Opus 1 Foundation

Page d'Accueil
France
Paris
Opus 1 Foundation

Founded in 2016, the Opus 1 Foundation believes in the power of the arts to combat the global issues

Formed by an international team of performing artists, the OPUS 1 FOUNDATION believes in the power of the arts to inspire individuals, change communities, and combat current issues around the globe. In February 2016, we traveled to Kenya to foster greater awareness on the benefits of arts education - particularly for youth living in districts of extreme poverty. Witnessing how music, dance and th

eater were affording these young men & women opportunities to expand their horizons and the ripple effect it had within their community, they were moved to build an organization where artists would become architects of change. Since then, the O1 Team has been challenging itself to answer questions beginning with: how can the arts...?

- How can the arts create opportunities for children & young adults to reach their full potential?

- How can the arts help to eradicate poverty, hunger, disease, and social inequalities?

- How can the arts unite people of different nations, creeds, orientations and backgrounds to promote a stronger global community? As a Foundation, we align ourselves, our strategies and resources in finding solutions to these challenges worldwide in cooperation with our artist ambassadors, national governments, international development agencies, private companies, and academic & cultural institutions, as well as other nonprofits and philanthropies. At Opus 1, we don't say "the arts can change the world" ... and that's because we know they will.

13/05/2026

Three conversations. Three corners of the world. One question at the center of all of them: what happens when creativity is treated as infrastructure?

In our most recent episodes of The Art of Impact:

Severin Zugmayer of New Renaissance Ventures makes the case for why the Cultural and Creative Industries are one of the most significant — and most overlooked — investment opportunities of our time. AI isn’t just disrupting the creative economy. It’s rewiring it entirely.

Emily Palmer () of Next PAGE () brings creative writing into the lives of incarcerated youth in New York City — and reframes literacy as the radical act of learning to tell your own story on your own terms.

Holly Dorger () shares the moment she watched children in Nairobi experience ballet for the very first time — and what it revealed about the transformative power of access to art.

Three episodes. All streaming now on Spotify and YouTube.

If you haven’t listened yet — now is the time.

🎧 Link in bio → opus1foundation.org/the-art-of impact

12/05/2026

In thermodynamics, a catalyst lowers the activation energy required to drive a reaction. It doesn’t change the destination — it removes the resistance standing between potential and outcome.

At Opus 1 Foundation, the arts are that catalyst.

Our theory of change is expressed formally as:
∫₀ᵞ [A(t) × Hₚ(t)] dt / σ∆ = Cᶜᴸ · Λⁿ

Where:

— A(t) is sustained arts programming over time
— Hₚ(t) is human potential at each moment
— σ∆ is the systemic inertia that suppresses both
— Cᶜ is creative capital — the measurable output
— Λⁿ is scalable impact across n geographies

Like a well-designed system, the variables are interdependent. Remove sustained programming, and potential goes unrealized. Reduce inertia, and the yield compounds exponentially.

This is not metaphor. It is the operating logic behind our work in New York, Kenya, and Pakistan — and the framework we use to evaluate every program, partnership, and investment.

Creativity is infrastructure. We are building the proof.

Learn more at opus1foundation.org

11/05/2026

Opus 1 Foundation is headed to Denver.

We’re proud to be represented at the 2026 GlobalMindED Conference (June 10–12), where our Founder & CEO, , will be moderating a session alongside leaders from across the capital and impact space.

Risk. Return. Resilience: A New Framework for Philanthropy

The session digs into the mechanics of blended finance, first-loss capital, and multi-bottom-line measurement — and what it takes to structure social investments that scale.
Panelists include:

🔹 Christiaan van Driel — UBS
🔹 Nisaa Jetha — Impact for SDGs
🔹 Ali Motroni — Field Guide
🔹 Andrew Lee — Management Leadership for Tomorrow

The frontier of philanthropy demands more than good intentions. It requires structured risk, aligned incentives, and a rigorous approach to impact measurement. That’s exactly the work we’re built for.

If you’ll be in Denver, we’d love to connect.

📍 GlobalMindED Conference | June 10–12, 2026

🔗 globalminded.org

08/05/2026

What does impact actually mean when your portfolio lives at the intersection of culture and capital?

For Severin Zugmayer of New Renaissance Ventures, the answer is concrete: jobs created, tools made accessible, monetization platforms built — an economy designed from the ground up for creatives to thrive in.

Severin reframes what venture capital looks like when it’s working — not just returns on a spreadsheet, but measurable improvements in the lives of the people who make culture possible.

The creative economy isn’t a soft bet. It’s an infrastructure play. And impact, in this context, means building the conditions for artists and creators to thrive.

🎧 Full Episode Available May 10 on opus1foundation.org

07/05/2026

What is the future of work — and who gets to define value in it?

Severin Zugmayer of New Renaissance Ventures says the CultTech space is no longer a niche conversation. AI is fundamentally rewiring the Cultural and Creative Industries, and with that comes a wave of opportunity that investors are just beginning to recognize.

The shift is too strong to ignore.

06/05/2026

Most venture capitalists will tell you they invest in the future. Severin Zugmayer thinks they’ve been missing it.

The Cultural and Creative Industries represent 5.5% of the EU economy — larger than pharmaceuticals, larger than telecom. And for decades, serious capital has largely looked past them. Severin decided to do something about it.

In this episode of The Art of Impact, we sat down with Severin, Founder and General Partner of New Renaissance Ventures, the first venture fund built exclusively around the thesis that culture is not a soft bet — it’s one of the smartest ones available. From Red Bull to Speedinvest to the founding of NRV, Severin has spent his career asking a question that most investors haven’t thought to ask: what if creativity is the asset class we’ve been overlooking all along?

A conversation about capital, culture, and the cost of leaving an entire industry off the table.

29/04/2026

Opus 1 Foundation is proud to welcome Bronx Theatre Workshop () to our family of fiscally sponsored projects.

Founded by theater instructor Melanie Harrison-Milton, BTW is an arts-integrated theater education program serving young people across the Bronx — building artists, growing confident people, and creating real belonging through the power of ensemble theatre.

Every cycle, students learn to improvise, write, perform, and direct — culminating in original work that is entirely their own.

We believe creativity is infrastructure. BTW proves it.

🔗 Learn more at opus1foundation.org/bronx-theatre-workshop

28/04/2026

Opus 1 Foundation welcomes Dr. Diana Farid () to our Advisory Council.

Physician. Filmmaker. Poet. Award-winning author. Diana has spent her career proving what we exist to demonstrate — that the arts aren’t separate from health and well-being. They drive it.

🔘 Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford School of Medicine.

🔘Inaugural artsCatalyst Fellow, Stanford Arts Institute.

🔘Author of Wave, When You Breathe, and The Light of Home.

We’re honored to have her counsel as we build.

27/04/2026

In a landscape awash with the artificial, the authentic endures.

For years, we’ve treated creativity as a luxury — something societies invest in after the serious work of economic development is handled. AI is exposing how wrong that assumption was.

As generative tools take over routine cognitive work, the capacities that remain distinctly human — nuanced judgment, cultural resonance, the ability to build trust across difference — are becoming scarcer. And scarcer means more valuable.

The numbers reflect this. The global creative economy generates $2 trillion annually. In the United States, arts and culture contribute $1.2 trillion to GDP — outpacing transportation and manufacturing. These aren’t soft sectors. They are strategic ones.

But the data understates the real tension.

AI democratizes creative tools in genuinely empowering ways. At the same time, without intentional safeguards, it concentrates economic rewards among dominant platforms — eroding the diverse creative ecosystems that communities depend on, and deepening inequity for creators from underrepresented backgrounds.

This calls for a different kind of response. Not patronage. Not short-term grants. Multi-year, systems-level investment in creator networks, equitable platforms, and fair compensation mechanisms that protect intellectual provenance.

At Opus 1 Foundation, this is the work we were built for.

Through Opus 1 Ventures () — our forthcoming venture studio — we deploy catalytic capital into ventures that treat creativity as essential infrastructure: across education, economic development, health, environmental sustainability, and conflict-affected communities.

When AI amplifies human insight rather than replaces it, the effects multiply. Stronger local economies. Deeper civic participation. More resilient communities.

The question is no longer whether to invest in creative capital. It’s how boldly — and how systematically — to do so now.

26/04/2026

7 weeks. One full letter grade.

That’s what Next PAGE students gained in reading and writing through Emily Palmer ’s program — and it’s one of the clearest arguments for what creative storytelling can do when it’s treated as serious educational infrastructure, not enrichment.

In this episode of The Art of Impact, Emily breaks down how giving incarcerated youth a genuine voice — and the tools to develop it — produces outcomes the system has struggled to achieve through conventional means.

The data is making the case. It’s time the system listens.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE: opus1foundation.org/the-art-of-impact

23/04/2026

The youth criminal justice system is supposed to reduce reincarceration. But Emily Palmer argues it’s missing one of the most effective tools available — and has been the whole time.

In this episode of The Art of Impact, Emily talks about what she’s seen through Next PAGE: when young people in detention are given access to literacy, storytelling, and a genuine creative voice, something measurably shifts. The evidence, she says, points to a straightforward conclusion — programs like this, integrated at scale into the system, could meaningfully reduce the number of young people who return to it as adults.

The question isn’t whether it works. The question is why it isn’t everywhere.

Adresse

13 Avenue Du Président Wilson
Paris
75116

Site Web

http://www.opus1foundation.org/

Notifications

Soyez le premier à savoir et laissez-nous vous envoyer un courriel lorsque Opus 1 Foundation publie des nouvelles et des promotions. Votre adresse e-mail ne sera pas utilisée à d'autres fins, et vous pouvez vous désabonner à tout moment.