UpBeat Selected for Enterprise Funding Award from the Pierre & Tana Matisse Foundation

UpBeat NYC is honored to be one of three organizations selected for the Pierre & Tana Matisse Foundation’s inaugural Enterprise Funding Award. The $1.5 million initiative supports three longtime Foundation partners with $500,000 grants: UpBeat NYC, The People’s Theatre, and Irondale Ensemble Project.

Unlike a traditional program grant, enterprise funding invests in the strength of the organization itself. Flexible capital can build financial resilience, strengthen organizational capacity and give nonprofits room to plan beyond the next grant cycle. Importantly, it also recognizes the need to fairly support the people who make the work possible.

For grassroots community organizations, that flexibility can be transformative.

Since its founding in 2009, UpBeat has grown from a small neighborhood music program into an organization serving hundreds of South Bronx children and youth, with greatly expanded programs and facilities. Along the way, UpBeat has become a cultural hub for community collaboration in the South Bronx and a prominent advocate, locally and nationally, for every child’s right to music education.

The Matisse Foundation’s investment gives UpBeat the flexibility to strengthen the organization behind our programs and prepare for the next stage of our development.

We are deeply grateful to the Pierre & Tana Matisse Foundation for its longstanding partnership and for recognizing that financial strength, long-term planning and fairly supporting the people who do this work are not peripheral to UpBeat’s mission. They are what make the mission possible.