Throughout his two-decade career in business and finance, Brickson Diamond always had an interest in helping talented people of color rise to the level of success they deserved.

“Diversity is being invited to the party,” he says. “Inclusion is playing the music I want to dance to, and serving the food I want to eat.”

If joining a non-profit board or philanthropy is one of your new year’s resolutions, Brickson Diamond, Chief Operating Officer of the Executive Leadership Council, has some advice for you. This business leader brings the same drive and intentionality to his philanthropy and board involvement that he brings to his career. I asked him how he gives back and how it has made a difference.

Brickson Diamond (MBA 1999) has never been one to, as he puts it, “just sit back and wait for progress to happen.” His role as cofounder and chair of the Blackhouse Foundation is a case in point. The organization took shape in 2006 after Diamond, then in the midst of a successful career in financial services with the Capital Group Companies, attended the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, with some HBS friends.

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Over the Filmmaker Lounge Friday afternoon, where, before a packed Sundance crowd that included David Oyelowo, Lena Waithe, and Storm Reid, Blackhouse Foundation co-founder Brickson Diamond did his best version of Oprah when introducing the new series from Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney.

Co-founded by Brickson Diamond, in 2006, the Blackhouse Foundation came into being after the few black folks who’d been attending Sundance grew tired of seeing so few reflections of themselves on the Park City streets and of seeing so few black films. So Diamond, a graduate of Harvard Business School, along with two friends, Carol Ann Shine and Ryan Tarpley, created a place where their peers could gather to educate, network, and figure out how to break the white ceiling of Hollywood. 

“We started this in 2007, and there were only seven black films at Sundance, so there weren’t a whole lot of people in the audience,” remembers Blackhouse Foundation co-founder Brickson Diamond of his organization’s panel discussions in year one. “The panelists were just outnumbered by members of the audience.”

Eleven years later, Blackhouse counted 39 projects — from across film, episodic and the digital space — featuring black talent and filmmakers telling black stories at the film festival. “The [programmers] remain hungry and curious and they stick it out with filmmakers,” says Diamond of the fest’s increasingly inclusive programming. “It is their passion and their long-term view that allows them to see these voices.”

Brickson Diamond creates spaces for black creatives to thrive at the nation’s largest indie film festival.