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Collaborating for Community
After working together intermittently for nearly five years, Fort Worth’s Brooke Goggans and Susan Medina founded The Collaborative, North Texas’ only bi-partisan, woman- and minority-owned strategic communications firm, in early 2023.
“We work with clients that want to improve the quality of life for Fort Worth, Tarrant County, and North Texas,” says Goggans. “We say that falls under infrastructure. Infrastructure can mean roads, rails, transit, education, non-profit. Whatever helps invest in our community is the kind of work that we want to do.”
These two women, whose resumes boast impressive business backgrounds and active community involvement, have joined forces to tackle complex communication issues and projects in government relations, corporate communication, media relations, and more. They also offer creative services, social media management, event planning, and marketing.
Medina came to The Collaborative from her firm, SKM Communications Strategies, and Goggans was a co-founder of Mosaic Strategy Partners.
“We crystallized the partnership when we discovered that we had complementary skill sets that allowed us to offer clients services from the start of their project through completion,” says Goggans.
Another reason these women joined forces was because they are just as committed to having successful careers as they are to being mothers.
“When we look at the opportunities that are available [to women], they don’t always work with wanting to be a mom and have a career,” says Goggans. “When we saw what was offered, [we thought] ‘It looks like we are going to have to create our own opportunity.’”
Not only have they created that opportunity for themselves, but The Collaborative founders also work to empower other Fort Worth women by elevating their voices.
“We take very seriously our responsibility to raise up other women and be sure that other women are in places where decisions are being made,” says Goggans. “We take pride in helping other women find their autonomy or their own power within their career. Whether it is through [utilizing] our own experiences or in the way we serve our female clients, we understand that what is happening at work is not the entire scope of their lives.”
Brooke Goggans
photo credit: Rachel Delira
However, The Collaborative does not focus solely on working with women. Goggans says the idea is to partner with clients who care about Fort Worth and Tarrant County and their growth.
“We are experiencing life in a boomtown right now,” she says. “So the way that we meet the needs of our growing population is really dependent upon our infrastructure. Whether by improving education or improving the ability to get from one place to another, what drives us is being a part of the community. We live here, we work here, our kids go to school here, so the way our community grows is important to us.”
The creative pair often uses the phrase, “We finish hard things,” as their business’s motto. Goggans says this promise is made to clients because their goals are usually straightforward, but the path to achieving those goals is not always so obvious.
“We take the goal and unpack it and create a straight line from A to Z,” says Goggans. “Because we know the direct pathway, we can save clients time and money by putting together an efficient strategy. We provide the silver bullet approach instead of a shotgun.”
Susan Medina
photo credit: Rachel Delira
The reason The Collaborative can take such a targeted approach to strategic communications is because both of its founders are so well connected. Goggans has served on the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce Executive Board and many others. Medina has also dedicated time to numerous executive boards, including the United Way of Tarrant County and Leadership Fort Worth. Both women have been named “40 under 40” by the Fort Worth Business Press. The Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has previously declared Goggans one of the “50 Emerging Latinos” in the area and recognized Medina as “Businesswoman of the Year.”
“We have been in the market, and we enjoy trusted long-term relationships with a variety of folks in the business community,” says Goggans. “Both Susan and I serve on a lot of boards and try to keep involved in the community so that our relationships can assist when we are executing plans for clients.”
A company that helps its community and uplifts and empowers women while providing its clients with top-notch service? It sounds too good to be true, but Susan Medina and Brooke Goggans are on a mission to prove they can do it.
