Today we’d like to introduce you to Zoot Velasco.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Zoot Velasco’s life is defined by one incident.
He was severely burned as an infant, losing the muscles in his right foot, leading to a traumatic childhood. Yet, he went on to a 12-year career as a professional breakdancer, swing dancer, Second-City trained actor, and international touring artist working with Prince, Michael Jackson, Arsenio Hall, and James Cameron.
His critically-acclaimed one-person shows Zoot’s World, Mutant Vaudevillians, and Token Cracker toured the festival circuit. His community work included 30 years leading award-winning arts programs in prisons, on the 1992 LA Riot Recovery Program, and in Red Cross shelters after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.
After leaving his first career as an artist in 1994, Zoot led cultural programs in prisons and cultural centers for the next 23 years. He built four art centers for the City of LA, a Boys & Girls Club, and a Theatre for the City of Long Beach. He has raised more than $32 million for various organizations. During the recession, he led the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton to unprecedented growth, more than tripling programs, budget, patrons, and endowment while winning awards for Orange County’s first STEAM programs.
After his recessionary success, he co-authored the History of the Muckenthaler Cultural Center (Arcadia Press 2011) and The First Hundred Days: Leading Small Nonprofits Out of The Wilderness (Amazon Press 2013). His books led him to an MBA in Nonprofit Leadership and the creation of new Nonprofit and Leadership programs at Cal State Long Beach, Cal Poly Pomona, and Cal State Fullerton.
Today, Zoot is the Executive Director of the Friends of Fullerton College Foundation, the Director of the Gianneschi Center for Nonprofit Research at California State University Fullerton’s College of Business & Economics, a Professor of Business & Marketing at California State Fullerton, a Professor of Nonprofit Management & Leadership at California Poly Pomona, the Host of the nationally-ranked 501(c)3(b)(s) podcast, and the author of his third book: small to LARGE: Growing Social Impact Organizations (Kendall Hunt Publishing 2021)
Zoot is a registered historical scholar with the California Humanities Council, researcher, published poet and playwright, story slam champion, TEDx conference producer, Screen Actor’s Guild member, amateur chef, keynote speaker, event producer, emcee, auctioneer, swing dancer, breakdancer, rapper, kayaker, lawn bowler, and Rotary Club President.
Zoot is married to Monette Velasco, a former Broadway singer from the Second National Tour of Miss Saigon and current Production Editor at Rand Corporation in Santa Monica. Both are active in the historic Garfield Heights Neighborhood Association in Pasadena, where they live.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I learned early that Grit and Mindset are everything. At ten days old, I burned over 80% of my body in a fire. I lost all the muscles in my right foot below the knee. My mother had a psychotic break after the fire. My father was a violent alcoholic, and when I was 7, my family broke apart.
I moved 13 times before graduating high school, sometimes living out of my mother’s Vista Cruiser station wagon. But I never thought, “I can’t.” I always had to find a different way to do things, making me more resilient and creative. I couldn’t take dance lessons because of my leg, so I became a breakdancer.
I learned how to hustle. I did street performing and dropped out of college when I found I made more money on the streets. I moved to LA to work in films but found I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed my day job- teaching theatre in prisons. So I focused on that. That lead me to a career running art programs.
I developed my network. I went back to school. When asked to write a book, I wrote two. The President of Hope International read my book and offered me a scholarship to their MBA program. Another college official at Cal State Long Beach read my book and asked me to develop their program in Nonprofit Management. That led me to a third career as a college professor. I always loved the production side of things.
Today, I still produce programs, but on the college level. In theatre improv, we learn to say “yes, and.” My whole life has been saying “yes, and.” Hustling up opportunities as they come. It has taken me from a disabled breakdancer to a college professor.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As Director of the Gianneschi Center for Nonprofit Research at Cal State Fullerton, I had the opportunity to do a research project of my choosing.
Because much of my success derived from leadership decisions we made in the recession when I ran a cultural center, I wanted to see how many others did well during the Great Recession and what we all had in common. That research can be found here:
https://business.fullerton.edu/engagement/gianneschi-nonprofit-research/Publications.
This research informed my teaching of nonprofit leadership and led to a new book:
https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/small-large-growing-social-impact-organizations-against-all-odds.
All of this is in keeping with something I discovered years ago: That much of what nonprofits are told to do to be successful is wrong and that this mythology is hurting the sector. That is why I host a podcast on this problem called 501(c)3(b)(s).
We work to break these myths that are deeply engrained. For example, most small organizations spend many resources on fundraising staff and events, grants, and major donors. Yet the research shows that what they should be doing is planning earned income streams.
In my new job running a small college foundation for scholarships, I brought these new methods I honed in my teaching. After only nine months, we have doubled the endowment for college-bound students while also bringing in over $750,000 in new seed money for a new self-sustaining social enterprise that creates a pipeline for students to trade apprenticeships.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Success in the arts and any business involves risk.
But, as I tell my students, it is not “ok to fail” indiscriminately. Everyone thinks that innovation is about creativity and risk-taking. It is not. Innovation is about the scientific method of creating a theory and creating controlled experiments to test that theory.
The controls mitigate the risk. It is more science than art. And if you are doing it to make failure manageable, then you can allow the room to fail.
Pricing:
- My latest book is $42/per hard copy, $21 for an ebook from the publisher.
- My speaking fees vary depending upon the situation.
- My podcast is free.
- My next training session for social impact leadership is $695/ $350 with a scholarship.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: http://www.zootvelasco.com/
- Instagram: https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/small-large-growing-social-impact-organizations-against-all-odds
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj48DaaKtsDs3ChD7fOBzgw
- Other: https://zoot.podbean.com/
