Day In The Life: Meet Jaime Guzman Of My Brother's Keeper Alliance

Jaime Guzman
Director, Local Programs, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance
Chicago, IL
Twitter: @jaimeguzman312, @MBK_Alliance

5:30am: My phone alarm goes off, which means it’s time to get ready for my 6am CrossFit class. My son, Ignacio, was born 10 weeks ago, and I’m trying to get back in the habit of going to the gym at least three times a week. My non-gym mornings are spent giving my son his early-morning feeding. On my way out of the house, I blend up a post-workout protein shake: A frozen banana, greek yogurt, protein powder, vanilla extract, and lots of cinnamon. The launch of My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (MBK Alliance) was announced about a year ago, in response to President Obama’s challenge to improve opportunities for boys and young men of color. Since we’re still a young organization, our team operates in a fast-paced, all-hands-on-deck, startup mode, so kickstarting my day with an energy boost is key.

7:15am: Back home, I check my phone for any time-sensitive emails. While I shower, I Iisten to an episode of the Slate podcast Represent, which gives me a dose of culture, politics, and commentary. As I get ready for work, I spend a little time with my wife, Mayra, and my son in his nursery. Since I work remotely from Chicago, my commute is a 10-second walk into my home office. As MBK Alliance’s Director of Local Programs, I manage place-based work in various communities across the country. These are communities that have answered President Obama’s call to action and where we are are planning deep program investments. While it’s nice to work from home, I always aim to be at my desk no later than 8am, ready and accessible to my colleagues in New York City and Washington D.C.

8:00am: Our team communicates via the messaging app Slack for quick messages, Skype for video conferences, and email for almost everything else. My cell phone and iPad are close by for multitasking. I have a call with community-based organizations working with MBK Alliance to implement a major partnership with AmeriCorps VISTA. Eighteen individuals, also known as MBK Alliance’s VISTAs, commit to a year of service in capacity building roles with 11 nonprofits, government organizations, and educational institutions in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, New York, and Newark. The partner and I spend the call mapping out our partnership expectations to ensure that this program is as impactful as possible.

9:00am: While drinking a cup of coffee, I check the emails I flagged the day before and add action items to the week’s priority list. I skim The Chicago Sun Times and then look through Education Week and The Chronicle of Philanthropy while eating scrambled egg whites with some heirloom tomatoes from my garden. Trying to stay healthy!

9:30am: I’ve carved out time to do some deep planning work on our programmatic strategy, so I get right to it. We are putting together a visual representation of our program model, building out various parts using Microsoft Word and using the file-sharing service Box to collaborate. I prefer to focus on strategic planning in the morning and save the afternoon for more tactical activities like phone calls, emails, or booking work travel. I recently got together with the rest of the MBK Alliance local program team and the national program team in D.C., where we spent a day developing a framework for how MBK Alliance can effectively support communities broadly via a national platform and conduct deeper work in select cities where we have a real opportunity to move the needle in creating opportunities for boys and young men of color. We even found time to bowl at the White House! I’m organizing some fresh thoughts from the trip as we continue to advance our joint programmatic approach (i.e. both local and national program work) to support boys and young men of color to successfully enter the workforce.

11:00am: I head to a back-to-school event at a local public high school. I proudly serve on my local public school board – a great opportunity to be involved and connect with students, principals, teachers, community members, and elected officials. There are booths set up to provide free immunizations and share information about community partnerships and other public schools in the area. It looks like the whole neighborhood turned out! Because my work touches educational opportunities across many stages of young people’s lives, my role with my local school board is a great source of inspiration and on-the-ground context.

12:30pm: Back home, I have leftover pasta salad with smoked salmon and fresh veggies for lunch at my desk. My wife and I try to plan our meals early in the week and prep in bulk. Since our son is still feeding roughly every few hours, it’s really helpful for us to stay organized.

1:00pm: I hop on a conference call – a weekly check-in with the full MBK Alliance team. There are 11 of us on the line. As a growing organization, we often move at 120-plus miles per hour, so our check-ins serve as an important chance to connect and align. Each team director provides updates on our operations, development, communications, and national programming. I talk through a few recent successes, challenges, and focus areas for my local programs team. It is also a great opportunity to connect with and hear from our CEO, Blair Taylor.

2:00pm: I Skype with one of my direct reports, Burnell, for our weekly check-in. Based in Washington D.C., he is spearheading a major event coming up in late fall in Detroit modeled on MBK Alliance’s recent Boys and Men of Color Career Summit in Oakland, CA. The summit provides young men of color opportunities to access community resources, receive social services, and interview with local employers for on-the-spot hiring opportunities. More than 1,000 young people attended the event in Oakland, and over 300 job offers were extended. We’re excited about the impact our Detroit summit will have, and we spend a lot of time strategizing on priorities leading up to the event, especially targeted on-the-ground partner outreach.

3:00pm: Burnell and I join a call with the event planning contractor who supported the execution of our Oakland summit. We talk through how the event went so we can be sure to apply the learnings to Detroit.

4:00pm: I focus on knocking some more items off my to-do list, which is in bullet form and always accessible on all my devices (I email it to myself daily). I am religious about flagging emails that require a response, so I address a few of those and also block off time on my calendar to take care of all the steps that came out of my afternoon calls. I catch up on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (which I primarily use to consume information, rather than post myself). I end my social media check by reading the latest posts from Sons and Brothers, a powerful campaign by the California Endowment that promotes the growth of healthy communities and elevates youth voices.

5:30pm: I break for Ignacio's “tummy time,” a feeding, and a diaper change. I read him La Oruga Muy Hambrienta (The Very Hungry Caterpillar) – first in Spanish, then in English. I can't wait until he's able to read it himself!

6:00pm: My evenings often involve attending events put on by other community-based organizations seeking to create opportunities for young people. Tonight, however, is a quiet night. I take advantage of the downtime to prepare a quick dinner of roast chicken, farro, and sautéed greens for me and my wife, which we sit down to enjoy together.

7:00pm: I check email and read a few articles on my iPad – ones I’d added to my “Reading List” on Chrome earlier in the day. Then my wife and I give Ignacio a bath and get him into his pajamas.

8:30pm: I put Ignacio to bed. I’m on the first overnight feeding shift, so I use the quiet time to send a few emails from earlier that require more detail and thought. I give Ignacio his bottle around 2am and head to bed myself. I am exhausted, yet energized. Being a first-time dad is a huge challenge, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about Ignacio and the kinds of opportunities that I want him to have in life. Fatherhood has brought my work at MBK Alliance into sharper focus. Ultimately, it’s about equity – making sure that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in life, regardless of the systemic obstacles that might exist today. There is a tremendous sense of urgency and much work to do, and I’m proud to be a part of an organization contributing to solutions.

Images courtesy of Jaime Guzman