Debt Collective, a project of Sustainable Markets Foundation, organizes around intersecting forms of indebtedness – from medical debt to criminal punishment debt, housing debt to student debt – that characterize life for working people, particularly in Black and Brown communities. Debt Collective frames the issue of debt as a systemic problem where the financial industrial complex targets, exploits, and extracts disproportionately from cultural communities under threat. Debt Collective encourages debt holders, including artists, to collectivize their debt and their political voice to force debt relief and changes to the legal system to protect individuals from predatory financial practices.

In 2023, AmbitioUS provided a one-year $100,000 project grant to support Debt Collective’s staff and their efforts to fight debt in all its forms, directed to its fiscal sponsor, Sustainable Markets Foundation.