THRIVE BROOKLYN RESOURCE GUIDE
Thrive Brooklyn is a multi-media digital Resource Guide for financial wellness that BAC is producing with an aggregate of community partners who are serious about asset building and equity.
Thrive Brooklyn will be added to on a continual basis - come back for more and let us know what else you'd like to see here. Content categories include:
Personal Financial Literacy: Budgeting, Taxes, Savings, Retirement, & Asset Building
Business Development
Digital Literacy
New Economies: Financial Strategies for Equity, Thriving, & Abundance
Income & Fundraising: Crowdfunding, Grantwriting, Sponsorships, & Monetizing Your Practice
Legal Basics: Contracts, Copyright, & Intellectual Property
Louise Carron is an Associate at Klaris Law PLLC who is passionate about advising content creators, start-ups, and nonprofits across creative industries. Primarily focused on contractual matters, copyright use, and new technologies, Louise is intent on helping authors to protect their creations, rights, and legacies.
Prior to joining Klaris, Louise spent three years as the Executive Director of the Center for Art Law, where she ran daily operations, taught workshops on legal basics for artists, and mentored interns. She also worked on various transactional and litigation matters with J. Greenberger PLLC.
Louise is a regular contributor to the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law (EASL) Journal published by the New York State Bar Association and she enjoys writing about street art, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and copyright issues. She appeared on panels and podcasts, co-chairs the EASL Pro-Bono Steering Committee, and is a member of the Art Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association. She also serves as secretary of the Center for Art Law’s board of directors.
Iquo B. Essien
income & Fundraising
Fundraising Insider: From Zero to Money Hero!
What you need to know to run a successful fundraising campaign
In my brand new masterclass, change your money mindset and learn exactly what you need to know to run a successful fundraiser. You'll learn what a fundraising strategy is, the five phases of a fundraising campaign, and how your money mindset can affect your success. Together, we'll transform ourselves from zeros to money heroes.
With a B.S. from Stanford University, Nigerian-American filmmaker Iquo B. Essien began her career at a communications firm representing global health clients such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Driven to combine her passion for social change and the arts, she received her MFA in Film from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she was nominated for the 2013 Student Academy Awards, 2015 Africa Movie Academy Awards, and won the Spike Lee Production Fund grant for her short Aissa’s Story. Her films have screened in 14 countries worldwide, including at the Panafrican Film & Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), the Durban International Film Festival, New York African Film Festival, and Zanzibar International Film Festival.
Ms. Essien recently launched a fundraising campaign that raised $35k to turn her family’s historical land in Calabar, Nigeria into the Elizabeth's Daughter Memoir Gallery & Artist Residency. She plans to transform the former home of her late grandmother into an artist residency and gallery exhibiting a content archive of audio recordings, photos, video, archival documents, journals, and writing she’s amassed over 10+ years of memoir research. When she’s not making art, she teaches people how to tell their story, market their work, and raise money through her online course and consultancy, Crowdfund Your Dream.
Austin Greene is an artist, arts administrator, graphic designer, educator, activist, and organizer. For many years, he served as the Lead Teaching Artist for the DreamYard A.C.T.I.O.N. project, a four year, social justice and creative arts program for Bronx High School students. Austin was instrumental in developing robust art and social justice curricular content for both the students and teaching artists. He also served as the inaugural Social Justice Pedagogy Coach at DreamYard, where he developed curriculum to help teaching artists and administrative staff strengthen their social justice pedagogy through the arts. He now serves as the Director of the DreamYard Arts Center. Austin has helped build both internal and outward facing social justice and arts curriculum for many local and national organizations. He is a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and a firm believer of art is a tool for justice.
Ebony Gustave is an organizer, community architect, and storyteller. They are the host of Cooperative Journal Podcast, an archive of interviews highlighting international examples of how people are collectivizing to meet their needs beyond capitalism. As a co-steward of its multimedia umbrella, they are bridging the gaps between political education, imagination, co-creation, and actualization. She is also an organizer at Art.coop and Creative Wildfire where she weaves solidarity economics, cooperative learning, and artist organizing.
Erika Pettersen (she/her) roots her work as an independent researcher, strategist, and resource builder in a commitment to challenging marginalizing discourses and systems. With over a decade of experience in the nonprofit sector, the majority of her roles as a fundraiser and capacity builder have been situated at the intersection of arts, culture, and community. She has prioritized supporting Black-led, community-rooted organizations in Brooklyn, NY, such as the Youth Design Center, Haiti Cultural Exchange, and Brooklyn Queens Land Trust. Her work is guided by a wide range of educational experiences alongside her lived experiences as a woman of mixed white and Latina heritage from Queens, NY. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Amherst College, an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University, and a certificate in Arts & Culture Strategy from the University of Pennsylvania. She has also completed post baccalaureate coursework in Studio Art & Art History at Brooklyn College. Building on her work history and academic credentials, she published the report “Narrative Change for Racial Equity in Nonprofit Funding: An Exploratory Report on Community-Centric Fundraising in the Arts and Culture Sector” during her time as Senior Research Scientist at Arts Business Collaborative. Erika also engages in a variety of creative practices, including fiction and poetry writing, photography, collaging, and curating.
Atreya Mathur is the Director of Legal Research at the Center for Art Law. She received her Master of Laws from New York University School of Law where she specialized in Competition, Innovation, and Information Laws, with a focus on copyright, intellectual property, and art law. She is an attorney from India and also co-founded m e r a k i consultancy, a consultancy service focused on legal academia and higher education in law.
At the Center she conducts legal research on an array of art and law related topics including copyright law, artificial intelligence and art, contracts, artists rights, estates and legal issues in contemporary and digital art. She publishes articles; conducts and teaches art and law workshops; addresses legal inquiries, contract reviews and conducts interviews with artists on general legal concerns. She has had her papers on copyright, art, international trade, and corporate governance published in several international journals and blogs including the European Journal of Sustainable Development, the Lawyers’Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, Center for Art Law and the New York University Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law Journal, and in the New York State Bar Entertainment, Arts & Sports Law Journal. She has also presented her papers and research at the Central European University in Budapest and at the InternationalConference on Sustainable Development in Rome.
She has instructed several workshops on intellectual property, copyright and contracts for attorneys and artists at various universities, non-profits, art organizations and institutes
Chie Morita (森田千恵)
Personal Financial Literacy
Finance as Narrative: Budgeting Your Values, Seeding Your Revolution
Chie Morita ( 森田千恵 | she/her) is a consultant, creative producer, and consummate tinkerer dedicated to retraining our inherited habits and engineering empowering new systems in the arts. She is a Co-Founder + Partner of FORGE, a boutique consultancy devoted to helping artists and organizations take the next step in their own work. By leveraging the potential of proactive planning, holistic mentorship, and collaborative asking, Chie seeks to free Makers from historical hindrances, socialized stereotypes, and negative self-stories.
From 2017-2019, Chie served as the Deputy Director at Town Stages, a Cultural Arts and Event space in Tribeca, where she created, curated, and managed the Sokoloff Arts Fellowship Program, which offered space, mentorship, and resources to makers of all kinds. While at Town, she had the pleasure of working with artists such as Third Rail Projects, The Macallan, Art Beyond The Glass, Patreon, Milajam, Spotify, Fault Line Theatre Company, and many others.
In New York, she has worked with Tony-Award-winning Broadway Producer Joey Parnes (on A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, End of the Rainbow), institutions including The Public Theater, The Musical Theater Factory, Ars Nova, Statera Arts Mentorship: NYC, and New York Neo-Futurists (who, under her care, were awarded three Drama Desk nominations), and such independent artists and ensembles as Heather Christian and the Arbornauts, Esperance Theater Company, Extant Arts Company, UglyRhino, Panicked Productions, Fresh Ground Pepper, and art.party.theater.company.
Chie is a collaborator with the Wonderland Historical Society in New Orleans, a Trailblazer with Empowered Artist Collective, and a co-producer on an Untitled Kopp/Reece Superhero Musical/Comic Book/Video Game in development.
Esther Robinson has worked on behalf of America's artists for over 20 years as a: foundation program officer, television and film producer/director, technology entrepreneur and arts activist. From 1999-2006, she was Director of Film/Video/Performing Arts at the Creative Capital Foundation and one of the principal architects of their innovative grant-making system. Since 2006, her non-profit ArtHome has provided financial-training and asset-building programming to artists and organizations nationally, funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, Leveraging Investments in Creativity/Ford Foundation, ArtPlace, and the NEA. Since 2015 she has been Co-Executive Director of NYC nonprofit ArtBuilt, where ArtHome's asset building programs continue alongside space-based initiatives including a 56,000 sq. ft. affordable arts and arts-business studio complex in South Brooklyn and an innovative mobile studio residency program in NYC parks/public plazas. Robinson is also an award-winning filmmaker/producer. Her critically acclaimed directorial debut A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and The Warhol Factory took top prizes at The Berlin, Tribeca and Chicago film festivals. It is currently scheduled to be re-released theatrically in 2019. As a producer and executive producer her recent titles include (among others): The Velvet Underground by Todd Haynes, the Academy Award Nominated film Strong Island by Yance Ford, and Memories of a Penitent Heart by Cecilia Aldarondo which premiered in the 2017 season of the PBS series. Additionally, She is an active board member of Women Make Movies, a recipient of Fractured Atlas’ 2014 Arts Entrepreneurship Award and a mom to Otis age 9!
Selomé Samuel is a certified trauma-informed financial and life coach who wants to help people realize that anyone can be good with money. She believes that work around money is radical and has the power to ripple out for generations. It’s her mission to restore financial power to those who have historically been. stripped of it.
Her path to this work was far from linear. She received a BA in Visual Arts and spent 8 years doing music curation for global brands. After grappling with a large student loan balance for years in addition to back taxes from freelancing, she was force to figure out her money. Through doing deep work around money, she realized how much money stress had hijacked her creative energy and how money often determined who could afford to be creative.
She founded Net Positive Coaching in 2020 to change how creative folks relate to money. She works with clients to heal their emotional relationship to money and live relaxed, confident and abundant lives that are in line with their values. She helps people realize they were never “bad with money”, they were simply unaware of the role their bodies and nervous systems played in their historical challenges with money and that every money “mistake” is fixable.
Bailie Slevin is the founder of Financial Wellness Companion and Entertaining Finance. With 15 years of experience in the personal financial planning industry, Bailie developed a niche in the arts and freelance communities, specializing in working with people with an uneven income. She is also an Artistic Pitch coach, having worked with over a hundred writers, producers, and non-profit staff on how to secure funding and strategic growth relationships. Bailie has also spent significant time in the theatre industry as a stage manager, general manager, and producer. She is also a proud New York State Mental Health Peer Specialist and Life Coach. She lives in New York City with her rescue pup, Lorelai.
Jordan Shue is an Assistant Professor of Practice and the Program Chair of the Entrepreneurship in the Arts MA at Purchase College. Jordan believes that artists and creatives are integral contributors to our economy, communities, and lives. She knows that, without creative entrepreneurs, our world would be missing the original thinkers that help us innovate and grow.
Jordan previously worked with Americans for the Arts to foster a collaborative ecosystem between the arts and business sectors that harnesses their collective power as agents of change, transforming the communities and cultures in which we live, work, and play. Taking on the role of Program Director of Purchase College’s Entrepreneurship in the Arts MA was a natural progression of those professional and personal goals.
Michael Tonge is a talented cultural strategist, curator and entrepreneur. Driven by the power of arts and culture to both bring people together and drive business results, he takes pride in crafting memorable partnerships and experiences.
As the creator of The Culture LP, Michael sets the vision and ensures the platform is empowering Black and brown artists, while delivering success for their clients. Formerly, the senior marketing manager at the Brooklyn Museum, he ushers organizations into new ways of thinking about their brand and audiences alike.
In addition to his expertise in media buying, strategic partnerships, and brand strategy, Michael has been recognized for his commitment to mindfulness and creating healing environments for Black people.
For over 100 years, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce has spoken to the needs of the Brooklyn business community. Founded on February 6, 1918, the Brooklyn Chamber was, even then, a “modern” organization that saw itself as a protector and promoter of the commercial and industrial interests of the city.
The Brooklyn Chamber has developed and nurtured an active civic spirit and sought to safeguard and improve living conditions and social welfare for local businesses and residents. The organization has a vibrant history that encapsulates the diverse, innovative and ever-evolving Brooklyn business community.
As Brooklyn continues to evolve, the Brooklyn Chamber consistently works to offer top-quality services and new opportunities for its members. It advances the borough through outstanding promotion, support and advocacy as Brooklyn’s leading economic development organization.
Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Personal Financial Literacy
The Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union (Brooklyn Coop) is a community credit Union that has served Central Brooklyn since its founding in 2001. Brooklyn Coop is also a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), an institution that serves and empowers economically distressed communities.
Brooklyn Coop operates two full-service branches in Bushwick and Bedford Stuyvesant in Central Brooklyn, home to almost 300,000 people, more than 95 percent of whom are minorities. Like residents in so many low-income neighborhoods across the country, our members have few options when it comes to accessible and affordable savings accounts, checking accounts, personal or mortgage loans, or working capital to start and expand their small businesses.
In response to these needs, the credit union has evolved a sophisticated range of products and services, operates six days a week, and has emerged as a model community development credit union nationwide.