Matthew Beatty '01 returns to RE to encourage students to live lives of purpose

The Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Carrie Meek Foundation, Beatty used the platform at the Lewis Family Auditorium to reflect on the unique responsibilities of what he described as the "Ransomite" identity. “You will have greater expectations on your life than the vast majority of people in this world, because other people’s lives will depend on your choices,” Beatty told students. “The great late Dr. Martin Luther King ... called you all the 'drum majors for justice.'”

Throughout the address, Beatty emphasized that the education and resources provided by Ransom Everglades impart the responsibility to lead societal transformation. Beatty reference the school’s founder, Paul Ransom, and his vision of a "third class of people" who put more into the world than they take from it, and noted: “We are all problem solvers in this room ... But only if we press hard, if we press together, and if we press forward.”

Beatty was introduced by Black Student Association President Tariq Maduro '26 and welcomed by RE Director of Inclusion and Community Engagement Wendell Graham '74. He reconnected with many at RE, including Head of School Rachel Rodriguez, Chief Operating Officer David Clark '86 and Head of the Upper School Donald Cramp. His father, Robert G. Beatty, Publisher and CEO of the South Florida Times, was in attendance. His sister, Victoria Beatty '00, DEI Consultant to Ransom Everglades, was unable to attend.

Beatty shared personal anecdotes from his career, including his years as communications director at The Miami Foundation where helped start Give Miami Day, the now wildly popular fundraising day in the city. He shared how the initiative grew from a "clunky little website" raising $1.2 million to a juggernaut that last fall cleared $43 million in a single day, pouring nearly $200 million into local nonprofits to date.

He also highlighted the impact of the Meek Mobilized Grants program, which saw a $100,000 investment turned into $8 million in county funding in less than a year. Beatty noted that a recent study showed the program contributed to historic drops in homicides in Miami-Dade’s most underserved zip codes, reinforcing his message that "purposeful work" creates tangible, life-saving results.

Beatty’s advice to the students was centered on three pillars: owning one’s purpose, thinking big while starting small, and having the courage to disrupt the status quo.

“If you don’t see the solution around you, then imagine a world with the solution, and go build it,” Beatty urged. “People with purpose shift communities, they shift cities, they shift countries and they shift this world."