The Community Boost Team is Growing: Meet Shawn and MoMo

Tell us a little about yourself. 

MoMo: I’m from Cameroon. It’s in Central or West Africa, depending on who you ask. I used to run a digital marketing agency in Cameroon and I came here to the United States to study social innovation. Now I’m at Community Boost because I feel like it’s a mix of things I’m really passionate about—marketing and storytelling, but also social impact. 

Shawn: I grew up in Long Beach. I have been in online marketing for over 15 years. I had my own digital marketing agency and I also ran a nonprofit myself. Now I’m here at Community Boost because it’s merging, like MoMo said, two of the things that I’m really passionate about, which is online marketing and being able to help other nonprofits make an impact in the world. This for me is kind of a dream job because that’s what I’ve wanted to do in my life.

What first made you want to apply to Community Boost?

MoMo: I met Cameron and Reem at the Classy Collaborative event in Boston. Before then I had looked at other options, but they presented about Google Ad Grants and the work that Community Boost is doing with nonprofits, and it really resonated with what I’ve always wanted to do. I also think what really stood out to me were the personalities. I’ve met many people from the team and there is the professionalism, but they were just human. I want to work in a place where we are doing great work, but we are still human beings and we put humans first. So that’s really why I decided to work here.

Shawn: Cameron and I met about six years ago. I was running my own nonprofit and the nonprofit was a digital marketing training program for underserved youth. Cameron reached out to me when he had found out about my nonprofit because he was interested in taking on some of our interns from the training program. We had a few meetings about how that would work. I think at the time we both went our separate right ways, but fast forward five years later and we reconnected on LinkedIn. He asked me about what I was doing and they had a job opening. That’s how it started. I came in, met the team, Cameron and I had a discussion and it just seemed like a different place. Lots of unique individuals here and then the atmosphere was just really cool, so I couldn’t wait to work here. 

What are you most looking forward to in your time here?

MoMo: My priority is really to deliver results for clients. I know that the work that nonprofits are doing is important. Whether it’s the Blood Bank or any of our major partners, whether it’s Facebook, Google Ads or consulting on landing pages, I want to make sure that they can be able to get the funds they need to have that impact because in the end all of us are here to promote social impact. Even though we are not directly working in the field, we are making our impact. 

Shawn: Having run my own nonprofit and also having seen the way other nonprofits work in terms of marketing, most of them struggle. For me, it was a huge struggle. The thing that resonated with me most about this position was that I want to channel that frustration into helping other nonprofits get that impact that they want through online marketing. I think a lot of them do it in other ways and in traditional ways, but a lot of them just can’t figure out how to do that through online marketing. I’m just happy to be here to be able to say, Hey, I’m working as a conduit to help nonprofits have an impact. 

What is one thing you’ve learned so far?

Shawn: For me it’s more of the specifics of the different tools that we use. Because when I came in I knew, for example, Facebook advertising and Google Ads, but they’re just doing it on a different level here and the specifics and the attention to detail that they use here is on another level. I thought I was somewhat of an expert and am now realizing that I probably didn’t know much at all, so what I’m finding now is that I’m learning little things every day. 

MoMo: Piggybacking on what Shawn said, it’s really just learning, not only the tools, but also the systems. From the outside, you look at an agency and it’s like, hey, we are going to help you, but that takes meetings, coordination and time-tracking. So much goes into it and it’s complex on the inside, but appears so simple on the outside. That’s really what stands out to me.

What is one thing your coworkers might not know about you?

MoMo: I think I’m a really good cook. Not based on my judgment, but based on others. One of my specialties is pork stew with plantains. I actually cooked that yesterday. You relay your frustration and the more you’re frustrated, the better the food is.

Shawn: I lived in LA for a few years and one of the things that most people don’t know about me is that I spent some time in a five-part harmony group. I sang with four other guys. It started off with me kind of as a backup dancer type thing, so I would kind of dance for them a little bit when they were on stage. I also did a little rapping. I actually rapped from the time I was seven years old all the way until I was 13, and then kind of gave it up. As I got older, they started asking me to come in and practice with them and then I started singing with them and going on stage and everything. So it was fun. It was a good time. 

What is your favorite core value of Community Boost?

MoMo: The fact that we are relentless learners. The field of digital marketing is constantly evolving and we need to be. We are currently, I think, the best agency serving nonprofits on the West Coast and I feel like in order to stay on top of our game, constantly learning is really important. One thing that I’ve observed is that learning doesn’t depend on your title. I’ve learned a lot from our intern, Eric. I’ve learned a lot from my boss. It’s really exciting that what matters is the knowledge, not your title.

Shawn: I would say the same thing. And it was just more because of what I’ve experienced here. I’ve worked at other companies and they say that’s one of their core values that they want people to train and learn themselves. But here you see it in action all the time where you see people go home, come back and learning things or have learned things or solved problems. So I think that that’s been impressive to me. Not only that it’s a core value, but also that it’s in full practice.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Shawn: For me, it would be to have endless energy. I think I’m a pretty energetic guy, but to be full of energy at all times I think I would love it because I’ve seen in my own life how energy affects people. If you can be that guy all the time, I think that would be pretty powerful. 

MoMo: I would say being my full self because I feel like sometimes we want superpowers, but I think we are all powerful and sometimes a great superpower could just be switching on the greatness within us. 

James Hall