I met Michael Capponi in my first year in Miami, somewhere around 1999, when everyone was tan, over-caffeinated, and pretending to be more important than they actually were. Michael didn’t have to pretend. He was tall, calm, and somehow the most important guy in every room without ever saying much. I even wrote about him for Ego Trip Magazine, trying to figure out how someone could be so central to the South Beach chaos while barely speaking above a whisper.
What most people didn’t know was that before the velvet ropes and the fancy condos, Michael had already lived through hell. Heroin addiction, homelessness, brain tumor, meningitis, you name it. Most people would have tapped out after act one, but not him.
Then came 9/11. I remember being at Pearl, one of those clubs that felt like a spaceship made of white leather. Nobody really wanted to be out, but everyone needed to be around people. And there was Michael, walking from club to club with a couple of girls, all holding donation buckets. They would stop at bars, tables, and VIP booths asking for money for relief efforts. And people gave. Somehow he turned a night of grief into a moment of unity, right there under strobe lights.
Fast forward to 2010. Haiti gets hit with one of the worst earthquakes in modern history. Michael goes from nightlife promoter to humanitarian commander overnight. He was on the ground organizing doctors, firefighters, and truckloads of supplies. That was when Global Empowerment Mission was born. What started as a scrappy effort became one of the most efficient disaster relief operations in the world.
What followed was an endless list of natural and human-made disasters, and countless lives saved. Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Fiona, Hurricane Lisa, the Turkey and Syria earthquake, the Morocco earthquake, the Maui wildfires, the Italian floods, the Kakhovka Dam explosion, the Pakistan floods, the Venezuela refugee crisis, the war in Ukraine, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The list goes on, and Michael just kept going. By being on the ground and seeing firsthand what needed to go where, he learned how to make every dollar count.
When the Champlain Towers fell, and my good friend Steve Rosenthal, whom I’ve lovingly called “Big Sexy” for the last 25 years, was one of the few survivors, Michael immediately stepped in. GEM gave them prepaid bank cards, Walmart cards, and clothing. They even wrote checks for first, last, and security deposits to get survivors into new homes. No red tape, no bureaucracy, just action.
And now Global Empowerment Mission is working with the Marley family to get food, aid, and assistance to those rebuilding in Jamaica after the recent hurricane. From Surfside to Kingston, from Haiti to Gaza, the man just keeps showing up.
Last night, at GEM’s 15-year anniversary, I finally understood his magic. He learned what not to do. By being on the ground, he saw how easy it is to waste time, money, and resources, and he built a system that does not. With only a 3.5 percent overhead, almost every dollar goes exactly where it is needed.
Michael Capponi used to build parties. Now he builds hope. Same network, same hustle, much better lighting.
