May 22, 2024, Washington, D.C. — Goldwater Ventures, a prominent consulting partner for mission-driven organizations and social entrepreneurs worldwide, has announced a comprehensive strategic planning and restructuring initiative to focus its mission on "cultural sustainability." This shift emphasizes sustaining the lifeways of traditionalist communities and fostering solidarity between peoples of the Global South.
Inspiration Powering Strategic Planning and Restructuring
Goldwater Ventures is a leading consulting partner for mission-driven organizations and social entrepreneurs worldwide. The firm has achieved remarkable success, completing over 38 engagements and supporting 23 clients in reaching their strategic, operational, and programmatic goals. This journey has included forging partnerships with five other consulting firms, enabling Goldwater Ventures to deliver holistic services to its mission-driven clients. Impressively, 82% of its clientele are repeat clients, reflecting the firm’s strong client relationships and consistently providing high-quality services.
Despite the success, it became evident that a more focused direction was necessary to align the firm’s activities with the evolving passions and expertise of its founder, A. Prince Albert, and his team. While the old mission statement remained relevant, the founder's extensive experience and deep personal connection to cultural sustainability guided the decision to shift the firm’s strategic focus.
"Our laser focus on cultural sustainability of traditionalist communities' lifeways is a strategic direction that's not just about doing what I can do — lawyering, policy-making, business advising, public speaking, etc.,” says Albert. Rather, my cultural sustainability work is about doing what I love with whom I love for whom I love now," the founder explains.
As an Afro-Indigenous person with sacred cultural traditions, close kinship ties, and a pluralistic outlook, Albert is driven by a passion for sustaining the lifeways of traditionalist communities worldwide. His journey from cultural studies academic to U.S. Naval Officer, federal tech policy counsel, and now to social entrepreneur and filmmaker evinces his storied career where all roads led to becoming an unwavering advocate for Afro-Indigenous cultural sustainability.
His fluency in French and Spanish, knowledge of Portuguese and various Creole languages, and expertise in African Diasporic studies, combined with a cosmopolitan background and deep respect for diverse cultures, have significantly influenced the firm’s new direction.
Anthropologists define lifeways in seven distinct categories: (1) Subsistence Foodways, (2) Social Organizations, (3) Economic Systems, (4) Spiritual Practices, (5) Communal Place-Making, (6) Artistic Expressions, and (7) Tools & Technology. Goldwater Ventures’ goal is to advise, create, invest in, and fund programs and projects that sustain traditionalist communities’ cultural practices and foster solidarity among the culture and peoples of the Global South.
Brief History of Goldwater Ventures Before the Restructuring
Goldwater Ventures was founded in June 2018 to primarily support the founder’s entrepreneur friends in developing social impact technologies. This initiative emerged in response to ongoing federal debates on data privacy, online speech, algorithmic bias, violations of civil rights, consumer rights, and human rights, and tech’s turbulent economic dynamics due to market concentration. Initially, the firm focused on providing strategic support to social entrepreneurs navigating these complex issues and building products that implement policies before they become law.
Structure Reimagined
Goldwater Ventures now has a sharpened focus on cultural sustainability and structured its foundational statements to share our vision of cultural sustainability with the world:
Unified Vision: Envisioning a thriving ecosystem of social good entities committed to ensuring cultural sustainability worldwide.
Four Missions: Goldwater Ventures now operates under a cohesive mission with four parts. The firm now describes itself as a cultural sustainability firm that advises, creates, (re)invests, and endows ventures committed to sustaining the traditionalist lifeways of cultural communities worldwide.
Seven Sectors: The firm focuses its efforts on projects within seven broad categories of traditionalist lifeways: (1) Subsistence Foodways, (2) Social Organizations, (3) Economic Systems, (4) Spiritual Practices, (5) Communal Place-Making, (6) Artistic Expressions, and (7) Tools & Technology.
One Amazing Result: Building a global movement to ensure the survival and continuity of community lifeways, fostering a vibrant and sustainable cultural ecosystem.
The Four New Subsidiaries and Their Roles
Goldwater Advisory
Mission: We advise entities committed to sustaining cultural lifeways.
Goldwater Advisory, a specialized practice within Goldwater Ventures, provides tailored consulting services to entities essential in ethically and responsibly sustaining cultural communities and their lifeways. We offer expert guidance in policy development, stakeholder engagement, program implementation, sector analysis, public engagement, curriculum development, and building strong, sustainable operational practices.
A distinguishing element of Goldwater's advisory practice is our robust focus on ethical, responsible, and innovative uses of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), extended reality XR/VR/AR, Web3 applications, distributed ledger technologies like Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT) tools, biometrics and more, to sustain cultural communities and cultural heritage.
We partner with international development agencies, non-government organizations, governmental and quasi-governmental bodies, entertainment companies, educational institutions, and cultural research organizations. Additionally, we support cultural philanthropists and grantmakers in streamlining and democratizing grant-making and gift-monitoring processes for cultural communities.
Goldwater Arts
Goldwater Investments
The Goldwater Foundation
Conclusion and Invitation
We are thrilled about Goldwater Ventures' new direction and its incredible potential for sustaining the lifeways of traditionalist communities worldwide. Our commitment to cultural sustainability is a professional endeavor and a deeply personal mission that drives our actions. We invite you to join us in this vital work and share our vision with individuals and organizations eager to connect with Afro-/Indigenous and other traditionalist communities and advance cultural sustainability globally. Together, we can create a thriving ecosystem that honors and preserves the rich cultural heritage of our world for generations to come.
Learn more about our work on the new website: www.goldwaterventures.info
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