About Canvas Institute
Where creativity, leadership, culture, and community come together.
Canvas Institute of Arts, Culture & Civic Engagement is a Staten Island-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering youth and residents through arts, culture, civic engagement, wellness, education, and leadership development.
Our story
From a neighborhood idea to a trusted institution.
Canvas grew from honest, on-the-ground work with young people into a cross-sector platform for leadership, wellness, and civic engagement — without losing the relationships that make the work effective.
The beginning
Rooted on Staten Island
Canvas Institute grew from years of grassroots organizing, youth empowerment, creative programming, civic engagement, and community leadership.
Building the platform
The Youth Empowerment Summit
The annual Summit became Canvas Institute's signature gathering — students, schools, artists, and civic leaders together around opportunity and youth voice, every year for two decades.
Growing the model
From arts space to multidisciplinary hub
What began as a space for arts and culture became a multidisciplinary hub for youth leadership, wellness, education, and community action — including Compassionate Systems partnerships across 30+ NYC public schools since 2020.
Going international
Canvas Institute Nigeria
With NiDCOM, Canvas hosted two Youth Empowerment Summits at Aso Rock Congress Hall during the Diaspora Celebration — welcoming 500+ young people and building bridges between community, culture, and leadership.
2026
Twenty years of the Summit
The 20th Annual Youth Empowerment Summit drew more than 1,400 people to the historic St. George Theatre — a milestone for youth empowerment in Staten Island.
Our Mission
Canvas Institute provides a platform for the next generation of creatives, civic leaders, community leaders, and changemakers to collaborate, solve local challenges, and build healthier, more connected communities.
Our Vision
We envision communities where young people are heard, supported, equipped, and inspired to lead positive change in their schools, neighborhoods, and the world around them.
Core values
What we hold ourselves to.
Youth Voice
Young people lead the conversation — we build the platforms.
Compassion
Grounded in Compassionate Systems: emotional awareness, honesty, and belonging come first.
Community
We work with, not for. Every partnership is built on real relationships in real neighborhoods.
Creativity
Arts and culture are how we reach people, tell the truth, and build identity and pride.
Collaboration
Schools, agencies, funders, artists, and families working from the same table.
Accountability
Let the work speak. We hold the bar high and measure ourselves by real outcomes.
Our approach
Meet people where they are. Build from there.
Canvas integrates arts, culture, civic engagement, wellness, systems thinking, leadership, and education into a single approach. Sessions are interactive and student-centered — built around reflection, dialogue, creativity, and real-life application.
Every engagement is a partnership: schools, agencies, nonprofits, funders, artists, and families shaping the work together, with participation documented and outcomes reported honestly.
Founder & Executive Director
Bobby Digi Olisa
Founder and Executive Director · Canvas Institute of Arts, Culture & Civic Engagement
Canvas Institute was founded by Bobby Digi Olisa and is rooted in decades of community work, youth mentorship, anti-violence efforts, arts, culture, and civic engagement.
Bobby's leadership connects grassroots experience with Compassionate Systems practice, youth mental health awareness, and a commitment to building spaces where young people can lead. As the creator of the Youth Empowerment Summit, he has brought students, schools, artists, employers, and public leaders together for twenty years — in New York and, through Canvas Institute Nigeria, internationally.
- Creator of the Youth Empowerment Summit
- Certified Master Practitioner, Compassionate Systems
- Teen Mental Health First Aid certified
- National & international speaker and facilitator
“Let the work speak. Everything else is noise.”
Executive team
The team behind the mission.
A small team with deep roots — facilitators, organizers, and administrators who show up in schools and community rooms every week.
Bobby Olisa
Founder
Samuel Joseph
Chief of Staff
Jeffrey Derose
Sales Manager
Happiness Obiechina
Administrative Officer
Henry Olisa
Program Instructor
Dietric Wing-Paul
Program Instructor
Hugh Nielsen
Program Instructor
Portraits and biographies are being added. For staff inquiries, contact info@canvasinstitute.org.
Governance
Board of Directors.
Independent governance and oversight from community leaders who hold the organization accountable to its mission.
Dennis Brown
Director
Michele Akyempong
Director
Quentin Welcott
Director
Tanisha Franks
Director
Celia Iervasi
Director
Our partners
A coalition across schools, government, business & community.
Canvas works alongside organizations that share a commitment to youth development, community well-being, education, culture, and civic participation.
Be part of the next chapter.
However you show up — partner, funder, volunteer, or neighbor — there's a place for you in the work.