What is Strong Asian Lead?

Strong Asian Lead is a nonprofit education center for the Asian Pacific entertainment community. We provide free education and mentorship to both the emerging creative industry and the big studios. Our vision is to develop the next generation so that they are empowered to tell their own stories.

What is our membership?

Strong Asian Lead bridges the gap between the Asian Pacific community and Hollywood by serving both sides of the bridge. For the creative talent community, we offer resources and mentorship to develop the next generation of storytellers. For the executive Hollywood side, we find new projects and artists to staff your next project with our easy to use database and call boards.

Additionally, our database includes a directory of Asian Pacific Diaspora films, documentaries, podcasts, film festivals, and musical playlists, ranging as far back to the early 1900’s. All for FREE or including in your current subscription models.

This platform is live and you can sign up today at https://www.strongasianlead.com/membership for free.

What are our goals?

Our mission is to create a community for us to gather, both in-person and online in a safe space environment built by, for, and with the community. We share the knowledge and wisdom for our community to thrive, while having a really great time.

Let’s not fight to be the loudest voice, let’s be loud together.

What have we done?

Recently, we consulted a creative were called a slur in a “joking” manner on a film set. They came to us and asked what to do. We suggested to write down everything that happened, ask a witness to support, and cite the Title VII Civil Liberties act of 1964 directly to the producer. The “jokester” was fired immediately.

Our podcast speaks with the legacies of the entertainment community. Those who came before us need to have their voices heard and wisdom and make them accessible to the public. Currently in hiatus, until funding is secured. Listen to it now on your favorite podcast player. https://strongasianlead.com/podcasts/

How you can support

Strong Asian Lead has been an all volunteer project with a ever-changing team. The one person who has stuck through it all is our founder, Masami Moriya. Also known as “Mas,” the activist filmmaker turned nonprofit tech entrepreneur has poured his life into this project, even writing this crowdfunding copy. Strong Asian Lead is a full time job, with only one person guiding the ship. After two years, our funding has completely dried up, and we’re going into further personal debt creating this community, all while having started in March 2020.

We’re asking for $42,000 to cover 1 years worth of rent, food, bills, web tools, and an assistant. That’s the majority of our operating costs. This does not include paying off the emergency loans and credit debit, or paying back personal investments. This is pure operating costs for one (1) year with our 2 person nonprofit, the founder and a virtual assistant.

You may request the breakdown at info@strongasianlead.com.

Our Plans for 2022

Our first in-person meetup is on May 28, 2022 at the Peking Tavern Los Angeles Location. It’s a free event, and we may reach our capacity very quickly. This is our kick-off celebration for AAPIHM, and our plan is to make these a monthly opportunity (big and small) to connect with the entire community on a more frequent basis with the fewest barriers of entry.

As our community grows, so will our AFN platform, which will in-turn attract more studios to see us as a resource to partner with. This will help us become sustainable and grow our team to best service the community by delegating the labor.

Donating

Please consider donating to our campaign. We use Givebutter because it takes no fees, but we are open to other options. If you’re unable to donate at this time, there’s no shame in that. We would love for you to join AFN anyways and enjoy our free resources. We built this platform with the starving artist in mind. Please use our platform and attend our community gatherings.

Currently we do not have our 501c3 as of May 12, 2022, but our plans are to file as soon as possible to give you the taxed deductible information; as we are not currently fiscally sponsored.

Thank you

If you’re reading this now, you’ve reached the end of our campaign page and there’s nothing more to say than thank you. We appreciate your time and attention to our passionate mission and dedicated work

Please reach out to info@strongasianlead.com for any inquiries.

Thank you for donating.

Strong Asian Lead

Let's change Hollywood together.