Origin Story

Our Founder traces the origins of Beautiful Ventures to her upbringing in the Wakefield-Williamsbridge section of The Bronx, NYC, in the 1970s/80s:

“My parents and community instilled a deep regard for the culture, the genius and the liberation struggles of Black folk in the U.S. and across the African Diaspora. Black-led institutions - family, church, cultural and civic organizations - anchored me and many of my generation. In them, I was formed. I experienced the power of story, righteous struggle and the healing that comes in Black spaces. These sensibilities form the animating pulse behind Beautiful Ventures.”

After practicing law for nearly a decade, Melinda Weekes-Laidlow shifted her work towards supporting the leadership development and collaborative capacity of social change agents across the U.S. A leadership development and capacity builder, she often referenced The Iceberg Model— a systems thinking analogy that conveys the concept that just as nine-tenths of an iceberg’s mass is beneath the water, much of what is going on in our world is hidden from view. The social movements that were reaching inflection points during the early part of the 21st century — ArabSpring, OccupyWallStreet, and BlackLivesMatter to name a few —were exemplar of that idea: social change interventions that broke through the noise of everyday life to interrogate deeply embedded and oppressive social inequities - using decentralized social networks and new technologies to do so.

As she urged change agents to take their strategizing to deeper levels, Melinda could not help but to follow her own advice. She, like many, was still reeling from the utter disregard for Black lives exposed during Hurricane Katrina as the The Movement for Black Lives began to surge. Like so many of the post-Civil Rights Movement generations, she felt compelled to focus more on issues directly affecting Black communities, and on the under-examined problem of anti-blackness in particular. If, as a structural analysis suggests, mental models, myths and narratives are the unseen factors driving actions, institutions, practices, and policies currently resulting in racial harm, they could be deployed to fuel liberation. The central role that art and artists have played in the freedom struggles of Africana peoples across histories and geographies was proof positive.

“In particular, the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s/30s spoke to me. It was a post-pandemic period where the cultural production of Black artists collectively shifted communal and mainstream understandings of Black humanity and identity.” As she pulled from both theory and history to inform her thinking, the admonition of futurist Buckminster Fuller loomed large: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

On a sparkling Spring day in March 2016, Melinda’s consulting firm, Weekes In Advance Enterprises, along with top social impact fund Echoing Green, invited a group of 40 thought leaders to meet in Harlem, New York for a one-of-a-kind gathering: A Social Venture Charette. There, Melinda shared her idea for Beautiful Ventures with 40 influencers spanning the fields of social enterprise, law, impact investing, media, racial justice, tech, philanthropy, and entertainment. They divided into small groups to generate feedback, rigorous thinking, and recommendations for how to develop the idea for Beautiful Ventures even more fully. The brainstorming was electric. A ripple effect was put in motion that day for a big, bold idea for change, and— equally as important —for the weaving together of a network of change-makers to make it manifest. Two persons present that day - Rodney Trapp and Marvin Scott - shortly thereafter teamed up with Melinda to lend their talent and expertise towards the development of the business model. Several others who were present that day - Cheryl Dorsey, Josef Sorett, Sonya Denyse White, Sekou Laidlow, Curtis Ogden — to name a few, continue to support the work as members of our Board of Directors and Circle of Advisors.

Three years later— thanks to the many advisors, networks, and colleagues who continue to contribute to its evolution —Beautiful Ventures launched in 2019 on Juneteenth, a holiday long celebrated by Black Americans commemorating the power of deep hope and urgent organizing in times of uncertainty. Beautiful Ventures is now poised to cultivate the ecosystem for the next Harlem Renaissance. We are set to center writers and other story-makers in their re-casting of a new narrative of Black humanity. Our model centers them and supports them in creating, developing and disseminating stories — content production companies, immersive tech companies, feature films, publishing houses, creative social enterprises and other story-driven concerns that will create a tipping point for perceptions of Black people that are humanizing, humane and just.

Black people play a singular role in driving U.S. popular culture. The U.S. plays an outsized role in influencing popular culture internationally. We will leverage this earned and unearned privilege to lift the peoples of the African Diaspora, and human consciousness overall.

Our public launch in 2019 also pays homage the marking of the 400 years since the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the United States. We pay homage to our Ancestors and especially those victimized by the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and scattered across North America, South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. We are intentionally weaving a global community that honors the resilience, courage and ineffable humanity of everyday Black across time and space. Remixing ancestral strategies and sensibilities into current times with an eye towards the generations to come, Beautiful Ventures is rooted in the sacred significance of the Griots — the storytellers —who have always used their powers to speak forth the humanity and the divinity of Africana peoples. From this lineage, Beautiful Ventures’ Mission,  Vision, and our Values were formed. We pray our legacy emerges worthy of this lineage and resounds the love-filled words penned by the great Langston Hughes that: “Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.”

Amen, Ameen and Ase’.