By Andrew Fefer, Reporter/Editor
One of the leaders in the successful campaign to retain the State Treasurer’s office said she had to start her own company to come back to her hometown of Eau Claire.
Sarah Godlewski took an active role in urging a “no” vote in Tuesday’s statewide referendum that defeated a constitutional amendment that would have abolished the office (as noted in another CVPost article). Godlewski, a 2000 graduate of Eau Claire Memorial High School, left the area to attend college at George Mason University in Virginia, but always intended to return.
“It took me a while to come back, because there were just no jobs,” she said. “I wasn’t, unfortunately, able to come back until I started my own business and it had the flexibility of coming back.”
She believes that creating more jobs in areas like Eau Claire is one benefit of maintaining the State Treasurer’s position in Wisconsin. That, she said, is because state treasurers in other states are taking on what she described as an “economic empowerment role” to look at how states are providing capital to startups or finding ways to invest in companies based in their states.
She called it a change in mindset that could have an impact on the economy. Godlewski also said that problems such as potential fraud and abuse and a lower bond rating for Wisconsin could occur if the office had been abolished.
Current Wisconsin State Treasurer Matt Adamczyk supports the move, saying it will save the state money by eliminating an agency that only serves an administrative function.
Both Godlewski and Adamczyk said that Republicans and Democrats support their opposing viewpoints about the proposal.
MaSa Partners
Godlewski helps to run MaSa Partners, which she described as an “impact venture,” saying that she would not call herself a “venture capitalist.” The company’s website describes the firm as “a for-profit entity seeking to invest in early-stage, socially responsible companies in a financially sustainable manner.”
Godlewski and her husband, Max Duckworth, co-founded MaSa. They met while volunteering as board members of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), which advocates for and raises funds for the well-being of children in more than 190 countries and territories. Both were on a volunteer UNICEF council, which involved community leaders working toward educating people about UNICEF’s work, working with schools and creating other partnerships.
Godlewski said she was brought in to develop the group’s strategic plan on a pro bono basis. She originally worked with the organization on a regional level in the Washington DC area, but later became involved in UNICEF’s national advocacy work.
Godlewski said Duckworth was on “the finance side,” as she was, but added that she also did management consulting work. They both found that in talking with companies about investments that could also “do good things for the world,” people were linking those businesses with non-profit dollars and not as a means of profitability.
“We were getting sick of…hearing this, so we’re finally like, let’s just do it ourselves. Let’s put our money where our mouth is, and invest in companies that are truly solving problems, and show that they’re not mutually-exclusive” with profits.
The couple founded the company in 2015. At that point, Godlewski was living in Colorado and Duckworth in Washington DC. They weren’t sure where they were going to end up living.
“I always wanted to come back to Wisconsin,” she said, “but it was figuring out ‘What would that look like?'”
In setting up the business in what Godlewski described as “the easiest and quickest way possible,” the couple incorporated it through Delaware.
“Our work is in helping to…provide, whether it’s financial capital or human capital, to early-stage, socially-responsible companies,” she said.
Corporate social responsibility
MaSa reviews each potential investment it makes to determine if the company meets its standards for social responsibility, Godlewski said. Those standards include what societal problem the company is trying to solve, who is involved, what product will be used in efforts to solve the problem and profitability.
“All of our companies are very mission-centric,” she said.
“While we are in kind of a venture world, we really believe in the missions our companies are doing.”
Godlewski said that MaSa has “over eight” businesses in its portfolio right now. One of them is Arcadia Power, a four-year-old company based in Washington, DC. Its website says it empowers its members to utilize what it describes as clean, renewable energy by managing their home utility accounts. The website also notes that the company integrates with more than 100 utilities across America and has 100,000 members.
“Arcadia Power is a really good example of how to revolutionize the green energy industry,” Godlewski said.
She said that consumers typically do not have much control when it comes to receiving green energy, which is power from renewable sources that can be replenished naturally (solar, wind and geothermal, for example). She added that Arcadia Power has created relationships with utilities in all 50 states so consumers can sign up with them to increase green energy demand on the power grid and find statistics about how they helped the cause of using renewable energy as opposed to brown energy, which comes from fossil fuels (such as oil or coal).
Godlewski said that Arcadia Power is one of MaSa’s early investments.
“It’s a fact that the risk for startups is significant,” she said, “so, by us getting involved and providing these (missing) business acumen skills, we believe it will make these companies successful.”
National Security Fellowship
Along with her business endeavors, Godlewski has worked with the U.S. Department of Defense and on a congressional task force to find ways for the Veterans Administration to take a more innovative approach in dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in veterans.
“Because of my work with the Department of Defense, I was working actually with the Defense Medical System (and) was asked to bring a different set of eyes and ears, both on my age, experience and just my consulting background,” she said.
Her service led to an invitation from the United States Air Force Air War College in Montgomery, AL and the National Security Fellowship program. Godlewski said that program brings people from across the country together to help them understand how the military works, how the military community engages with one another, national security strategy, cyber-security and creating partnerships between the military and the private sector.
Emerge Wisconsin
Godlewski has also been involved in Emerge Wisconsin. She called the group “progressive leaning,” and its website shows a mission of increasing “the number of Democratic women leaders from diverse backgrounds in public office.”
She said in Wisconsin there is room for improvement.
“I think it’s important for women to have their voices at the table,” she said. “The objective for Emerge is to train as many women as possible to run for local and state and even federal offices.”
She also works with educational policy groups on an effort to organize an “Idea Fest” in the Chippewa Valley. Such an event ypically brings leaders in areas like politics, the economy and journalism together for discussion on community issues. Madison has a similar event, the “Cap Times Idea Fest,” scheduled for September.
How Godlewski became involved in the “vote no” effort
Godlewski found out about the proposal to eliminate the state treasurer’s office through her work in the summer of 2017.
“We look at financial literacy and startups and all sorts of issues, which, in some states, have to do with the treasurer’s office,” she said. “And so, when I looked at if I could maybe do something to volunteer or help out with the treasurer in Wisconsin, I came upon that the treasurer is actually trying to remove the office from the state constitution.”
She added that “it was really, I would say, as organic as anything like this could be.”
She started discussing it with other people, and became connected with Jack Voight, a Republican who served three terms as state treasurer from 1994 until 2006. She also connected with other stakeholders who she said would be significantly impacted by the proposal.
“Whether it was groups that were associated with teachers because of the common school fund, or environmentalists because …. its purview is looking at the private…trust lands,” Godlewski said it was “this really unique grass roots group that came together because of the way that they would be affected.”
On Feb. 21, the Eau Claire Area School District’s Board of Education approved a resolution to support the Office of the State Treasurer. In it, author and board member Joe Luginbill said that the state treasurer helps to oversee the Common School Fund, which allocated almost $380,000 to the district in the 2016-17 school year for library materials and IMC resources.
Moving the business to Eau Claire
Right now, Godlewski and Duckworth are working to transition MaSa Partners to Eau Claire, where they now live.
“The…quality of life that Eau Claire can provide is second to none,” Godlewski said. “And so, being able to experience that again now in my adult life, and kind of come back home…has been really great.”
Godlewski splits her time between Eau Claire and Madison. She expects to finish her Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of Pennsylvania this year.
“When I moved, there’s like two classes left, so I’m working to finish those ‘buggers’ up,” she said with a laugh.
She said that she and her husband believe that their business has been a success after three years because of the feedback Godlewski has gotten from her various contacts. She added that none of the businesses in the company’s portfolio has failed.
“More and more people want to get into this impact space, and a lot of people just don’t know what it means,” she said.
“We’re always looking for new opportunities, but we’re also super-selective because, again, it goes back to…we don’t just give the money, ‘peace out’ (goodbye). We’re heavily involved and want to make sure we’ve got the bandwidth to provide the support that these companies need.”
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Note: the home page photo that accompanies this story is from the MaSa Partners website, and shows Max Duckworth and Sarah Godlewski during one of their UNICEF field activities.