Todd Walton is the founder of Project Baseline, a strategy and consulting firm that specializes in organizational architecture, brand strategy, and systems design for mission-driven organizations. Over the past decade, Todd has served as a strategic partner to some of Chicago’s most important cultural and community institutions.
Walton’s work spans brand strategy and sponsorship development for Rainbow PUSH Coalition, production work and artist relations with TEDxChicago, strategic consulting with the Harold Washington Cultural Center on membership program design and event strategy, and organizational architecture for the Dorothy Jemison Foundation.
Beyond nonprofit and cultural work, Todd builds governance frameworks and cooperative systems for BIPOC-led organizations, including Together We Build Better, a shared services cooperative for construction professionals.
N’DIGO recently sat down with the in-demand strategist to learn more about the work he does and where he sees the onset of AI leading us into the future.
N’DIGO: In your own words, who is Todd Walton?
Todd Walton: Most importantly, I’m a man of faith first, a father, and I still see myself as a kid from Broadview who never really left Chicago, even when the work took me halfway around the world. I run a strategy practice called Project Baseline. I founded a media platform called The Hip Hop Democrat back in 2008, currently the longest-running independent digital media platform at the intersection of hip-hop and politics, and I decided to document the decades of business and leadership experience I’ve received through a platform called @ToddBuildsKingdoms. I lead the expert team at The Desire Company by day, and that work shapes how I think about everything else I’m working on. What ties it all together is kingdom building, the idea that what you build should outlast you and serve more folks than just you.
What are three words family and friends would use to describe you?
Builder. Connector. Innovator.
As a child, what did you dream you’d do for a living?
For me, as a kid, it was always about bringing ideas to life. As I got older and got deeper into arts and entertainment, the question became how to leverage entertainment for social impact, how to use it to change the world. That’s been a guiding thread in a lot of the work I’ve done since.
How did you discover your passion for owning and operating your own business?
I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was a kid. My first business was a landscaping business, but true entrepreneurship for me came from building a career in entertainment and learning the business side of music, what that meant from both a business management standpoint and a creative standpoint. From there, it was about translating what I’d learned about monetizing my creations as a musician into monetizing my ideas as a businessman. There’s always been a foundation of helping people in all of that, and that’s what led me to create Project Baseline.
Please tell us about your company, Project Baseline, and the work that you do.
Project Baseline is a strategy practice. We help founders, leaders, and mission-driven organizations get clear on what they’re actually building, and how to build it so it lasts. The work runs across business strategy, innovation architecture, community impact, and how to use AI in operations the right way. Most of what I do is listen. People already know what they want to build. My job is to help them say it out loud and put real structure underneath it.
By day, the work I’m doing with The Desire Company means a lot to me, in the same vein. It keeps me close to the importance of expertise even as we go deeper into a world dominated by AI, and the importance of keeping human experience at the center of everything we do.
In your opinion, what are some of the biggest misconceptions about AI and its use that you come across repeatedly?
The biggest one is that AI is neutral. It’s not. AI amplifies whatever you point it at, and it amplifies fast, so you’d better be careful what you’re pointing it at and who’s doing the pointing.
Another one is that AI is coming for expertise. From where I sit, it’s not. It’s coming from the friction between you and the expert. The expertise itself, the credentialed practitioner who has actually done the work, becomes more valuable, not less. The one I think about the most is that AI removes the need for trust. It does the opposite. When everybody can pull the same answers off the shelf, trust matters more, not less. Who do you actually believe? Who’s actually done the work? That question is worth more now than it was five years ago.
And the last one is that AI is always right. It’s not. AI is often confidently wrong. Knowing how to work with whatever model you’re using, knowing how to incentivize it to actually produce what you need, that takes time, work, and effort. And a lot of people aren’t putting that in.
(Photos Courtesy of Instagram)
As someone who has worked closely with Operation PUSH over the years, what’s one of your fondest memories of Reverend Jackson?
Reverend Jackson taught me what it looks like to stay in the room long enough for the work to mean something. Thirteen years around that organization, and the thing I keep coming back to is the consistency. He showed up, decade after decade, in big rooms and small ones.
You hear so many grandiose stories about Reverend Jackson, freeing hostages overseas, and being the only American diplomat that some foreign governments would even work with. That tells you the level of respect he carried on the world stage. But the same man would still travel across the country to help somebody who needed him, or go somewhere on the South Side and check in on a family that needed him. He was that person who, on a macro level and on a micro level, legitimately cared and legitimately made an impact. That’s the part I carry.
What brings you the greatest joy about your work?
Honestly, the greatest joy for me is helping bring opportunity to others. Helping somebody grow to a place where they see potential they didn’t see before, where they see expansion and growth as real possibilities, where they’re moving beyond the boundaries they’ve confined themselves within. That’s the work that means the most to me. It’s also the people and brands I’ve been able to work with and make an impact on, including Reverend Jesse Jackson, Dr. Mae Jemison, the first woman of color in space, and so many others. And it’s the places this work has taken me, including South Africa and Kenya, where I’ve been able to build real relationships across the diaspora.
How does it feel to be recognized for the work you do with a Community and Technology Impact Award?
It’s a blessing to be celebrated, and humbling to be honored among those who have had a generational impact on Chicago and beyond. I’m receiving this award alongside Dr. Willie Wilson, the Leak Family, Pastor Corey Brooks, Tatiana Lane, and Tennille Jackson, and that company is the substance of what this means. The Harold Washington Cultural Center has been an anchor for Chicago’s cultural legacy for decades, and Jimalita Tillman has carried that institution forward with a clarity of vision that the city is better for. I’m thankful for the gifts and talents that the Most High has blessed me with, and the opportunities to use them to serve communities that need them the most. Ultimately, at the end of it, it just feels good. It feels good to be recognized and to continue to shine a light on a path that hopefully my son can see and be inspired by.
Best advice you’ve been given?
“Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.” That one’s been with me a while. The opportunities I’ve had came because I was already in the work, not because I scrambled when the door opened. I’d combine that with being comfortable being uncomfortable, because the world keeps changing and the tools keep changing, and you have to be nimble enough not to get stuck where you are.
Best advice you can give?
Just show up. Show up and stay in the room long enough for it to mean something. That’s most of it. Faith and discipline are the foundation, and being useful to the people in front of you matters a whole lot more than being known to people who haven’t met you yet.
Honorable mention. “If you can’t be used, you’re useless.” I don’t mean that opportunistically; you always have to be wary of folks trying to use you opportunistically. What I mean is you have to be ready to provide value. If you can’t provide value, what are you really there for?
Favorite quote or affirmation?
Matthew 5:16. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” That’s the one I come back to. The work isn’t for me. It’s a witness. If the gifts the Most High has blessed me with end up serving somebody else and pointing back to where they came from, I’ve done my part.
What’s next for Todd Walton and Project Baseline?
There’s a lot of untapped opportunity here, and I want to dive deeper into Chicago, not away from it. Project Baseline is in a season where the consulting work and the civic work are starting to reinforce each other, and that’s the trajectory I want to keep going.
It’s also about going more global. We’re in a pivotal time, a global period of connection where it’s going to matter more than ever for us to engage across the diaspora and share resources with one another. And resources aren’t just money. It’s land, it’s ideas, it’s everything we have to share with each other. That kind of exchange matters more now than ever.
Continuing to build with The Desire Company, growing the work we’re doing in the expert economy, and shining a light on the importance of expertise, because that matters now more than ever. Continuing to work with the Harold Washington Cultural Center. Civic projects like TEDxChicago. And growing Todd Builds Kingdoms as a platform, because the message of leadership and innovation grounded in ancient wisdom is one I want more folks to hear.
For more information on Todd Walton, please visit www.toddbuildskingdoms.com and connect with him on social media at @toddbuildskingdoms
