Member Spotlight: Mackenzie Cates-Allen

This member spotlight was written by Gabrielle Jean-Louis, a student at Salem Academy and intern with REACH Women's Network. This blog post was part of her project to conduct information interviews with REACH members.

Being involved with the community is so important, but it takes a lot of strength. It comes with many responsibilities, but also many rewards.

What She Does

With a degree in nonprofit management, Mackenzie Cates-Allen has done a series of things. For the last 9 years, she started and ran a nonprofit organization called the Winston-Salem Ambassadors before passing the baton. Her organization’s goal is to welcome, connect, educate others about Winston-Salem. The improvement and thriving of the city is what the organization envisions and values as a whole. She served as the president and founder for those 9 years, and continues to serve as a board member to this day. 

One of her biggest accomplishments of her career is taking over the downtown holiday parade. This marks her 3rd year running and managing it because of her ability to build a footprint within the community. Establishing that kind of trust is difficult, but results in high rewards – like this one. 

What She Suggests

Over the last 5 to 10 years, Mackenzie has learned that sometimes the most valuable word you have in your corner is: “No”. 

For such a long time, she’s tried to do it all. Helping every person, being involved with every project, and accepting every request that came her way. She would bring her children along with her whenever they could come, and it ultimately ended up burning her out in the end. It hurt. She wanted to be involved in everything – to help everybody. But at some point she realized that she really is just one person. She can’t do it all, and that was okay. Instead of running herself to the ground, she focused on doing what she could in the moment. 

Another key lesson Mackenzie has learned is knowing when it’s time to leave. Sometimes it may be hard to see it directly; it may seem blurred or distorted. But knowing your worth can lead to great outcomes in the end for you and your future.

A story she shared takes place at a job she loved dearly. The people, the environment, and the concept of the job all were positives on her end. But when it came down to the part she was playing in the job, she felt like she needed some extra compensation for her work.

So, she requested a raise.

She was unfortunately, politely, denied that request, which left her with a decision. She was torn on whether to leave or not, considering the fact that job was the closest she had come along to what she had wanted to do. Ultimately, she decided to leave on good terms.

What she hadn’t known was that this decision would lead to the creation of WS Ambassadors, which she considers is the best thing she has ever done. 

How She Found REACH

One of her board members, Sharon Reiss, joined REACH early on. She’d been telling Mackenzie about it, leading her to seek out an event and see what it was about. Upon arrival and interacting with others, she was impressed on how professional and well put together it all seemed to be. 

Because of her piqued interest, she discovered the REACH membership and submitted a scholarship application. For this organization to even have something that made the network more accessible was a huge green check for her. She became more connected within the community as she attended Pink Couch Panels and later went to attend the most recent REACH Conference. 

The good vibes REACH brought was evident to her and she values that greatly, especially due to the increasing rarity within communities concerning authenticity.