The Building Fund is an innovation platform that scales concepts into projects and projects into movements, brick by brick. 

Based in New Haven, Connecticut–and powered by our city’s fearless artists, entrepreneurs, and neighbors–The Building Fund is equal parts strategic consultancy and cultural engine for the mobilization of community ideas. From collaborating with local artists and libraries to mount major exhibitions and programs, to partnering with economic developers to transform a loading dock into a destination for emerging art and Black culture, The Building Fund boasts a growing portfolio of high-impact, cross-sector initiatives. Founded in 2020, The Building Fund is a M/WBE that proudly serves clients and partners of the global majority, while connecting them to a broad range of networks, opportunities, and resources. 

 

Team

  • A woman with slicked-back black hair, dressed in a black leather jacket with a gold chain necklace, standing in front of green plant leaves.

    nico w. okoro

    FOUNDER + PRINCIPAL

    Over the past two decades, nico has worked both independently and as a nonprofit arts leader to drive cultural strategy and community engagement within museums and artist-founded nonprofits. A celebrated cultural strategist, curator, educator, and writer, nico works across sectors to build equitable representation within the canons of modern and contemporary art.

    nico is the author of Museum Metamorphosis: Cultivating Change Through Cultural Citizenship (2022), which platforms critical perspectives from across the arts and culture ecosystem, offering tools to reshape cultural institutions into cooperative sites of collective impact and social change.

    nico is a former Board Member of The Arts Council of Greater New Haven. In recent posts, she served as a visiting critic at the Yale School of Art (2021-2024); Inaugural Executive Director of NXTHVN (2019-20); Director of Public Programs and Community Engagement at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2014-19); Curatorial Director of Rush Arts Gallery (2007-10); and Curatorial Assistant at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2006-07). nico holds an MA in Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship from Goldsmiths, University of London (2011), and a BA in Art-Semiotics from Brown University (2006).

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  • Malik D. L. Okoro

    CO-FOUNDER

    Malik’s interests center on catalyzing entrepreneurship and company creation. Prior to becoming a junior investor at Connecticut Innovations, Malik was manager of business operations at an early-stage biotech, where he delivered valuable insights on strategic workstreams in competitive intelligence and market analysis, coordinated the intellectual property strategy team, and managed the day-to-day of operationalizing discovery research.

    Malik previously held roles in business development, in a local startup incubator, and as an operator for a startup consumer-packaged goods company, and as an in-house strategic consultant leading enterprise-level processes.

    Malik is a Member-at-Large of the Dixwell/Newhallville Community Economic Development Plan (CEDP) Committee, and a member of the Board of Directors at MakeHaven.

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  • Person with short hair and glasses sitting on the floor in blue lighting, leaning forward on a person with curly hair, both are in an intimate embrace.

    Brock Bowen

    INTERN

    Brock is a photographer and student at Hopkins School. His photographs explore paper as a mode of self expression, illustrating how the medium can be used to morph a person's image, as a catalyst for creativity, and as a way to preserve memories and experiences.

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“The Building Fund is the first arts organization to address the needs of Black artists in New Haven in my 25 years of being an artist here.”

— Anonymous 2025 Artists’ Needs Assessment Respondent