Eric Waldman was once managing hundreds of millions in Microsoft revenue, but he made a mission-critical decision to cash out of the corporate world in order to safeguard the fragile cultural history of dance.

The pivot was more natural than you might think. He joined ChromaDiverse, a technology-forward nonprofit that’s addressing the under-the-radar problem of helping dance organizations preserve their artistic legacies, as its chief operating officer. The organization makes otherwise inaccessible materials like programs, press materials, and photographs digitally available. It also offers tools that allow artists to store their videos, documents, and resumes, and to share them easily.

“We’re trying to preserve, protect, and also present the living legacies of dance organizations, the stories of dance organizations, their history, and everything else,” said Eric. He noted that this extends to “the artists themselves, not just the dancers, but the choreographers, the costume designers, everyone involved.”

ChromaDiverse was founded in 2019 by his high school friend, Judy Tyrus, a former principal dancer and curator at Dance Theatre of Harlem. At ChromaDiverse, Eric uses his technology and leadership skills to support the organization’s important—and time-critical—mission.

“We need to do this work now,” said Judy. “It’s essential. It’s about preserving cultural history and legacy, and if we don’t do it, it will be lost.”

She added that “nine times out of 10” organizations can’t access documents even when they have them.

“Imagine a storage room in a basement that’s damp, that has piles of boxes, and you need to find a program from 1986. You can imagine the angst that a marketing person has if they’re trying to do a retrospective, or a post about a particular person, or anything really,” she said. “If you don’t have digital access, it’s almost impossible.”