Her Story
About Audrey
I'm born and raised in Watts, California, and I came up in an era right after the Watts riots. I was able to get a scholarship to USC, graduated, and my intent has always been to help my community. I started off as a teacher in LAUSD, and immediately thought I could do something more broader to help my community, which is when I got into grants administration after going back to school for my Master's in Public Administration. I've been in my field for about 30-35 years. I initially started teaching at Hawthorne Unified School District, then LA Unified School District, and from there I started working at a place called L.A. Jaguar, which gave me the attraction to want to help young people acquire the skill sets to both get a career and a job. That pushed me to go to Cal State Long Beach where I got my Master's in Public Administration with an emphasis in Grants Administration. I got recruited to go to Job Corps and stopped teaching, then was asked to go to the city of Compton where I worked for 10 years and completed my Master's while there. I also worked at Homeboy Industries for a few years. I've been a consultant now for the last 5 years. Previously, I was part of the executive team at LAFA, a homeless services organization, helping with the Project Room Key program that helped individuals come off the street and moved them into hotels and motels to get them off the street and provide wraparound services. Currently, I am a consultant, grant writer, and grant administrator. I was approached by a nonprofit organization that services former lifers (individuals sentenced as life without possibility of parole who did get parole), and I was asked to write the grant, which I did and it was funded. I was then asked to stay on and help hire the staff and implement the workforce development program. I'm semi-retired now, which means I don't want to work for another entity, but I've been pretty successful at attracting nonprofits and faith-based organizations that I can assist.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Audrey
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think the fact that I wanted to give back, and that pushed me into areas where I could be of service. Coming from Watts, and especially all that occurred after the Watts riots, I really knew that the rebuilding was gonna take some of us who were from the inside, as opposed to the outside. What has pushed me, whether it was education, human services, or workforce development, is the actual engagement with the populations that I've worked with that has made me successful. Being able to go into an organization who maybe has staff that has barely visited the areas that they're trying to service, and to kind of be that bridge, to be that linkage for them, to be able to help them be able to engage. I'm a firm believer that if you can't engage with a population, you cannot help them. I don't care how much money you pour into it, there has to be a level of connectivity that, to be totally honest, a lot of people just don't have, and so whenever I'm able to be that bridge, I'm that bridge.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
The first thing I'd say is make sure this is something that you want to do, and I'd ask them why. I'd ask them, why do you think you want to do this? And if it's just because I got my degree in this, that ain't it. Why do you want to roll up your sleeves and work with a young girl who all she knows is the gang culture? How would you be able to provide services that would help that person? Once that person is clear on their why, then my next thing is to give them suggestions on how to go about building what their service platter is gonna look like. Because different platters are for different people, and I use the analogy of a platter because an individual is more than just what you see. That person has some tentacles that you'll never be able to see, things they're connected to, you'll never know about. My father was a Pentecostal preacher, and I learned early on that a human being has 3 parts to them: their mind, their social makeup, their physical makeup, and their spiritual makeup. To not be able to address the fact that they're existing, even though you don't have the services for them, understand that there are needs in all particular areas.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest opportunities I have are nonprofits and faith-based organizations. My name has gotten around, even with Homeboy Industries, and so I get hit up on LinkedIn all the time asking can we talk to you, is there a way we can get you to support what we're trying to do. Sometimes it's just coming in and meeting with the staff, but a lot recently has been organizations wanting to go after funding and trying to service populations, asking if I can give them some ideas on what their services should look like. Unfortunately, one of the bigger issues is there are a lot of individuals who, because of their degrees and their education, they want to service this community, but they have no connection at all. How to be influential to those individuals is something that I like to do - sit down, talk to them about what it looks like, what engagement looks like, how best to provide services so that there is a connection, as opposed to an organization just throwing money out there that doesn't work.
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