Today we’d like to introduce you to Shauna Brown.
Hi Shauna, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started my brand, Teach for the Culture, LLC, back in 2018. At the time when I first started building a community around the brand, it began as an online blog and Instagram community. The goal was to connect with other educators and build a community around education, teaching and learning, and Black culture, with authenticity and JOY at the center. – In 2019, I began a t-shirt line as a part of the brand, as a statement piece and a unifying symbol. With the pandemic changing the world as we knew it, just months after I began selling the first statement tee, and with more educators teaching from home, I began to create more and more designs that continued to spread uplifting messages and bold statements around love, liberation, equity, and social justice, that spoke to the world we wished to see. – During that time and over the next few years, the brand grew to a level of global recognition, with students and educators from across the nation and around the world wearing these statement tees.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As a business owner, the road has not always been smooth, but learning how to operate, scale, and run a business has been very rewarding. I am an educator by profession, so prior to beginning my business, I worked in schools for nearly two decades as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, and Assistant Principal. So, although there was some overlap in terms of some of the soft skills needed in both education and business, there were other parts of running a business that were brand new to me, such as writing up contracts and proposals, marketing, and learning how to leverage certain software applications as I built out systems within the business.
As you know, we’re big fans of Teach for the Culture, LLC. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Teach for the Culture (TM) is a brand dedicated to helping educators, schools, school districts, and organizations to maximize their impact and reach their highest potential by tapping-in to their “why” and developing a strength-based approach to leading for learning. Through this business, we offer coaching and consulting services, professional learning opportunities and workshops, and a membership community. In addition to the services provided, we also have an apparel line featuring text-based art that helps to spark important conversations, provide positive affirmations, or make a statement. As a brand, and in many of our events, we intentionally celebrate and center Black culture, as currently in the field of education nationwide, only 7% of all full-time certified teachers are Black / African-American. Teach for the Culture has helped to create connections and community for educators GLOBALLY, wishing to advance their practice and connect with others. We currently have a social media following of greater than 70,000 across all platforms.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
We welcome support and have done collaborations in the past! People wanting to connect can subscribe to the newsletter on our site: www.teachfortheculture.com or via email.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.teachfortheculture.com
- Instagram: @teachfortheculture
