6 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2026 By Matt Margini, Humanities Department Faculty Photos by Suzanne Kores When Matthew Beatty ’01 walked onto the stage of the Lewis Family Auditorium on January 15, it’s safe to say that the vast majority of Ransom Everglades students didn’t know who he was. That changed quickly. When he walked off, 25 years after graduating on that same stage, it was to a standing ovation. Beatty, who is the Market Director - Miami for the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority and recently earned the Ransom Everglades Founders’ Alumni Award for Distinguished Service to the Community, delivered a barnburner. The speech was eloquent and forceful in its efforts to connect the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with RE’s history and values. “Because of what you’re getting here, you all are being trained to lead this world,” he said. “Other people’s lives will depend on your choices. The late, great Dr. Martin Luther King called you all the drum majors for justice. He is by far the best example that, when we live our purpose, there is nothing that we cannot reshape in the world around us.” The speech was notable not just because it was an unusual feat of oratory for 11 in the morning. It was also highly personal. The “we” predominated. Beatty made it clear that RE had provided some of the foundational bricks of the life he’s built as a force for good. And at the same time, in its very craftsmanship, the speech attested to another side of his journey that RE helped shape: his path to becoming among the most transformative communicators in the history of Miami’s nonprofit sector, to the tune of over $150 million in fundraising. In some respects, it makes sense that Beatty would go on to a career in civic engagement: he was born to two extraordinarily civic-minded parents. His father, the attorney Robert G. Beatty, worked as the Miami Herald’s general counsel and vice president for public affairs and served on the boards of several community organizations – including a financial advisory board for the City of Miami itself when the city faced budgetary shortfalls in the late ’90s. In 2007, he purchased and became the publisher of the South Florida Times, a Fort Lauderdalebased weekly that provides local news for the region’s Black communities. Beatty’s mother, Priscilla Beatty, was similarly active in civic life, contributing much of her limited time as a working parent to the Jessie Trice Community Health System and other causes in and around Liberty City. “I spent a lot of evenings doing my homework in the back of a boardroom while she was leading a meeting,” Beatty recalled. “Seeing all that growing up helped me understand that no matter what I chose to do professionally, there had to be part of my work that was serving my community.” From the beginning, a call to service was part of the family culture. But the call became louder after they joined the Church of the Open Door in Liberty City, when Beatty was around nine years old. The church became the place where Beatty discovered what it means to serve others in routine, hands-on ways. “I was expected to be deeply involved through the church youth group. We fed folks who were unhoused on the weekends, and it was expected that you do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” Beatty said. Paying It Forward For Matthew Beatty ’01, community service is a full-time job and lifelong pursuit “[I understood] that no matter what I chose to do professionally, there had to be part of my work that was serving my community.” – Matthew Beatty ’01
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