ENGAGEMENT REPORT
2023 & 2024
SANKOFA
"It is not taboo to go back for what you left behind."
The following report highlights CCCADI’s programs, impact, community, growth, and advocacy efforts accomplished in the past two years.
The thread that weaves our years together, not just the last two, is the spirit of Sankofa. Through the various sections, you will see how we continue to draw on our ancestral and traditional knowledge to understand our present and inform how we, as an organization and community, move forward and prepare to mark 50 years in 2026.
This very report is an act of Sankofa.
Executive Summary:
We invite you to explore our leadership and growth, including highlights from our programs and community engagement efforts, as well as insights into how we have guided our youth into artivism, worked within coalitions to advocate for equity, and managed the financial resilience of our organization.
Table of Contents:
Geographic & Demographic Expansion
Coalition-Building for Equitable Funding
Financial Snapshot and Funders
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SANKOFA:
GUIDING OUR MISSION & LEADERSHIP FORWARD
Since its founding by Dr. Marta Moreno Vega in 1976, the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute’s programs have served children and youth, families, young professionals, elders, local and international artists, and practitioners of African-based spiritual traditions.
Led by Executive Director Melody Capote since 2018, CCCADI continues to offer a collective space where African descendants honor the contributions of the global African Diaspora through exhibitions, performances, conferences, educational programs, and international exchanges.
As an arts, culture, education and media organization, our mission is to advance cultural equity, racial and social justice for African descendant communities.
Executive Director Address by Melody Capote
Community,
It is with great pride that I share with you highlights from 2023 and 2024, two fulfilling programmatic years that strengthened our commitment to the Sankofa principles of looking back and remembering, in order to move forward.
Sankofa is the thread that has historically run through everything we do, from our youth leadership programs For the Culture and the Sankofa Young Women’s Leadership Program, to our annual AFRIBEMBÉ summer festival, to the recently launched Entrepreneurial Assistance Center for Artists of Color (EACAC), designed to support artists and cultural bearers by providing resources and encouraging them to flourish within their craft by creating opportunities to showcase their work and talents, and, if they so wish, establish themselves as a small business. Our CROSSROADS program based in Puerto Rico, continues to serve as a vibrant and empowering beacon that provides professional, technical and artistic support to artists throughout the Caribbean Basin and within our network of creatives, while promoting and providing culturally grounded health, wellness and spiritual activities that have been passed down to us for generations, as signs of resistance.
Yes, we remember these practices and it is what keeps the concept of Sankofa woven throughout all that we do and have done.
In 2023, our program series Rhythm, Bass, and Place celebrated the migration and creative evolution of Black music through an Afrocentric lens. In 2024, Lakay Se Lakay brought us back to honoring the first Black independent nation in the world and a bastion for Black Liberation: Ayiti. The act of remembrance continues to power our heartbeat: Bamboula.
We are living in a fast-paced, capitalistic society that views life through a linear lens, focused on progress and forward motion towards an imaginary finish line. In this report, you will see how we at CCCADI disrupted that idea by remembering that our lives, communities and shared culture are truly circular in nature.
CCCADI has played a significant role during this time, being a pillar of support and service to the cultural and artistic communities. As such, we expanded our collaborations and partnerships to generate a larger impact on the general public that we serve through our presentations. We continue to learn and reaffirm that in the spirit of true collaboration, when each partner understands its unique mission and purpose, together new strategies can be imagined, and present-day times are calling for just that - new thinking, collaborative organizing, safety, and a reimagining of our future.
Our programs and initiatives work to envision and present a future for our people. In those efforts, consistent with our nearly
50-year legacy, we remembered our past, we found ways to learn from it, and we honored our people of the past as beings who continue to walk with us into the future. The future that we envision is one where African descendants everywhere are recognized for our historic, and ongoing, contribution to world civilization. In preparation for this milestone anniversary in 2026, we have begun to dig deep into our archives that have been dedicated to not only preserving what we, as an organization, have accomplished throughout the years, but reaffirming the impact we have had on our communities in safeguarding and documenting our shared stories and narratives.
There are so many moments to highlight from these two incredible program years that no singular report can capture, but we will certainly do our best to give you a glimpse here.
As we inch closer to our 50th anniversary as an organization, I invite you, in the spirit of Sankofa, to take a moment to look back at the work that the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute was able to accomplish over the past two years with the love, support and presence of our community members, artists, funders and donors.
Dear Members of the CCCADI Family,
It is an immense honor to be the newly appointed Chair of the Board of Directors of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute. I am grateful for my predecessor Luther Smith and for the work he contributed to this organization. As we prepare for our milestone 50th anniversary in 2026 and beyond, I am motivated to help shape CCCADI's vision. Together, we can inspire a future that overcomes the onslaught of injustice we are currently living through.
I am pleased to report that CCCADI continues to be a major change agent in infusing racial and social justice principles into the arts and culture ecosystem. Our achievements this year reflect our commitment to becoming "artist-centered" and advancing the cause of our artists and young people. I am particularly proud of some of our initiatives you’ll read about in this report, such as CROSSROADS, BYENVENI and Sou Sou! Saturdays.
As we look ahead, know that we remain committed to building a lasting legacy that makes CCCADI a home for Black and Brown children for generations to come, leading through culture to confront the efforts trying to suppress our proud and beautiful history and achievements, influencing workforce development for artists and cultural workers, and expanding our reach and impact across the African Diaspora. Our work today is laying the foundation for generations to come, ensuring that CCCADI remains a vibrant center for African Diaspora culture and advocacy. To everyone who has supported, participated in, or engaged with our programs, I extend my heartfelt gratitude. Your involvement is crucial to our mission.
We are at a pivotal moment, ready to confront challenges, celebrate our culture, and inspire future generations. Together, we will continue to be a powerful force for change, preserving our traditions while building a brighter, more inclusive future.
With determination and optimism,
Danny Jiminian
Chair, Board of Directors
Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute
At the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, leadership is both a responsibility and a reflection of our commitment to the community — grounded in the lessons of our ancestors and propelled by the promise of our future. In the past couple of years, we welcomed new board members to help us fulfill our mission, and are immensely grateful for the years of impact that our longest-serving members have given us.
A special thank you to longtime Board Chair Luther Smith, who has completed his service as a board member, and to Danny Jiminian, who has stepped up to serve as Chair.
Luther guided CCCADI through 10 great years of both challenges and opportunities. The organization is stronger because of his efforts and we are proud to have him as a lifelong member of our community.
Thank you to the entire CCCADI Board of Directors for their dedication to the organization and our community:
Luther Smith
(2015-2025)
Lumumba Bandele
(2014 - ongoing)
Marie Brown
(2001- ongoing)
Sapna Lal
(2011- ongoing)
Danny Jiminian
(2023 - ongoing)
Nikoa Evans
(2023-2025)
SANKOFA:
GUIDING OUR GROWTH
Growth is not just about expansion—it is about deepening our roots, strengthening our connections, and ensuring that our work continues to honor the past while building for the future.
Geographic & Demographic Expansion
In alignment with our strategic goals, CCCADI has spent the past couple of years expanding our impact both geographically and demographically, activating our presence in the Caribbean through CROSSROADS, engaging community in our secondary cultural space in East Harlem, growing our audience engagement across digital platforms, and strengthening our financial health.
CCCADI Deepens Its Work in the Caribbean Through CROSSROADS
June 2024, we launched the public phase of CROSSROADS, our program based out of Puerto Rico dedicated to supporting the urgent needs of artists and cultural workers in the Caribbean.
CROSSROADS has already begun to create links of community and engagement across the basin.
9 Culture Bearers representing Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and the US Virgin Islands gathered to discuss pressing topics important to Caribbean-based artists as part of La Fiambrera, the CROSSROADS virtual lunchtime talk series.
20 artists took part in the UHURU Virtual Healing Space, a pilot program designed to provide a nurturing and supportive environment for Caribbean artists and cultural advocates to not only improve their artistic practice, but to also tend to the well-being of their bodies, minds and spirit.
7 Caribbean island nations represented: St. Croix, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and the Haitian Diaspora.
700 youth engaged through the CROSSROADS led collaboration between Jet Blue For Good and Somos Inc. for a giveaway of school materials
1 Critical International Collaboration Established between two artist groups in Dominican Republic and Colombia that resulted in Dominican Republic’s participation in the ‘Mercado Cultural del Caribe’.
CCCADI’s 2nd East Harlem Space Activates
Since acquiring an additional 5,000 square feet in East Harlem to supplement our landmark Firehouse, we have spent months working to physically and conceptually develop the space as an artist incubator and cultural hub for our community amidst rapid gentrification. After leading multiple brain trusts with CCCADI alumni to ensure artists are at the forefront of how we utilize our new grounds, we activated it in July 2024, hosting the 3rd annual For The Culture Summer Youth Program, which you will learn more about further in this report.
Audience Growth
In 2022-2023, we moved away from our pandemic-era pivot of digital-first programming to focus on in-person experiences, yet our global digital community remains engaged and continues to grow.
SANKOFA:
GUIDING OUR PROGRAMMING & OUR YOUTH
At CCCADI, programming is more than events — it’s a cultural call-and-response between past, present, and future. Throughout 2023 and 2024, we organized much of our programming into two series that connected our current reality to the history of how traditions that were carried across oceans continue to shape new expressions of identity and belonging.
Programmatic Series
Programmatic Series:
Rhythm, Bass and Place and Lakay se Lakay celebrated cultural memory through global beats and stories rooted in home and homeland. These programs, alongside our signature CCCADI offerings, uplifted the voices of artists, storytellers, and culture bearers, reminding us that looking back is essential to moving forward.
Rhythm, Bass and Place: Explored the cultural migrations of sound across the African Diaspora, tracing how ancestral rhythms evolved into contemporary genres.
14 Total Programs (Virtual and In-Person)
75k+ of Global Views of RBP Virtual Programs and Digital Content Across Youtube, Facebook and Instagram, to date.
CCCADI’s first exhibition post the pandemic shutdown, celebrated Hip Hop's 50th anniversary, from its creation in the 1970s in the Bronx to a critical point in its evolution in the 1990s-2000s, through the photographs of Joe Conzo Jr. and Malik Yusef Cumbo.
500+ In-person event attendance and gallery visits.
Lakay se Lakay:
Lakay se Lakay traced the Diasporic practice of recreating home wherever we are as African descendants, honoring the first Diasporic freedom home and first Black independent nation in the world: Haiti. It was a timely celebration, as 2024 marked both Haiti’s 220th anniversary and the close of the International Decade for African Descendants.
15 Total Programs (Virtual and In-Person)
115k+ global views of Lakay se Lakay virtual programs and digital content across Youtube, Facebook and Instagram, to date.
85+ artists and collectives featured throughout the series.
700+ In-person event attendees and gallery visitors.
BYENVENI, a multimedia exhibition of contemporary Haitian Diasporic art, welcomed folks to explore the captivating journey of eleven artists and to celebrate the enduring legacy of Haiti, a beacon of strength and deep culture.
Her Royal Majesty Queen Mother of the African Diaspora, Dr. Dòwòti Désir served as the inaugural CCCADI Scholar-in-Residence.
AFRIBEMBE
CCCADI’s 5th and 6th annual AFRIBEMBÉ FESTIVAL harnessed the power of its themes, Black to the Future, to elevate AfroFuturism from a global Diasporic lens with Africa at the center, and Rhythms of Home, to elevate the African Diaspora's legacy of preserving our traditions across time and place. For our Rhythms of Home edition in 2024, we partnered with another Harlem institution celebrating its 5th decade of existence: Harlem Week. We powered the stage with musical performances that paid tribute to our ancestral home of Africa, our freedom home of Haiti and our current home of Harlem.
Sacred Traditions
The spiritual traditions of our ancestors provide guidance and wisdom in everything we do and are embedded in every aspect of our organizational culture. Over the past two years, we have remained true to our core by presenting our ongoing Sacred Traditions series, dedicated to the education and preservation of African-based spirituality, viewed globally.
32,490 views across our Letra del Año panel discussions and Changó musical tributes in Cuban and Trinidadian traditions.
YOUTH PATHWAYS
YOUTH PATHWAYS
More than 75 youth were served through the inaugural Sankofa Young Women’s Leadership Program and the For The Culture Summer Program.
Sankofa Young Women’s Leadership Program
In the 2022-2023 academic year, CCCADI launched the inaugural Sankofa Young Women’s Leadership Program, an in-person after-school arts and culture workshop series that supports young Black and Brown women of New York City, ages 14-18.
The launch of this new arts education series, a function of CCCADI’s Youth Pathways program, included a winter and spring cohort. The program received major support in the form of more than $200K in grant awards from The Pinkerton Foundation, GrantMakers for Girls of Color, and Warner Music Group/Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund.
The first cohort welcomed the legendary Roxanne Shante as their keynote speaker:
“Starting off with the program made me think I was only coming for one thing but I left finding out more about the people surrounding me and allowing a stranger to be vulnerable made me intrigued in the safe space it has provided for the seven-week term. I would do it all over again if I could. Enjoy it while you have it.”
- Citlaly Gonzalez Hernandez, Cohort II, 16, 11th Grade, St.Jean Baptiste High School
For The Culture
The For The Culture Summer Youth Program anchors youth in our Harlem Ancestral Renaissance Project (HARP) curriculum, teaching New York City teens the blueprint that already exists to preserve the impact of the African Diaspora. HARP highlights the Harlem Renaissance as the celebratory act of resistance that lifted the intellectual, artistic, and cultural contributions of African Descendants of that time.
Led by teaching artists Jordan Martins and Tamara Thomas, the program was designed to focus on themes of self-empowerment through the lens of Renaissance pioneers and to support youth in navigating and contributing to conversations about race, racism, and anti-Black violence.
1 Student-Led Tribute to Hiram Maristany showcased at AFRIBEMBÉ featuring black and white print photography of life in NYC neighborhoods
## Total amount of participants
21 Teaching Artists
SANKOFA:
GUIDING OUR ARTISTS AND CULTURAL WORKERS
CCCADI’s focus on uplifting Black artists and creatives who are utilizing our cultural power to advance racial and social justice is intentionally woven into the fabric of the organization as a strategic goal. Why? Because it is woven into the strands of our DNA. Our culture: our beliefs, our songs, our drums, our dances, and our stories are what allowed us, and continue to allow us, to envision a future for ourselves that only we can create. As such, we have built upon that legacy through the initiatives of the CCCADI Institute for Racial and Social Justice in Arts and Culture.
CCCADI’s Institute for Racial and Social Justice in Arts and Culture Supported Entrepreneurship and Artistic Visions
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In the fall of 2024, CCCADI launched its Entrepreneurial Assistance Center for Artists of Color (EACAC), an 8-week training program designed to empower emerging artrepreneurs (artist-entrepreneurs). EACAC offers a space for Artists of Color to refine their business ideas and develop new, sustainable business models while addressing the systemic barriers within creative industries.
11 CCCADI Alumni and Teaching Artists Trained
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Throughout the fall of 2023, CCCADI hosted artist and cultural organizer Dr. Herukhuti Williams as its artist-in-residence. During his residency, Dr. Herukhuti debuted his AfroFuturist play “In The Valley of Coming Forth”.
“In the Valley of Coming Forth” brought audiences the experience of an Afrofuturist, funk, ritual performance about a Black woman’s struggle to rescue her kidnapped non-binary child and destroy the settler-colonialism, imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and cis-hetero-patriarchy system that has torn them apart.
50+ attendees at Weeksville Heritage Center for the premiere of the play
"My residency at CCCADI provided the opportunity for me to make a huge creative, artistic, and professional leap. Through the residency, I was able to produce and innovate a unique form of ritual performance theatre, funk theatre, as a proof of concept. The experience demonstrated both the potential for the production and this form of theatre to grow. The residency was a successful experiment in supporting an artist and artistic work that could not find a home in any other setting due to the constraints of the theatre industry and artistic philanthropy. No one else is funding 50-year-old, emergent artists-cultural organizers who are deeply committed to their communities using their art to ask and answer questions of liberation. CCCADI did."
- Dr. Herukhuti Williams
Also a participant in the EACAC pilot cohort, Dr. Herukhuti’s path through the Institute exemplifies the artist relationships we aim to foster.
SANKOFA:
GUIDING OUR ADVOCACY
Since our inception in 1976, CCCADI has been at the forefront of the fight for justice and equity for arts organizations of color. As such, coalition-building has always been a priority and a necessity. In 2024, Executive Director Melody Capote, alongside local cultural leaders, was on the front line of amplifying the call to reinstate NYC’s cultural budget.
SANKOFA:
GUIDING OUR FINANCIAL RESILIENCE
At CCCADI, we understand the nature of the funding and political ecosystem and its tendency to view social justice work as a fleeting trend. That’s why when we have good years, we prepare ourselves. Our history teaches us that just as we are gaining ground as communities, the system actively divests. We know the playbook, and we implement safeguards against it.
As we navigate through these uncertain times in our society, we sincerely thank the funders who have remained loyal to our cause. Your commitment helps us stay grounded in our mission of advancing racial and social justice and cultural equity for our African descendant communities.
We also want to emphasize the importance of community and collective effort in these times. As we move forward, we invite everyone to be an advocate and join the more than 250 individual supporters who have invested in this work.
2023 - 2024 FUNDING
other 2023 - 2024 FUNDING
% of Expenses
Total Public Support and Revenue
Thank you to our Funders:
Copies of CCCADI's audited financial statements are available upon request by emailing executivedirector@cccadi.org
Thank you to the staff, consultants, and all those who contributed to making these past two years a success:
In Memoriam:
A special thank you to José Rivera, a cherished elder, visionary leader, devoted mentor, lifelong activist and dear friend who served CCCADI for five years as its Director of Development.
His legacy is woven into the very fabric of the organization— in every program, every gathering, every call to action. Though he has transitioned, his spirit continues to guide our steps.
In his beloved Lakota tradition in which he practiced…“Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ — for all our relations. May your spirit rest in peace and continue to guide us.”
We honor him. We remember him. We will carry his light forward. Asé!