Arts Business Collaborative

MISSION

Through community-centered programs, services and action-oriented research, ABC facilitates avenues for people of color, with an emphasis on Black, Latine and Indigenous, and their communities, to leverage the economic value of cultural and scientific capital; and improve their quality of life by addressing barriers of access to capital, networks, and knowledge.

INTRODUCTION

Founded in 2014, Arts Business Collaborative (ABC) is a technical assistance and research organization improving the quality of life of people of color through STEAM. Leveraging three departmental arms - Grassroots Action Project (GAP), Impact Consulting and the Rising Tides Research Institute (RTRI) - our services and programs address barriers to success for POC-led creative, scientific, and professional endeavors by facilitating access to capital, networks, and training. These programs utilize a community-centered, multi-pronged approach to cultivate arts and sciences as a gateway to social and civic engagement, while leveraging innovative business strategies for people of color in order to facilitate the retention of the economic value of their cultural and scientific capital.

Of the 19 technical assistance and capacity building orgs in New York State, ABC is the only one that is Black-led, -governed, and majority Black-staffed. In addition, we are one of less than 10 fiscal sponsors in the country who are POC-led and -governed, let alone Black-led, and -governed.

ABC’s initiatives feed each other and keep resources in communities of color. We lean into and amplify the natural coalition building and mutual aid that has existed within Black, Latine, and immigrant communities for generations. We are directly attacking the legacy of slavery and indigenous genocide found in the structural exclusion of POC from capital, networks, knowledge, and entrepreneurship. We are not just focused on the creation or limited support of POC creative and scientific institutions; we prepare our clients, sponsored projects, and partners to address the larger policy landscape that enables and apologizes for the systemic expropriation of creative, social, scientific, and economic capital from communities of color.