Flikshop School of Business Collaborates with The WIRE DC

This month, in Navy Yard, a group of tenacious women navigated Washington Nationals opening day traffic to participate in our Flikshop School of Business workshop. The women of The WIRE (Women Involved in Reentry Efforts) came ready to absorb and converse with the FSB team and instructors. Notebooks out and pencils poised, these scholars leaned in as our leaders with lived experience shared, not just how to identify your own personal brand, but how to develop your brand and utilize it in a professional working space.

Our team was thrilled to hear the thoughtful questions these women brought to the table and were impressed by how introspectively and patiently they considered their brand statements. Lashonia Thompson-El, Executive Director of The Wire, posed for consideration, “How do we cultivate a brand statement that differentiates us from the work that we do? What if our personal brand is more than our current role and professional position?” This stimulated great discussion amongst the class as both scholars and FSB instructors were able to guide steps in brand creation and how we choose to market our brand in our interactions, both digitally and in our local ecosystems.

Tanisha Murden, The WIRE Program Director, shared the value of brand statements and how her brand was created through her own work with the WIRE, “It helped me to be able to create my own name. By networking with people I met through WIRE, it changed my image, so when people saw me around the city, they associated me with my love for The WIRE, and my passion for helping women in reentry.” FSB instructor, Tony Belton, was able to guide Tanisha in how to carry her brand even further.

Flikshop’s School of Business was able to host this workshop through funding from Grow With Google. Grow with Google is a values partnership branch, seeking to offer system-impacted people access to digital literacy skills, increasing their hireability within the broader tech workforce. It is well known that stable employment and access to financial security through such employment helps to reduce recidivism. Flikshop is excited to be a part of this partnership in expanding what we offer to our direct community.

Typically, our boot-camp style cohorts are intensive in their engagement and only a small number of participants are able to enroll at a time. Through our partnership with Google, we are able to pull specialized topics from our curriculum that align with Google’s applied digital skills courses and offer them in a workshop format. This allows us to collaborate with other organizations in our network, building on existing partnerships in the space, and increase access to digital literacy within our community of formerly incarcerated individuals in the DMV area.

We were pumped to spend our evening with these brilliant and driven women. It was a motivating and interactive evening, and the ladies of The WIRE were hungry to grow and apply these tools to their personal journeys. Rylinda Rhodes, CEO of Mane Rhodes said, “

I’m so excited about this class with Flikshop, because I needed additional support. There were things I didn’t know how to do. And they are teaching me, showing me step by step –and for a woman who has experienced trauma, and the way that my brain learns, this was the exact thing that I needed. I needed hands-on, showing me how to do it and not just telling me. I’m extremely excited about our class and I cannot wait for the next session!”

“This is a reminder to us that corporate philanthropy can help us to create massive impact,” says Marcus Bullock, CEO of Flikshop. “These women are brilliant, and like I always say, the only thing most of us lack is social capital and access.”

Interested in learning how to bring FREE Flikshop School of Business workshops to your organization? Contact our VP of Operations to learn more. We are excited to come to YOU both virtually and in-person locally.