Usher’s New Look

What Usher’s New Look does

Usher's New Look (UNL), legally Usher's New Look, Inc., is a US-based national nonprofit founded in 1999 by Usher Raymond IV, Jonetta Patton, and Shawn H. Wilson. The organization operates as a workforce-development platform serving underserved youth (ages 14-25) seeking careers in the entertainment trades, structured around a four-stage Pathway Model that moves participants from Access (early exposure and career discovery) through Training (cohort-based skill building), Experience (paid internships and real production work), to Innovation (capstone projects, credentials, and access to capital). Direct beneficiaries include 3,000+ participants annually across more than 20 career pathways spanning production, creative, business, and technology roles.

The core technical and program assets are the Spark Lab Studios — physical practice environments located inside partner Boys & Girls Clubs in Atlanta (Joseph B. Whitehead) and Detroit (Michigan Central, opened February 2026) — equipped with podcast and music studios, content-creation tooling, CGI and Unreal Engine training setups, a virtual production studio, drone training spaces, a special effects and prosthetic lab, and a hair and creative styling studio. Sub-programs include Spark Club for ages 14-17, the cohort-based Entertainment Industry Club (EIC) for ages 18+, and the EIC R&B Live Touring Internship that embeds a paid cohort of 10 interns across Tour Production, Multimedia, and Wardrobe tracks on Usher's 2026 R&B stadium tour. UNL also offers AI-literacy coursework through an IBM SkillsBuild integration.

The revenue model is philanthropic rather than transactional. Funding flows from individual donations (routed through GiveLively), corporate partnerships and foundation grants (Sean Anderson Foundation, Ilitch Sports + Entertainment, Apple, Bank of America, StockX, Live Nation Entertainment, IBM), and an employer-engagement pipeline that monetizes talent access via paid internship stipends and co-located programming. Go-to-market is partnership-driven and community-led: programs are delivered exclusively through co-located Boys & Girls Club facilities in the two flagship cities, with a stated national scaling ambition to 500 Boys & Girls Clubs. Marketing relies on earned media (BET, Variety, Billboard, AP, Black Enterprise), broadcast appearances (Good Morning America), event-driven activations (Detroit hub opening, R&B Tour program), and segmented CTAs on the UNL website targeting students, employers, funders, and mentors separately.

Name

Usher’s New Look

Legal name

Usher's New Look, Inc.

Website

https://ushersnewlook.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

1999

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Usher's New Look is a US national nonprofit, founded in 1999, that prepares underserved youth (ages 14-25) for careers in the entertainment trades through a four-stage pathway of access, training, paid experience, and innovation, delivered via Spark Lab Studios co-located in Boys & Girls Clubs in Atlanta and Detroit.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Youth Workforce Development

NAICS

Performing Arts Companies (7111), Fine Arts Schools (61161), Public Relations Agencies (541820)

SIC

Services-Advertising Agencies (7311), Services-Advertising (7310)

akta.pro primary industry

Event Strategy & Experience Design (BPAFAGAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Visual Arts (Drawing, Painting, Illustration) (EDAAAGAA), Brand Activations & Experiential Campaign Design (MPAAAGAA)

Keywords

• Youth workforce development
• Entertainment industry training
• Nonprofit career education
• Paid internship programs
• Creative arts training

Headquarters

HQ city

Atlanta

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Others

Revenue model

1. Individual donations: Public-facing donation page ('Donate Today') routed through GiveLively to Usher's New Look, Inc. general donation fund.
2. Corporate partnerships and philanthropic grants: Funding from corporate and foundation partners including the Sean Anderson Foundation, Ilitch Sports & Entertainment, Emory's Goizueta Business School, Apple, Bank of America, StockX, and Live Nation Entertainment.
3. Corporate partnership and employer engagement: Formal corporate partnership program and employer-intern pipeline, including paid industry internship stipends embedded in the R&B Tour.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Usher's New Look (UNL) is a national nonprofit that delivers structured youth workforce development through a four-stage Pathway Model (Access, Training, Experience, Innovation) focused on careers in the entertainment trades. It operates physical Spark Lab Studios inside Boys & Girls Clubs in Atlanta and Detroit, runs age-segmented cohort programs (Spark Club for ages 14-17 and Entertainment Industry Club for ages 18-25), and embeds paid interns directly on live entertainment productions such as Usher's 2026 R&B Tour.

Product overview

Usher's New Look (UNL) operates a unified, platform-plus-programs architecture built around its four-stage Pathway Model (Access → Training → Experience → Innovation). The core platform framework, branded as New Look Career Academies, anchors the system and connects Spark Lab Studios (the physical practice environments in Atlanta and Detroit), the early-exposure Spark Club (ages 14–17), the cohort-based Entertainment Industry Club or EIC (ages 18+), and the EIC R&B Live Touring Internship — a paid, tour-embedded internship offered in Tour Production, Multimedia, and Wardrobe tracks. Together these named programs move participants from career discovery through hands-on training, paid real-world production experience, and capstone/credentialed career advancement across the entertainment trades.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Spark Lab Studios: Physical practice environments operating inside partner Boys & Girls Clubs in Atlanta and Detroit, where participants test ideas, build skills, and engage with real entertainment-industry ecosystems.
• New Look Career Academies
• Entertainment Industry Club (EIC)
• Spark Club

Products and services

• UNL Pathway Model
• Spark Lab Studios
• Spark Club
• Entertainment Industry Club (EIC)
• EIC R&B Live Touring Internship
• New Look Career Academies
• Detroit Entertainment Innovation Incubator

Quantifiable outcome

• 50,000+ young people served worldwide since 1999
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• Boys & Girls Clubs of America / Boys & Girls Club of Greater Detroit / Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro AtlantaflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerFoundational operational partnership co-locating Spark Lab Studios inside Boys & Girls Club facilities in Atlanta (Joseph B. Whitehead) and Detroit (Michigan Central). Model is designed to scale Career Academies to 500 Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide. Partnership also delivers the EIC Live Touring Internship.
• Ilitch Sports + EntertainmentcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIndustry partner for the Michigan Central Boys & Girls Club innovation hub and the Detroit Spark Lab Studio. Featured on the UNL 'Trusted by industry' partner logos on the homepage.
• Emory University Goizueta Business SchoolcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNamed industry/academic partner on the Michigan Central Boys & Girls Club venture. UNL board member Jaclyn Conner, EdD serves as Associate Dean of Executive MBA at Goizueta, embedding executive-education expertise into UNL programming.
• ApplecoreTechnology or IntegrationListed industry partner supporting the Michigan Central Boys & Girls Club innovation hub programming for youth ages 14-24.
• StockXcoreTechnology or IntegrationListed industry partner supporting the Michigan Central Boys & Girls Club innovation hub programming for Detroit youth.
• Live Nation EntertainmentflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerFeatured 'Trusted by industry' partner on UNL homepage. Live Nation Entertainment is a leading live-event and touring company, directly relevant to UNL's Entertainment Industry Club Live Touring Internship on the R&B Tour.
• IBMflagshipTechnology or IntegrationFeatured 'Trusted by industry' partner on UNL homepage. Powers the IBM SkillsBuild integration providing over 1,000 courses on AI fundamentals, ethics, machine learning, and more to UNL youth.
• The Chamber GroupcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFeatured 'Trusted by industry' partner on UNL homepage; The Chamber Group is a creative and production-services agency relevant to UNL's production and creative tracks.
• Laffitte Management GroupcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFeatured 'Trusted by industry' partner on UNL homepage; Laffitte Management Group is a talent-management firm relevant to UNL's artist-management and entertainment-business exposure.
• CG ProcoreTechnology or IntegrationFeatured 'Trusted by industry' partner on UNL homepage; CG Pro is a CGI and creative-technology training platform that aligns with UNL's creative-technology focus area (Unreal Engine, CGI, digital production).
• PacsunminorGTM or Marketing PartnerRetail partner for the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Detroit Fashion Industry Club's collaborative collection 'Built for Change' releasing fall 2026 with designer Langston Howard / LRH Made.
• Maison BlackminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-mentorship partner with the Boys and Girls Club for a program that gave fashion-industry youth like Langston Howard the opportunity to present at the Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy Show during New York Fashion Week 2023.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Ghetto Film School: Nonprofit providing film and media-industry training and career pathways to underserved high-school and college-age youth; comparable mission of building entertainment-industry pipelines for the same demographic UNL targets.
• Bottom Line: Nonprofit focused on college completion and career access for first-generation students from low-income backgrounds; shares UNL's college-to-career pipeline philosophy and employer-engagement model.
• Per Scholas: Nonprofit providing tuition-free tech training and career placement to underserved adults; comparable cohort-based training model, employer-pipeline orientation, and outcome-focused nonprofit structure serving a similar demographic.
• Year Up: Workforce-development nonprofit serving young adults from underserved communities with employer-aligned training and paid internships; shares UNL's emphasis on cohort-based training, employer partnerships, and credentialed career outcomes.
• Boys & Girls Clubs of America: National youth-development network that is UNL's flagship distribution partner; both serve school-age youth with workforce, education, and life-skill programming through shared physical club infrastructure, making them directly comparable operating platforms.
• The Door: NYC-based youth-development nonprofit providing education, career training, and supportive services to young people ages 12–24; shares UNL's integrated model combining skill training, employer connection, and supportive services for underserved youth.
• NPower: Nonprofit delivering tech workforce training and job placement for underserved young adults and veterans; directly comparable model of free cohort training, employer partnerships, and credentialing for economic mobility.

Broad incumbents

• United Negro College Fund (UNCF): Large-scale education and workforce nonprofit serving the same demographic demographic (Black/African-American youth) with scholarship, training, and career-pathway programming; broader scope and longer operating history than UNL.
• Full Sail University: For-profit entertainment and media college with degrees in film, music production, and creative technologies; comparable curriculum in CGI, Unreal Engine, and digital production that align with UNL's Spark Lab Studios content.
• Berklee College of Music: Major for-profit music and entertainment-industry higher-education institution offering credentialed career pathways in production, creative, and business roles that directly overlap with UNL's entertainment-trades focus, though at a much larger scale and tuition-based model.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ushersnewlook
• Facebookfacebook.com/ushersnewlookfoundation

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Usher’s New Look