Meet Denavvia

Background
Denavvia Mojet is a 29-year-old entrepreneur, philanthropist, mother, and renown catalyst for change. 

Her humble roots branch back to Benton Harbor, Michigan--a small, predominantly Black city where she was raised by her parents, a loving church community, and a grandmother who loved her land, her family, her relationship with God, and the children in the community that needed a safe home and foster parent. 

 

Early Career & Education
Denavvia received a Key to the City of Benton Harbor, Michigan at 17 for her leadership and advocacy as Miss Benton Harbor 2011 while she began her professional career in corporate at the Global Headquarters of Fortune 100 Appliance Maker, Whirlpool. 

Denavvia was the first in her family to go off to college and after a journey that began at Michigan Technological University as a Computer and Electrical Engineering Double Major in the Upper Peninsula on Presidential Scholarship, Denavvia transitioned from her engineering focus on machines to a concentrated study of people and politics, eventually earning degrees from Grand Rapids Community College and Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, MI.

 

Post-Grad Professional Journey
Denavvia learned the administrative underbelly of municipalities as a Planning Assistant and Intern at the Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. office and immediately after, left to work full-time as a Campaign Manager in the Special Election race for Michigan's 75th State House Seat. From that victory to a string of several more, Denavvia fortified her love of community engagement and strategic communications at a local non-profit in racial equity, LINC UP, but saw the blaringly lack of diversity in the electoral ecosystem and came together with friends to change it. She became a local media personality with her weekly radio show (turned podcast and Facebook Livestream), "Political Pulse with Denavvia Mojet" on 97.3 the Beat fm radio and simultaneously, joined with a group of progressive and politically astute friends to launch Equity PAC (a political action committee to shift power toward more equity-minded candidates and policies). 

In 2016, while Equity PAC released it's first slate of endorsed candidates and Political Pulse hosted nationally respected guests like Leighton Watson of Barack Obama's 21st Century Policing Task Force and Attorney General Patrick Miles, Denavvia became a mother. Navigating the new realities and challenges of being a young single mother, Denavvia sought out new opportunities as a disruptor and change agent because as she told reporters time and time again, her "son was watching". She spearheaded a Diversity of Government campaign that illuminated the need for more Grand Rapids residents in Boards and Commission seats and employment at City Hall. Denavvia facilitated partnerships with other activist groups and organized protests, demonstrations, and rallies to raise funds and awareness of the plight of marginalized communities (Families Belong Together Protest 2017 with Movimiento Cosecha, Anti-Racism Pop Up Rally ArtPrize, etc). 

 

The Cannabis Consulting and Green Rush Pivot: BBCG
With a wealth of experience in grassroots organizer work and project management and leadership within the establishment, Denavvia leapt into work as a DEI consultant, cutting her teeth at Forty Acres Consulting on cannabis corporations looking to comply with new social equity regulations in the newly legalized marijuana industry. Seeing the reminders of the negative impacts of the War on Drugs, Denavvia decided to start her own non-profit with her best friend, Ariana, and the Black and Brown Cannabis Guild (BBCG) was born. Initially, with no 501c3 IRS status and a pungent stigma on cannabis, the organization took to hosting Expungement Resource Fairs with Cooley Law School and sought a Proclamation from Mayor Rosalynn Bliss successfully deeming it Expungement Awareness Week Grand Rapids in 2019. After the Expungement Fair program began, Denavvia started reaching out to election officials to lobby for Clean Slate Legislation. In 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic made the changes of the reform bleak, but after cancelling their Spring programming, the organization remodeled, restructured, and returned to the public to hold a COVID-safe, drive-up resource fair calling out the need for legislators to reintroduce and sign Michigan's Clean Slate Expungement Reforms -- which they did, in the think of the pandemic, October of 2020. The work was lauded as an impress feat locally and nationally in publications like Forbes, Mlive, WOOD TV 8, WZZM 13, Fox 17 and others.

Statewide reform and the growing coalition of legal support partners emboldened the BBCG team and they launched a Pipeline to Employment in the Spring of 2021 and expanded the expungement resources from Grand Rapids to Benton Harbor with the April 2021 Clean Slate Kick-Off. By Fall of 2021, the desire to have more impact led to expansion all throughout the state. Denavvia took on lead project management of BBCG's Michigan Expungement Week 2021 by supporting five in-person record expungement drives in 7 days -- Flint, Muskegon, Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Benton Harbor helping more than 1,500 people access information and resources regarding their criminal history and employment futures.

The Excursion In Corporate Cannabis
While growing and scaling as a new Executive Director and reversing War on Drugs impact in small Black communities, Denavvia made a return to corporate America, but this time, in the cannabis industry. As the Legal Compliance Manager and Corporate Impact Strategist at Fluresh Cannabis, one of Michigan's largest marijuana cultivars and a then-hopeful licensee of Grand Rapids' marijuana retailers, Denavvia worked under the company's CEO and General Counsel to usher in the new age of regulated cannabis in Grand Rapids. In February of 2021, with the medical marijuana-only retail license in Grand Rapids, Fluresh opened the first dispensary in the city. After major political concerns about the lack of inclusion of locals in cannabis, the recreational marijuana market stalled locally. Denavvia worked to make Fluresh the model facility and cannabis classroom for local leaders looking to understand safety, sustainability and promoting carving out more opportunities for locals and minorities in recreational marijuana -- from City Commissioners/Administrators to Police and Fire Department employees, Denavvia led tours and presentations and designed standard operating procedures and corporate programs with the feedback from what was said. With a renewed focus on corporate cannabis social equity defined as inclusive hiring, diverse supply chain commitments, and business incubation and mentorship, Denavvia helped lead the launch of Fluresh's recreational marijuana business operations and birthed the Fluresh Five Accelerator. Garnering over 800 million clicks on the internet, Denavvia spoke on the powerful ways that the cannabis industry could impact the world in positive ways.

 

Denavvia resigned from Fluresh in July 2021, making more time to consult on special projects across the country, optimize the Black & Brown Cannabis Guild, return to more political election-focused work (anticipating a big year in Michigan '22 midterms) and find more time to spend with her son and her dog in her new home.

What's Next?
A Note from Denavvia

 

I've learned that I thrive at the intersection of my passion and my most prosperous skills -- management, advocacy, public relations, community engagement, strategic communications. I like working with my clients on projects that I believe in and I am excited to do so much more speaking, strategizing, organizing, and managing for causes that I care about in the future. 

-D

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