A Fellowship, A Threshold, and the Work Still Taking Shape

3min. read
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There are certain emails you open twice because your brain needs a second to believe what your eyes just read.

This was one of those.

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I had to sit with it for a minute — honestly, longer than a minute — because being selected as one of 50 out of 600 who applied for the 2025–2026 Truist Foundation Fellowship, powered by Watson Institute, did not land in me like a professional update.

It landed emotionally first.

Not polished. Not strategic. Just… a very human mix of excitement, disbelief, gratitude, pressure, possibility — all arriving at once.

Because sometimes recognition does that: it touches the part of you that remembers how much uncertainty existed before anyone else could see what you were building.

And if I am honest, that is where my mind went first — not to credentials, not to milestones, not even to what comes next — but to all the invisible moments that came before this one.

The hard pivots.
The years of building while grieving.
The client work done quietly behind the scenes.
The projects that worked.
The ones that did not.
The moments where impact was obvious but sustainability still felt fragile.

And maybe that is why this fellowship feels so meaningful: because it does not just reward an idea. It recognizes the discipline of staying in relationship with the work long enough for the work to mature.

At Biz Hero, we spend a lot of time helping founders, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations build systems strong enough to hold both vision and reality.

That sounds clean when written in one sentence.

In real life, it is messier.

It looks like founders carrying too much alone.
Organizations with strong missions but weak infrastructure.
Communities full of brilliance but missing access, strategy, or financial clarity.

It looks like asking over and over:

What is essential here?
What actually moves the mission?
What must become sustainable if the impact is going to last?

That is why this fellowship feels aligned at a deeper level.

The full description of the fellowship says it empowers entrepreneurs, small business owners, and nonprofit founders building better lives and communities across a national footprint — especially those strengthening small businesses, building pathways to economic mobility, and supporting thriving communities.

That language matters to me because those are not abstract categories in my life.

I live in a region where I have watched community resilience become survival in real time.

I have seen what happens when disaster forces people to rebuild faster than systems are prepared to support them.

I have also seen what happens when local founders, artists, nonprofits, and business owners become the first line of recovery before formal institutions catch up.

And that has shaped how I think about entrepreneurship forever.

Not as performance.

Not as hustle culture.

But as community architecture.

The truth is, I entered into this fellowship a few weeks ago excited — deeply excited — but also curious about what I still do not know.

Because every meaningful next chapter should stretch you a little.

The mentorship, training, and national network are obvious opportunities.

But what I am most interested in is who I become inside a room like this: learning alongside other Fellows who are also carrying complicated, ambitious, community-rooted work.

That kind of proximity changes people.

It sharpens language.
It exposes blind spots.
It creates collaborations you could not predict.

And if I know anything from the last several years, it is this:

Some of the most important growth in business does not happen when you are certain.

It happens when you are awake enough to stay teachable while your vision expands.

So yes — I am proud.

And also very aware that pride is only one part of this.

The real work is what happens next.

How I absorb what this year offers.
How I bring it back home.
How Biz Hero grows stronger because of it.
How more founders build with clarity instead of burnout.

Because opportunities matter most when they move through community.

That feels especially true right now, especially as early conversations are already taking shape with incredible partners around an event the fellowship calls a Basecamp — designed around connection, practical value, and the kind of energy that reminds people building meaningful things that they do not have to do it alone.

It feels fitting that this fellowship begins here: not as a finish line, but in the middle of momentum already forming. Thanks to each of you sharing in the journey.

And as always, keep building boldly. ✨ ✨

— Johanna Patrice Hagarty