Charles Buki founded czb in 2001 after working in the nonprofit community development sector, and after growing disillusioned with what he believed was a lack of imagination in the planning and design fields in their response to the real world challenges faced by low-income and working families in America.  

In establishing czb, he sought to bring focus to the decisions that all households make with the capacities they have so that policy and other interventions could have positive and lasting impacts on families and communities. He has two main professional interests: the challenge of improving neighborhood residential life without displacement, and the challenge of constructively orienting the disequilibrium in communities undergoing change.

He was a Mesa Fellow, a Loeb Fellow, and has served in numerous volunteer roles in his home communities. His primary volunteer aim is to help increase childhood literacy in his home community.