in the future is providing more resources and support for employers or companies that, like, want to be greener and want to figure that out internally. So in theory, someone who does work at this company or organization doesn't have to necessarily leave, but, you know, the industry itself could shift. So, eventually, we do wanna, you know, incorporate more resources and the ability for employees at companies that aren't currently green to also learn how to do someone with more of that, like, internal advocacy and to ship the culture there too. But I I would say that's a further down the line thing for sure.

Well, please circle back around when that goes live because I'd love to help you spread the word about that. So it the the sector in general, Christine, like, you've been at it long enough, 2018 to, you know, we're just this will go live in 2025. We've seen a lot of changes, pretty significant ones in the sustainability space, in the climate space in the past 7 or 8 years. Like, we're just similar questions to like what we asked the last round. But where do you think the sector is going? If you you know, you have more than the average amount of contact with leaders in this space as you kinda compile that and if you were to chart a course, any trends you're seeing, what's happening in the climate and sustainability space as you look out the next 3, 5, 10 years?

Yeah. I mean, I I would say that, like, the biggest thing that we're seeing right now is a lot of people kind of worried, I would say, with, like, this upcoming administration here in the US. There's a lot of uncertainty around what that's going to look like for, you know, the industry moving forward. I would say since I started this platform, you know, there was a global pandemic, lived through, you know, 2 different administrations during the time, and now, you know, heading into a third administration. And I would say that, yeah, I think right now a lot of people are trying to figure out, like, how do we make our work and our skills and our industry, like, insular to potential policy changes? Or, you know, how do we make our skills or industry translatable across the political spectrum? And I would say that that's something I'm very interested in and invested in learning more about. But I would say that there's a lot of amazing people that have advocated to make sure that some of these things have stop gaps or, you know, are insulated from, you know, political changes as as time goes on. And so, yeah, I would say that more people are gonna be shifting into, like, probably local community work, figuring out how to shift into, like, what's happening in my backyard with my neighbors? Like, do I even know who my neighbors are? Like, are we talking? Are we figuring these things out together? Could I be building a business that, like, is supporting my local community? Like, maybe it would thrive better than building some, like, you know, nationwide company or something, you know, region specific. Like, you were just talking about, like, in New Mexico and other places.

Like, certain regions or states or areas are actually pushing a lot of funding into investing in things like climate climate entrepreneurship or organizations doing that work and other states and areas are not. So I think it's gonna be really important to, like, make sure you're in the right place at the right time doing the right sorts of things that are going to probably protect you from things like dramatic policy and economic shifts that you can't really fully protect yourself, but at least to stay agile, make sure that you're staying on top of the news, what's going on, having different allies in different sectors across different types of political and economic thought, I think, is gonna be really, really important for a lot of people moving forward.

I couldn't agree more, because one of my favorite words these days, like, I feel a little bit like I'm on a I I I get on a high horse about it a little bit because I don't know what else to say, but it's desiloing. Right? Like, the idea that we can just expect to go deep in our own startup or our own organization and not link arms with others who are doing associated work, especially regionally or locally, like you're talking about. And I mentioned it real quickly, but, again, here in New Mexico, we have NM Climate, and that's the whole idea is bring together people in this space who live in New Mexico. We're really blessed with positive leadership here in the climate space. I'll put a link, for example, to something called the Climate Solutions Venture Fund, which is $50,000,000 of New Mexico state money that is going to climate VCs to invest in New Mexico based organizations that are willing to bring their base of operation climate organizations who are willing to bring their base of operations. So we have some really dedicated local leadership, and we have an incredible start up scene here. And that's one of our big commitments, and I feel really grateful to be part of the leadership of that. So I feel hopeful, and it sustains me, and it also makes me more robust.

I'm part of a whole community as opposed to an isolated leader. And that strategy is one of my biggest suggestions for anybody who's understandably feeling a little shaken by some of the recent events that you were alluding to, Christie, is link up arms with the people you live near and who are doing similar and adjacent work. It's much harder to undermine or threaten a whole community that's saying this is really important for where we live, then an isolated leader who's saying, I got an awesome start up, but it doesn't have a real deep root system in the community you live in. So just cosign that a 1000%. So, Christy, I could hang out with you all day. You're doing amazing things, and you're super busy. And so have our listeners. If there's anything you were hoping we were gonna get to and we haven't touched on it yet, or there's something you wanna leave our listeners with as we start to say goodbye.

What would that be?

Yeah. I would just say that, you know, if you are a climate entrepreneur or job seeker trying to figure out your career journey, definitely check out Green Jobs Board. We're big on Instagram and LinkedIn and our website, greenjobsboard.us, for all resources related to that. And I would say that, definitely, if people are interested, I also do green career coaching. So if people are interested in getting into this realm but don't know where to get started, my email is just browngirlgreenshow@gmail.com. And so I just wanna offer that too if you need support on your journey of figuring some of these things out. I love to talk through and help people.

Christie, thank you so much for the work you do and for sharing it with our listeners.

Thanks for having me.

So listeners, the links to all those places that you can go find Christy and what she's doing under the Brown Girl Green brand, the links to the things that are happening on the Green Jobs Board brand, all that'll be in the show notes, please. You know what we do here. Go tell your friends. Let's lift this up. Let's share this work. If you are a startup and you're welcome to email me and say, Paul, who do you know? But like, my first suggestion is going to be, have you reached out to Green Jobs work? That's what Christie and her team do. So please, let's get this out there. Tell your friends.

I want to say we love listeners suggested topics and guests. If you're a listener of the show and you're like, we need to do an episode on blank this topic or this startup or this leader. Please go to the Awarepreneurs website and on our contact page, we have 3 simple guidelines. We try to be really transparent about what we're looking for and who's a good fit. If you read those and you think you got somebody, please send your ideas in. About somewhere between a third and a half in any given quarter of our guests come from you, the listeners, and I'd love to see that number go up. So please keep sending in your ideas. Lastly, I just want to say thank you so much for listening.

Please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.