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Dear Build Up Companies Community: 

After an incredible journey of innovation, social impact, collaboration, growth, and shared purpose, the Build Up Companies (“BUC”) will be winding down our full suite of operations. Our final day working within the BUC’s current institutional structure will be February 27, 2026. While this marks the close of an important chapter, it is also a moment of reflection, gratitude, and intentional evolution.

This milestone marks the end of a meaningful chapter in our story. It is the thoughtful result of a decision rooted in the people, relationships, and the communities we serve, during a time that is exponentially threatening for under-resourced, vulnerable, and historically marginalized groups impacted by domestic and international policies. We intend to be strategic in order to restructure how we, and the broad network of BUC alumni and ambassadors, show up in the sector, distributing strengths and continuing to build on the foundation we established together.

Over the past seven years, we have been privileged to support and work alongside brave organizations and leaders in building movements, strengthening infrastructure, and creating lasting impact. We are profoundly grateful for the trust, commitment, collaboration, and bravery our clients have demonstrated in partnering with us in this work.

Although the BUC, as a federated group of three organizations, will wind down its current operations, the standard of excellence, bravery, and innovation that has defined our work will continue. Our team members will continue their work with other nonprofit organizations and philanthropies, bringing their experience, knowledge, and commitment to communities, networks, and movements.

This transition is shaped by an important development in my leadership journey. As you know, in March 2025, the Board of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (“RPA”) asked Walter Sweet and me to step into interim Co-CEO and President roles during a period of significant organizational change. Following this interim tenure, the Board has now asked us to continue permanently as Co-CEOs and Presidents.

The opportunity to co-lead RPA at this moment is consequential. Philanthropy is being tested in profound ways, and institutions like RPA play a critical role in ensuring that resources move with integrity, bravery, and accountability, particularly toward communities that have  been historically marginalized and under-resourced. During my interim tenure, I have led and supported foundational work to strengthen RPA’s infrastructure, governance, people and culture and legal and compliance functions, operational resilience, and philanthropic stewardship and partnerships. This work has strategically positioned RPA to lead with clarity in an increasingly complex environment, and it is work I am deeply committed to advancing as Co-CEO and President.

I founded the BUC to strengthen the governance, grantmaking, and organizational infrastructure of brave systems-change organizations committed to interrupting cycles of injustice and inequity to ultimately transform life outcomes for historically marginalized communities. As a Black woman and an immigrant to the United States, born in Barbados and raised in the South Bronx, my lived experience has deeply shaped how I see the world and how I approach leadership, community, and problem-solving.

In many ways, the BUC has been a proving space for the values, leadership, and systems required in this moment. What began as an idea to strengthen the infrastructure of grant makers so they could sustainably effect systems change and transform life outcomes grew into a global advisory, legal, and fiscal sponsorship practice, working alongside organizations and movements across the United States and around the world. We have supported organizations and leaders in moments of growth, transition, and brave ambition, always centering equity, justice, and people.

The experience, perspective, and values forged through the BUC uniquely equip me to co-lead RPA and to continue advancing work that fundamentally reimagines and shifts how philanthropic resources move and who they center.

Although the BUC’s current institutional structure is winding down, the community, relationships, and shared commitments we have built do not disappear. We are actively exploring ways to maintain the special BUC community that has formed over the years. More information will be shared about this community in the months ahead.

With deep gratitude and respect, we thank you for walking alongside us in this chapter, and we look ahead with optimism to what comes next.

Bravely, 

A. Nicole Campbell 
Founder 

You can read more about the next phase in Nic’s leadership journey here.