Support for Individual Artists

For our March 2022 Member Spotlight, we feature Art Matters and their Artist2Artist program, piloted in 2021, where grant recipients — artists — act as grantmakers. There were no applications, no panel, and the Board held no veto power beyond familial conflicts of interest. This evolving horizontal model of granting was created to affirm artists’ specialized knowledge of their communities and reduce the labor typically required for artists to access funding for their practices.

"In a sentence: The dance funding ecosystem is small compared to other performing arts, and the impacts of the pandemic on top of decades of declining public funding mean a growing role for philanthropy," reports Inside Philanthropy in their State of American Philanthropy report.

"The Open Society Foundations are proud to announce their Justice Rising Awards, a new investment in leaders working towards racial justice and equality in the Black community in the United States," according to the press release. "The 16 awardees from across the country are being recognized for their long-term contributions to advancing change in their communities, tireless commitment to civil rights, and capacity to inspire, innovate, and mobilize people despite considerable odds."

A new program spearheaded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will provide guaranteed income and jobs for up to 2,700 artists living throughout New York State reports Hyperallergic. "The $125 million initiative, Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY), will issue monthly, no-strings-attached payments to up to 2,400 artists with financial need over the next three years."

"Last year, Charlotte city government, business executives, and The Foundation For The Carolinas developed a plan aimed at boosting arts funding," reported Erik Spanberg in the Charlotte Business Journal. "It included the addition of an arts and culture officer — Priya Sircar, hired last summer — and the creation of an 18-member advisory board made up of arts, civic, and philanthropic leaders." $4.4 million remain uncommitted from this inaugural grantmaking period, and as organizations and communities face increased challenges due to the Covid-19 Omicron variant, the advisory board are opening new possibilties for how it could be allocated.

This is part two of a two-part series on individual artist support written by Marc Zegans and published by GIA. In follow-up to his GIA Reader article from 2017, Zegans offers his perspective on the cycle of creative growth that artists experience throughout their careers and opportunities for grantmakers to re-examine how they develop and adjust their practices to meet nonlinear needs.

This is the first part of a two-part series on individual artist support written by Marc Zegans and published by GIA. Following-up to his GIA Reader article from 2017, Zegans offers his perspective on the cycle of creative growth that artists experience throughout their careers, and opportunities for grantmakers to re-examine how they develop and adjust their practices to meet nonlinear needs.

Millennials live differently than previous generations of Americans. We stay single longer. More of us have student debt and are self-employed, freelancers, and members of the growing gig economy. According to Randstad’s research on the workplace, more than half of Americans will be self-employed by 2025. More than 40% of gig workers will be millennials, a figure that will likely grow given the size of the generation and its youth. Millennials are the largest demographic in American history. We are the future.

"How can we support artists across the country, keeping in mind that each community presents a unique set of circumstances? The answer is simple, yet often overlooked: we do it together."