Cagney Gaudiz (Richards)
Global Justice Advocate
A Vision Rooted in Survival
Cagney Gaudiz (Richards) is a Creole-American activist and survivor who transformed more than a decade of personal documentation and lived experience into a global movement for justice and reform.
As the Founder and CEO of Expose and Reform Now (EARN)™, she leads a mission to confront dysfunction within families, institutions, and systems that perpetuate abuse. Her work bridges faith, advocacy, and accountability—empowering survivors, protecting whistleblowers, and advancing reform where it’s needed most.
Cagney is a true entrepreneur, a visionary that’s disciplined and purpose-driven. She is a nationally board-certified and licensed Practitioner in Integrative Medicine, an ordained minister, and a practicing Doula, Broker, and Global Justice Advocate. She also founded Gaudiz Apothecary™ (2017) and Gaudiz Consulting Firm™ (2022), merging holistic wellness with education, financial literacy, and purpose-driven empowerment. Now, with EARN, she combines all of her passions to create equitable change that generates healing, accountability, and reform through faith and action.
An accomplished author, she has published multiple children’s books and is currently developing Margaret’s Garden in collaboration with National Geographic. Her forthcoming book, The Exposé: 40 Years. 40 Acres., is set for release on November 20, 2025 (to a small group of people) and publicly in 2026 on Amazon. Expanding her mission across media, Cagney will debut both her podcast and mobile app in 2026, continuing her work to inform, inspire, and advocate for systemic change.
From Adversity to Advocacy
Born in south Louisiana on November 20, 1984, and raised in a Catholic household, Cagney was recognized early as a gifted child. Her youth was marked by trauma—including child abuse, bullying, racism, and the emotional toll of her mother’s chronic illness. Despite adversity, she earned her G.E.D. at seventeen through the B.O.S.S. Program (Building Opportunities for Successful Students).
From the age of thirteen to twenty-one, Cagney rescued and rehomed animals volunteering at the Gonzales Animal Clinic run by Dr. Allen Albritton and his wife Irene. When she wasn’t helping animals, she was at the local library where she immersed herself in human and animal biology and anatomy, neuroscience, epigenetics, and theology.
In 2010, she launched That’s Just Cat™, a platform dedicated to faith-based empowerment and education. The platform resonated globally, inspiring advocacy work across Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and China. Her dedication led to academic and personal success—earning Dean’s List honors, a 3.83 GPA, and induction into the Gamma Beta Phi Honor Society. She later earned a Certificate in Global Citizenship from the Salzburg Global Seminar in Austria and received several scholarship offers including those from Yale, Loyola, and Arizona State University.
“You are not what happened to you. You are who you decide to become after. I decided I will be nothing less than great!”
Exposing the System
Cagney’s advocacy deepened after surviving domestic violence and systemic injustice, revealing how institutions meant to protect victims often perpetuate harm instead.
In 2025, after years of documented reports and public disclosures, she filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit in Indiana, challenging misconduct, institutional collusion and to combat social media shadow-banning. She used that lawsuit filing to expose the system, not fight it. Her evidence-driven advocacy exposed how abusers can weaponize the legal system to continue coercive control and reputational abuse.
Cagney’s integrity, transparency and leadership led to her unanimous appointment as Founder and CEO of EARN, transforming a private support group into a national reform movement.
On August 13, 2025, state officials formally acknowledged that Indiana had improperly exercised jurisdiction over her case, a violation of both constitutional and statutory standards. This admission reinforced her broader mission, ensuring systems designed for protection no longer perpetuate harm.
Through EARN, Cagney draws connections between the systemic abuse she endured as a child and the injustices she faced as an adult, turning pain into purpose and advocacy into accountability.
Building Pathways to Reform
Through EARN, Cagney integrates investigative journalism, legal education, survivor support, and community training—amplifying unheard voices and holding institutions publicly accountable.
She is a member of ForbesBLK, ForbesWomen and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), communities of leaders and creators driving systemic change in business, culture, and society. In October 2025, the National Safe Parents Organization (NSPO) welcomed her as an official Advocate.
Faith, Family & Legacy
Cagney credits her children, Zoe and Paige, as the driving force behind her resilience and purpose. From Girl Scouts to STEM competitions, she’s their biggest supporter; her daughters’ 2024 STEM Award for creating trainable robot pets remains one of their proudest moments.
The loss of her first child, Adryan (2016), deepened her commitment to justice and reinforced her mission to build safer systems for families everywhere.
“There is no greater honor than to be a parent. My daughters are my legacy, and I’m building a world where they, and every child, can thrive.”
Leadership without Compromise
Cagney leads with clarity, conviction, and compassion championing strategic, lawful, and ethical accountability. Her work is not reactionary; it is intentional, structured, and rooted in lived experience.
Since relocating to Michigan, Cagney has continued to advocate for policy reform while publicly supporting leaders and initiatives that prioritize education, infrastructure, family safety, and survivor protection. Through this work, she has come to a clear conclusion: advocacy and documentation can expose injustice, but legal authority is what ultimately enforces change.
With lived experience navigating institutional failure and extensive federal advocacy training through the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), as well as training connected to FEMA and Veteran Affairs, Cagney is now expanding her leadership into formal legal education. This decision reflects not ambition, but responsibility: ensuring survivors are not only heard, but protected through enforceable law.
Her lifelong fascination with the human mind, once guiding her toward neurology, psychology, and philosophy, has shaped how she understands power, trauma, empathy, and accountability. These disciplines, combined with ministry and systems-level advocacy, have naturally led her to civil rights law as the next ethical step in her work.
Cagney is preparing to take the LSAT in preparation for law school application with the intention of becoming a civil rights attorney, with a target application window of Fall 2026/Spring 2027, contingent upon current advocacy and personal obligations. This advancement is not a departure from her mission, but a formalization of the work she has already been doing in practice. Her LSAT prep score is 178!
Upon completion, her legal training will be directly integrated into Expose and Reform Now (EARN) to provide pro bono representation for survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, child abuse, and exploitation. Financial transparency will remain a non-negotiable standard: all donations and funds will be tracked through detailed public ledgers documenting hours, expenses, and outcomes.
“Resilience and courage go hand in hand. My work isn’t a reaction—it’s a strategy, a structure, and a signal that survival can evolve into legacy.”
This expansion reflects Cagney’s belief that leadership requires more than visibility, it requires capacity, accountability, and the willingness to confront systems that benefit from silence.
Join the Mission
Cagney Gaudiz is not only a founder, but she is also a force. Her life’s work proves that the most powerful leaders are often born from the most painful truths.
Follow her journey. Support the mission. Together, let’s expose the truth, reform the system, and rebuild what others tried to break.
Founder’s Note
Gaudiz is my spiritual identity, a name born from “God Is” and “Goddess”, a Creole-French expression of divine identity, feminine power, and sacred resilience. In 2008, I stepped into public service under the name Cagney “Cat” Gaudiz, and founded Church 2:17™, rooted in the truth that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). Two years later, in 2010, I launched That’s Just Cat, my first faith-based empowerment platform dedicated to healing, purpose, identity, and spiritual transformation.
In 2025, Expose and Reform Now (EARN) emerged as the justice-driven reform ministry of Church 2:17, a direct extension of my calling to confront injustice, illuminate truth, and advocate for real systemic change. Together, Church 2:17 and EARN form a unified ecosystem of faith, healing, empowerment, and reform — a ministry built on revelation, resilience, and the unwavering belief that truth must be lived, not just preached.
Last Updated: December 2025