In 2020, Glenelys Jimenez was a new mom staring down close to $60,000 in student debt. The frustration of having paid a lot for school and feeling little prepared for life weighed on her. As a millennial child of Dominican immigrants, Jimenez had it instilled in her that higher education was the route to success. But actually having a bachelor’s degree in political science and government and a master’s in global affairs didn’t add up to what she’s been told to expect.
“Then you get out into the world and you realize how actually unprepared you are, mainly because you’re experiencing everything for the first time,” Jimenez, now 38, said.
Many first-generation Americans are the first in their family to attend college, work in a corporate job and earn a steady paycheck. They lack the access to practical information of peers who carry cultural capital and generational knowledge. “So when we get into these spaces,” Jimenez said, “it’s hard to navigate it, because you‘re just guessing.”
That realization would eventually lead her to start Levanto Collective, an online and in-person platform that “helps women of color unlearn what doesn’t serve them and helps them learn what will,” Jimenez said. The Harlem-based business is rooted in the kind of mentorship and shared knowledge she wishes she’d had in her 20s.
Planting the seed for Levanto
The idea for Levanto grew out of the pandemic, when Jimenez kept sending friends posts from experts on finance, mental health and identity. She quickly realized there needed to be a space where women could learn from each other. “The experts exist,” she said, “I just wanted to bring them together.”
At first, she imagined building an app, because that’s what startups did, she said. But after months of research, customer interviews and late-night brainstorming sessions with her “council” of friends, she decided Levanto had to be a community, not a product. “You’re not going to attend one masterclass and be an expert,” she said. “Real learning happens with people.”
Despite her passion, Jimenez took her time before launching Levanto. Her days were full with new motherhood and work as a legal assistant. But watching Supreme Court decision after decision create even more hurdles for her and her peers lit a fire in her: the overturning of Roe v. Wade and affirmative action, the striking down of the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program. Jimenez realized she needed to move ahead with her plans. In a small way, Levanto would contribute to a space in which some of those most affected could educate and support each other through this turmoil.
She incorporated the business, talked to lawyers and tested names — “Levanto” means “to rise” in Spanish. Using her savings, she built her own digital platform through an operating system called Heartbeat. Levanto officially launched in 2024 with two membership tiers: an online community accessible anywhere (called Rise), and a hybrid version (called Ascend) with local events. The online-only option costs $29 a month and includes virtual workshops, member-only spaces for intimate chats, accountability buddies and strategy calls with Jimenez. The hybrid offering, at $39 a month, also includes discounted access to in-person events in New York City. Levanto has 11 founding members: three in its online-only tier and eight in its hybrid offering.
“People were craving connection after years of Zoom fatigue,” she said. “Community is how we learn, how we grow and how we lift each other up.”
A place where the professors look like you
Levanto offers memberships, workshops and resources for help navigating life transitions. “You can‘t build community without community,” Jimenez said. “You need other people. Because I am not the expert of everything. What I’m really good at is finding the resources for you.”
Her programming focuses on four core pillars she felt were missing from her own education: financial wellness, mental health, reproductive health and career growth. “These topics are not fun,” she said. “Learning your taxes isn’t fun, learning how to set boundaries with your immigrant parents isn’t fun, navigating careers with microaggressions isn’t fun. But those are the conversations we need.”
Her workshops range from financial wellness events like “budget brunches,” where members gather to plan finances over food, to a recent session on reproductive health led by an OB-GYN.
“More people need this, especially now, when they’re trying to take everything away from us,” Jimenez said, referring to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and other efforts to curtail reproductive rights. This is the time to fill in longtime gaps, including her own, she says: Having gone to a Catholic high school, Jimenez jokes that reproductive health education consisted of “don’t even look at each other until you’re married.”
Jimenez designed Levanto around a human-centered model, where programming or services are created with people, not just for them. “Think of me as the dean,” she said. “I find the professors, and the professors look like you.”
After all, what also came out of the pandemic, she said, is the rise of the relatable content creator. “It’s not just like a white man telling me I need to stop buying Starbucks,” Jimenez said. Too often, she added, people without shared lived experience oversimplify why younger generations struggle financially, blaming lattes instead of a broken economy.
The hardest part is being seen
A lack of shared experience isn’t the only obstacle to being seen. For small businesses like hers, “the internet is such a big place that it’s hard to filter through all the noise,” she said.
To build Levanto, she has to put herself out there, be vulnerable and create relatable content, Jimenez said. And to reach younger women, she has to meet them where they are, even if that means more time on TikTok.
While being the face of her brand online took getting used to, she’s embraced it. “No one’s ever going to sell this better than me,” she said.
This summer, she launched a YouTube channel to make Levanto’s resources more accessible. “This work is too important not to do,” Jimenez said. People — herself included — will spend hundreds of dollars for tickets to a Beyoncé concert, she said, but finding those willing to also invest in themselves is the real challenge.
“It’s harder than I thought,” she said. “It’s not like, ‘If you build it, they will come like.’ No, you have to go to them. And I’m trying to figure out what’s the best way to find them.”
A ‘girl’s girls’ community
While Levanto hasn’t yet become profitable, the affirmation Jimenez receives from members reminds her why she keeps pushing, despite the challenges of building a business on her own after working a nine-to-five job. What makes her mentorship resonate, she believes, is equal parts empathy and practicality. A self-described “solutionist,” Jimenez rejects the scarcity mindset. “There’s enough for everyone,” she said. “So many problems in this world are manufactured; we just have to find ways to connect to what’s already there.”
Jimenez’s vision for Levanto keeps growing. Her ultimate dream: a South by Southwest-style summit with “powerful women supporting other powerful women,” she said. After all, it’s why she built a platform shaped by the tradition found in Latino and Black cultures of emphasizing learning and support through community, said Jimenez, who studied cross-cultural learning while earning her masters degree at New York University.
Building this “girl’s girls” community — of women lifting up other women — fuels her personal growth, too. Jimenez said Levanto has helped her break from a pattern in her younger years of meeting others’ expectations. “I tell my mentees and the members of Levanto: You gotta live for you; you can’t live for anybody else,” she said. “Even though I’m dedicating so much of my energy to other people, I’m finally living for me. This brings me joy. This gives me purpose.”
Oct. virtual masterclass – donations support those affected by ICE
This Tuesday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m., Levanto will host a virtual masterclass titled “When Everything Feels Heavy: Understanding What We’re Really Feeling,” led by clinical psychologist Dr. Victoria Navarro. The event will focus on helping participants identify and manage feelings of anxiety, burnout and stress.
The session, free for Levanto members and open to the public with a suggested $10 contribution, will also donate part of its proceeds to Latinx Therapy, which provides free mental health support to those affected by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Levanto also offers a free course for the public when you sign up for its newsletter, the “Levanto Check-In.” The course, “5 Steps to Thrive,” is designed to help you set up your life to “live with intention and find joy,” Jimenez said.
Jimenez’s advice for aspiring founders
- Have a strong why: “You have to have a really strong why, and it has to be something that you are passionate about, because there are days where you’re going to put in all this work, all this marketing… and people may not show up.”
- Invest in yourself first: “You’re going to spend a lot of your early years investing a lot of money to build it, so you have to be in a stable financial position to do that, or willing to get in debt and also smartly manage that debt.”
- Know what you’re good at, and outsource the rest: “I do not know how to edit videos, so I found an editor. The important thing about being an entrepreneur is knowing what you’re good at and figuring out how to find the people that can help you at what you’re not good at.”
- Be your own marketer: “I had this mentality of, like, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ No, you have to shout it from the rooftops.”
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