Our Mission
BASE is a not-for-profit membership organization dedicated to empowering and teaching youth, enriching families, helping those in need, and unifying black and brown communities against social injustice.
“If you want to go quickly, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.”
We are a group of black professionals who started Brothers Alliance for Social Empowerment, or BASE, with a simple idea: support people where they are and help them get to where they want and need to be. We began in 2018 by pooling our own resources to hold our first backpack drive, providing free school supplies and food for children and families in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. It was a joy to see the smiles of the children and receive the gratitude of the 200 parents that participated. That day changed us. Largely self-funded in the years that followed, we provided more school supplies to children and gave small scholarships to graduating high school seniors to help them get started in college. We also partnered with a homeless shelter to give Christmas gifts to children who otherwise might not have any. More small acts, but doing them together, combining our talents and resources, helped us have an out-sized impact on those we served.
In 2020, we formed a 501(c)3 organization and began developing grand plans to give back when a crisis struck. COVID-19 ravaged our country, particularly black and brown communities. In a way, the pandemic made our purpose even more clear, by highlighting huge gaps in the safety net of our communities. We held an emergency fundraiser, raising more than $8,000 in money and supplies. We purchased and distributed hand sanitizer, face masks, gloves, and other protective equipment to homeless shelters, nursing homes, and hundreds of individuals. We will remain on the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19, but with your help we plan to do much more in the years ahead. Our original idea was to help our communities in small ways. But small acts, especially if you do a lot of them, can have a profound impact on someone's life and strengthen entire communities.
That is our mission.