richard18
Cultural exchanges changed my life. When I started to travel the world in 2009, I learned the world was very different than what I had come to believe in Chicago. I feel the world would be a very different place if the majority of people engaged in meaningful cultural exchanges.
In 2016, I founded a nonprofit Community Cultural Center in Spain where I focused on finding a solution to inspire participation from people who were not so open-minded, and methodologies for leading a healthy exchange.
After lots of trial and error, I found it was not larger events that worked, but smaller ones; and, when people connect because of mutual interests, they’re much more likely to be accepting of each other’s differences. I called it a MIX - Mutual Interest eXchange. It worked incredibly well.
I closed the center, leaving my amazing life in the mountains, and moved to Lisbon to scale my impact. Using just Facebook events & MeetUp, we scaled to 11 countries in 15 cities! I had a team of volunteer developers helping build the app. Then, COVID came - and there was no connecting… anyone.
It’s been an amazing 2 years since leaving the mountains of Spain. I’ve loved working in the social innovation industry, contributing to scaling the ethical economy through MIXLife, makesense, and Impact Hub Lisbon.
Although it’s frustrating to have lost nearly 3 years of work on developing MIXLife, I’m grateful for everything I learned along the way and look forward to continue contributing to the development of the ethical economy. I’ll re-relaunch that project in a couple of years, for now, I’m focused on my new Social Enterprise startup, Impax.
Ten years in the mountains of Spain in a village with 29 people was not kind on my network. I created Capitalism Must Evolve to align with people who share my values, focused on contributing to the development of the ethical economy.
Now, I’m building Impax - more in that, later.
I am very easygoing and love to make people laugh. I value my time tremendously and carefully utilize it to accomplish the goals I’ve set both short and long-term. I pride myself on being a hard worker and a loving member of society, spreading my good humor and positive energy in every part of my life.
I have a strong background in team culture, project/business development, and 1:1 work-life balance / productivity guidance.
References left by my volunteers at my cultural center in Spain
https://www.workaway.info/864513885744-en.html
WorkForImpact References:
https://www.workforimpact.com/freelancer/richard-k