Image courtesy of Native Roots Network, 2025 Funder Gathering at Wenem To•s. Bella Vista, CA. Photo by Mike Weidman, 2025
AmbitioUS responds to two realities happening at the same time.
First, too many culture makers and community-based organizations are operating in survival mode—under-resourced, over-relied upon, and asked to hold entire ecosystems together with inconsistent support. When survival becomes the default setting, it constrains imagination, experimentation, and long-term planning. It also shrinks the cultural futures we all depend on.
At the same time, the systems intended to provide stability, such as public benefits, philanthropic norms, mainstream finance, and traditional underwriting, often fall short of addressing the complex realities people face in their local economies, especially over time. Too often, capital flows are misaligned with community values, overly restrictive, or structured in ways that extract wealth and erode power. No single tool, grant, or investment strategy can fully meet this moment alone. These are the challenges AmbitioUS’ grant and investment partners are addressing through place-based, community-owned or governed, and culturally rooted initiatives.
This is a pivotal moment to build alternative systems for large-scale shifts and possibilities, grounded in community self-determination and shaped through a cultural lens.
Through integrated capital, portfolio stewardship, and narrative strategy, AmbitioUS supports its partners in strengthening their models, articulating their impact, and sharing their learnings using methods that align with their well-being, timelines, and goals. We invest not only in organizations, but in the conditions that allow them to thrive: learning ecosystems, trusted relationships, shared language, and governance structures that protect mission over market pressure.
This is a pivotal moment to build alternative systems for large-scale shifts and possibilities, grounded in community self-determination and shaped through a cultural lens.
Through integrated capital, portfolio stewardship, and narrative strategy, AmbitioUS supports its partners in strengthening their models, articulating their impact, and sharing their learnings using methods that align with their well-being, timelines, and goals. We invest not only in organizations, but in the conditions that allow them to thrive: learning ecosystems, trusted relationships, shared language, and governance structures that protect mission over market pressure.
Our work is equal parts practice and proof. We experiment, listen closely, and translate what we learn into tools that can travel—so more people can build economies rooted in mutualism, stewardship, and collective power.
Image courtesy of Center for Cultural Innovation, 2024 Evil Genius Strategy Session at Chicago House. Chicago, IL. Photo by Cate Fox, 2024
Image courtesy of Center for Cultural Innovation, 2024 Evil Genius Strategy Session at Chicago House. Chicago, IL. Photo by Cate Fox, 2024
Our work is equal parts practice and proof. We experiment, listen closely, and translate what we learn into tools that can travel—so more people can build economies rooted in mutualism, stewardship, and collective power.
Strategic Goals
AmbitioUS is CCI’s experimental arm within the philanthropic sector— designed to be a platform for a new, values-aligned economic ecosystem that expands ownership and shifts power toward those excluded by conventional nonprofit and for-profit systems. Grounded in the re ality that artists have long navigated gig conditions, low wages, unpredictable income, high debt, few assets, and therefore limited credit, and that more Americans now share these same precarious arrangements, our strategic goals prioritize financial innovation and cultural transformation that can scale beyond the arts.
Image courtesy of Center for Cultural Innovation. 2024 Southern Immersive Learning Journey: The Industrial Commons. Morganton, NC. Photo by Center for Cultural Innovation, 2024
A few years ago, we realized that funding alone would be insufficient for systems change work, so CCI created Research to Impact Lab (R2i Lab) to sustain the time-limited AmbitioUS initiative’s momentum and to enable a smooth transition for the ideas, relationships, and core learnings from the AmbitioUS. R2i Lab leverages research, advocacy, direct incubations, and investments. AmbitioUS and R2i Lab are co-funding a number of projects and co-developing written materials and curriculum related to the “world-building” concept that emerged from the Urban Institute’s community ownership paper.
LEARN MORE ABOUT R2i LAB
Funders
None of this work would be possible without the generous support from our funders.
