We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kathleen Casanova a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kathleen, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I grew up wanting to be a chef but when it came time to go to college I felt I needed to choose a career that helped change the world. I entered into the public affairs/nonprofit space as a fundraiser and partnership builder and loved my work. While working in several positions at two different universities, I noticed that I was the only Person of Color serving as a frontline fundraiser and suggested a few ideas to the leadership team about how to change that and why it was so important. This conversation led to them creating a Talent Management position for me where I led DEI efforts for the entire university system fundraising team. After working there and in a similar role for another university and consulting for nonprofits and universities on this topic, I then decided I wanted to fulfill my dream of working in food. I then translated my talent experience to the CPG world where I recruited and consulted for CPG brands and noticed how much inclusion work the industry really needed. In this role, I felt pulled to lead the work I wanted to see in the industry so I decided to go to culinary school and cook professionally for a bit in the hopes of one day becoming the ED of a nonprofit that worked at the intersection of food and justice. One day I checked my LinkedIn and saw that my current Board Chair had found my profile while searching for an ED for Project Potluck…and the rest is history, as they say!

Kathleen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Project Potluck is a nonprofit on a mission to help entrepreneurs and professionals of Color (POC) build successful companies and careers in the CPG (consumer packaged goods). A first-of-its-kind organization and the largest network of POC in CPG, Project Potluck provides its 1,300+ members of Color access to community, resources, opportunities and mentorship all at no cost to them. Our goal is to help create equity on the shelf and in doing so unlock an important pathway to financial security for People of Color in our industry. We believe economic empowerment through entrepreneurship and career acceleration sets a direct path towards racial equality, poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth which leads to the improved well-being and security of communities of Color. It is also our belief that true inclusion of People of Color in CPG is critical to generating the kind of innovation necessary to address critical issues related to the environment/climate change, health disparities and food insecurity created by our severely colonized food system.

We offer the following benefits and programs to our network of over 1,300 founders, entrepreneurs and professionals of Color in CPG:

Direct Access to Investors and Decision Makers: We work with industry leaders like VCs, PEs, angel investors, accelerator and incubator programs, retailers and service providers to provide regular virtual education sessions for our community members.

Mentorship and Coaching: Project Potluck’s small group Mentorship Program is a year-long program where our community members receive mentorship and support from an industry veteran and get connected to a cohort of their peers.

Exclusive Networking Events: We regularly host virtual and in-person events…but these are *not* your average industry networking event. Our primary goal is to provide a safe space for POC professionals to connect with allies, other POC leaders, and network as a collective.

Access to resources and opportunities: We work with industry leaders and partners to curate and share valuable resources and opportunities with our community, including funding opportunities, accelerator program applications, open positions, educational content, discounts, events and more.
According to the Consumer Brand Association the CPG Market is a major market in the US, making up a total of 10% of the national GDP ($2 trillion). The sector provides 20.4 million American jobs (10.4% of total US employment or one in every 10 American jobs) and represents $1.1 trillion in salaries, wages and benefits (9.3% of all US labor income). However, industry leaders and professionals in the CPG industry are not representative of the US population nor the consumers that purchase and use these products. This is especially true for natural and organic food, beverage and personal care products (the category of most of our Project Potluck members). Currently, 40% of the US population are POC but only 23% of founders, 19% of Natural Product Boards Seats and 16% of leadership positions are occupied by POC, according to the US Census and the 2019 JEDI/New Hope Benchmarking Survey. Despite the fact that the American food system was built on the backs of slaves, POC have been systematically excluded from our agricultural and food distribution systems for centuries. In addition to these macro issues, this underrepresentation can also be attributed to industry-specific barriers POC face including hiring bias, networking and knowledge gaps and lack of access to capital for diverse founders and more.

According to Nielsen IQ, Black consumers and Consumers of Color alike are making considerable contributions to the overall CPG market – in some cases representing more than 50% of the overall spending in key product categories. What this means is that POC are critical to CPG – we contribute a significant amount of money to the industry and are often targeted for our purchasing power. However we aren’t economically benefiting from this industry because we aren’t equally represented on the receiving end (as entrepreneurs or in the workforce). Project Potluck’s goal is to help POC build successful careers and companies within CPG so we can begin to bring more of this wealth back into our communities. Both entrepreneurship and career acceleration are critical for wealth creation within these POC communities and our programming helps ensure they have the connections, resources and access they need to be successful.

The Board and I are all deeply motivated by justice. The fact that the very food system that was built on the backs of slaves and migrant workers now relies on People of Color for massive consumer dollars but then doesn’t equally distribute the industry’s wealth to them is unacceptable to us. We are also very motivated by hope. It is our belief that true inclusion of People of Color in CPG is critical to generating the kind of innovation necessary to address critical issues related to the environment/climate change, health disparities and food insecurity created by our severely colonized food system.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

In 2019 I attended Expo West while working for a recruiting firm that supported emerging CPG brands. I was there to help meet businesses who could be potential clients. Despite being incredibly outgoing I remember being really intimidated. If you’ve ever been to Expo or a trade show then you know there are swarms of people…the majority of which are white. I remember looking at the aisles and hyping myself up to go try to speak to people cold when I saw Ibraheem (who is now my Board Chair). As a fellow Person of Color I just felt safe going up to him. We had a brief conversation where I tried his product and we chatted a bit. Later that night I sent him a LinkedIn message that said it was nice meeting him. In January 2022 I got a message from him on LinkedIn asking if I was interested in learning more about a job they had at Project Potluck. He didn’t remember me but when he did a search my name popped up and he saw we had met.

I love this story for two reasons — one: LinkedIn works! It never hurts to shoot your shot or send a follow up note. And two: as someone with a windy journey who had done many different things I used to worry that my resume was kind of all over the place. But then that same resume was exactly what the Board was looking for. They had a crazy combo of fundraising, CPG, nonprofit, equity and justice experience that they were looking for and couldn’t find until they found me. It’s such a good reminder to me to keep doing what I’m doing and follow my heart.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Coming from a traditional nonprofit background, when I first took this job I often found myself advocating for a super traditional route because that’s “what nonprofits do.” Because our Board comes from the for-profit sector and has less nonprofit experience they’ve really pushed me to question assumptions and ideas of what a nonprofit can and should do. Traditional nonprofits often perpetuate harmful structural racism and hierarchy and we really wanted to create something different…something that’s never been done before. And in order to do that we have to do things that haven’t been done before. I have had to train myself to question everything and look around for creative alternatives. It’s been the very best learning. This article was written by a friend of mine and really has been a guiding touchpoint for me as we try to navigate this.

“The courage that ignited a once-in-a-lifetime uprising for justice must remain at the core of our approach for change. Changing at the speed of courage means being in constant practice of ideas, processes, conversations, study, programs, struggle, and relationships out of our comfort zone but necessary to imagine and create a new world of liberation for all people. It prioritizes each of our individual and collective will and actions to transform rather than short-term outcomes that uphold the status quo. And it means extending grace for experiments and failures, understanding these are part of solving the magnitude of the issues before us.”

https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/features/commentary-and-opinion/black-philanthropy-month-reminds-us-that-philanthropy-must-still-make-good-on-racial-justice-promises

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.potluckcpg.org
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/project-potluck

Image Credits

Headshot is: Jessica Matteson