We were lucky to catch up with Kamilah Martin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kamilah, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

In 2020, with the world feeling turned upside down, I resigned from an organization whose lived values no longer aligned with mine. I took a risk as the primary breadwinner for my family of four, and I bet on myself, leaning into my passions and purpose. I started Katalyst and have had the fortune of partnering with and consulting for organizations and foundations around the country.

In two years:

We have partnered with aligned nonprofit organizations in our capacity as interim executive consultants to help stabilize and build happy, high-functioning teams during senior leadership transition

We have encouraged and empowered women of color on their journeys of liberation from nonprofit executive to nonprofit independent consultant in our Nonprofit Consultant Mastermind Community

We have run two life-affirming Fill Your Cup retreats created to pour luxuriously into Black and brown women and offer us the space and safe community to restore, be soft, and expand.

We have hired and supported nearly 30 small businesses led by founders of color as contractors and vendors for our workshops, communities, and events.

The past two years have not always been smooth or easy or fun.

I went into scary debt for the first time in my life. I’ve experienced a LOT more ‘no’ than ‘yes.’ I’ve had to painfully reevaluate and transition some relationships.

But even though the ‘no’s have outweighed the ‘yes’s, the good has by far outweighed the not so good.

I’m a nonprofit executive turned consultant focused on empowering Black women through community. I build healthy, happy, high-functioning teams as a nonprofit consultant, and as an entrepreneur.

I’m also a professional nature photographer, which is another story perhaps for a different day :).

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

In a word, the work of Katalyst represents liberation.

Through our Nonprofit Consultant Mastermind community, we empower the liberation of Black women and other women of color transitioning from nonprofit 9-5 employee to entrepreneur nonprofit independent consultant.

Through our Fill Your Cup retreats, we pour luxuriously into Black and brown women and curate the space and safe community to restore, be soft, and expand as well as envision a more liberated life.

Through our consulting work with aligned nonprofit organizations, we stabilize organizations during senior leadership transition and we create safe, happy, and high-functioning teams with our values of integrity, equity, and compassion at the core.

I’m the Founder & CEO of Katalyst.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

As part of my transition and journey into entrepreneurship in 2020, I began doing the internal work to shed some of the conscious and subconscious fear of showing up in all spaces as my full self. I began getting more active on LinkedIn and sharing more about my story and my journey, which seemed to resonate with people–mostly other Black & brown women.

I began chipping away at the need I felt to minimize ‘this part’ of me and water down ‘that part.’ The idea that I needed to look a certain way, speak a certain way, act a certain way depending on the circles I was in, I started making conscious decisions to stop trying to fit. Outside of the smaller circles that I worked with or managed, this was how I existed for 20+ years of my professional career and it got to the point where I was simply exhausted from performing.

Not only was this self-work empowering and liberating, but I began to notice that the audience I was attracting was the kind of audience that appreciated that kind of transparency and authenticity. And many told me that it was refreshing and inspirational to see a Black woman leader who was so comfortable in her skin–that it gave them some kind of permission to examine some of these things within themselves and become more free.

People seem to gravitate to realness.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

My clients range from nonprofit CEOs/EDs/& board members who hire me as a consultant (in an interim programs/chief of staff/operations capacity) to stabilize teams and organizations during senior leadership transition and other organizational upheaval to mid-senior to senior-level Black women and other women of color who are leaving their nonprofit W-2 life for ideally a more liberated nonprofit independent consulting life. I also run a women’s restoration and empowerment retreat where my clientele sort of overlaps all of the above.

The two best sources of new clients for me is word of mouth and referrals (#1 hands down) and LinkedIn. I have been on the platform for a very long time, and really began engaging with it more over the past 4-5 years or so, while they’ve also been updating their model and platform. It’s pretty much the only social platform I use daily, and it’s a very comfortable space for me because it allows me to show up in this new, humanity-centered capacity that I’m exploring as well as in my professional capacity. I no longer distinguish between the two in my life, and LinkedIn so far seems to be the best place for that exhibition of multidimensionality.

Contact Info:

• Website: katalystconsult.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamilah-martin-67673b8/

Image Credits
Kevin Buford