Brooklyn Improvised Art School LLC is an arts organization that specializes in creative music and arts through education and performance for communities that are in need. These schools and communities have typically been neglected by arts organizations and have slowly become arts deserts, such as the Crown Heights and Brownsville areas of Brooklyn. The school offers in-person instrumental lessons, ensemble lessons, and provides performance opportunities for the students.

Brooklyn Improvised Art School works with schools to provide high quality arts education to grades K-12. Less than 50% of NYC DOE schools have certified in school or after school arts educators. By bringing creative arts education to underserved neighborhoods and schools, the school plans to become a creative instigator in the community. The arts programs consist of band, music classes, private lessons, or special programs curated with teachers, administrators, or PTA groups. They range from 2- to 30-week programs, in-school, after-school, or a combination of the two.

The old way of education where the novice student learns from the professional teacher is a thing of the past. Brooklyn Improvised Art School emphasizes inspiring the student and collaborating as a group to help students freely think and come up with creative problem solving ways to approach music and group dynamics. This type of education can help level the playing field among young students, particularly those with learning difficulties.

The curriculum uses creativity and imagination to increase the development of essential skills, as well as enhance flexibility, adaptability, productivity, responsibility and innovation. Brooklyn Improvised Art School uses world music as a way to teach cultural awareness,  which helps to create a vibrant musical culture in communities around the borough.

PercWorks is a membership-based online learning platform for percussionists and drummers aged 8 to 18. Committed to creating an equitable and accessible future for the percussion community, PercWorks' innovative education methods provide a more affordable, diverse, and well-rounded educational experience than traditional weekly and in-person lessons.

Responding to a need for more robust school music programs, which do not always expose students to the instruction and knowledge needed to prepare for collegiate and professional careers in the industry, PercWorks uses its ever-expanding base of videos to cover all the areas a percussionist should know and more. The offerings cover every area necessary to succeed as a musician; not just in performance, but also in other important skills like self-marketing, networking, instrument maintenance, and mallet making.

PercWorks offers two membership tiers for individuals. The "Rudimental" membership includes access to all videos and any special events like online masterclasses and networking events. The "Pro" memberships include all the same offerings, as well as weekly private online lessons, live with one of PercWorks' highly educated instructors. The community is built upon open arms, and PercWorks instills a sense of camaraderie through live online networking events and masterclasses, where members can learn as a community.

The mission of PercWorks is not solely to educate but to make a more equitable and diverse  music community. PercWorks plans to do its part through personal and institutional membership fee waivers, scholarships for low-income families, and by providing other necessary technological resources. Its educators are also a diverse group, with at least 50% being from minority communities, women, and non-binary persons. 

PercWorks reduces the social and financial barriers that have historically prevented access to the percussionist pipeline, empowering students to advance a supportive, diverse, and equitable percussion community for all. 

Flourish Arts (LLC) is an arts network that provides virtual art workshops and resources to female sexual assault survivors to facilitate healing through artistic expression, discussion, and community. The organization provides female survivors with a virtual safe space to creatively express themselves and meet kindred spirits from around the country. 

Prosceneium is a new streaming media platform that delivers filmed performances from theaters on demand to viewers across the country. It is designed to increase access to performances for audiences and revenue to the theaters that make them possible. The platform will allow theaters to digitally distribute a performance with ease, without having to build an in-house infrastructure.

By building partnerships with theaters to distribute their filmed performances, Prosceneium streams content to theater-lovers across the country, aggregating viewers into larger audiences for theaters and connecting those audiences to performances they might not have access to otherwise. These two markets–theaters and their audiences–are connected through our platform in ways previously unavailable.

The COVID pandemic has hastened changes in the media industry, and encouraged theaters to consider filmed and streamed performances in a way they previously did not. With the explosion of streaming technology and a lack of access to in-person events, people now have the ability to connect to multiples forms of media, wherever and whenever. In a media landscape that is changing, this is both an opportunity and a challenge.

Through a revolutionary model, Prosceneium plans to distribute the bulk of its revenue to theater companies streaming their productions on the platform, lowering the barriers to take part in the platform and contributing meaningfully to the revenue and audiences of theaters. During its start-up phase, Prosceneium will collect only a 3% fee of each virtual ticket sale in order to maintain the platform and ensure that theaters are benefitting from the platform, in addition to the audiences accessing the performances.

Taking advantage of the flourishing of streaming media, Prosceneium embraces distribution as a way of unlocking access and connecting people to the stories and performances that they want, thereby generating larger audiences for theater companies. Using the technology of streaming media, Prosceneium increases access for audiences, equity in representation, and the strength of the theater community in this country.

Haven House International arts and entrepreneurship summer day camp is a fun and affordable summer camp that educates, encourages, and inspires youth through developmentally appropriate activities. Haven House is a community safe space designed to engage and challenge while providing a sanctuary for diverse culture, music, and art representative of our community and world.

Renee Jones, founder and visionary for Haven House international, has a background in education and community outreach. As a wife, mother, and entrepreneur she is driven by a passion for the arts and a desire is to help educate, encourage, and inspire the next generation. 

Haven House is a community-based youth development non-profit organization providing summer day camp, for youth ages 6 – 13 targeting working families in the 10466-zip code of the northeast Bronx. Haven House will be the answer for working families who desire quality summer programming at an affordable price. The 8 week summer camp program will have a small enrollment with a 1:4 staff to camper ratio and professional teaching artists facilitating arts activities. Field trips will range from attending local community businesses to the Westchester Children's Museum of Art. Staff will utilize developmentally appropriate activities and curriculum to unearth entrepreneurship principles such as passion and problem solving, values and collaboration, and skills necessary for youth to flourish amid jampacked days full of new experiences, hands on activity, friends, and fun.

The mission is to educate, encourage, and inspire urban youth while enjoying summer, weekend, and after school programming utilizing the arts and entrepreneurship as a vehicle to cultivate creative thinkers, problem solvers, and self-assured collaborators. The vision is to create a haven for youth that transcends socioeconomic barriers, self-segregation, and limited access to quality summer and after school programing. Have House will be a creative, electric, and safe community space that engages, challenges, and helps youth flourish while meeting the needs of working families and filling the gaps of the traditional educational system.

We live in a city of 8.6 million inhabitants but there is an epidemic of loneliness plaguing this country and city. Studies show that 47% of Americans often feel lonely and women, in particular, tend to report higher levels of loneliness than men do.

Simultaneously, while New York City is brimming with ways to experience the arts and culture, many New Yorkers don't take advantage of these opportunities, feel intimidated or overwhelmed by the art world, or don't go because they can't find anyone with whom to attend.

Women of Culture is a social enterprise that creates art-based experiences, trips, and private group events designed to connect, inspire, and empower women while also showcasing the power and necessity of the arts. The company seeks to inspire critical thinking, cultivate curiosity, and help women develop a deeper connection to the arts, themselves, and the world around them through all that it does.  

The company has a secondary mission of serving artists and arts institutions by promoting their work and bringing them new audiences. Through encouraging art discovery and increased engagement with the arts, it seeks to fight the paradigm of the starving artist and elevate the role of the arts in society as a whole. As the company's visibility grows, the goal is to become a resource for artists and creative institutions of all kinds to reach an audience of artful women all over the country.

These missions are fulfilled through art-based experiences, a membership community, and private group outings. The company's primary target market is anyone 25-65 years old who identifies as female, lives in the New York City area, and has an interest in the arts and cultivating female friendships. The company's clients come from a wide variety of backgrounds, work in a vast array of professional fields, and earn an average of $50,000 or more per year. Their defining characteristic is a desire for deeper social connections, meaning, and purpose in their lives.

Ultimately, the company's vision is to contribute to the creation of a more open, connected and empathic society where the values of both genders are given equal priority and the arts and community are seen as essential parts of both a healthy society and a full life. The company seeks to help women, in particular, live a life that is full of art so that they can learn, grow, and rise up together, celebrating and creating space for female friendships as a means of empowerment.

The Caravan is a developmental theatre initiative of Macabre Americana, an NYC-based folk fusion band founded by Laura Dadap, Lacey Madden, and Blake Pfeil.

The Right Body LLC is a company designed to support the mission of promoting body positivity and encouraging self-care techniques through the digital publication of a quarterly magazine.

The Right Body exists to promote body positivity, encourage self-love, and foster a healthy dialogue on mental health. Its vision is to produce a digital quarterly magazine that will serve as a platform for discussions about body positivity and self-care, facilitated by content in the form of journalistic editorials, fashion spreads, poetry, fiction, visual arts, and more.

In addition to The Right Body's digital magazine, it also boasts a comprehensive digital community of editorial content and art and a database of helpful resources for readers to better align themselves with and learn from the mission.

By its second year of operation, The Right Body will host a series of workshops, panel events, and parties for contributors, fans, and partners in which it will further open a more public and engaging dialogue about how everyone can see their bodies positively.

Though market research indicates that The Right Body may attract a customer base of young women, a main goal is to engage male readers and go beyond the binary, making readers of all gender identities, races, sexualities, abilities, and bodies comfortable and excited to read the content and share their own stories.

As a primarily digital business, The Right Body is in the unique position of having to continuously navigate the endlessly changing landscape of digital and social media. This is both a challenge and an opportunity in which The Right Body must frequently pivot to the demands of its customer base and build upon its digital platform with additional features.

Beyond the monetary goal to turn a profit with this product, Savannah fueled by her mission to serve all individuals with a sense of (positive) self. It is The Right Body's genuine hope and honor that it successfully supports artists, writers, and human beings with the opportunity to share their own experiences with body positivity and self-love.

Aleta Brown's Reframe: Art + Race is a video blog and a consulting firm that invites artists to share stories about their racial experiences in the arts and uses those stories to learn how we can create a more equitable art world. Her goal is not simply to share stories; she is using them to generate social movement that matters.

Reframe is dedicated to creating more equitable arts spaces through storytelling and critical reimagining of current arts organizations structures and frameworks. It provides an online space for people in the arts to share their racial experiences and contribute to the conversation about what is working, what is not working, and how collective action can be taken to make lasting change. Reframe exists to address and respond to current events, and the current needs of artists.

In the short term, Reframe is focusing on building a strong audience and online following. Once that has been established, the focus will shift to maintaining that fan base and launch the main long-term project: Reframe: Art + Race Consulting.

Reframe is:

• A Video Blog where artists tell the stories of how they navigate the racial dynamics of the art world
• A Solidarity Network where artists stand together and reach out for support and offer advice on our website.
• A Call to Action urging artists and art institutions, across disciplines and races, to engage with one another in anti-racism work and work with us in creating more equitable structures and frameworks for art organizations.

In a nutshell, Reframe is a community. It is a vlog, a blog, and a space for creatives to address the racial and social dynamics in spaces they create. Most importantly, it is a place to listen, learn, and take collective action towards creating a more equitable arts world.

2017 Entrepreneurship in the Arts graduate Kerry Villamil knows that anything worth doing is done outdoors.

Done Outdoors is a collection of digital stories that celebrate nature, travel, and outdoor recreation. Through online video, photography, writing, and animation, Done Outdoors captures the spirit of the modern outdoor adventurer. By delivering content focused on individuals and small businesses making an impact, it educates and influences audiences to make smart, safe, fun, and environmentally responsible choices while enjoying the outdoors.

At the forefront of Done Outdoors is a highly engaging and authentic online video series. Written articles and social media help to both promote and financially support video production costs.

Part activist, part explorer, the Done Outdoors persona has the power to influence thousands, if not millions of New York residents and visitors. New York is home to 180 State Parks, 2,000 miles of hiking trails, and over 6 million acres of protected wilderness, making it the ideal location for outdoor inspiration and where most of Done Outdoor's digital stories will take place.

Strategic partnerships with established organizations such as the NYNJ Trail Conference are crucial to its success. Partnerships will further its reach and help Done Outdoors gain the influence it seeks. As Done Outdoors gains independent credibility, potential advertiser dollars and sponsorship revenue become more achievable.

Large and small businesses today recognize that marketing is no longer about the stuff they make, but the stories they tell. Influencers are the new brand, and the brand, the belief, is that anything worth doing is Done Outdoors.