Josh Penny - LGBTQ Georgians and Allies Round Out AJC’s List of 55 ‘Everyday Heroes’
In our ongoing partnership with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Reckoning identified six inspiring Georgians who are making a difference in their community. These incredible individuals, many of whom identify as LGBTQ or an ally, are featured in the digital and print version of AJC’s “Everyday Heroes” project, which launched during Thanksgiving week.
This place we call home is filled with ordinary people who accomplish extraordinary feats. Their selfless acts make this region so special – and they bring out the best in all of us. With the holidays upon us, AJC, The Reckoning, and our partners wanted to share their inspiring stories, celebrate their accomplishments, and offer ways that you can help.
The Reckoning is sharing the first three of six profiles we contributed to the project. Be sure to return on December 6 to read the remaining profiles of ordinary people doing extraordinary work.
Josh Penny, 31
Director, Social Impact, Hinge
Josh Penny has always been more motivated when seeing how something impacts another person versus how it affects him.
"It's something my therapist has been trying to get me to work on," he said.
In his role as director of social impact for Hinge, he is responsible for figuring out how to help users connect with others. His role is to help users form healthy relationships by providing them with the habits and skills needed to do so.
"My job is to help figure out how to make those habits and skills around relationship education more accessible so that we are having better conversations and making better connections," Penny said. "For many of us, especially young adults, there is a lack of attention paid to relationship health. We have had a whiplash moment over the last few years. One singular event changed how humans related to each other."
The pandemic, he said, was a big lesson for him and others.
"It exposed a lot of things about what's not working in society," he added. "It also shined a light on how to be more intentional about our relationships. We had to be much more intentional when we saw our routines and patterns interrupted."
The pandemic wasn't the first time Penny paid attention to things not working in society. Clayton County, where he attended high school, lost its accreditation during his junior year.
"I had gotten all A's every day since the dawn of time. I was applying for scholarships and excited about college," he said. "And because of something that had nothing to do with the students, all of that was in jeopardy."
“I think young people get a rep for being overly idealistic. But they can be incredibly curious about how to make change happen. VOX shows that if you build opportunities and places for them to explore and apply that curiosity and passion, then amazing things can happen.”
He and other students organized marches and rallies, engaged the media, and recruited student representatives to be present during school board meetings. Penny believes that young people can be the most pragmatic solution-oriented people. It's part of why he joined the board of directors for VOX ATL, a non-profit organization whose mission is to lead a youth-voice movement where teens from diverse backgrounds create a stronger, more equitable community through leadership and uncensored self-expression.
He first got to know Vox when he worked at the Posse Foundation, a scholarship organization. The thing he said that resonates with him most about VOX is the fidelity they apply and weave into everything they do – centering teen voices in conversations that typically negate teens.
"I think young people get a rep for being overly idealistic. But they can be incredibly curious about how to make change happen," he said. "VOX shows that if you build opportunities and places for them to explore and apply that curiosity and passion, then amazing things can happen."
Before Hinge, Penny did social impact work at MailChimp. He led two initiatives that resulted in roughly $1M in community grant-making during his time there.
Through the Forward Project, $750,000 in grants were awarded to 15 traditionally overlooked social enterprises to help accelerate their community impact work. They also granted $500,000 to organizations spearheading COVID-19 response and recovery efforts. The organizations also obtained $100,000 each to support their work. CNP is one of several organizations to benefit from grants provided by Mailchimp’s Forward Project.
"I think Atlanta has a very special community of non-profit and civic leaders and that sometimes we don't do enough of bringing them together," he said. "Sometimes we don't do an effective job of bringing in voices that are closest to the issues."
Considering his past and present experiences, Penny finds himself doing what he describes as translation work.
"Each side has its own goals that they talk about in widely different ways. The work of social impact is translating business and non-profit talk in the moment and finding those points of connection. What happens too often is that when we cannot speak each other's languages, we make assumptions about their values and intentions. There is plenty of room where we can overlap. Finding it is the key, and once you do, it unlocks some powerful things."
Learn more about Josh Penny, here.
Editor’s Note: CNP is a Forward Project grantee. Forward Project funding for CNP did not influence our decision to publish this article.
Mashaun D. Simon is an equity and inclusion advocate who centers his preaching, writing, and scholarship on cultural competency, identity, and equity.
He has written for NBC News and the Atlanta Daily World, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Black Enterprise, Bloomberg News, TheGrio.com, Ebony Magazine, BelieveOutLoud.com, and Essence Magazine. He has also created and managed cultural competency and affirmative action programming and training and in 2018, Mashaun organized and facilitated Kennesaw State University’s Faith and Sexuality Symposium on behalf of KSU’s Presidential Commission for LGBT Initiatives. In 2021, Mashaun was selected as a member of the inaugural cohort of the Rising Leaders Fellowship.
He holds a professional writing degree from Georgia Perimeter College, a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Kennesaw State University, and a Master of Divinity from Emory University's Candler School of Theology.