Cole: What advice do you wish someone had given you earlier in your career? Bailey: To be confident, read everything you can get your hands on and research Black History. Cole: What inspired you to pursue a career in a nonprofit that supports and advocates for Black businesses, and how did you get started? Bailey: After college and a brief stint in professional basketball, I returned to the town I grew up in Princeton NJ and created the Joint Effort Youth Foundation as a way to educate and engage Black youth in the Witherspoon Jack community. Subsequently, I became the Executive Director of the Princeton Youth Center, an arts, cultural and educational enrichment facility catering to the Black Community. Shortly after that, I married Sharon Brown, a student at Princeton who was the Director of the Community House Program,
Photo: McBoat Photography
Princeton University’s outreach commitment into the Black Community. This is where it started. After two years we moved back to Sharon’s hometown of Denver CO where I created the Joint Effort Community Sports Program to facilitate sports and education opportunities for Black student-athletes throughout Colorado and over the years have assisted over 3000 student athletes obtain college scholarship opportunities. Further, I worked as the Director of Public Relations and Fundraising for Girl Scouts Mile Hi Council, Executive Director of the Salvation Army Red Shield Center and started an athletic and apparel business and a corporate community outreach business known as the Bailey Consulting Network. The intersection of my non-profit background and the vision to run my own business inspired me to create and develop the Black Cannabis Equity Initiative to advocate for social equity in the National and Colorado cannabis space and the Black Economic Opportunities Council in conjunction with the Colorado Black Chamber of Commerce to create a bridge between the Black Community and corporate Colorado. With the advocacy work for these two organizations and the development of the monthly Black Business 23 The Acumen
Photo: McBoat Photography
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