Today we’d like to introduce you to Kalani Franklin.
Hi Kalani, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Cocoa Diaries is composed of five visionary young women who are focused on helping serve as voices for Black women in colleges and universities everywhere. The five of us have all been close friends since middle school! After being apart from each other for a year and a half at different universities, we decided to create a platform that was an embodiment of our friendship: empowering, refreshing, and inspiring – and Cocoa Diaries was born!
We began as an online community in February 2020, providing free resources for black women in college – scholarships, internship opportunities, and so on – but we quickly realized that the platform had the potential to be much larger. One of the many reasons we founded Cocoa Diaries was to provide a secure area for Black women to share their creativity, professionalism, lifestyle, academic accomplishments, and hardships. We seek to provide enriching experiences for black women at all stages of their collegiate careers, and we do it through both content publication and in-person contact. Cocoa Diaries aims to be a one-stop shop for outstanding development retreats as well as a digital resource hub for Black women at all phases of their academic careers.
Since February 28, 2020 we’ve:
– Awarded $3000 in scholarships. We have been able to raise money for our scholarships through selling our apparel and through fundraising
– Featured over 100 women through our Cocoa feature series that highlights Black women in college who have their own business, nonprofits, and creative talents,
– Grown our platform to almost 8,000 followers on Instagram, where we post about internship updates, civic engagement, the importance of mental health, the power of sisterhood, study tips, and more!
– Became recipients of the Victoria’s Secret Pink with Purpose Project Grant and the Black Ambition Grant
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
During the height of the pandemic in 2020, Cocoa Diaries was able to build a large community on Instagram. However, as colleges and universities started resuming in-person classes, we were challenged with shifting our business and platform from being completely digital to having in-person events and activities.
Since then, we have organized in-person events for the community during the summers of 2021 and 2022. We have used the last few months to rebrand and reinvented!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Our diverse experiences have influenced how we want to approach what it means to be a black girl in college. We have built a community that allows black collegiate women to discuss the highs and lows of their experiences while also sharing their achievements.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Having a mentor is an important part in business development and professional growth. Mentors are a valuable source of information, and you get what you put into the mentoring relationship. You never know what benefits the relationship will bring. Each of us have 1-2 mentors that has provided guidance and resources that aided in our personal and professional success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cocoadiaries.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialcocoadiaries/reels/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cocoa-diaries/about/?viewAsMember=true
Image Credits
Enutopia LLC
