GOODProjects

What has set GOODProjects apart and reflected in my leadership is the culture and the way we serve youth and families. We understand and embrace that what we have been called here to do comes from a place much higher than one person - especially Darius Baxter. I am the son of a slain police officer and a school teacher. No one could have told me when I was nine years old, mourning my father's death, that one day I would be sitting at my desk with the potential to receive $300,000 in funding to help kids like me do something with their life. I did know that God had a plan for my life, and it involved dedicating my life to the love, support, and service of others.

The most significant component of what adds benefit to our work here and my leadership is meeting and growing alongside the fantastic group of activists, organizers that you are convening. The fellowship will allow me to learn from and collaborate with highly impactful innovators that wake up every day with the same passion and commitment to serve their communities as I do.

A single mother raised me after my father was murdered. The loss of income subsequently resulted in my family becoming homeless. I knew lying next to my brother at my grandmother’s house as my mother slept on the couch that I would create pathways for families like mine to make it out of poverty. 

After graduating from Georgetown University, I began pursuing my passions through several social impact ventures. I am blessed to have facilitated millions of dollars of investment and resources into low-income communities in the U.S. and abroad, most notably in my role as CEO of GOODProjects. In 2018, I began developing the GOODZone to provide options and opportunities for 500 families living in public housing in Washington, D.C. to achieve the American Dream. 

I am fueled by belief that this generation has the tools and techniques to eradicate global poverty through collaboration, education, and technology. I am proud enough to say that I want to be at the forefront of that. In 2019, I self-funded the launch of the Baxter Family Kid’s Center to address the need for quality education for the underprivileged in one of Kenya’s largest Shantytowns. Today we serve over 100 kids a day. 

Every day, families are denied basic needs and face challenges like deciding whether they should use their money to buy food, pay bills or fix their car. GOODProjects is working to make a difference through our programming to educate, support, and provide resources to families living in low-income, poverty-dense neighborhoods. These poverty-dense neighborhoods continue to grow. The median household income for a family of 4 in Washington D.C. is $86,420.00, whereas families living in the GOODZone on average earn about $14,500 a year. Houston, we have a problem.

Walking side-by-side with these families, GOODProjects identifies their needs and weaknesses; and creates a unique plan to overcome these challenges, become self-sufficient, and no longer be in poverty. In developing our model in the GOODZone, we will work with groups like The Elevate Prize to ensure others know what it looks like to launch place-based strategies to lift an entire community of people out of poverty over a specific set of time. Although my mother tells me I am special, this work is not unique. We have an opportunity to create something that others can follow in our hope of ending abject poverty in this generation

GOODProjects provides families access to necessities without government assistance through personalized roadmaps to success. GOODProjects takes a one on one approach and partners with all age groups within the community. GOODProjects focuses on helping these families gain self-sufficiency by pairing each family with a Family Success Coach and then identifying focus areas to achieve a sustainable and equitable future. What makes our work unique is that, unlike philanthropy and social impact, GOODProjects is not prescriptive. We are willing to take the unpopular, controversial approach that if you provide a family in need with the tools to make something out of themselves and provide for their family, they will do it—every time. Families don’t need babysitters. Families need believers.

While providing this support, GOODProjects has partnered with organizations like George Washington University and United Medical Center for COVID19 resources wellness check-ups and other components, free of charge to our families. Additionally, we are partnering with Urban Institute to track and manage the data for our initiatives to ensure that others can follow the pathway to self-sufficiency.

Through our programming, GOODProjects has provided children and families more than just the support and resources they need to achieve their goals and obtain self-sufficiency. GOODProjects has impacted each life on a spiritual level that has allowed these families to dream with a new sense of dignity, confidence, and improved mental health. 

GOODProjects will provide an effective, sustainable model that does more than aid families in poverty; but provides the necessary framework for lifting these families out of poverty and toward self-sufficiency. We will provide a desperately needed sense of hope throughout these communities by helping families see success within reach.