Gracefully Global Group
Gracefully Global Group is an educational publishing and marketing company that specializes in content development for K-12 school districts and universities. The company’s diverse products include the book Latinnovating: Green American Jobs and the Latinos Creating Them, a bilingual children’s illustrated book series Good Night Captain Mama, Authentic Personal Branding for Military Veterans workshops and online courses, parent and educator engagement Kits and DVD’s for children with disabilities and the Latino community, and a variety of speaking gigs pertaining to these topics. “We are in the business of inspiration,” said founder and Chief Creative Officer Graciela Tiscareño-Sato.
Gracefully Global is the manifestation of Graciela’s unique life experiences and the diverse communities which she is a part of. Born in El Paso Texas, to Mexican immigrant parents, she went to UC Berkeley at the courtesy of the ROTC program and went on to join the Airforce where she became a decorated military veteran. After returning to civilian life, her first daughter Milagro was born visually impaired 20 months later.
For Graciela to raise Milagro to be her best self, it has been important to maintain high expectations in the face of challenges. “One time, a Kindergarten teacher told me, ‘your daughter is unteachable,’ and I said ‘you’re not qualified to teach my daughter.’ I had to advocate for my kid every day,” she said. Graciela described the epiphany that informs all of her work both as a professional and a parent. “If Milagro can achieve all this with no eyesight and impaired hearing imagine what our Latino students could achieve without these challenges when surrounded by high expectations by teachers and parents,” she explained.
In 2004 when Milagro was two years old, she published her first article in the journal of the National Federation for the Blind. “I thought writing about the process of learning to parent my child could help others who are going through the same grieving and learning process,” she said. In the spring of 2007, Graciela was invited as a keynote speaker to a conference on education for children with visual impairment. Teachers and parents at the conference were moved by her story and encouraged her to create digital content to reach wider audiences. That’s when Graciela realized she enjoyed Keynote speaking and content creation and produced her first DVD called Letting your Child’s Wild Side Out.
Graciela came up with the name Gracefully Global in 2008 and created it as her sole proprietorship. In 2009 after Zeimans laid her off from her role as a global marketing manager, she became a special education advocate full time and created her LLC in October 2010. She published her first book in 2011 called Latinovatting: Green American Jobs and the Latinos Creating Them, the first book to showcase Latino-led innovation and entrepreneurship in the green economy. She subsequently received the Woman Military Veteran Leader Champion of Change award from the White House in March 2014, honoring her for raising the educational expectations of Latino students. Graciela subsequently published the first Good Night Captain Mama book in 2013, the first-ever bilingual children’s book series about military women. She published a second one in 2016, and there is a third on the way. “Have women who have served written children’s books? I found only two others,” she recalled.
In 2012 at the request of veterans, she started a professional development workshop called Authentic Personal Branding for Military Veterans. After presenting her business plan in June 2018, Graciela received a loan in October which enabled her to hire a marketing professional and Navy veteran named Tim. “Without that loan, I wouldn’t have been able to reach nearly as many university student veterans centers,” she said.
Today, Graciela splits her time evenly between traveling and creating content, depending on the time of year. “The biggest challenge is switching between my many roles. The most fulfilling part is making my family part of events, and the reactions I get from educators and parents. They are so thankful for my openness with my story,” she said.
To learn more about Gracefully Global Group, please check out their website and online store.
