The Center for Transformative Action has entered a new, unfunded affiliation with Entrepreneurship at Cornell, following the University’s decision to phase out more than $100,000 of its annual funding by 2027.
CTA — the parent organization of many on-campus initiatives, including Anabel’s Grocery, Durland Alternatives Library and Prisoner Express — had previously been in a 53-year affiliation with Cornell United Religious Work, a multifaith community comprising over 40 religious and spiritual leaders. In February 2025, Dean of Students Marla Love, told The Sun that CTA’s subsidiary agencies have “outgrown the intent” of its original affiliation agreement, leading to its loss of funding and transfer to EaC.
“Born from the turmoil of the late 1960’s at Cornell,” the CTA was created at a time when many chaplains within CURW took part in anti-war and civil rights protests, according to the CTA website. In 1971, the Cornell Board of Trustees moved “to house these activities within a newly incorporated, education-based center, one that was affiliated with, but legally separate from, Cornell.”
As the fiscal sponsor of 40 nonprofit organizations based on Cornell’s campus and beyond, CTA Executive Director Anke Wessels described the organization’s new position at Cornell.
“While many universities have incubators for for-profit entrepreneurs, Cornell is the only major university affiliated with a nonprofit incubator and fiscal sponsor,” Wessels wrote in a statement to The Sun.
Wessels added that while “establishing a nonprofit venture is daunting,” CTA’s aim is to help faculty, staff, students and community turn their "transformative ideas into nonprofit initiatives.”
Of the 40 projects it oversees, 16 are Cornell-related, Wessels wrote, citing Anabel's Grocery, the Christopherson Center for Community Planning, and Río Limpio as examples. As a nonprofit organization independent from Cornell, CTA provides “centralized financial management, insurance, compliance, and HR services” for its projects, she added, saving them “significantly on overhead costs.”
Envisioning CTA within EaC, Wessels wrote that her organization can help connect the University to real-world impacts and “translate engaged scholarship into community-based innovation and initiatives.”
EaC Director Zach Shulman ’87 J.D. ’90 said that the partnership expands EaC’s long-standing focus on social entrepreneurship.
“CTA promotes a meaningful type of entrepreneurship, namely non-profit businesses,” Shulman said. “Many Cornell students are interested in non-profit strategies and outcomes, so it made perfect sense to align CTA with EaC. Cornell as a whole benefits from CTA’s work, and EaC is delighted to be its university affiliate.”
Following news of CTA’s new affiliation, Anabel’s Grocery, one of CTA’s student-run projects, expressed hope for what the new affiliation could bring, even though it is unfunded.
“The Anabel’s Grocery team hopes that CTA’s new affiliation agreement with Entrepreneurship at Cornell may open new doors for CTA to grow its network and receive the funding it needs, so that our store and the many other nonprofit initiatives that CTA supports can thrive well into the future,” said Trisha Bhujle ’26, a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a teaching assistant for the Social Entrepreneurship Practicum, the course that serves as the entry point for new Anabel’s Grocery team members.
When CTA lost its affiliation last spring, Anabel’s Grocery voiced concerns that they might not be able to stay operational without their support. A petition that was circulated online and which called on the University to “Save Anabel’s and the CTA” received 2760 signatures and 696 written testimonials.
They later secured $40,000 in funding over the next two years from the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly on Oct. 27.
CTA now continues its work while preparing for the University’s planned endowment funding to conclude after June 2027.
