Custom Collaborative

Low-income and immigrant women are under-represented in the fashion industry. We provide opportunities, including a comprehensive training program, business incubator and business cooperative, allowing them to establish, build and sustain careers in fashion. Our training includes digital literacy, training in digital marketing and a digital marketplace for program participants and partners to sell their goods. Promoting entrepreneurship and cooperative owned businesses formed and led by low-income and immigrant women create pathways to economic freedom and independence. When scaled globally, this model promotes women’s economic empowerment, increasing their income, closing the gender gap and keeping pace with rapid technological and digital transformation affecting jobs.

Custom Collaborative gives low skilled, economically disadvantaged women a path to finding stable fashion jobs and to creating their own business in the fashion Industry. Our work advocates for social and fiscal equity. In NYC, the garment industry accounts for a third of all manufacturing jobs, generating $10.9 billion in wages and city tax revenues of $2 billion. Yet industry professionals suggest that some of the city’s apparel factories conditions for immigrant workers are “worse than they were in the 1920s,” with situations of “indentured servitude” not uncommon.  A study by the University of Sheffield found clothing companies ignoring public commitments they made to deliver living wages to workers, with low pay continuing to be the status quo. According to Oxfam International, in no country have women achieved economic equality with men, and women are still more likely than men to live in poverty. Locally and globally, women have the lowest-paid work.

Custom Collaborative’s solution provides women a pathway from poverty through education and training in the fashion industry using digital tools and products. We deliver trainings in apparel and accessory manufacturing, foster entrepreneurship, teach digital literacy, digital marketing and provide access to a marketplace to sell their goods and teach entrepreneurship. By digitally transforming our culture, we provide our participants resources to create their products and expand their reach. Our most recent participants received training online, learning from home during COVID-19. They utilized Tailornova software, the first and only complete web-based 3D fashion design platform that delivers apparel and accessory design tools. This allowed our participants the ability to create and customize designs and patterns in seconds, with precision. The progression of technology calls for our organization to reimagine education, product creation and service delivery in a digital world. Providing our participants with these tools closes the digital divide for communities challenged to access modern information and communications technology.

Custom Collaborative is located in West Harlem, NYC. Our participants are adult women who primarily reside in New York City and are poorly served by adult-education systems and training programs. They are immigrant and US born, aged 21-55, and who have at least elementary English-language fluency. 98% are members of racial/ethnic minority groups, 80% are immigrants, 96% have income below the US poverty guidelines, 82% are primary caretakers of young children, 52% are without permanent housing, 27% have survived domestic violence, and 25% have a history of involvement with the criminal-legal system. Custom Collaborative members comprise a community of women from 20 nations. To understand their needs, we have a Career Coach on staff who provides one on one support to our members, helping them address and problem-solve personal and professional challenges. We also have an Entrepreneurship Coach who works with members to develop their vision for their business and to create their business plans. To help develop the solution, 7 graduate members operate the business cooperative, others serve as volunteers and we solicit their feedback and recommendations. Our digital training develops their professional skills, supports their career goals in fashion, increases their upward mobility economically and socially.

Low-income and immigrant women have difficulty gaining economic freedom and independence, stuck in a cycle of poverty that prevents access to educational opportunities. Custom Collaborative gives this marginalized population access to training and education in fashion through the Training Institute, a path towards entrepreneurship in our business incubator and the chance to join Fashion That Works, our women-led business cooperative. Utilizing technology and digital literacy to educate, our organization’s work aligns with MIT’s challenge for marginalized communities to create good jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves and all of the dimensions listed.

In our fifth operational year, Custom Collaborative’s three major programs comprise a fully integrated business model: 1. Our Training Institute offers a paid full-time 14-week course in the art, technique, and business of fashion from which graduates emerge with highly marketable skills and an employment/business plan; 2. Our Business Incubator supports the entrepreneurial efforts of Training Institute graduates and other qualified garment workers with an array of services and resources, including access to a network of fashion industry experts and business leaders; our goal is to maximize work opportunities and improve socio-economic outcomes for all women and 3. Fashion That Works is a wholly worker-owned light-manufacturing fashion cooperative. A highly significant advantage offered by this cooperative structure is that it provides a means for the more than 30% of our participants who lack US work authorization to earn income legally. As of 2020, they are now fully incorporated. Our efforts support women working independently to start their own businesses and to earn fair and higher wages when working in the fashion industry.

Most of the damage done to the planet and its workers is by the hands of large corporations like fast fashion companies. According to The True Cost, Americans throw out 82 pounds of clothes each year. Custom Collaborative knows fast fashion provides quick economic success but, that isn’t the best route. As part of our solution, we use reclaimed textiles and recovered equipment to create new goods. Sustainable fashion is also about recognizing women who are on the ground doing the socio-economic work on behalf of systemically oppressed communities. The real work is about agency and stakeholdership. It’s about providing resources to the most targeted communities in order to sustain some level of cultural autonomy. A business that has one of its pillars underpaying people is not a real business. There are plenty out there that do it, some of the biggest corporations in the world but it is not a real business model, it is not ethical, and it is not what our organization wants to be part of. We cannot individually create a new economic paradigm but we can work around the edges to carve out parts of it that are more equitable, sustainable, and fair. Sustainability means that we pay people a living wage so instead of paying people in prison - cents on the dollar - we can pay people fair wages.

Custom Collaborative gave Ziphora David an opportunity to work in the Business Incubator doing production work sewing for contract manufacturing clients, which was her first time getting paid doing what she loves. It connected Ziphora with her first paid internship with a luxury sustainable designer, Jussara Lee. Jussara has cultivated a creative environment where nothing goes to waste! She uses scraps of fabric to decorate her shopping bags, sews new paper over old greeting cards to reuse them, and more. Not only is it anti-waste, but it’s also beautiful. Ziphora learned so much, especially about hand sewing, mending, and embroidery. It expanded her idea of sustainability. Since Custom Collaborative, the skills Ziphora learned in sewing and pattern have prepared her to embark on a new program with the Brooklyn Library, Brooklyn Fashion Academy; A 16-week program for 20 designers to envision, construct and present a four-six piece collection for the runway. You can see her on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzqACYU37lU. This year, we taught our current class online due to COVID-19. We are not able to meet in person and are using technology to organize their graduation. Tools that help bridge the digital divide and bring communities together are tools that we will use to connect us to communities in other states as we replicate and to countries like Morocco, a place where we plan to partner with other women-led cooperatives.

A report from the International Labour Organization states that in high-income countries 58 per cent of total employment is from small businesses. In emerging and developing economies, over two-thirds of total employment is from small businesses. In the European Union, micro-businesses make up half of small businesses. Lumen Learning states that owning a business gives people greater economic independence and higher financial rewards than working for someone else. Entrepreneurs can often hit much higher incomes. Cooperatives improve the bargaining power of the individual members and the product quality provided by the members. These opportunities for low-income and immigrant women leads to greater independence and economic freedom.

Activities

1) Training Institute: Participants receive stipend to attend full-time training sessions for 14 weeks

2) Business Incubator: Training Institute Graduates receive management consulting, mentorship, technical assistance, advanced training, and access to professional equipment to maximize work opportunities

3) Fashion That Works: A worker-owned sewn-goods cooperative comprised of 7 Custom Collaborative graduates

Outputs:

1)     Training Institute: Learn to sew, become pattern makers, learn the business of fashion

2)     Business Incubator: Graduates apply for jobs in the fashion industry, set career goals and business goals

3)     Fashion That Works: Graduates accept sample and contract manufacturing orders and sell made-to-measure clothes to individual clients.

Short Term Outcomes:

1)     Training Institute: Participants graduate and have new skills, including sewing, pattern making and design

2)     Business Incubator: Graduates find gainful employment, earn higher wages; secure internships at fashion companies; pursue entrepreneurial interests, start consulting and develop small businesses

3)     Fashion That Works: Graduates manage and operate the cooperative, produce and sell items to generate income

Medium Term Outcomes:

1)     Training Institute: Graduates begin working with CC’s Business Incubator,secure employment in fashion industry, continue developing skills

2)     Business Incubator: Graduates gain confidence and use acquired skills to start consulting and developing their own business;

3)     Fashion That Works: Graduates incorporate the cooperative, learn business management; invest resources to grow the cooperative; increase membership

Long Term Outcomes

Low-income and immigrant women achieve sustainable economic freedom through opportunities, careers and entrepreneurship in the fashion industry.

Custom Collaborative currently serves 67 low-income and immigrant women. All of these women have graduated from The Training Institute and are involved in our business incubator and business cooperative. In one year, we will serve an additional 50 women, bringing our total to 117 women served. In five years, we will be serving 500 women. The number of women we serve increases as they graduate from The Training Institute, which serves as a pipeline to our business incubator and business cooperative. The cooperative is currently comprised of seven members and will continue to grow. Our business incubator serves  as a home for our graduates to receive mentorship and support as they pursue careers, launch small business and secure consulting contracts.

In the next five years, Custom Collaborative would like to partner with the Moroccan women’s cooperatives. The cooperative has changed the lives of the women and their families immeasurably. These programs provide women of rural Morocco with a steady income, a fair-trade wage, good working conditions, as well as literacy and other education classes. Perhaps most importantly, the co-ops give women a keen sense of empowerment in a traditionally male-dominated society. Custom Collaborative would partner to exchange learning lessons and work to develop resources to replicate and develop cooperative models in other communities across the world. We will introduce them to on new technologies that allow both of us to increased earn income opportunities.

Our goal would be to increase the cooperative model in the United States. 

We want to scale the organization based off the successful model and expand to three different cities. 
In collaboration with a German and US company, we will introduce an innovative fiber creation that promotes is sustainable fiber technolgy

Our cooperative, Fashion That Works, will include increased membership of low-income and immigrant women as cooperative members and a substantial increase in their personal and organizational revenue. Fashion That Works will sustain itself based on sales of goods and services that co-op members create and provide. The cooperative will be recognized as a viable, sustainable, and effective institution in the fashion industry, helping to advance diversity and inclusion in this lucrative field. Create more.

The lack of guidance on establishing Custom Collaborative as the sustainable fashion model and support of Black & Brown women owned business creators. We need marketing and we need capital. The amount of money we need is miniscual compared to the budget of fashion companies. For Custom Collaborative $100,000 would allow us to invest in new equipment, increase the number of participants we serve and increase stipends and capacity of staff.

COVID-19 required our organization to pivot and move all of our operations online. We also had to cancel revenue generating events. This increased costs as we worked to support some of our participants to have internet access. We would like to revision every aspect of our organization to include digital tools that allow us to reach more participants in distant areas and to extend reach for our products.

We need support so that the fashion industry knows what we are doing so that the companies who are working to be green, sustainable, equitable and inclusive can partner with us. We have tested and chartered a path - we can see how we can get out of the fast fashion model and do something different that impacts people and really raises up the people at the bottom who are doing all of the work. We need to elevate the profile of low-income and immigrant women in order to pay them fairly. We need support to help market what we are doing so that women can find out about us.

Currently, sustained funding support from the New York Women’s Foundation has been a reliable resource helping us to build our organization. We continue to seek foundation support and have implemented successful crowdfunding campaigns. We are seeking major gifts from individual donors that support gender equity and sustainable fashion practices. In 2020, fashion companies Gucci and Kate Spade have invested in our model and promoted our work, bringing us national and international recognition. NBC News produced a segment about our organization and premiered it on International Woman’s Day and it remains accessible for people to learn about us, assisting with our marketing. We are successful partners with fashion designer Mara Hoffman, resulting in cross promotion of our brands, exposing us to new clientele. We have a team working on a strategy to fulfill a "Big Bet", receiving 2.5 million by the end of 2021.

Custom Collaborative has four (4) full-time staff and seven (7) part-time staff. We also have four (4) interns that are currently working with us.

Our organization is led by women who reflect the community we work with. Founding Executive Director Ngozi Okaro began CC in 2015. She is as an advocate for socioeconomic justice who has 15+ years’ nonprofit leadership experience. A graduate of Coro Leadership NY, Georgetown University Law Center, and Morgan State University, she is an A student at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). For developing CC, she received NYC Fair Trade Coalition’s 2019 “Changemaker of the Year” award, NY Women Foundation’s 2019 “Spirit of Entrepreneurship” award and was selected by Kate Spade New York as one of their 2020’s Conscious Company’s World-Changing Women. Veronica Jones, our Entrepreneurship Coach, works with members to develop their vision for their business and to create their business plans. Angelique Terrelonge, the Lead Instructor, brings thirty years of experience as a designer and fashion educator in the industry to help empower women through design. Before joining Custom Collaborative, she taught fashion design at Broward Correctional Institution in Florida, instructing incarcerated women. Mohini Tadikonda, our Career Coach, provides one on one support to our members, helping them to address, navigate and problem solve personal and professional challenges. Grace Alignay is a Custom Collaborative 2019 graduate from our Training Institute. She serves as FTW’s Cooperative Lead, using her background and experience as a U.S. Army Veteran to support herself and the six additional cooperative founders towards a lifelong dream of fashion entrepreneurship and financial independence. This team provides tools and resources for Custom Collaborative.

Custom Collaborative partners with FabScrap, Mara Hoffman and Slow Factory Foundation. These organizations provide fabric donations, monetary support, cross-promotion and sustainability training.

Key Resources: Trainers, Software, Computers, Trainers, Consultants
Key Activities: Training & Production
Partners & Key Stakeholders: Funders & Fashion Companies
Cost Structure: Staff, Stipends, Equipment, Online Platform
Type of Intervention: Training Sessions
Channels: Online, In-Person, Marketing
Surplus: Stipends, Staff and Equipment
Segments: Our Members/Trainees will benefit, Foundations, Donors will pay to address the issue
Revenue: Foundations (70%), Donations (25%) Earned Income (5%) 
Value Proposition: Utilizing/Increasing Digital Technology to Train Our Members, # of women

Custom Collaborative funds our work through the acquisition of grants, sustanined donations, vendor contracts, sales of products we create, and crowdfunding campaigns. We also generate revenue through in-kind donations and services.

Custom Collaborative is applying to Solve because we are an organization that is working to create opportunities and jobs for low-income and immigrant women. We are seeking support to grow our programming, enhance our digital training tools and provide digital resources for our members to use for education and marketing of services and products. We have been in operations for five years and we have a strong model that empowers women and supports sustainable fashion. We are in growth period and have received recognition from prominent fashion companies. Solve's support can assist us in providing the best tools and resources for our participants journey to economic independence.

We would like to partner with Solve to receive support to enhance our digital training programs, to help us build digital platforms to help maintain our ability to train remotely and to aid our participants in reaching clientele, providing services and marketing. We seek support for increasing our revenue through sales and engaging new donors and lastly, we are looking to continue increase marketing about our model, advocating for fair wages, entrepreneurial opportunities for women and promoting sustainable fashion.

Custom Collaborative would like to partner with these women who lead organizations and are experts who can assist us in education and support for women-centered entrepreneurship and business development:
Ursula Burns
Katja Iversen
Megan Smith
Laurene Powell Jobs (We recently collaborated with Emerson Collective to provide them over 100 sustainable face masks)

Custom Collaborative qualifies for the Andan Prize for Innovation because we are a New York City-based entrepreneurship and workforce development program that trains and supports women from low-income and immigrant communities to launch fashion careers and businesses. 98% are members
of racial/ethnic minority groups, 80% are immigrants (including some driven
from their homes by armed conflict and many without US work authorization), 96%
have income below the US poverty guidelines, 82% are primary caretakers of
young children, 52% are without permanent housing, 27% have survived domestic
violence, and 25% have a history of involvement with the criminal-legal system.
Custom Collaborative members comprise a community of women from 20
nations. By learning the standard techniques and ethical business practices of the fashion industry, our participants can achieve secure livelihoods in the fashion industry as designers, entrepreneurs, pattern makers, and seamstresses who create and sell high-quality clothing and accessories. We envision a global women’s apparel industry in which garment makers are fairly compensated for their labor and consumers have access to well-made, sustainably sourced clothes that fit and affirm all bodies.

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Custom Collaborative qualifies for the Innovation for Women Prize because we are a New York City-based entrepreneurship and workforce development program that trains and supports women from low-income and immigrant communities to launch fashion careers and businesses. By learning the standard techniques and ethical business practices of the fashion industry, our participants can achieve secure livelihoods in the fashion industry as designers, entrepreneurs, pattern makers, and seamstresses who create and sell high-quality clothing and accessories. We envision a global women’s apparel industry in which garment makers are fairly compensated for their labor and consumers have access to well-made, sustainably sourced clothes that fit and affirm all bodies.

Custom Collaborative qualifies for the Innovation for Women Prize because we are a New York City-based entrepreneurship and workforce development program that trains and supports women from low-income and immigrant communities to launch fashion careers and businesses. By learning the standard techniques and ethical business practices of the fashion industry, our participants can achieve secure livelihoods in the fashion industry as designers, entrepreneurs, pattern makers, and seamstresses who create and sell high-quality clothing and accessories. We envision a global women’s apparel industry in which garment makers are fairly compensated for their labor and consumers have access to well-made, sustainably sourced clothes that fit and affirm all bodies.

Custom Collaborative qualifies for the Innovation for Women Prize because we are a New York City-based entrepreneurship and workforce development program that trains and supports women from low-income and immigrant communities to launch fashion careers and businesses. By learning the standard techniques and ethical business practices of the fashion industry, our participants can achieve secure livelihoods in the fashion industry as designers, entrepreneurs, pattern makers, and seamstresses who create and sell high-quality clothing and accessories. We envision a global women’s apparel industry in which garment makers are fairly compensated for their labor and consumers have access to well-made, sustainably sourced clothes that fit and affirm all bodies. Due to COVID-19, we transformed our program and implemented our training online. Our classes were held remotely and provided us the motivation to enhance our training digitally.