720. Stories to Fill the Hope Gap: Why Celebration Is the Story That Changes Everything - Colby King, Kiki Arts Collaborative
Stories That Fill the Hope Gap is a 10-part limited series bringing you eight extraordinary changemakers who are using story to cut through noise, build connection, shift culture, and move people to action.
From Sesame Workshop storytelling around the globe to a hyper-local hip-hop therapy program helping kids navigate mental health in the Bronx to the Center for Countering Digital Hate taking on the most haunting issues of our time, every single conversation left us feeling more hopeful. That is the invitation.
New episodes drop every Wednesday. Share your own story at weareforgood.com/hopegap.
Episode 6: Why Celebration Is the Story That Changes Everything
Meet Colby: The Founder Turning Culture Into Economic Infrastructure
Colby King is the founder of Kiki Arts Collaborative, a New York organization that combines creative mentorship, job training, and internship placement for LGBTQ+ youth of color, ages 18–30, in the ballroom and Kiki scene. Long before he had words for it, Colby watched his minister mother model radical hospitality and informal workforce development in Dallas — proof for any leader who underestimates how everyday acts of care quietly become a mission.
After studying African American studies and psychology and working in marketing at American Express, he found ballroom and built Kiki Arts Collaborative to reduce the barrier to entry for arts, culture, and media careers. In 2025, Colby King was named a David Prize winner, an award that comes with $200,000 in unrestricted support to five New Yorkers doing visionary work.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
Why deficit-based "here's what's broken" storytelling can undermine the very communities nonprofits aim to serve — and how celebration-based narrative restores dignity
How to identify the assets and skills already present in a community and design programs that make them visible, rather than importing outside fixes
What it means to treat culture as economic infrastructure, and why that framing opens doors with funders
Episode Transcript
Powerful Quotes
"Thank you so much for allowing me to see my art as art."
— Colby (quoting a featured artist)
"The goal is to reduce the barrier to entry for arts and culture and media careers."
— Colby
"There's nowhere else in the world where Black and brown people, femininity, art, color, beauty is celebrated in mass." — Colby
"If you're gonna open up your home to people, genuinely do so, and do so expansively." — Colby (on his mother's example)
"Take care of your blessings." — Colby (quoting poet Essex Hemphill)
Resources Mentioned
Kiki Arts Collaborative: Colby's organization; economic development and creative-career platform for LGBTQ+ youth of color in NYC's ballroom/Kiki scene
Kiki Arts Collaborative on Instagram — @kikiartscollab
The David Prize: annual award giving $200,000 each to five visionary New Yorkers; Colby is a 2025 winner
Inspiration Point (Bronx): multimedia arts space and former youth correctional facility that hosted KAC's first annual visual art exhibit
Connect with Kiki Arts Collaborative
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