Founder & CEO
Built from zero
Nextdoorganics
Founded a Bed-Stuy food enterprise (Food-X accelerator), scaled it past $5M in revenue, and transitioned it to a worker-owned cooperative.
I build cultural institutions and creative ventures with a founder's discipline — backing artists' careers, and the studios, lofts, and landmarks that let them stay. Baltimore can be a world-class, affordable home for the arts. I'm building toward that.
You don't fund a creative city by writing checks. You build it like a founder — investing in people one career at a time, and in the buildings that keep them here.
Identify artists early. Back careers investment by investment. Wire local talent into networks beyond the city — so the city exports artists and imports attention.
Co-invest in real property: artist lofts and live/work housing, vacant buildings turned to studios, and historic properties restored in partnership with Black local owners and creators. Work I've already done in economic development.
Founded a Bed-Stuy food enterprise (Food-X accelerator), scaled it past $5M in revenue, and transitioned it to a worker-owned cooperative.
Led curation, communications, and fundraising for international public art across Washington, DC.
Curated a twelve-artist exhibition examining masculinity and the body through a contemporary queer lens. East City Art →
Joshua M. Cook works at the intersection of arts, capital, and place. He founded and scaled Nextdoorganics in Brooklyn — building a food enterprise past $5M in revenue and transitioning it to worker ownership — and has since advised entrepreneurs, institutions, and public agencies on strategy, partnerships, and growth.
As a curator and cultural producer, he served as Visual Arts Chair for WorldPride 2025 and curates independently. In economic development, he has led place-based investment — acquiring distressed property for productive reuse and shaping site strategy for major cultural assets. He holds a BSFS from Georgetown University and an MSc from the London School of Economics, and lives in the heart of Baltimore's arts community.
His conviction is simple: to be an artist in Baltimore should mean living your best life — affordable, connected, and seen.