Our partnerships with other Black-led businesses and organizations are something we prioritize. These relationships create capacity, resiliency, growth, and development. Not only for the Black-led businesses/organizations involved but, most importantly, for the Black community. With all of us working together, the Black community can continue to create the resources it needs and deserves through these partnerships.
BUILD proudly announces our newest partnership with the Black, LGBTQ-led collaborative, A Space Inside (Inside). Inside is a space to redefine self-care through art, experiences, classes, and events that nourish your soul and build community. This collaborative space is the brainchild of Sierra Leone Jones, a Seattle native and proud University of WA graduate who sought to create a space to bring economic opportunities and a space for healing back to the Black community. Inside allows for artists, creatives, performers, entrepreneurs, and more to come together for collaboration and opportunities to showcase their talent to a larger community. Inside serves as a safe space for the Black community. Through their events, collaborations, and partnerships, Inside allows our community to discuss their experiences with prejudice, discrimination, and racism with others who have shared experiences. Inside allows our community to feel relief, connection, and support.
Through our BUILD Black Wealth Initiative, Sierra supported our efforts as a workshop facilitator. She helped improve our communities' understanding of the connection between their personal health and their ability to BUILD Black Wealth through our Health is Wealth workshop. A continuous goal for BUILD is to help improve the capacity of Black-led organizations, and we saw a need to bring more of what Inside had to offer to our community. With this partnership, BUILD will support Inside with its events, marketing, business growth, and internal capacity building. In turn, Inside will support BUILD via their space and marketing support, allowing our initiatives and programming to expand into Downtown Seattle and to more audiences within the Black community. Combined, we look forward to creating more exposure, capacity, and increased access for artists, entrepreneurs, performers, and more healing in the Black community.