Meet Donna Thomas of Thomas Angel Foundation in Burbank

Today we’d like to introduce you to Donna Thomas.

Donna, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in Warner Robins, GA, so I’m a southern belle through and through. Yep, including making my rounds in the beauty pageant circuit to get scholarship money for college.

Somehow, I got the idea that success in life meant getting married, so that became my singular goal. I achieved that goal twice before I finished college–the first of which left me badly beaten, and the second resulted in me losing my unborn child due to an assault by my husband. That was the turning point when I decided it was time to redefine what a successful life meant to me. I would never again look outside of myself for someone to take care of me.

I was lucky to find a mentor that believed I had potential at literally the lowest point in my life. Her name is Kim Martin, and she gave me the opportunity that put me on the path to where I am today. I stumbled into a career in the entertainment industry as a temp at the Discovery Channel. There, I was fortunate enough to work in an environment where I was allowed to learn and grow, a place where hard work and dedication were appreciated and rewarded.

After a decade, I left Discovery as the Senior Vice President of Affiliate Sales and Marketing,and expanded my expertise to every aspect of the content supply chain, from creation to distribution. Today, I am Senior Vice President, heading up the Studio Market Segment, at Vubiquity.

As a woman in the entertainment industry, I have been lucky to have some great mentors and supporters. However, the culture in our industry is for women to not support each other. It’s as if there is a belief that there is a finite amount of positions at the top. When I got to the point where I had achieved a little success, I wanted to help create a community of women that receive mentorship and financial support. In 2001, I started the Thomas Angel Foundation with the mission to provide women in the entertainment industry with scholarship funds. I hoped that as the women that received scholarships grew in their careers, they would reach back and pull up other women along the way.

From inception through 2012, scholarships were awarded annually to young women in the performing arts program at my home town High School. In 2013, I had a desire to refine the Foundation’s mission and find a partner within the entertainment industry that shared the Foundation’s goals. I had recently started studying at Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) because I felt I had lost my fearlessness. Nothing scared me more than to stand on a stage and create something from nothing, so improv was my choice. After getting to know more about UCB and feeling that they could be a great partner for the Foundation, we met and joined forces to roll out the Thomas Angel Foundation scholarship program within UCBLA for women. We select four women each year and award $8,000 in scholarship funds annually. To date, over $160,000 in scholarship funds have been awarded.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
My road has been anything but smooth, but I consider myself to have a charmed life in many ways. I put my head down and did nothing but work for at least a decade after coming out of my second marriage. There is much more to the story of that marriage than can be written here, but suffice it to say I lived frozen in fear for many years.

That fear drove me to a level of professional success that has allowed me to create a vibrant and wonderful life for myself. However, that fear also impeded me from ever really engaging in a meaningful relationship again in my life. My struggle is that my one desire from childhood was to be in a happy marriage and have a family. That has eluded me my whole life, and I never married again or had children. I still believe the possibility of a healthy happy relationship.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Thomas Angel Foundation – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
I mentioned earlier studying improv at UCB as a part of forcing myself to show up for my life and live it as fully as I can. Since starting on this comedy journey, I’ve found a part of myself that I didn’t know existed. I have been having a blast performing with the most wonderful friends over the last several years. I’ve developed my storytelling skills and won the LA Scripted Comedy Festival a few years ago in the storytelling division which was a thrill.

One of the scariest things I have done is written my one-woman show “From Southern Belle to Mrs. Cartel” which is my real life story of being married to a member of a Columbian Drug Cartel. We had a sold-out run at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, and were a Finalist in the New York New Works Festival in New York City.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I would love to continue to build the business I have developed at Vubiquity because I love working there. I am oddly passionate about every step of the content supply chain, and I’m able to bring my Studio customers excellent products and services to grow their businesses. I am lucky to get to work with people I love and clients that I admire.

I work with my producing partners, on creating horror short films. To date, we have produced four that have all done wonderfully on the Festival Circuit. We want to continue producing great content and expand to feature films in the future. Additionally, I would like to develop “From Southern Belle to Mrs. Cartel” into a feature or a series. Today, there is a need for women to tell their stories and be their own heroes. I have a story to tell, and hopefully one day I will be able to share widely with the world.

One of the core beliefs I try to live by is: take action, make the first step and believe that you can achieve whatever it is that you want in your life. I strive daily to push myself to continue to step into my fears and be willing to fail. I am living proof that you don’t have to have a great deal of money, power or influence to act on trying to help improve the world, whatever that means to you. For me it was starting the Thomas Angel Foundation. For you, it could be anything! Just find something that you are passionate about and act in whatever way you can. You can volunteer your time, donate money, mentor someone or even start your own foundation. If you can make a difference in one person’s life, it matters. Many small acts of service can create meaningful change in the world.

Contact Info:

• Email:  thomasangelfoundation@gmail.com
• Instagram: @bestofdonna
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThomasAngelFoundation/
• Twitter: @bestofdonna
• Yelp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bestofdonnathomas/

Image Credit:
Laurie Zadeh Cortez, @destroyinstagram

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.