Q+A with 2023 Rising Star Winner: Levar Robinson

05.08.2023

Levar Robinson was awarded the Rising Star Award at the Foundation’s Annual Meeting in March. We asked him a few questions to learn more about his journey to nonprofit leadership.

Tell us about your organization.

Father On A Mission (FOAM) is a fatherhood support nonprofit organization in the Baton Rouge Metropolitan area that empowers men to become better fathers and father figures within their community. We provide fatherhood education resources, education and workforce development, social services intervention, and misguided youth empowerment.

What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned while leading your organization?

I learned that there will be many challenges in managing an organization, yet I could never quit. I also learned that people make promises they won’t always keep – yet the work must still continue.

How did you start working in the nonprofit sector? Tell us generally about your journey to your current organization.

As a father, I realized that the mistakes I made were of my own lack of knowledge, but I also realized that the successes of other fathers were because they had a mentor, coach, or father figure in their lives to support them in being an effective father. I wanted to start a support team to be a source of support and shared learning experience for fathers that would allow men to share their experiences as a father, and help others be better fathers. Already deep into youth mentoring, I thought about the area of mentoring with the greatest need: misguided youth. This was already a passion in my heart so it was a no doubt as I planned the most effective way of ensuring misguided youth have the opportunities to be successful – regardless of the hurdles they faced – and I actually saw how it all fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

I realized that in order to maximize the greatest potential of supporting fathers in this capacity and have access to the resources to support both efforts, I should form a nonprofit organization. I sought assistance in creating my nonprofit organization. I sought support from various nonprofit organizations support groups to understand the many parts of operating and managing a nonprofit. I carefully selected my board members and community partners. Finally, I began the journey of implementing programs I believed would benefit fathers, father figures, and misguided youth empowerment.

What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned while leading your organization?

I learned that there will be many challenges in managing an organization, yet I could never quit. I also learned that people make promises they won’t always keep – yet the work must continue.

Success rarely happens in a vacuum; who has helped support your work?

The support of God, my mother, mentors, and advisors.

What inspires/motivates you to keep serving your community?

When I am able to see fathers feel more comfortable in fatherhood and when young adults see me in various places and apologize for being hardheaded when they were a youth going through our mentoring sessions, that motivates me. When I see fathers seek the counseling and educational services needed to make them a better person, which will result in them being better fathers, I am motivated to keep serving my community.

Do you have a favorite quote or guiding mantra?

I’m a firm believer in, “Faith without works is dead. We can have meetings, conduct studies, hold press conferences, even attend awards ceremonies, but the true change comes with hard work.”

When you have out of town guests, what do you insist they must see or do before leaving South Louisiana?

Attend a Big Daddy (Me) crawfish boil, visit/tailgate at Death Valley and Southern University, attend a festival and tour the swamp.