What's A Zoot?
Zoot Velasco is a former professional dancer working with Prince, Michael Jackson, and Arsenio Hall; SAG actor working with James Cameron, Angela Bassett, and Ralph Fines; international touring artist across America to Japan; award-winning slam poet/rapper/storyteller; California Humanities Council scholar; California Arts Council fellow and teaching artist in prisons, communities, and shelters; certified fundraiser (CFRE) of over $42M in funding; director of cultural programs in prisons, juvenile facilities, and regional community centers; director of a nonprofit research and training center; producer of festivals and stages with nationally recognized work; foster parent; author of three books; web designer, podcast host and YouTuber.
After overcoming an orthopedic disability and a difficult childhood, Zoot worked twelve years as a screen (SAG) actor, mime, puppeteer, break dancer, and swing dancer, touring a one-person show internationally, and teaching his art in juvenile halls, prisons, communities, and hospitals. He received 19 national, state, and local grants and fellowships for his art, including work on the 1992 LA Riot Recovery Program and the 1994 Northridge Earthquake Recovery Program. Zoot has a BA in Dance Performance from St. Mary’s College of California and a certificate in Theatre Improv from the renowned Second City Theatre School.
This work was followed by a 23-year career leading award-winning cultural programs and centers, starting with a prison arts program with work now immortalized in museum collections at the Getty, Hammer, and Library of Congress. As the LA Cultural Affairs Art Center Director for the Harbor, Zoot built four new community cultural centers (including Banning’s Landing and the Croatian Cultural Center), managed six partnered art centers, and produced four festivals. Later, he built a theatre for the City of Long Beach while running Homeland Cultural Center (renowned in Hip Hop circles worldwide). Orange County’s historic Muckenthaler Cultural Center, a public-private partnership with the city of Fullerton, was close to bankruptcy in 2007 when Zoot took the lead. Six months later, the recession hit. During the Great Recession, income, audience, and programs tripled. By the time he left in 2016, the center had quadrupled due to innovative social enterprise, the first STEAM programs in Orange County, institutional arts program contracts, and resource development.
This success led Zoot to an MBA in Nonprofit Leadership from Hope International University, authoring books on nonprofit leadership, and a new path as a thought leader. He led the Gianneschi Center for Nonprofits at Cal State Fullerton while teaching and training leaders there, at Cal Poly Pomona, and at Fullerton College, where he also managed and co-founded a new foundation bringing in $2M in new funding after the previous foundation went defunct at the start of COVID.
Zoot is the Past-President of the Rotary Club of Fullerton and a Paul Harris Fellow touring as a lecturer on Rotary history to clubs worldwide. He is an avid Lawn Bowler and lives in a historic Pasadena home with his wife of 25 years, Broadway veteran and Rand Project Manager, Monette Velasco.
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Download Zoot’s Resume HERE
What is 4M-Pact?
Why do we, as a sector, define ourselves by what we don’t do well… make a profit? Who else defines themselves by their tax status? And by doing that, do we take the emphasis off of sustainability? We should be defining ourselves by what we do well: Social Impact. If we did, we might better evaluate our work and find sustainable social enterprise. In my take on “4M-Pact,” I am working to drive this point home. My four Ms?
Management- We must prioritize best practices of leadership, management, and supervision.
Maintenance- Success is constant work at evaluation, updating, and maintaining our relationships, marketing, facilities, partnerships, and people.
Modeling- There are few new ideas in the world. What can we learn from other models in our sector and in other sectors? Let’s always look for and take the best ideas out there to make us better.
Magic- Leave room for great culture, strategic partnerships, and innovation that makes magic happen in our communities.
With these four “M”s, we can make a great social impact on our communities and set ourselves up for great success that outlasts our leadership of it!
