Prism Design Lab (Prism) is an arts and education nonprofit organization that works with young people in Chapel Hill and Durham, North
Carolina to imagine the beauty they want to see in the world, and to give them a platform from which to project their vision and voices. Our
mission is to equip youth from historically marginalized populations and communities with the tools they need to shape their built environment
by teaching them design skills, giving them the opportunity to practice and cultivate these skills, and supporting them to share their creativity
through public art and design services provided to civic organizations like other community-based nonprofit organizations.
The fields of art and architecture in the U.S. lack diversity. According to the 2021 NCARB by the Numbers report, the current makeup of
licensed American architects is 84 percent white and 76 percent male. A recent study by PLOS One stated that the art displayed in the top 18
major U.S. art museums is from artists who are 85 percent white and 87 percent male. This has profound impacts for both our culture and the
built environment. Prism is committed to giving young people from diverse and historically marginalized groups the skills needed to change
these dynamics and promote greater inclusion of BIPOC and female creators in these fields.
Prism works to achieve these ambitious goals through an intensely local program of education and community building. Our program targets
young people and includes a variety of components focused on supporting participants to (i) connect to their creativity and (ii) get exposure to,
and to begin to practice, the skills required for the fields of architecture, art and design. More specifically, Prism will:
1. Operate an art and design studio that participating youth can use to be creative, develop their artistic voices and experiment with design.
2. Partner with local artists to engage in more structured projects that will lead to the production of public art installations that are conceived
and created by our participating youth.
3. Partner with local architects to provide workshops, classes and camps for our participating youth to teach them the basics of the
architectural design process. In addition to supporting the community service activity described immediately below, we expect that this will help
expose our youth to the opportunities available in the field of architecture and may help some pursue this as a field of study in college and
beyond.
4. Engage our participating youth in significant community service projects in which they, with the support and guidance of local architects,
will work directly with a local nonprofit or social venture to design and potentially construct/install an architecture or art/design project for the
organization.
All of Prism's activities, including workshops, classes and camps will be provided for free and will be offered by its staff working alongside artists
and architects from the community. 85 percent of Prism's total activities will consist of these art and education programs. The remainder of its
work will consist of the administrative tasks of running the organization such as recruiting youth to participate, recruiting, training and supporting
our volunteers, fundraising, assessing our impact and improving our programs over time.
Prism will be led by a volunteer Board of Directors and managed by an Executive Director who will be its sole employee for the immediate
future. Prism will add additional staff as needed based on demand for its programming and on the availability of resources.
We will work with cohorts of approximately 6-25 young people at any given time and special effort will be made to recruit participants who have
limited economic resources, as well as those from other historically marginalized backgrounds as we are committed to expanding access to art
and design to young people from all backgrounds.
Prism intends to support 100 percent of its expenses through resources raised from foundations, companies, government grants, and the
general public.