We were lucky to catch up with Jaemellah Kemp recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jaemellah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
“IT TAKES TWO, INC is a God-given vision and I am just walking in it…”
It all started when it was time to send my son to kindergarten. I had a decision to make: buy school supplies or food for the week. I was able to do both with the help of family and friends, but challenging financial decisions such as these plague many single parent households on a daily basis.
At that time, God said that He was going to use me to help other single parents by awarding scholarships that pay for school supplies, books, and uniforms. This could be something you leave as a legacy for your son. Immediately, I disqualified myself because I felt that I was not in a position to take on a business with everything that was already on my plate – a single mother, working full-time, with a young man starting school in addition to pursuit of my degree. So, I sat on the vision for almost two years before I finally reached out to a lawyer friend who met with me to formulate our mission and vision. She filed all the necessary paperwork with the state and federal agencies. Within just a couple of months, February 2012, we were incorporated!
In just starting out, I didn’t have a board, vice president, secretary, treasurer – no one, but I knew it was time to move forward with the vision. I went to four women whom I could trust with this baby God entrusted me to raise. These ladies graciously accepted without question. In fact, one of them I had only known for a few months (this is just a testament of how God places people in your life without you knowing why).
Once all executive management positions were filled, I sat and thought well, what’s next? We have a game plan; we know how the scholarships will be awarded; a target audience has been identified. Where do we get the money from to pay out scholarships? This question was soon answered with a $1,000 donation from a previous co-worker who is now our Graphics Designer. This seed allowed us to award our first scholarships totaling $1,100 within just six months of launching! The inaugural year ended with a workshop discussing bullying and a poetry fundraiser to support our scholarship program.
This is just the beginning for IT TAKES TWO, INC. We are grateful for this opportunity to help relieve some of the financial burden of single parent households and to help Create Tomorrow’s Leaders Today by providing the basic necessities to excel in school. We will continue to offer workshops that address bullying, financial literacy, college and career readiness, youth entrepreneurship – all of which are needed along a student’s academic journey as well as his or her transition to the real world.
IT truly does TAKE TWO!!! We hope that you join in on the cause.
Jaemellah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
IT TAKES TWO, INC is a ministry for me, a safe place to serve the community in a positive way with a dedicated team. Initially however, the vision was scary! When you’ve been given a vision by God, it won’t let you sleep at night, so finally I answered the call to launch and here we are 10 years later serving youth and families through scholarships and educational programming to help them figure out their life after high school plans.
Through IT TAKES TWO, INC our cornerstone program is our Tools for Success Scholarship, which is awarded to students in grades four through college living in single parent homes in select Maryland counties. These awards pay for school supplies, books, uniforms, academic and sports registration fees, laptops, internet, and tutoring. To date, we have awarded 36 scholarships totaling over $13,000.
Our Positioned for Greatness Youth Program is open to all students in 5th through 12th and focuses on six pillars: anti-bullying, college and career readiness, financial literacy, youth entrepreneurship, leadership and community service. Students have learned how to invest, start a business, attend college debt free, visited local college campuses, learned how to be kind, fed the homeless, stuffed book bags for our school supply initiative and much more. This program is the bridge to their life after high school plan. We provide options based on their God given talents, interests, and academic achievements to create this plan.
Youth in need also receive school supplies for the entire school year so they can be successful in the classroom through their Supply Drive 365 initiative, which has supported over 300 youth and families since 2014. Through the Relief Program for Single Parents launched in 2021 in response to COVID-19, parents receive modest financial support to pay for necessities: food, rent, utilities, and internet. Over $4,000 in direct support has been provided to date.
Young people are our passion population and as a single mom, I know the struggles, so we are here to provide a hand up and be the support they need. When get more done when we partner together. IT truly does TAKE TWO.
My love for community and giving back extends through Doing Good is a Business, formerly Jaemellah Kemp Consulting, which was established on 2014, after a June 2022 rebrand, a nonprofit start up firm that assists aspiring and new nonprofit founders to build successful nonprofits founded on sound principles and relevant information. I am blessed to have launched over 50 nonprofit organizations from vision to implementation with 100% 501(c)(3) approval rate, provided service support to over 2,000 nonprofit founders, volunteers, board members, and over 200 boards. Nonprofit start up and board governance are my niche service areas.
In October 2020, I became a first-time author penning my first published work in the co-authored compilation, The Nonprofit Legacy. I was also a contributing author for an online periodical, Her Hustle Magazine, from June 2020 to November 2020.
In 2021, I was nominated for an ACHI Magazine Award for Nonprofit of the Year. In 2022, Iwas nominated for three ACHI Magazine Awards for Nonprofit of the Year, Mentor of the Year, and Master Coach of the Year. The awards ceremony takes place November 2022 in Norfolk, VA.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I started on Facebook in January 2020, and like everyone else, I used it as a social platform. It wasn’t until I launched IT TAKES TWO, INC when I started using it for business purposes. That’s when I became more intentional about how I used the platform.
I started friending people in and out of the nonprofit space, joining business groups, and engaging by liking their pages while they returned the favor. I did this latter step for about two years, which organically grew my page to the almost 5,000 friends that I have today.
I heavily cross promote between my personal and business pages which is how I was able to grow those pages organically as well. I post often, probably too much, but this helps keep my posts at the top of my timeline’s feed. There is a healthy balance between personal and business content on my page to maintain the engagement to some degree. Ultimately, the algorithm decides what people see, but the more your posts get engagement, the more people see and share your content. People love to see people just be people. It’s not always about business. Sometimes people just want to see you in a different element – a real person – because ultimately that’s what they connect with when considering doing business with you.
My advice – engage, be yourself, deliver value, and join groups that will you grow personally and professionally. You will meet some amazing people!
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
For both IT TAKES TWO, INC and Doing Good is a Business, Facebook has been the best source for clients and reaching youth and their families. Social media has turned into the new word of mouth because when people are referred to me/us, it’s because of a conversation that stemmed from a social media interaction.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ittakestwoinc.org and www.doinggoodisabusiness.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/ittakestwoinc and www.instagram.com/doinggoodisabusiness
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ittakestwoinc, www.facebook.com/doinggoodisabusiness
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jaemellahkemp
- Youtube: youtube.com/@ittakestwoincorg
- Other: [email protected]
Image Credits
Kim Johnson, Urban Oasis Studio (for my headshot)