we create ourselves. we create our belonging. we create our freedom.
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Luminescence Lab:
A BIPOC Small Business Start-Up Incubator
Luminescence Lab is an eight-month start-up support program where BIPOC creators and collective business owners identify, hone, and wield their creativity, skills, and passions (light) to braid new futures with and for their communities.
Rooted in URE's understanding of autoluminescent being—the capacity to generate, recognize, and direct our own light—Luminescence Lab supports BIPOC entrepreneurs, creatives, and collective business owners in transforming their skills, ideas, creativity, and community relationships into sustainable ventures.
The program is designed around a simple premise: we already carry many of the resources required to create new worlds. What we often need is the space, strategy, relationships, and infrastructure to bring those resources together.
The Lab exists to help participants move from possibility to practice—from “I have an idea” to “I have what I need to begin a new chapter.”
The program addresses a gap in traditional entrepreneurship support, which often separates business development from culture, community, and lived experience. Luminescence Lab instead approaches start-up development through a critical and community-centered lens, helping BIPOC creators identify what they uniquely bring to local economies, build sustainable economic models, and develop ventures that can contribute to the communities from which they emerge.
The program is designed for BIPOC small-business creators and collective business owners, including artists and cultural workers, creative entrepreneurs, emerging founders, freelancers formalizing their practices, community-based ventures, and people developing new products, services, or socially conscious businesses.
Program Overview
Over eight months, participants will move through a facilitated start-up development process covering vision and mission development, strategic planning, business and revenue modeling, communications and messaging, visual identity direction, audience development, outreach, fundraising and partnerships, and operational infrastructure.
Participants will develop the foundational materials, strategies, systems, and relationships needed to begin operating their venture while learning alongside a cohort of peers whose work may complement, intersect with, or strengthen their own.
Luminescence Lab is not designed to teach participants how to compete for limited resources, but to help them recognize and connect to untapped potential resources already present within their communities. Participants will be encouraged to share knowledge, make introductions, identify collaborative opportunities, and build relationships that extend beyond the program.
By the conclusion of the program, each participant will leave with a defined vision and mission, strategic plan, business and revenue model, communications framework, audience profile, outreach strategy, fundraising and partnership strategy, brand identity, website, year-long operational roadmap, and an understanding of what they need to begin.
The goal of Luminescence Lab is to help people become equipped to wield what they already carry—and turn that capacity into something tangible, sustainable, and useful to their communities.
Partnership & Sponsorship Model
URE is seeking at least four organizational partners to sponsor one full iteration of Luminescence Lab at a total investment of $128,000.
This investment supports both the infrastructure required to deliver an eight-month program and direct financial resources for participating BIPOC creators.
Sponsorship Investment
$128,000 per program iteration
$80,000 — URE Programming Costs
Supports the design, coordination, facilitation, staffing, curriculum, technical assistance, participant support, evaluation, documentation, and administrative infrastructure required to deliver the eight-month program.
$48,000 — Participant Grants
Provides six participants with $8,000 each in direct grants to support the development and launch of their businesses.
This structure ensures that participants receive not only comprehensive start-up support, but also flexible capital they can use to begin putting their plans into practice.
A sponsorship provides:
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6 BIPOC small-business creators with eight months of comprehensive start-up development
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$8,000 in direct funding for each participant
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A fully facilitated curriculum and development process
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Strategic, business, communications, and operational support
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Cohort-based peer learning and resource sharing
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Access to URE's network and custom BIPOC-centered approach (E.N.O.U.G.H. Method)
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Evaluation and documentation of program outcomes
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A pathway for participants to continue developing their ventures beyond the cohort
For sponsoring organizations, this is a direct investment in BIPOC economic development, creative entrepreneurship, community wealth-building, and the capacity of emerging businesses to contribute to the communities around them.
Sponsor one iteration. Resource six creators. Invest in the people already carrying the possibilities of what comes next.
Total Program Investment: $128,000
URE Programming & Delivery: $80,000
Participant Grants: $48,000 ($8,000 × 6 participants)
Program Length: 8 months
Cohort Size: 6 participants
Centered Power Incubator:
A Strategic Partnership Program
The Centered Power Incubator is a six-month organizational capacity-building program designed to cultivate intentional partnerships between social justice and advocacy organizations and arts and culture organizations.
Rooted in the belief that lasting social transformation requires intentional and enduring connections between arts and culture institutions and social justice institutions, the incubator equips organizations to co-design collaborative programs that advance our collective liberation ( a world where all people have equitable access to the resources, care, and connection needed to shape ourselves and our world) while strengthening organizational sustainability.
The incubator exists to address a growing gap between the arts and movement sectors. As organizations in both sectors navigate increasing censorship, shifting funding priorities, and limited organizational capacity, many seek meaningful partnerships but lack the structural support, resources, and processes to build them successfully.
This program serves emerging and unincorporated projects, established nonprofits, grassroots organizations, and cultural institutions interested in developing values-aligned collaborations that leverage the unique expertise of each nonprofit sub-sector and create sustainable revenue streams not reliant on grant funding.
Program Overview
Over six months, participating organizations will work together through facilitated learning, a discovery process, relationship-building, guided program development, and technical assistance to develop a shared vision, establish partnership agreements, and design a collaborative program from concept to implementation.
To move these collaborations from planning to action, each organizational partnership will receive a shared experimentation grant and a shared implementation grant upon successful completion of the incubator.
This investment will provide the resources needed to launch the first iteration of their collaborative initiative and build a foundation for long-term partnership.
By the conclusion of the program, each partnership will leave with a fully developed program model, a signed memorandum of understanding (MOU), implementation work plans, evaluation metrics, dedicated launch funding, and a roadmap for sustaining their collaboration beyond the incubator.
Bring the Centered Power Incubator to Your Community
We are currently seeking capacity-building organizations, arts resource organizations, foundations, and cultural institutions interested in sponsoring and hosting the Centered Power Incubator within their community.
URE is open to varying partnership budgets and program structures and can tailor the incubator to the needs, organizational landscape, and cultural context of your locale.
Interested in Bringing the Incubator to Your Community?
Schedule a consultation with URE to explore what the Centered Power Incubator could look like within your organization and community.
You don't need to have the entire partnership figured out before reaching out. We can work together to identify the structure, resources, and scale that make the most sense for your organization.
Let's talk about what we can build together.