one
at a time.
Transform the world,
GoalFriends Global Foundation, Limited, a non-profit entity, was founded by Darlene Whitehurst in 2018. The Foundation makes charitable distributions to other 501(c)(3) organizations and assists with mission-based activities, mentoring programs, women and children’s education, and women’s empowerment initiatives.
As an entrepreneur and thought leader and throughout her body of work, Ms.Whitehurst has built a culture of helping others achieve more through her passion for goal setting, personal transformation and self-growth principles of which led to the development of GoalFriends in 2009.
Originally intended for small, intimate groups, today the GoalFriends methodology exists as both self-guided and group-based programs, supported by an experienced and talented leadership team delivering thoughtful content through workbooks, webinars, conferences and other educational opportunities supported by both online and offline communities. Because of her strongly held belief that no one should be held back due to limited access, lack of education or financial resources, The GoalFriends Global Foundation was established as an extension of that work to deliver the message to a larger audience.
Life is not about fame or fortune, it's about making an
impact.
-Darlene Whitehurst, Founder
If you educate a woman, you educate a
- African Proverb
MEET OUR BOARD OF
DARLENE WHITEHURST
Passionate About Your Brand.
Darlene Whitehurst is the President of Adsource Media,Inc / am3 adsource, an award-winning, WBENC certified marketing and branding agency headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. Adsource Media, Inc. is celebrating their 22 year in business. Inspiring the World One Goal at a Time. Darlene is the Founder + CEO of GF Global, LLC featuring the global brand, GoalFriends®, the GoalFriends Empowerment Certification, Ph.G and the Director of the GoalFriends Global Foundation. She has built and currently leads an international community of female members. Her programs are designed to inspire life transformations by teaching strategies on dream making, goal setting, and purposeful living. She has made it her life’s mission to teach transformational strategies of empowerment through her GoalFriends programs that also serve marginalized communities and incarcerated women through the foundation efforts. She is also passionate to work closely with millennials, thereby cultivating our future female leaders. She is continually developing strategies and programs to empower others. Currently publishing her book, Goalossary – You Reap What You Goal and launching the Ph.G certification. Born in Vallejo, California and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Darlene resides in Raleigh, North Carolina and shares her time in Santa Barbara, California. She is a lifelong learner, thought leader and world traveler. Darlene enjoys entertaining with family and friends, and of course, her GoalFriends.
PATTY AUBERY
Patty Aubery is a powerhouse of wisdom, creativity, and authenticity. She can be your best friend or the tough love you need to get unstuck when it seems impossible. She's been there and done it - from her early days of building one of publishing’s first billion-dollar brands, Chicken Soup for the Soul, to her current role as president of The Canfield Training Group, she has created an inspiring life for herself (and others!) around the world. For the last several years she’s been empowering women to show up more boldly and authentically in their lives with her best-selling book and course, Permission Granted, and through her role as Chief Visionary Officer at Goal Friends.
MELISSA MOTOLA
Melisa Motola is a visionary and passionate about making a difference in the world. Drawing from her extensive experience in public relations, branding, media businesses, as well as her career in working in the NYC fashion and lifestyle industries she is always setting the bar high. She prides herself on having strong communication skills and an elevated sense of creativity that she plans on utilizing for outreach of future foundation partnerships. She is committed when it comes to bringing awareness through influential placements within the community and at global scale! She has a strong history of being able to connect people and opportunities through her extensive network. She enjoys encouraging growth amongst those around her and leading teams to their highest potential. Melissa feels her greatest work comes from being part of a team that uplifts, inspires, and influences the community, especially women!
LIZ MCBRIDE
Liz McBride is an enthusiastic expert in the dental industry for more than 30 years. Her scope of talent ranges from business development, industry innovation, operations, vendor relations, dental industry liaison, office management, recruiting, training, and team building. Within one year of joining the GoalFriend community she was named the “National Ambassador of the Year”. She is now better known as our “Mayor”. Her commitment to the vision and mission of GoalFriends is unsurpassed. She has been an integral part of the exponential growth of GoalFriends. Liz is an encourager and advocates to teach and educate the community in personal development and thought leadership. Her goal is to establish an outreach program or center to cater to marginalized, rural communities and to make an impact on our future female leaders and their families. Currently she works with The Boys & Girls Club to inspire the young community to be the best version of themselves. A Pennsylvania native, currently residing in the Raleigh, NC with her partner, Steve and their cat, Bum.
GINA COPELAND
A member of the very first, original GoalFriends group, Gina continues to assist GoalFriends in global expansion—helping to launch groups in Romania, Taiwan, Thailand, Belgium, Germany, Vietnam and multi-cultural Zoom groups with members from The Philippines, Nigeria, Spain, Italy, Brazil, the U.S. and more. Gina’s career in organizational strategic planning, creative direction and brand identity began as an award-winning designer, writer and art director. Her clients have included non-profits focused on healthcare, community outreach and faith-based initiatives in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands and the US. Her for-profit work includes projects for Intercontinental Hotel Group, Mercy Health Plans, Precious Moments, Save-A-Lot Foods, West Virginia’s Department of Health, Silver Dollar City Properties, ITEC Attractions, Branson Convention & Visitors Bureau, and multiple entertainers, such as Roy Clark, Mickey Gilley, The Osmond Brothers, Bobby Vinton, Mel Tillis, and Bob Eubanks. Her work earned state honors in West Virginia and Missouri, appeared in PRINT’s Regional Design Annual and won multiple ADDYs, Silver Microphones and Summit Awards. Gina is currently working on her first book on the spiritual implications caused by absent or abusive fathers. She enjoys dogs, travel, hiking, popcorn, dark chocolate and is crazy about her husband, two adult sons, and several “bonus” kids from around the world.
CRYSTAL ROBINSON
Considered by most to be the best women’s basketball player to ever come out of Oklahoma, Crystal is just a small-town girl that wants to make a difference in the hearts and minds of young adults. Former WNBA star player, Championship Coach, and Oklahoma Sports & NAIA Hall of Famer Crystal Robinson has dedicated her life to be a mentor for young adults. Crystal’s specialty is speaking about overcoming obstacles including grief and encouraging students and young adults to keep taking steps towards their goals and dreams. Leadership, teamwork, kindness, commitment, work ethic, goal setting, discipline, bringing out the best in those around you, grief and loss, and mental health issues are just a few of the topics she has the personal and professional experience to speak from. Her passions run parallel with those of the GoalFriends Foundation and she is dedicated to help empower others. Crystal also is a representative for The Code Red Foundation. She is a Board Member for The Code Red Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has a heart for protecting our youth. They focus on school safety, emergency training, and mental health issues: depression, PTSD, and suicide. In April of 2021, Robinson released her autobiography Finding Myself. It is an inspiring book about facing obstacles, building strength, and achieving excellence. For Crystal, basketball was her salvation. It wasn’t always easy, but on the court, she forgot about all of her problems and channeled them in her unshakable will to succeed. Her humility, selflessness, and refusal to let the world bring her down have been an inspiration to everyone around her. Sometimes it feels like life has dealt us a bad hand, and our aspirations can seem more like pipe dreams than achievable goals; but, overcoming has been a theme of Crystal’s life and her biography is a raw and real account of the hardships in her life and how she has indeed overcome.
STEPHANIE EILES
Stephanie enjoys taking a vision and making it a reality. Thriving at the intersection of creative design, business strategy, and problem solving, she is inspired by the impact of design around us, including the unique way we all are gifted to contribute to make our world a better place. Stephanie owned and operated Fit Function, LLC, a WBENC certified marketing and design company. For more than 12 years, she created unique product and packaging solutions for international customers solving branding challenges and increasing product value and profits. She continues to help companies with their marketing efforts in a variety of contract roles. In 2021, she founded Celio Initiative, providing young women resources and creative exploration through hands-on goal setting and mindful art classes to encourage self-discovery, self-esteem, and positive mental health. Proceeds from the sales of her art and note cards go toward supporting these classes. Her heart to lift up others dovetails into the Foundation’s work of providing a platform to empower women globally.
SUSAN HUM
Susan Hum, aka the LoveHacker and Founder of Mind Mastery Consulting Group, is a thought innovator, entrepreneur and self-mastery expert who mentors coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs to take their business to the next levels while continuing to elevate their own personal growth to become more powerful self-leaders. Susan specializes in the area of influence mastery and persuasive communication with a specific focus on emotional intelligence. Her significant scope of global business experience in North America and Asia span from Health and Fitness to Sales & Marketing and Financial Services/Stock Markets have given her the strong Corporate abilities to work with people at all levels achieve great success in their life. All that Susan teaches has been successfully applied to every area of her own life. She achieved, not only her own financial freedom by the age of 45, but she has excelled in business, relationships and family. She passionately teaches others to do the same thing by unleashing one's full potential to become who one wants to be by changing the way one thinks and shifting their paradigms. Years of success in helping high achievers build deeper connections with others, and most importantly with themselves, has led her to work with some very prominent leaders in business, sports, music, and Hollywood. In 2020, she created the Steel Rose Movement, a conscious leadership platform for women with a mission to unite peoples and elevate love consciousness in the world by narrowing all divides in society, whether between women, genders, races, cultures, identity preferences, or personal beliefs. She is also the host of The Heart of Truth podcast. Susan deeply believes that self-mastery enables us to Influence with Integrity to Impact by loving who we are, what we do and how we do it!
MADDY MARASCIULO,
BSN, MA, ACRN
Maddy is a certified clinical nurse specialist in infectious disease and a global health educator focusing on behavior change and performance improvement. During her career she has worked for the private sector, the US government, international non-profit health organizations and owned a health training consulting company. During the past eight years, Maddy has been responsible for managing a 501(c)(3) global health charity. She is responsible for setting up operational processes to comply with regulations for charitable foundations, fundraising with philanthropists, and writing grant applications. To date she has fundraised over $360 million in US charitable grants and donations for global health projects in 11 countries. Maddy is passionate about women’s empowerment, goal setting, and putting goals into action and practice. As a master trainer and instructional designer, she worked closely with Goal Friends between 2008 to 2016 and contributed to the development of the first set of Goal Friend’s workbooks and tools. Maddy has lived and worked in eight countries and travelled to 56 countries worldwide.
SUZANNE MCLARNON
Suzanne is an “intrapreneur” and executive who creates groundbreaking programs and learning solutions inside corporations to address new business challenges. Adept at working across cultures, she thrives in high technology and startup environments. Suzanne and her teams have won 20 industry awards for excellence in Sales, Technology, Leadership and New Hire Enablement. Her global experience includes AVP of Workforce Enablement at MetLife and Director of Worldwide Salesforce Development at Cisco Systems. At Cisco, she developed the first call centers in the US, Europe, South America, China and Japan. Suzanne also created a program to bring college graduates into Cisco as Sales Associates and Sales Engineers. 20 years later, this worldwide program is still preparing top talent for the sales force. Suzanne and her husband, Ross, reside in Raleigh, NC with their two West Highland Terriers. Their son and his family live in Scotland. They love to travel abroad, and Suzanne has a special affinity for all things Italian. She believes that you can’t give someone empowerment. It’s something each of us must cultivate to make it grow. She loves GoalFriends because its gives women the tools to find their own path to empowerment within a community that supports and celebrates them along the way!
Play Me!
WHAT IS GOALFRIENDS?
GoalFriends is a fun and engaging community-based program designed to inspire and encourage women to come together to support each other in their dreams and goals!
… promoting purposeful conversations, powerful connections and meaningful transformation.
GoalFriends are your personal growth friends!
