DBACE previous winners and bursaries
DBACE 2023 winners
DBACE 2023 received over 570 entries from across the UK. The level of creativity, entrepreneurship and positive impact being made to society was as astounding as ever among applicants.
Artistry Youth Dance
Artistry Youth Dance is a London based youth dance company that supports young people of African and Caribbean heritage. They are committed to developing the next generation of black dance artists and nurturing a more culturally diverse dance community in the UK.
Founder: Kamara Gray
DBACE funding awarded: £12,000
LEVILE
LEVILE is a casting and media agency that specialises in providing opportunities for emerging creative talent both in front of and behind the camera. Their slogan ‘More Than Just Talent’ fuels our mission in bringing underrepresented creatives to the forefront of the TV and film industry.
Founder: Ola Christian
DBACE funding awarded: £15,000
Rehema Cultural Arts
Sherry Davis is a musician, filmmaker and curator whose artistic practice focuses on social justice. Rehema Cultural Arts’ latest project, Ode to the Ancestors is an exhibition that celebrates the black contribution to archaeology and conservation in Kenya. The exhibition is currently display at Horniman Museum in London.
Founder: Sherry Davis
DBACE funding awarded: £10,000
The Bitten Peach
The Bitten Peach is the UK’s first queer Pan-Asian cabaret production company, empowering the queer Asian community shows, events and collaborations. They tell Asian stories, create safe spaces, diversify Asian representation, provide platforms, and educate on racial issues.
Co-Founders: Alisa Morris, Shane ShayShay Konno and Samantha Sun
DBACE funding awarded: £13,000
United in Design
United in Design is a charity set up to address the lack of diversity in the Interior Design industry by providing apprenticeships, mentoring and training to talented people of colour.
Co-Founder: Alexandria Dauley
DBACE funding awarded: £10,000
DBACE 2023 bursaries
As part of the DBACE programme’s wider support offering, an extra five memberships are offered with MeWe360 to creative entrepreneurs who drive social impact through their enterprise. The 12-month membership provides tailored business support to develop the entrepreneur and help them achieve their enterprise’s next milestones.
Bridget Productions
Bridget Productions is the first British female-led production company to guarantee a minimum 50/50 gender split on all jobs, placing women and non-binary crew behind the camera and across all production roles.
Founder: Nicole Rixon
CasildART
CasildART Contemporary was set up to address the lack of representation for Black artists by commercial galleries and museums. Founded in 2019 by Sukai Eccleston, a former TV and media executive, their mission is to be a catalyst for change in the art world and transform the UK visual landscape by inserting Black narratives into the culture. They aim to create pathways for success that empower Black artists to earn a sustainable living from their practice.
Founder: Sukai Eccleston
Dundee Community Craft CIC
Dundee Community Craft CIC is a More Than Profit Organisation on a social mission to make Dundee, Scotland the Recovery Capital of Europe by providing collective healing through craft. They provide craft and design education, employment opportunities and visibility to those who would otherwise go left unheard.
Founder: Stephanie Graham
Loud Parade
Loud Parade is a music creative and cultural creative agency helping brands speak more authentically to younger audiences through their advertising campaigns using contemporary music. By working with a large network of independent artists, they produce branded tracks for brands through helping brands to sell their products in adverts across social platforms such as Instagram and TikTok using tracks which make the digital ads not feel like a traditional advert.
Co-founders: Rahmon Agbaje and Maatin Adewunmi
Soundtruism
A media production company specialising in factual narrative podcasts. Its commercial arm includes Birmingham Podcast Festival. This feeds their social impact side; to explore societal issues in doc form, elevating local journalism for global impact.
Founder: Nina Robinson
DBACE 2022 winners
DBACE 2022 received over 250 entries from across the UK. The level of creativity, entrepreneurship and positive impact being made to society was as astounding as ever among applicants.
Dewey
Dewey is the UK’s first clothing brand for people with dwarfism, offering stylish, timeless pieces, made in eco- conscious fabrics, produced in the UK. Starting with a measurement audit sent out to women with Dwarfism, Chamiah also developed the World’s first tailor’s dummy in the form of a woman with Achondroplasia.
“It’s unique. She’s going to be the first in many things and being the first is an absolute outstanding position to be in. Can you imagine setting the trends, setting standards, setting goals, being the first. That’s uniqueness.” – Jackie Davidson MBE, Founder, JD Management
Founder: Chamiah Dewey
DBACE funding awarded: £15,000
Convenience Gallery
Convenience Gallery is a non-profit arts organisation. Working with contemporary artists and local people to build together fun, exciting, innovative and challenging art projects. Placing them into public spaces with the outcome of bringing people together. Based in Birkenhead, Convenience Gallery operates in a pop-up format at community locations. Their work creates a platform for the local community across the Northwest, UK and has a global reach.
“Convenience Gallery are bringing together social, cultural and economical impact into one effective project.” – John Newbigin OBE, Co-Founder and Chair of Creative England.
Co-directors: Andrew Shaw & Ryan Guage
DBACE funding awarded: £10,000
Journo Resources
Journo Resources provide tools and resources that are free for everyone to use, run and attend events both online and IRL, and provide detailed and long-form advice for anyone that needs it.
“There are far too few people and organisations working to make the media industry a better place and Journo Resources does that from the ground up.” – Bola Awoniyi, Co-Founder & COO, Black Ballad
Founder: Jem Collins
DBACE funding awarded: £10,000
Pivot
Pivot is a social enterprise that empowers people experiencing homelessness to make incremental positive changes to their lives. Through their uniquely designed 12-week long programmes, Pivot have proven to be pioneers in providing flexible and meaningful employment opportunities in hostels, facilitated by people with lived experiences.
“Pivot is a brilliantly simple and effective business model.” – John Newbigin OBE, Co-Founder and Chair of Creative England.
Co-Founders: Sabella Ibáñez, Alice Moxley & Jason Thompson
DBACE funding awarded: £15,000
TAG Agency
TAG Agency is a youth culture & marketing agency that transforms young lives through the power of culture, community and stories. They offer brands the opportunity to meaningfully connect with culture, and at the same time, create space and opportunity for young people to work on brand strategy, research, campaigns and creative projects.
“Not only are they focused on providing a credible voice to youth culture and to young people, they also want to make sure the young people are treated correctly when doing that. So, it was creating the voice on one side and then the opportunity and the ability to be treated correctly, on the other. That is the difference they provide.” – Lareena Hilton, Global Head of Brand & CSR, Deutsche Bank
Co-Founders: Alvin Owusu & Tumisha Balogun
DBACE funding awarded: £10,000
DBACE 2022 bursaries
As part of the DBACE programme’s wider support offering, an extra five memberships are offered with MeWe360 to creative entrepreneurs who drive social impact through their enterprise. The 12-month membership provides tailored business support to develop the entrepreneur and help them achieve their enterprise’s next milestones.
Birdsong
For people who want to dress with joy, support makers and protect the planet, Birdsong skillfully creates not-so-everyday staples and made-for-you pieces in the most ethical, socially impactful way possible. Birdsong makes clothes that are ethical, sustainable and made by talented women paid a fair wage.
Co-founder: Susanna Wen
Northern Fortress Films
Northern Fortress Films is an award-winning Bradford-based production company. With the aim of shining a spotlight on Northern talent and giving Northern voices the chance to tell their stories, diversity and representation is at the core of the films they make.
Founder: Louisa Rose Mackleston
Re_Considered
Re_considered creates one-of-a-kind pieces from unwanted clothing. They also work with items from your existing wardrobe and transform them into something you will love and wear again, aiming to break the unsustainable make-buy-discard model used in the fashion industry.
Founder: Tabby Bunyan
DBACE 2021 winners
DBACE 2021 received 396 entries from across the UK, across which was an incredible range of creativity, entrepreneurship and positive impact being made to society. We were delighted to have brought together an incredible group of experts to judge DBACE 2021. Panel members drew on extensive professional expertise across the creative industries and have many years of experience in leadership as well as setting up and supporting new businesses.
You can catch up on the event and read the detail via the link below.
African Diaspora Dance Association
The first dance examination board and teaching organisation to specialise in and accredit dances that fall under the African Diaspora. They seek to actively expand the curriculum and training of future generations through bringing a new vibrant approach to dance education, expanding the practice and knowledge of current and future students and giving dance teachers and professionals opportunities to further their practice, regardless of age or abilities.
Founder: Nahum McLean
DBACE funding awarded: £16,000
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Black Females in Architecture
A social enterprise and global membership organisation with almost 400 members, Black Females in Architecture (BFA) supports its membership through a support network within which members benefit from shared knowledge, advice, guidance, access to the personal networks of fellow members, job opportunities and much more. BFA also actively promotes racial equity, social justice and systemic change in the industry and publicly advocates for Black women who work, study or practice in the built environment industry.
Co-directors: Akua Danso, Neba Sere, Selasi Setufe
DBACE funding awarded: £15,000
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Planet Friendly Paint
Planet Friendly Paint delivers an alternative route to waste produced by the cosmetics industry by bridging the gap between waste and art by upcycling waste make-up into a functional paint. By giving a new life to colour cosmetics before disposal, Planet Friendly Paint hopes to make an impact on a national scale and encourage other retailers to do the same. Alongside demonstrating the possibilities of a circular economy, Planet Friendly Paint also offers unique artwork for sale.
Founder: Ameenah Begum
DBACE funding awarded: £8,500
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The Blair Academy
The Blair Academy envisages a world where Hip Hop brings health, happiness and well-being to the lives of many so that they can combat loneliness and improve or prevent the deterioration of physical and mental health. They have boosted health and happiness, using hip hop dance, for over 5000 people across care and community settings in London and Essex. The growing team have ambitious plans to expand their reach and provide their services across the UK.
Founder: Charlie Blair
DBACE funding awarded: £10,500
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You Look Okay To Me
Launched in 2016 as an online space for the chronic illness community, You Look Okay To Me is a creative consulting service that assists other organisations, charities and enterprises to find the most effective and creative ways in telling stories about illness and invisible disabilities as well as supporting them in increasing their audience reach. You Look Okay To Me aims to not only raise the profile of diverse chronic illness experiences but also strives to change the way we talk about disease as a society, especially within marginalised communities.
Founder: Jameisha Prescod
DBACE funding awarded: £10,000
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DBACE 2021 bursaries
As part of the DBACE programme’s wider support offering, an extra five memberships are offered with MeWe360 to creative entrepreneurs who drive social impact through their enterprise. The 12-month membership provides tailored business support to develop the entrepreneur and help them achieve their enterprise’s next milestones.
Birdsong
For people who want to dress with joy, support makers and protect the planet, Birdsong skillfully creates not-so-everyday staples and made-for-you pieces in the most ethical, socially impactful way possible. Birdsong makes clothes that are ethical, sustainable and made by talented women paid a fair wage.
Co-founders: Sophie Slater and Susanna Wen
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Kanaiza
Kanaiza is home to a global community of over 57,500 art lovers with a shared interest in black arts and culture. Started as a digital gallery on Instagram in 2019, Kanaiza is now respected and revered as an international tastemaker and advocate for inclusive economic black art. Kanaiza seeks to evolve through designing bespoke tech for overlooked black communities. Using 10 years of internal corporate research and two years working directly with real artists and art lovers, they now look to build a fitting tech platform for our stakeholders (the community).
Founder: Vanessa Onalo