Capitol Creative Alliance

Reviewed by the Sacramento Region Community Foundation

$6,002 raised by 58 donors

100% complete

$5,000 Goal

Capitol Creative Alliance is a nonprofit arts organization with the mission to champion and inspire the creative community to build a thriving Sacramento region. We bring creatives together for education, inspiration, and connections. We believe a healthy creative community has the power to elevate our region’s quality of life and economic prosperity.

We serve students enrolled in art programs at our local colleges and universities, emerging creative professionals, and creative professionals working in the digital media and entertainment industry, including creatives working in graphic design, web design, UX/UX design, marketing, videography/photography, copywriting, and more.

Our programs are rooted in community engagement, education and improving our creative workforce. Creativity Speaks is our speaker series with guest speakers from various creative fields. Our goal is to encourage non-traditional creatives to have an open and honest dialogue and encourage traditional creatives to be exposed to a different perspective. Our next series begins in August!

Through our Creative Workforce programs, we create awareness of, and access to, careers in our regional creative workforce. Ascenders Academy is a six-month mentorship cohort that provides emerging designers with tools, skills, and community relationships that will take them to the next level of their careers. Our current cohort graduates in June!

Our Education programs offer opportunities for creatives at all levels to develop new skills and advance their careers through hybrid learning models, studio tours, workshops, lectures and more. We also partner with local colleges and universities to share our programs, services and opportunities.

Design Week Sacramento is a weeklong celebration of our local creative community. Throughout the week, we host Lectures, Panels, Workshops, Networking Events, Studio Tours, and more! All events are hosted by our local design community with the mission to improve the awareness of, and access to, the diverse careers that make up our creative economy. Happening in October 2023!

While our programs are geared toward creative professionals, we serve as the nexus between our local colleges and universities, creatives, and the nonprofit organizations, businesses, and civic agencies that are part of the fabric of our region.

So far this year:

  • We served over 250 people through Creativity Speaks.
  • For the first time ever, we were able to offer stipends to our speakers.
  • We continued building a strong relationship with our videographer, Eddie Rodriguez, from Mero Pictures, and were able to pay him for his hard work.
  • Thanks to our grant from the California Arts Council, all events in our first Creativity Speaks series were recorded and will soon be available in our Learning Library.
  • We deepened our partnerships with The Urban Hive, Bike Dog Brewing, KWB Creative, AAF Sacramento, Sacramento State, and Californians for the Arts.
  • We featured outstanding local creatives: Ryan Royster, Ernesto Delgado, Isela and Brandon Ortiz from Sac Dance Lab, Andru Defeye, and Aliyah Sidqe.
  • Through Ascenders Academy, we paired 17 emerging designers with design leaders in our current cohort, and added six virtual workshops. We also hosted a Halfway Mixer and look forward to hosting our Graduation Showcase in June!
  • We participated in the Partnership Fair for the Sacramento State College of Arts and Letters and shared our opportunities with students enrolled in the program.
  • We attended the Arts & Culture Summit with Californians for the Arts and Create CA, rallied at the Capitol, and met with our local legislators to advocate for the creative workforce.

Investing in our organization supports the creative workforce!

Mission

Our mission is to champion and inspire the creative community to build a thriving Sacramento Region.

Needs

We need to improve our organizational capacity so that our systems and processes are built in a way that we can all thrive in our organization, and that our organization can continue to thrive.

We also need sustainable funding that will allow us to appropriately pay our staff, pay our speakers and event hosts, and to pay the creatives that we work with.

Equity Statement

Our aim at Capitol Creative Alliance is to champion and inspire the creative community to build a thriving Sacramento Region. We create awareness of, and accessibility to, design paths and the regional workforce. We empower designers from different communities, identities, and experiences to create a stronger and more creative environment and build a network of mutuality. We believe that everyone is an expert based on their lived experiences, and we all have unique and illuminating contributions to bring to the creative process and our larger community. We implement free or sliding scale programming to include inclusive opportunities for underrepresented youth and emerging BIPOC and LGBTQ+ designers.

Our effectiveness depends on diverse partnerships, achieving just and equitable relationships that cultivate mutually respectful engagement. Internally, our organization takes the relational approach to our various initiatives: job placement, education and workforce programs, community outreach and networking. Promoting diversity both within and beyond CCA, in our leadership and in the members and partners we work with, is critical to upholding our values and achieving our goals toward a dynamic and equitable future.

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Organization Data

Summary

Organization name

Capitol Creative Alliance

other names

Design Sacramento

Year Established

2018

Tax id (EIN)

83-3173941

Mission Category

Arts, Culture & Humanities

Operating Budget

$50,001 - $100,000

Organization Need

Funding: Program, In-Kind Donations, Space: Office or Other, Technology, Board Members

BIPOC Leadership

Executive Director/CEO

Local Counties Served

Placer, Sacramento, Yolo

Equity Statement

Equity Statement

Address

2220 K Street
Sacramento, CA 95816

Service areas

Sacramento, CA, US

Placer, CA, US

Yolo, CA, US

Phone

916-234-3004

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