Today we’d like to introduce you to Carlton R. Collins.
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?
Carlton Robert Collins is an activist, author, entrepreneur, historian, organizer, speaker, and strategist with over a decade of experience building and innovating educational and nonprofit initiatives nationwide. CRC is an educator by trade and an entrepreneur by passion, focusing on inspiring sustainable and transformational change for communities of color and aspiring youth, particularly Black and Brown males. He focuses his efforts in four core areas with four distinct initiatives essential to drive best practices, spark innovation, and force change that solve systemic issues that persist in the Black community in Cincinnati and throughout the country.
At 17 years old, CRC was handed the book Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys, which set him on a path toward education and getting more Black men into classrooms nationwide. Also, he was able to work to build his first mentoring program while still a senior in high school. This work led to the founding of the Morehouse Education Association, which was responsible for 25% of all Morehouse graduates entering K-12 classrooms after graduation.
As an entrepreneur, CRC founded EDUC8theWORLD in 2011 (still in operation) and has served dozens of clients nationally with designing educational models, strategy on sustainable organizations, and innovating recruitment pipelines while growing a network of thousands of educators across the world. In 2017, he published his first book, Resist Every Bias on Every Level or REBEL, which focuses on achievement, critical thinking, identity dev, and outcome management for Men of Color. His patented DNI goal-setting framework has allowed CRC to speak to thousands of young men throughout his career, leading to millions in scholarships, hundreds of job placements, and dozens of college graduates.
A serial entrepreneur, in 2018, he partnered with RISE Business Solutions and led strategy on building the first learner-centered business education platform in the Midwest with a focus on creating Black employers by connecting 10,000 Black businesses with the government contracts in the region. This has led to hundreds of businesses being served, and thousands have been the beneficiaries of effective strategies to develop, grow, scale, and sustain their businesses.
CRC’s activism ignited a $31.6 million fund to relocate the Cincinnati Police Department’s open-air gun range that has been terrorizing Lincoln Heights, America’s first Black-incorporated city, through city, county, state, and federal sources. We say “gunfire is the soundtrack to our lives” after 76 continuous years of 38,000 gun training hours, which is why we battled for five years and have coverage in the Washington Post, Slate Magazine, CNN, and many other publications. Now, CRC is focused on two people-powered initiatives: Healing 15 and 15 Strong. The former focuses on creating a continuum of care over all of the harmed communities, backed by research and structural support systems that heal all Lincoln Heights residents, past and present. The latter is designed to rebuild the economic foundation of Lincoln Heights through financial literacy and management, history excavation, and global storytelling of the incredibly complex and powerful stories of our successes in the face of trauma.
CRC was charged with founding a groundbreaking initiative in early childhood education as Program Manager of the Leading Men Fellowship Cincinnati through The Literacy Lab. In this role, he places 18–24-year-old men of color into local preschools as literacy tutors. The program features barrier navigation and removal, professional development
activities, and an education award at the end of their Fellowship year. The goal is to dramatically improve the paucity of men of color educators across the K-16 spectrum. His passion is sustainable and transformational growth and impact for the community residents and youth across PK-16 that he serves. His mantra is, “Live today like you did nothing yesterday to better your tomorrow,” which means to live every day with intention, purpose, and a sense of urgency to positively influence outcomes for whomever one serves.
CRC was born in raised in Cincinnati, OH, the city at the center of the global supply chain, in Lincoln Heights, OH, the first Black-incorporated city in America, and graduated from Morehouse College in 2011 with a B.A. in History with a concentration in Child Development after becoming a teen father of a son. He has been married for 10 years to Rosalyn Collins and is the father of three children ranging from 4-17 years old.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road has been far from smooth:
-Abused and abandoned by mother
-Raised in a single-father household
-Grew up next to the soundtrack of gunfire courtesy of the Cincinnati Police Department
-Became a teen father while at Morehouse College
-Entrepreneurship is not always
-Faced incredible loss over my life from family, friends, and church pseudo family, totalling over 200 before age 35.
-My role as an activist has caused me to be targeted with attempts to silence my voice.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about EDUC8theWORLD?
WE ARE A SOCIAL IMPACT FIRM DESIGNING CHANGE AND INSPIRING TRANSFORMATION WHILE EMPOWERING LEARNERS WITH THE STRATEGIES TO BECOME LEADERS. <-- This is our mission.
Innovation will create onramps for the next generation of activists, learners, and organizers to effectively engage in our rapidly changing society. We build custom, grassroots models that drive community impact for districts, organizations, youth, and young professionals. We are focused on giving them the tools for agency, critical thought, healing, opportunity, transformation, and vision-casting that produce grit, increase resilience, and redefine community-led power-building. We champion the idea that all people can learn from one another and that we need each other to reach our greatest potential individually and collectively to create communities with shared purpose.
We are problem-solvers committed to effective, efficient, equitable, and ethical solutions for vulnerable populations while creating sustainable solutions that drive clients’ performance, preparedness, and productivity.
Our clientele most commonly comes from the following spaces:
Athletic Departments
Colleges + Universities
Conferences + Symposiums
Corporate and Government Partners
Employee Resource Groups
Entrepreneur Development Programs
Foundations + Philanthropic Organizations
Healthcare + Social Service Organizations
Men + Women-Focused Organizations
Nonprofits + Startups
Public + Private School Districts
The ideal client is collaborative, impact-driven, and seeking transformational change for the people under their care. We specialize in giving our clients clarity on how to execute their vision, pivot effectively, and navigate a social and political landscape that can be chaotic at times. With years of experience creating inclusive, permanent, and substantive change, you can trust us to serve your complex needs.
As activists, authors, designers, facilitators, innovators, and strategists, we have a depth of experience that so many others do not have across the entire educational spectrum and in nonprofit spaces. Luckily for us, my wife and I, we found out what we wanted to do in life, which gave us a clear advantage across K-16. Our brand is community service, healing, power-building, and wellness.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
The list of people who deserve credit could be a mile long, but I will break it down by era:
Childhood:
Rev. Robert R. Collins, Pastor, Revelation Missionary Baptist Church
Dr. Charles Fold, Grammy-winning gospel artist, Gospel Music Workshop of America
Kenneth Collins, our father, raised us after our mother abandoned us in 1999
Leroy Foster, 8th Grade Teacher, made me fall in love with education
Elijah Collins, my son, whom I had during my freshman year at Morehouse
Franklin Patterson, African-American Studies Teacher, Rebel with a Cause
Morehouse College:
All of these men were instrumental to me as a teen father, aspiring educator, and political activist and organizer. From Atlanta School Board members to political pollsters to education professors to staples of high-quality education for the only higher education institution in the world dedicated solely to the development of Black men.
Terrance Woodbury, Founder, Hit Strategies
Kevin Booker, VP of Student Services and Dean of Students
Keno Sadler, Senior Advisor, Purpose
Courtney English, Chief Policy Officer, Special Advisor to the Mayor of Atlanta
Khaatim Sherrer El, Executive Director, Clinton Hill Community Action
Kevin McGee, Former National President of Morehouse College National Alumni Association
Dr. Richard Benson, Associate Professor, Education Department @ Spelman College
Dr. Illya Davis, Director of Freshmen and Seniors’ Academic Success, Morehouse College
Rev. Dr. Robert M. Franklin, President Emeritus, Morehouse College
Pricing:
- Books – $20
- Apparel – $25 – $45
- Consulting – Based on Needs
- Speaking – Based on Budget
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.educ8theworld.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/educ8drebel/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carlton.collins.967
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carltoncollins/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qccwp98zmNw
- Soundcloud: https://iamnotbroken.life/
- Other: https://www.canva.com/design/DAGncvKkFzo/LiYbImwhTElx3n21QYvQ1A/view?utm_content=DAGncvKkFzo&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=hdec2bb089c#1
