In 2018, dancer, marketer, and nonprofit founder Grace French did one of the most courageous things a person can do. She came forward and reported the abuse she had endured as a child at the hands of an infamous USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor. But that was just the beginning of her work that’s been shaped by courage. Grace went on to found the nonprofit organization, Army of Survivors, with a mission to bring awareness, accountability, and transparency to sexual violence against athletes. She chats with Breaking Schemas co-hosts Marcus Collins and John Branch about the impact Army of Survivors is having around the world, how she’s applied her marketing education and background to the nonprofit world, and why she believes courage is contagious. *Breaking Schemas is a production of the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative at Michigan Ross and is produced by University FM.*
In 2018, dancer, marketer, and nonprofit founder Grace French did one of the most courageous things a person can do. She came forward and reported the abuse she had endured as a child at the hands of an infamous USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor.
But that was just the beginning of her work that’s been shaped by courage. Grace went on to found the nonprofit organization, Army of Survivors, with a mission to bring awareness, accountability, and transparency to sexual violence against athletes.
She chats with Breaking Schemas co-hosts Marcus Collins and John Branch about the impact Army of Survivors is having around the world, how she’s applied her marketing education and background to the nonprofit world, and why she believes courage is contagious.
*Breaking Schemas is a production of the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative at Michigan Ross and is produced by University FM.*
Measuring the impact of efforts to break the culture of silence in sports, addressing sexual violence and abuse
17:35: Impact for us is something that we're consistently trying to measure because it's so hard to say. You know, this did this because it's a long-term problem. That said, I think some of the things that I am most proud of that made a huge impact is we've worked with the International Olympic Committee to create a curriculum for welfare officers. Globally, we have over 30 countries who have taken the course that allowed us to tell them what trauma looks like to an athlete, how to be trauma-informed in what they do, and how to respond to somebody if they do come to you about abuse.
On running your own race
16:52: It's important to understand that your blinders are on; really, it's not just about you and what makes you happy and what brings you joy, but also what fulfills you and how you can find the right career for you. Rather than thinking about, this is what I should be doing.
Be courageous in everything you do
25:42: Courage is contagious. So the courage that you have, and hopefully the courage that I have had, is contagious. And make sure you're leaning into that. Make sure you're finding ways to be courageous in your career, in your group projects, and in the ways that you move in the world so that you can continue to make an impact.
(Transcripts may contain a few typographical errors due to audio quality during the podcast recording.)
[00:00:00] Marcus: Welcome to Breaking Schemas, a podcast that explores the dynamic changes of contemporary business through the lenses of the disruptors who have not only navigated the changes but have also rewritten the rules of the game. We'll be sitting down with business leaders across a wide spectrum of industries to discuss their victories, their failures, and the biggest lessons they've experienced throughout their career to prepare tomorrow's leaders, that's you, for an ever-changing marketplace.
I'm Marcus Collins, marketing professor here at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. I'll be your host, along with my co-conspirator, Professor John Branch. Now, let's get into it. Welcome back to another episode of Breaking Schemas. John, we got a special one with this.
And I know all of our guests are special, but this one is a little bit unique because our guest today was actually a student of mine here at Ross, which is, like, a little bit meta because, John, I was your student. And now, here we are on the podcast with one of my students, no doubt a leader in best. We have Grace French, founder and president of The Army of Survivors. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Grace to the pod. Hey, Grace, how's it going?
[00:01:17] Grace: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It's so good to see you both.
[00:01:21] Marcus: It's great to have you with us. So, let's jump into it because I know we don't have a lot of your time. And we want to be good stewards of the time we have with you. Let's just talk about this. You are the founder and president of The Army of Survivors. What does that mean? Tell us about your work.
[00:01:36] Grace: Thank you, Marcus. The work started in 2016. I came forward about abuse that I had experienced at the hands of the now infamous Dr. Larry Nassar. When I came forward, I found a lot of people surrounding me who had understood my experience as an athlete growing up and how that impacted the way that we approached authority and how the institutions failed us in protecting us from this person. We found healing in creating change.
And through that, I was able to come together with about 40 of those people and those survivors and create a vision for a future. And that was this non-profit. That was The Army of Survivors. So, we created a mission where we work to bring awareness, accountability, and transparency to sexual violence against athletes.
And our work focused on creating educational programming, advocating for athletes and for legislative changes, and then also creating resources for athletes and community members. So, that work. Actually, we were founded in 2018, the same year I graduated, and we've grown exponentially since then.
We have three full-time staff members, a part-time staff member, and then about four different consultants who are working with us as well, really growing our organization past what I even expected as somebody who started it as completely volunteer-based and grassroots. So, it's been an incredible journey. I've loved every minute of it. And I'm super thankful for the support that we've had throughout the years as well.
[00:03:18] Marcus: And this is tremendous work that you're doing, which requires a ton of bravery, a ton of vulnerability, and a ton of empathy. And think it's important that we frame it in that manner so that we can excavate it in ways that are as human as the actual undertaking is. What were you originally thinking you'd be doing coming out of school in 2018? I say that assuming that this wasn't your approach. In fact, I know this. You were my student.
[00:03:49] Grace: Yeah.
[00:03:50] Marcus: And I know you well. Like, I know this wasn't the ambition. Talk to me about what your initial expectations were coming out of school. We know, sort of, the genesis of the pivot, but what inside of you said, "This is what I'm going to go after now."?
[00:04:05] Grace: I think when I came out of school, you know, I started working full time at Shinola Detroit in their marketing company. And I worked there in branding, and project management, and digital marketing, and really wanted to pursue marketing in a way that allowed me to influence people and to continue to find ways to impact people. And I think what was important for me was finding a space in which I could impact people the most with the work that I do.
And I remember, Marcus, I don't know if you remember this, I was at Shinola. And we had a lunch. And I was really not loving my job because I didn't feel like I was making a difference in the world. And you said, "You know, Grace, you don't have to find a job that fills your cup all the way up. There are different ways that you can fill your cup outside of work."
And I think that's when I really started to realize I could pour into this non-profit while still financially being responsible by having a job that was full-time outside of the non-profit because the non-profit does not pay me, I do not get paid, but I was able to continue to pursue my career within marketing and also continue to pursue building up this non-profit that I could really feel like I was impacting people and, and making a difference in the world.
[00:05:26] Marcus: I remember that lunch quite well, quite well. And I was a donor at the time.
[00:05:31] Grace: Yeah.
[00:05:31] Marcus: And we went for a stroll. It's quite a long walk around that block over and over and over again. And, John, you've heard me mention this before, the importance of a portfolio career, the idea that, like, not one job has to satiate everything you do because we are multi-hyphenate in our identity and we have tons of intersectionality in our wants and our needs and our desires, both professionally and personally, that we can exercise them and realize them by having a myriad or a diverse outlets to use them in a professional setting. Do you agree with that, John?
[00:06:07] John: You know, it's déjà vu all over again because, Marcus, I remember more than 20 years ago, I had the exact same walk around the block with one of my MBA students. He was the son of a preacher. And he felt compelled that he had to change the world in his job, but he also wanted to go into corporate finance. And he had difficulty reconciling how do you change the world as a preacher's son and work in investment banking.
And I counseled him very much in the same way that you probably can do more for the world by being an investment banker and perhaps running the corporate United Way or whatever else you did in that job rather than moving to Uganda, for example and, you know, trying to save the world that way. So, I completely agree, Marcus. Good advice. Whose student were you, by the way?
[00:07:05] Marcus: Some guy in Michigan. I don't know. You probably don't know him, John.
[00:07:07] John: Yeah.
[00:07:08] Marcus: So, Grace, you know, we have this conversation, and I won't take any credit for this because I know you. And one thing I've always done is that I've taken a shine to students with great potential who have the audacity to realize their potential fully. And you, by all stretch, have done that. So, let's talk a bit about the pivot, right? The case is widely publicized. You know, we're hearing the stories pour in.
And I imagine, not to put words in about that, that this is happening. You're doing a bit of internal inventory about your own experience. What moved you to pivot? What moved you to say, "I'm going to do this now. I'm going to really pour myself into this," not as, sort of, a side hustle, but, sort of, a thing that actually, kind of, defines you? Actually, it becomes the first bullet on your LinkedIn.
[00:07:58] Grace: I think what moved me the most is that I know, as an individual who has graduated with a business degree, I have the insights to create the most change within this industry and the non-profit space. And I think what's interesting is that I've heard that's quite unique that people who go into non-profit space don't often have a business background.
They've said that it's quite different, but to me, as I'm working in this space, I'm saying, "No, I don't think it's that different." I think the way that I approach the non-profit space is the same way that I would approach any business, except I'm not making money to give back to the stakeholders or to give back to myself as a salary.
I'm making money so that I can further the mission and further impact the community that I'm working for. And I think that is what made me realize that I could actually do this, that I can find the team, find the people who have the best experience to surround me with.
[00:08:55] John: Grace, just for a little bit of background, as Marcus said, the case of Nassar has been widely publicized, but give us a sense of the scale of this problem across all sport, across the United States, or even across the world. You know, I, I'm probably as naive as the next person.
[00:09:15] Grace: Yeah, thank you for that question. I think what people don't understand is the scale of the problem. Right now, the stats say that 10% of athletes, or one in 10 athletes, will experience sexual abuse within their sport because of their sport. So, we will see, out of every team that has 20 athletes on it, two of those people will have experienced sexual abuse within their sport because of their sport.
So, it's very important for us to better understand, one, that stat, which is probably underreported based on what we know about people who come forward about sexual violence and sexual abuse, but, two, to better understand the environments in which allow that type of abuse to continue to perpetuate.
That includes the way that athletes are brought up, the way that they're coached, the way that there's a short, like, lifespan for the career of an athlete, and the fact that they have to start so young and are so easily influenced in order to become a professional athlete. For example, I was a dancer and a gymnast. That means that my career would likely have been over if I pursued that professionally by the age of 30 at most, at most.
So, you have to start at the age of five, you have to be pre-professional by 14, 15, and then you're professional likely. I mean, some of the Olympians were 16, 17. They're still minors. That's the same for a lot of individual sports and then for collegiate sports as well. You have to be pretty much pre-professional by the time you're 13, 14, and in high school.
You are so easily influenceable at that time. One coach can say, "You're special," start grooming, really start the process at a young age, and then they have all of the access in the world. So, it's a scary problem that not a lot of people realize. And I don't think people know how to look out for it yet.
And so, that's what we're really working toward is to educate community and parents on how to look out for signs of abuse, what questions to ask to make sure that their child is safe in whatever extracurricular activities they have, and then also just to change legislation to better understand the ways that those who have experienced abuse come forward following abuse so that we can have accountability moving forward for those who do the abusing.
[00:11:41] Marcus: And this work is so important. If you think about, as you mentioned, the victims of these horrendous acts, these horrendous crimes, aren't even biologically cognitive to reconcile, to understand what's happening, and to even self-report. It's unspeakable how horrendous this is. I think it's important, Grace, as you talk about this isn't traditional way in which people go into non-profit, right? They typically have a cause that they're informed by.
And that's what, sort of, they study, or it's framed in their education, then they go and do it. But you, coming from a business background, taking that knowledge, taking that acumen, and applying it to these organizations to optimize them, right? I mean, as businesspeople, especially in schools like Ross, we're learning how to do good by doing good business, right?
And optimizing how the organization operates in the way in which it goes to market helps the cause be more effective in the thing that they're trying to do. And, John, I say this all the time when we're talking to students, we're talking to executives, that the context isn't what determines it.
It's about understanding business and understanding people. And when we understand the underlying physics of business and people, we can apply this understanding to any context, whether it's non-profit, whether it's B2B, whether it's B2G, you know, business to government, or it's B2C. John, are we aligned on that, or am I barking up the wrong tree here?
[00:13:15] John: No. We're absolutely aligned. You know, the catchphrase these days is transferable skills. And I think that's what we do well here at Ross. We develop students with transferable skills, which are largely context-free. And I think, Grace, you are emblematic of what great work we do at Ross, because, you said it, you've taken these concepts, theories, skills from business and applied them in the new world, the world of not-for-profit, and in particular, in your not-for-profit.
[00:13:46] Marcus: And what tremendous courage to not only make yourself vulnerable in your own experience to say, "I'm not going to do the traditional thing." Because, like, at a business school like Michigan, there are very clear, sort of, tracks, right? "I want to go into brand management," which you were doing at Shinola, or, "I'm going to go into strategy. I'm going to go into general management. I'm going to go into finance. I'm going to go into consulting."
Boom. Like, those are, kind of, the manners in which people are directed to pursue their career. It takes a ton of courage to say, "No. Actually, I'm going to focus my efforts here." How did you get that courage, Grace? Like, how did you muster that up to say, "No, I'm going to do this," which is so non-traditional route that I'm sure your classmates didn't take?
[00:14:32] Grace: You know, I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know where this courage came from, but I appreciate you acknowledging it. I think one of the things that I always like to emphasize is that I have an amazing support system. I have my now husband who has been with me since the very beginning of this journey. I have amazing friends and family that have supported me throughout.
And I think one of the big things is that my parents were very understanding as well. I know I think, with going into Ross, I think they had expectations of me. You know, it's a track that gets you places, that gets you a certain salary, that gets you to a certain degree within your career. And they understood that once I started pouring myself into this non-profit, that that was not the track that I was taking.
And they continued to love me through it and continued to show me support. And I think that was huge for me as well, as, you know, my husband understanding that this is what I want to do. And one of the big things that I so appreciate about the partnership that he and I have is that I am not on the same career path in terms of the same salary trajection that I was before.
That means that he has to take up some of the slack. And he is very happy to do that because he knows how much this work means to me, how much this work is impacting the community around us. And so, I think that has been huge is to have the entire community around me really support this move. But also, not caring what other people think. I think that is huge as well. It's about me, not about you at all, right?
[00:16:05] Marcus: Say more about that, Grace. I mean, it's so beautifully put. I mean, like, love and support from our community. It takes a village, right? But say more about this, this idea of, despite what everyone is doing, you're, sort of, running your own race. Talk to us about that a little bit.
[00:16:19] Grace: One of the things I like to think about is that people don't think about you as much as you think about them. So, you really have to think about just what is best for you. What can impact you the most? What brings you joy? And that may not be what everybody else thinks brings them joy. They're all running their own race. They're all on their own little hamster wheels of life.
And you just have to find your favorite color hamster wheel, you know. It's important to understand that, to put your blinders on, really, it's just about you and what makes you happy and what brings you joy, but also what fulfills you and how you can find the right career for you rather than thinking about, "This is what I should be doing."
[00:17:01] John: Grace, I asked you the question about the scale of the problem. You used another word just about two minutes ago. Impact. I'd love to know about the impact. For me, the first thing which popped to mind was impact in terms of trying to break this culture of silence in sport sexual violence, sexual abuse. What has happened? How do you measure? And how are you impacting the community?
[00:17:31] Grace: That's a really good question. I think impact, for us, is something that we are consistently trying to measure because it's so hard to say, you know, "This did this," because it's a long-term problem. That said, I think some of the things that I am most proud of that made a huge impact is we've worked with the International Olympic Committee to create curriculum for welfare officers globally.
We have, you know, over 30 countries who have taken the course that allowed us to tell them what trauma looks like in athletes, how to be trauma-informed in what they do, and how to respond to somebody if they do come to you about abuse. We've also worked on 16 different laws, both state and federally, to change the way that survivors, who come forwards, can seek justice.
So, we've expanded the statute of limitations, which allows people to come forward long after the abuse was perpetrated. So, this allows more people to come forward long after, because the average age of a survivor disclosing abuse is actually 54 for anybody who was under the age of 18 when they experienced abuse.
So, it's incredibly important for us to get a longer statute of limitations so that accountability can happen for those who are still in the work and still working with children, which is often. We've also continued to create educational programming.
So, one of the things that's coming out soon, which I'm super passionate about, is a coaching program that teaches coaches about trauma, what it looks like in children, how to respond to that and create an environment in which they won't be re-traumatized by sport.
So, I think, for me, that's incredibly important because I felt like, once I came forward about my abuse, I went back into a space and didn't quite feel as if I had the support that I needed. And so, this is a way for us to create those trauma-informed spaces so that those who do come forward about abuse or who have experienced abuse can go back to that sport and continue to do what they love.
[00:19:42] Marcus: I love the last thing you said there that you realized what was anemic in your experience and said that that's a job to be done for other people considering how many people have experienced the atrocities that we've been speaking about. How have you leveraged your learnings, your time at Ross, to achieve those jobs to be done, to help activate on those jobs to be done?
[00:20:07] Grace: I think the first thing that I would like to point out is that first part, which I think is so important, is I'm able to identify those things so much more specifically because of my experience. I'm able to say that this is what we do best, and this is how we do it best. And I don't know if I would have been able to do that before Ross.
I think when executing, I also come to it with a go-to market plan. I am able to say, "This is how we're going to go to market with this specific program, with this specific impact that we're having. How are we approaching it in an omni-channel way? Where are the synergies?" All of these, like, words that we used in Ross, I'm using consistently in the non-profit space because it is the same type of process that I can just repeat in the non-profit space.
And how do I do that is I'm very transparent with my people that I work with. I say, you know, "I have a business background. I approach non-profits like a business, except the money that I'm creating and the money we're generating is going right back into the business. It is not going anywhere else. It is a recycle, not a pass-through." And so, I am working to create the same processes and procedures that I would in any other business.
[00:21:24] Marcus: I love this, Grace. My heart just swells as you start to talk about these things we talked about. I mean, like, the idea of what do we do well is our core competence. And that notion was actually started here at Michigan with the late great C. K. Prahalad.
To me, this is a big takeaway here, that this ability to navigate, or as John put it at best, to leverage transferable skills as a way to disrupt the status quo, I think, is really, really powerful, right? And what we like to do on the pod is talk about, sort of, what is the thing? Like, what's the disruption at play here? And for the first time, I would say, John, there's two things at play. And I want to hear your thoughts on this.
There is transferable skills as a disruptor, but there's also, in my mind here, is courage as a disruptor, right? The idea that here's a thing that's going to require a lot of me as an individual, not just your... It's easy for us to, kind of, hide behind, "I'm a marketer, and, like, that's my identity," but this is who you are in a very vulnerable place that you've been willing to not just make public, I mean, you were in Congress talking about your experience.
I mean, first of all, flex, but you were in Congress talking about your experience. So, you have made yourself, sort of, as vulnerable as possible to invite other people to be a part of that. And that requires a tremendous amount of courage. So, John, I want to hear your thoughts on it. And Grace, I would love for you to pepper in here, too. This transferable skills as a disruptor, courage as a disruptor, what gets you going there, John?
[00:22:58] John: Yeah. Let's start with the transferable skills as a disruptor. I love that idea. I think that you've hit on something really important, Marcus. People tend to, kind of, box themselves in, right? They think of themselves as being very limited within a particular geography, or a particular industrial sector, or even within a particular organizational function.
And the recognition that you have transferable skills to take you out of the geography, out of the industrial sector, is huge. And, Grace, you know, kudos to you for recognizing that a businessperson can, not only survive, but thrive in the not-for-profit world, that the skills which you learned at Michigan Ross are equally applicable with, you know, tweaks for contextual differences. So, transferable skills as disruptor. Brilliant.
The second one just makes me ooey-gooey inside, right? Courage as the disruptor. Absolutely. Think of how many people out there have wanted to do something and perhaps could have changed the world but lacked the courage to do it. And, yeah, if you could bottle some of your courage and sell that to other people, I think you wouldn't have a problem with the not-for-profit, no-profit there. You would be a billionaire.
[00:24:21] Marcus: You know, John, there's a great saying, I'm going to paraphrase, but it says brave people are quick to take on a challenge while courageous people are willing to face the results of their decision regardless of the outcome. Like, that is... goodness gracious.
[00:24:34] Grace: Love that.
[00:24:35] Marcus: Like, are we in the right area here, Grace? Does that feel true to you?
[00:24:38] Grace: I feel like you just saw into my soul a little bit. No, I love this. I love this. I really appreciate you being able to succinctly put everything that I just said into these beautiful summaries. I love it. I appreciate that. Thank you.
[00:24:52] Marcus: That's why we have a podcast, Grace. This is what we do around here. So, as we near the end of our time with you, we're so grateful for how gracious you've been with your time and with your story. You know, I would be remiss not to ask. You know, thankfully, you have a support system. You have people who love you. You have a community that, kind of, pours into you and lifts you up.
From your own personal well-being, how are you managing this? Like, in your head, in your heart, how are you keeping yourself on the straight and narrow, you know, waking up to face next day, even when you have setbacks, realizing how powerful and impactful your work is, but also how detrimental a setback can be to that aim?
[00:25:35] Grace: That's an incredibly good question. And I think the biggest part for me is focusing on self-care and making time for self-care throughout the day. Making sure we have that time every day is so important. And it's something that I focus on to make sure that I'm filling my cups so that I can continue filling other people's cups through this work. I want to find ways that bring me joy so that I can continue this work and have the energy to do so.
I would be remiss if I did not also mention that one of the ways that I do fill my cup is I coach dance currently. So, I'm able to continue to do what I love, which is dance, while also being in a coaching setting, which allows me to better understand even the culture of sport and how I can continue to impact that culture through the work that I do in the non-profit. So, working back in different ways that I can fill my cup and continue to bring myself joy.
[00:26:36] John: That makes me so happy to hear because it would be so easy for you, having been a victim, to completely shun dance and gymnastics, right? And you are living the mission of your not-for-profit organization, right, making certain that people who have been victims of sexual abuse, sexual violence in sport can maintain their love of the sport.
So, kudos to you also for being able to do that. Yeah, well done. I have one final question, Marcus, before we wrap up, which is this, Grace, if you could come back here to Michigan Ross, what would you want to tell young people who, not so many years ago, were sitting like you in, in the seats of Michigan Ross?
[00:27:24] Grace: I would tell them a quote that I have hanging in my bedroom, which is courage is contagious. So, the courage that you have, hopefully, the courage that I have had, is contagious. And make sure you're leaning into that. Make sure you're finding ways to be courageous in your career, in your group projects, in the ways that you move in the world so that you can continue to make an impact with the degree that you have, which is, yeah, courage is contagious.
[00:27:56] John: Courage is contagious, and courage as the disruptor of everything. Thank you, Grace. It's been such a pleasure to have you here.
[00:28:03] Marcus: Oh, it's just so great. And I'm so unbelievably proud of you, Grace. I can't even say it enough. I don't even have the words to capture how proud I am of you as individual and the work that you're doing. And there's so much that I think that non-profit... or that for-profit entities can learn from this conversation. And I hope they do.
There's a book called The Generosity Crisis. And in the book, I think one of the authors' name is Nathan Chappell, and one of the arguments is that for-profit entities, they leverage, sort of, the humanity of non-profits to make a profit, right? Like, what is the brand, what is the brand's why? It's conviction, how it sees the world, its North Star.
And if only non-profits can leverage the acumen of for-profits, right, to drive their business forward, I think that, that the work that non-profits do, which is far more important than selling widgets, could benefit from it. And I think that you are a shining example of that. So, for all of us, we're super grateful for the work you do. As a practitioner of courage as a disruptor and transferable skills as a disruptor, we're grateful for you.
[00:29:15] Grace: Thank you so much. I so appreciate this conversation. And it's been enlightening for me as well as I hope it is for you both and your listeners.
[00:29:23] Marcus: Indeed. So, this wraps another episode of Breaking Schemas. Thank you so very much for being with us. And we'll see you next time. Go, Blue.
[00:29:31] John: Go, Blue.
[00:29:31] Grace: Go, Blue.
[00:29:33] Marcus: Breaking Schemas is a Michigan Ross podcast, powered by the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative, and produced by University FM. Go, Blue.