We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cherrise Wilks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Cherrise, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and my birthday month, which I celebrate for the whole month! My birthday is my personal New Year! For the last few years, I have written a letter to myself every year, imagining what I want to achieve next year and letting the letter guide me with intention. Of course, I also have vision boards and goals that I review in the winter, but they are more like reminders than new targets. I went through a lot of trauma in my childhood and many losses in my adulthood. I have been in therapy on and off since my 20s to heal from the past, learn new ways of coping, and build resilience. Spirituality has helped me discover my intuition, empathy, energy, and discernment gifts. I have become resilient by being what I need to feel loved, supported, and protected and by creating the life I want with honesty, authenticity, kindness, and smart choices. Some things I can control and some I can’t; that’s why my word for the year is Surrender and Expansion. Also, I have found supportive friends, networks, therapists, coaches, and kept relationships with those who are always there for me. I had to make an environment where I could grow and be more true to myself. Every year, I get better at coping skills, which makes me stronger and even more resilient as each year passes by.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a multi-hyphenate individual who doesn’t allow anyone to put my talents in a neat square box! In my personal life, I love spending time with my family and friends, dancing, traveling, sitting by the ocean, creatively writing, crafting, being near animals, volunteering with kids, and going to yoga classes.
I have found multiple career paths that bring me immense joy because they allow me to operate using my strengths to help build relationships and secure needed resources to assist small businesses and foster local community growth!
My secondary roles are as a FEMA Reservist-Community Development Expert & Academic Advisor, and I am an adjunct lecturer for universities such as Tulane University. This year, the team I am assigned to won a FEMA Administrator award for assisting Selma in recovering after a tornado caused significant damage. In my roles, I have been blessed to work in North Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida and on a national COVID-19 project. As a reservist, I am “deployed” quite frequently. Being inside this process has helped me figure out how to serve the hardest hit, rural, and underserved communities in ways I could have never imagined. The experience has helped me broaden my network as well for which I am grateful! It is tough to see constant destruction, but it is certainly bittersweet to see how technical assistance and capacity building can catalyze change in the areas we have served.
My primary role is CEO of Affinity Consulting Group NEFL, LLC (@acgflco); which is a firm that has survived 14 years and counting. I have an awesome team that provides two service lines: Small Business Advisory Services and Government Solutions! We provide services to local governments, federal contractors, construction, technology, community developers, and service-based businesses. To simplify our full consulting services, we help our clients develop the right documentation, pitches, certifications, and applications to secure funding and contracts (corporate and government) to help them grow their businesses. We have helped secure $85M+ in funding and counting.
Recently, we launched an educational brand called The Fund Finders® (@thefundfinders). We have developed the first Business Funding GPT (TheFundFinders®) on Chat GPTs marketplace! Our future endeavors include finalizing a book called “Relationships are Currency: Bridging the Gap with Government to Fund Your Business”, assisting more service-based businesses with developing AI assistants, and building a team of AI assistants that will help with business certifications, proposal development, and pitching which will be available for purchase.
On our website (www.thefundfinders.com), entrepreneurs and nonprofits can purchase PDF guides, books, and course replays. The topics range from finding what banks to use for funding to obtaining business credit, determining grant readiness, and more. We partner with government and nonprofit small business development center providers to host hybrid training classes on these topics.
When we think about what is next for us…. the future looks like adding services to assist businesses with structuring themselves to be sold with a succession plan and exit strategy. Business owners deserve to grow, become employers, and retire with confidence. As I look to my future as CEO of Affinity and The Fund Finders®, I can only hope that I have built something that has long-term value and that someone else desires to buy us out!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I would say the three areas of knowledge that have been most impactful on my journey are the following: 1. Take the time to get to know and love who you were born to be!
2. Strengthen your ability to listen to and trust your intuition!
3. Use your voice to communicate your values and boundaries, and advocate for yourself because no one else will!
For the readers, I can only share what has worked for me or provide the wisdom my mentors and advisors have given me over the years. Trust and believe I am still a work in progress, and I need to work on these things weekly!
1. Take the time to get to know and love who you were born to be!
Society, people, religious communities, and life will assign us roles and titles at birth. If we are lucky, we have parents who cultivate the individual humans we are, and allow us to explore and discover who we are throughout childhood. However, many of us do not have that upbringing and may not explore ourselves until after we leave our parent’s home!
Steps to take: Spend time alone. Seek therapy. Find spirituality or some stance on our existence. Explore hobbies that you can enjoy by yourself and some with others. Take personality and career development quizzes (e.g., 16 personalities, StrengthFinders, Trailblazers™, Leadership Awareness, Enneagram, or others). Always seek out people who love, celebrate, and support you as you are while holding you accountable! Do not be afraid to cut out things, people, places, and family if they no longer serve you! Your peace of mind matters more than anything!
2. Strengthen your ability to listen to and trust your intuition!
What I have learned at 45 is that all of us are born with a “gut feeling,” also known as intuition. We let others talk us out of what we know and feel, so we stop trusting ourselves and that inner voice. If I could return in time, I would remind myself to always listen to that inner voice first! Period. Do not ignore it. Full stop. Pay attention to the feeling in your own body. Always.
If we are out of alignment with our intuition, we owe it to ourselves to sit still and wait to hear that inner voice. Even if it takes months. The process is the process, but my intuition has never been wrong in hindsight.
I would encourage anyone to practice grounding activities to calm your mind and spirit. This can look like walking in grass or sand barefoot, sitting outside listening to nature, or listening to meditation music. I seek out places with water to find stillness and gain clarity. Ocean water is especially therapeutic. I gain the most clarity and hear myself when I am near water, which helps activate my intuition even further!
3. Use your voice to communicate your values and boundaries and advocate for yourself—no one else will!
How often have we sat by silently and allowed things to happen around us and to us? How did that make you feel? I know I have sat in silence due to fear, imposter syndrome, desires to be non-confrontational because of how others will think, and feelings of self-doubt. But it has been so empowering to find my voice and learn to speak up for myself. I have learned that NO is a full sentence, and it is okay to tell others how I feel or think about things happening to me and around me. This provides a sense of agency and the best self-care I could give myself. I have learned that the world does not stop when I speak up for myself or others. I encourage everyone to learn discernment and awareness and use their voice for good.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I always look for people and ways to collaborate and partner. I look for alignment with partners (e.g., people, clients, and companies) who desire to work with integrity and make an impact while making money! At the end of the day, we must care about the clients we serve. Currently, I am looking for: • Federal contractors to work with
• Companies that want to pursue government contracts together! Having a strong team and bench is how you win!
• We are open to more opportunities from nonprofit and government providers of small business training. We would love to host more classes from The Fund Finders® and are open to white labeling our guides and courses.
• Refer women-owned and minority small businesses earning over $250,000 in revenue looking for access to capital to enhance their supplier diversity (read contracting) efforts. My company prepares the documentation needed to access a forgivable loan.
• Refer business owners who need generative AI assistants designed or would be interested in purchasing guides, books, and courses from The Fund Finders®.
Those who are interested can connect with me in a few ways:
1. Follow me on Linked In: Cherrise Wilks and Affinity Consulting Group NEFL or https://acgfl.com
2. Follow The Fund Finders on IG/Youtube: @thefundfinders or www.thefundfinders.com
3. If you would like to schedule a collaboration call, use this scheduler:
https://hello.acgfl.com/public/appointment-scheduler/66562ce690b798f506b0f50f/schedule
4. For serious inquiries only regarding a strategy for Access to Capital or Contracting, please book a call here: https://hello.acgfl.com/public/appointment-scheduler/64f0bf8906e5e0615013deec/schedule
Contact Info:
- Website: https://acgfl.com/capabilities
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefundfinders
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/acgflco
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherrisewilks
- Other: The Fund Finders website: www.thefundfinders.com
Image Credits
Image Credit (s): The Branded Boss Lady, NAWBO Orlando Chapter, Women on the Rise Orlando Chapter
