Episode 3
No More Starving Artists!
On today’s episode, we examine how unrestricted funding is a vital solution—freeing artists from the red tape of traditional grants and allowing them to focus on their craft.
By removing these financial barriers, we can create a future where art—and the people who make it—are truly valued and can thrive.
featuring
-
Jessica Mele Creative
FounderJessica Mele is a writer, educator, grantmaker, and performer based in California. She is currently Interim Executive Director at Create CA and founder of her own consulting practice, Jessica Mele Creative (clients include the Hewlett Foundation and Center for Cultural Innovation). She co-created and co-facilitates the Storytelling Fellowship for Equity for funders of color at EdFunders. Before she made grants, Jessica was a nonprofit executive director, union organizer and higher education administrator. She has written and performed comedy for a decade as a member of San Francisco’s female-driven sketch comedy group, Chardonnay. Her solo play about motherhood and interstellar space, “Eat the Mama,” premiered in San Francisco in September 2023.
-
Waterers
MemberDepartment of Public Transformation
Ignite Rural Program DirectorHolly Doll (she/her) lives in North Dakota and is an enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. She has been working in arts and culture nonprofit for over a decade and is deeply passionate about community, artists, and values-led work. She currently works for the Department of Public Transformation and with the Waterers. Holly is also an artist, taught by her mother Emma Goodhouse. She specializes in Lakota beadwork and quillwork. When she’s not working, you can find her enjoying life with her husband and two cats or playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends.
-
Waterers
MemberJoua Lee Grande (she/they) is a filmmaker and community connector who elevates underheard perspectives and experiences. Her short film On All Fronts received an Honorable Mention for the Loni Ding Award for Social Justice Documentary and was in a series nominated for a Daytime Emmy. Joua has worked for over a decade as a community worker and educator supporting youth, families and underrepresented storytellers. She mentors emerging filmmakers throughout the Twin Cities and offers guidance to arts funders and organizations about better supporting artists. Joua serves in various community groups, including the Waterers who work to decolonize funding and inspire community-driven, trust-based giving.
-
Grantmakers in the Arts
President & CEOEddie Torres is a social change servant leader in the nonprofit, philanthropic and public sectors - currently serving as president and CEO of Grantmakers in the Arts. Torres served as deputy commissioner of cultural affairs for New York City, where they played a leadership role in the development of the city’s long-term sustainability plan, the city's first cultural plan and a study of and efforts to support the diversity of the city’s cultural organizations. Prior, Torres was a program officer with The Rockefeller Foundation, where they supported arts and culture, employment access, and resilience. Torres has also served at The Ford Foundation and at the Bronx Council on the Arts, among other roles. Torres serves on the board of directors of United Philanthropy Forum, as well as serving on its Public Policy Committee. Torres holds a Master of Arts in Art History from Hunter College and a Master of Science in Management from The New School.
-
Springboard for the Arts
Community Development DirectorRicardo Beaird is a theater maker, teaching artist, and cheese curd enthusiast originally from Nashville, Tennessee. Their recent work is informed by the unfinished business of ghosts, dis/connection through the internet, and sometimes Beyoncé. In addition to performing with Pangea World Theater, Park Square Theatre, Red Eye Theater and Ten Thousand Things Theater, Beaird is a Core Artist with Full Circle Theatre, advisory council member with the queer-led theater collective Lightning Rod, and an Artist Council member for the 2021 Northern Spark Arts Festival. Ricardo brings deep experience in collective visioning, workshop facilitation, and community organizing.
Listen & Scroll
Read along and check out resources as you listen.
segment 1: the small scale affects the large scale
narrated by Tom T. Young
segment 2: artist labor is labor
with guest Jessica Mele
segment 3: gift as you’d like to be gifted
with guests Holly Doll & Joua Lee Grande
segment 4: building capital with unrestricted funds
with guest Eddie Torres
segment 5: guaranteed income for artists
with guest Ricardo Beaird
segment 6: wrap
narrated by Tom T. Young
segment 1
the small scale affects the large scale
narrated by your host,
Tom T. Young
-
[ quiet music playing ]
Host
"How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale. The patterns of the universe repeat at every level of scale." adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy.
-
Host
For the Love of Radical Giving. You are tuning into a GIA Reader miniseries that deconstructs traditional philanthropy, and celebrates the joy and power of giving out of love. I'm your host, Tom T. Young. I'm a proud co-founder of Vital Little Plans, an artist giving circle, and Flannel & Blade, a queer-owned communication shop for good. Take my hand as we jog through some incredible interviews with radical visionaries who are actively working on reshaping this philanthropic landscape towards a more just and equitable future for all.
Today, we explore the transformative power of unrestricted funding in the arts, and how it can liberate artists from precarious labor. In earlier episodes, we examined the complex relationships between philanthropy and the arts. Now, we confront the harsh realities faced by artists in 2024, expected to create and inspire while juggling multiple jobs just to survive. The art world, worth over $65 billion globally, sees wealth concentrated at the top, leaving most artists struggling. While billionaires use art to boost their social capital, many artists are striking for fair pay and better conditions. They create content for platforms like TikTok, work freelance gigs, apply for grants, and rely on crowdfunding, but AI now threatens their livelihoods, making creative work even more difficult. Yet, we need these storytellers now more than ever to help us reimagine a better world.
As adrienne maree brown reminds us, how we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale. The choices we make in supporting artists ripple outwards to affect broader social change. Uplifting their labor on a micro level reflects the values we want to see on a larger scale. In this episode, we examine how unrestricted funding is a vital solution, freeing artists from the red tape of traditional grants and allowing them to focus on their craft. By removing these financial barriers, we can create a future where art and the people who make it are truly valued and can thrive. Let's get started, shall we?
[ music transition ]
Resources
Emergent Strategy
adrienne maree brown (Book)Why Is Starving Artist Still a Thing?
Althea Erickson (Essay)
-
Jessica
The work of creativity is the work of making unexpected connections, and that work is often uncompensated, and because it doesn't fit into structure for which we have envisioned compensation.
Host
This is Jessica Mele, philanthropic strategist, grant-maker, and storyteller.
-
Jessica
I do think artists need to be thinking of themselves as... Workers is an imperfect word, and I totally get it, that many artists feel like that doesn't describe what they do. They make meaning, and that is meaningful, and that that is deserving of protection and visibility and compensation.
Host
So is it as easy as an artist just saying, "Hey, I'm a freelancer"?
Jessica
First of all, being a freelancer has never been easy, particularly for folks who don't have access to generational wealth.
Host
As a freelancer myself, the amount of work that I put into my work has been a little more than I bargained for.
Jessica
I think that bargain, which, again, for many people, was never a good bargain, has become more and more challenging to accept now that basic needs are more expensive than they ever have been relative to income.
Host
When I think about freelancers, gosh, that's a big group of the workforce, isn't it?
Jessica
You've got construction workers over here, artists over here, sex workers over here, you've got home health workers over there, restaurant workers, and they all mobilize for interests that are good to them and their particular field, but they're so much stronger together, and I think they have yet to show their strength politically.
Host
And often, these folks, myself included, stitch together multiple types of jobs just to pay rent.
Jessica
One of the things that I think is so interesting about artists in the gig economy, and what makes them really difficult to categorize, is that they often work across so many different employment relationships simultaneously, and that changes over time, that's not static. At one point in their career, they might have a W-2 employment and a 1099 employment, or then they might be a boss at the same time, or they might take on a project that makes them a boss for a short period of time, and then that changes.
Host
I can definitely testify to this. Since I left my last W-2 job, I've been paid in so many different ways, commodifying my artistic practices into income. So with such an individualized approach to a career, how could we possibly define what a gig worker is?
Jessica
The Gig Worker Learning Project did a research study with gig workers asking them to self-define what is the gig economy, what does it mean to be a gig worker? They rather brilliantly and simply defined gig work as any work that is outside a traditional W-2 employment relationship. That's a really big category of work, but it can include independent contractor work as a sole proprietor, or it can include being self-employed through another tax entity that you found, a 501(c)(3) or a for-profit entity, it can include so many things
Host
Because artists don't perfectly fit into our traditional compensation models, how can we engage in accurate labor classifications to help the labor justice movement organize towards greater equity and greater coalition building?
Jessica
Labor activists in California really pushed for AB5, which passed at the end of 2019, it really just codified California State Supreme Court decisions on this question, and that is where we have the most solid, some would say restrictive, but clear determination, test, of how to classify an employee. It's called the ABC test.
Host
I would imagine this type of state-wide and federal legislation sets a solid foundation for grassroots organizing to take place.
Jessica
I do hear stories in creative fields, media companies unionizing, arts nonprofits unionizing, museums unionizing, and I often hear the narrative that young leaders of color in these fields see unionization as a way of achieving equity, of achieving transparency, and a fairer process for pay and compensation.
Host
The road to labor equity in every sector can look like many things, including access to unionizing and networking for independent contractors. Along with the SAG-AFTRA strikes and other recent labor wins, there seems to be a recent positive shift towards labor justice for everybody.
Jessica
I think people are craving belonging, and there's a lot of really valuable good that can be done when folks work together with a common goal in mind, and it takes a lot of work to get to that common goal, and it also requires interacting with those systems that are set up to contradict the desires of that group.
Host
We'll talk about what funders are doing to get more unrestricted cash to artists later in the episode, but for now, do you think the field is doing enough?
Jessica
I think the limits of philanthropy are not just how to get around funding individual artists, but how to have an impact at scale on artists in the field. Community-based participatory grant-making costs more time and money, but the idea is that the impact is more long-lasting, because the decisions are being made by the people who are impacted by them.
Host
Are there opportunities for grant-making to show up more strategically or effectively?
Jessica
Policy is the best way that I know right now of reaching scale of impact when it comes to supporting artists in their work and in their day-to-day life that then allows them to do their work.
Host
What kind of policies would an arts foundation be interested in advancing?
Jessica
When I talk about policies, I'm talking mostly about policies that pertain to the social safety net and labor policies, parental leave, social security, medical and health benefits, and this is a policy space where arts funders have really never played, and there's good reason for that, because artists often don't classify themselves as workers.
Host
When have you seen any policy change affect artists at a national scale?
Jessica
During the pandemic, we had the pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program, which for the first time, provided unemployment pay for 1099 independent contractors. That was insane, I never thought that would ever happen. But now, we have precedent for doing that, and that's a pretty big deal. That was a safety net that did not exist for freelancers before the pandemic, and then for a short and glorious time did exist, and the reach of that was just far greater than any philanthropic program could ever be.
Host
What kind of future do you envision if more policy change like this occurs at the local, state, and federal level?
Jessica
I would love to see a world in which artists and cultural bearers can engage in the cultural practices that are meaningful to them, and right now, we just don't have that freedom to choose, because the work of providing for ourselves and our families means that we make work of providing for ourselves and our families means that we make choices that are not necessarily the best for either our artistic endeavors or our cultural relationships or communities or endeavors.
Host
Do you have reason to believe a world like this is achievable?
Jessica
I think something like that is coming. It's just a question of how long and keeping the work going, so when a window opens, we can jump. Now is the time to get ready because a window will open. It's just a question of when.
[ music transition ]
Resources
Everyone's a Sellout Now
Rebecca Jennings (Vox) (Article)The Death of the Artist
William Deresiewicz (Book)Arts Workers in California
Urban Institute + Center for Cultural Innovation (Report)Gig Worker Learning Project
Workers Lab / Aspen Institute (Report)The Guarantee
Natalie Foster (Book)We Can’t Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard
John Hoerr (Book)Learn Foundation Law
(Resource)
segment 3
-
Holly
I do traditional Lakota beadwork. Some people don't look at culture as art, so it's language that's tied in throughout systems. It's really hard for artists to see themselves in that language as well to just even get in the door and start an application.
Host
This is Holly Doll, an artist and citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who works with the Department of Public Transformation and the Waterers, an assembly working to decolonize funding and inspire community-driven trust-based giving.
-
Joua
Because the Waterers is so community-based, it's reaching out into people in our communities who we know are connected to more people who we've never heard of, never met, and letting them shed light on people who may have never received it and may have always deserved it.
Host
This is Joua Lee Grande, a filmmaker and cultural advocate from the Twin Cities. She had originally received funding from the Waterers before joining the team.
Joua
I got a random email that said, "Hey, you've been nominated. We've seen that you're doing great work. Here's funding. It's unrestricted. You don't have to report on it." And I was like, "What? This must be a scam."
Host
Unrestricted is such an apt term for it. There's a sense of liberation to what you could do with just cash.
Joua
Oftentimes when folks have to meet certain requirements, they have to force themselves into a box that may not actually serve them very much, and the power of unrestricted gifting is that then they can actually take time to be like, "Oh, what do I actually need?"
Host
But how can you just trust somebody not to spend your money in the wrong way?
Holly
It wasn't giving out money to say, "You can trust us because we see you." It was like, "We trust you because we see you," and that pivot of meeting people where they're at I think was a really foundational part of it, and that gets at the heart of trust building philanthropy, you blindly trusting them, not the other way around.
Host
Trusting somebody that you don't know well, to do work that you won't benefit from, especially with your once held resources isn't easy, but it is at the core at what it means to give.
Holly
It really is rooted in indigenous values of like I'm just giving this to you because I don't want you to have to give anything back. I'm gifting this to you because I see you. I'm gifting this because you deserve this and I don't expect a thank you. I don't expect anything in return. It's purely a gift.
Host
I'm hearing this common theme again about getting back to our roots when it comes to giving.
Joua
It's been so intentional that this gifting process has been decolonized. Instead of seeing it through this mainstream or western ideals and process, taking it back and be like, how have our communities practiced gifting and how can we celebrate that form of gifting instead.
Host
As we heard from Michele Kumi Baer in episode one, American philanthropy is intrinsically tied to colonization, white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy, systems that demand control over how resources are distributed and used. So where do you see colonization manifesting in philanthropy? Is there an antidote to it?
Joua
I think European, Western American culture really celebrates individualism and people who celebrate themselves, whereas a lot of other cultures, they celebrate humility and actually really look down on individualism or just boasting yourself. But when you get into fundraising, you have to know how to talk about yourself and sell yourself. But what that ends up doing is it's requiring people to step outside of their cultural values in order to then prove themselves to people.
Host
Navigating the bureaucratic systems of the grant world is overwhelming for anybody, let alone artists who don't even see their art in the ways that funders require them to.
Holly
And then the application process itself, sometimes it requires tax documents, having a three-year history of doing something, of proving that you've been an artist in your community for X amount of years. When your community knows that you do that, you have to prove it to someone who doesn't live in your community.
Joua
The application process, the contracting process, and the reporting process takes so much time. It's unpaid labor. Of course it's requiring people to do so much work that they oftentimes don't even have enough energy or time to focus on the actual artwork itself.
Host
I imagine that all of this becomes pretty emotionally taxing as well.
Holly
If it's panel reviewed. People don't share the same definitions if they're not from your community. They don't understand what it is you do. They don't understand the impact that you're having because they're not located there. They don't know the culture, they don't know the people. They don't know the needs that your community knows that it needs.
Joua
Oftentimes, artists who come from communities that have been historically marginalized, historically harmed, in order to justify that they are worthy of being funded, oftentimes they have to put their traumas on display, which is re-traumatizing, and that's harmful.
Host
And meanwhile, you're just trying to make ends meet so you can make your craft.
Holly
So overwhelming. There's so much work and it burns me out really, really quickly. It makes me not feel motivated to create, makes me not want to also share out those opportunities because they're so burdensome.
Joua
There have been times when I've been awarded something and then being asked over and over to prove the same things. I'm like, "I don't even want the funds now. You can keep it. It's just too much to have to constantly prove myself."
Host
If the burden of proving that these funds are well-spent shifts to the funders, how do they even convince their board that unrestricted giving works?
Joua
Folks who've received the Waterers gift say, "I wish that someone would just show it to my events and they would see what I do, and so I don't have to figure out what they need to hear from me, how to speak in the way that they want to hear."
Host
Have the Waterers always given in this way?
Holly
I do recall there being conversation over just being overwhelmed at, oh, here's $3 million from ArtPlace America. Do something with it. One of the things that made us really stop and pause was just asking ourselves, "What would we want if someone were to just give us this money as artists? How would we want to be given money to? In an ideal world for being who we are, the work that we do? How would we want that to be recognized," and that formed our values.
Host
How do you figure out where to give the funds to?
Holly
The very first nomination process was just the Waterers themselves nominating people to get funding, and then we would reach out to people. I know one person in Minot, North Dakota who... that's the one person I know, but I really want to see more funding go there. I'm going to ask her to be a nominator so that it just keeps growing that network.
Host
You don't need to create trust when it's already there.
Joua
The moment that your community trusts you and gives you this gift, you feel a really strong responsibility for it. You feel responsible for paying it forward in other ways and spending it wisely.
Host
And is that how you find out your system's working.
Holly
Just like sending emails to them and them sending emails back. It forms a relationship and it's not transactional. It's not based in what are you doing with that money we gave you? It's just how are you? How are you doing?
Host
Well, it is great that you can reference something for when you need to prove that this works.
Joua
Why does that need to be proved? That's such a capitalistic colonialist mindset of this is an investment. We need to see a return right? Why do you as a funder need a return? And so if we're really truly talking about gifting to people and funding people and not doing from a capitalistic lens, then we wouldn't be expecting a return.
Host
Folks, we can't do this for capitalistic reasons. It creates, as Voulet called it in episode one, an existential threat to our field. To me, this is where love comes in.
Joua
You're truly gifting because you love your community. You want to support your community to flourish. You want to support other artists to flourish even if it never comes back to benefit you personally. And I think that's a really beautiful form of love that we often practice in our personal relationships, and I've never understood why we can't practice that more in the professional realm or funding realm.
Holly
I'll be honest with you, I've never actually applied the word love to this work, and I think it just stems from how... this is just how I've always been. This is something that I was taught by my family, by my mother, by her parents to hers is just passed down generationally to care, and it doesn't feel radical to me. It doesn't feel like a new concept to me to gift in this way.
[ music transition ]
Resources
Gift As You'd Like to Be Gifted
Waterers (Report)
segment 4
building capital with unrestricted funds
with guest
Eddie Torres
Grantmakers in the Arts
begins at 20:10
-
Eddie
I have made every mistake imaginable. My ego would love to be able to say, "Listen to me, because I've always gotten everything right." But then you'd also be talking to somebody, one who's never learned a thing, and two, you'd be talking to a liar as well.
Host
This is Eddie Torres. He's a social change servant leader in the nonprofit, philanthropic, and public sectors. Currently, he's serving as the president and CEO of Grantmakers in the Arts.
-
Eddie
Unrestricted support is essential for thriving, and thriving basically includes having a future and not just a future in which you'll survive, but a future in which your self-determination increases.
Host
Could you break down how unrestricted funding actually works?
Eddie
Unrestricted funding is basically the means by which organizations are able to secure net revenue. This is what allows organizations to build up capital. Revenue is basically the money that comes in and then goes right back out again. If I'm doing my programs and I get lots of restricted program money, I've got good revenue and I can do my programs, et cetera.
Host
Which all sounds pretty good, but in reality, things don't always pan out as you planned, do they?
Eddie
If anything goes wrong, I don't have a safety net. I don't have any cushion. That safety net, that cushion, that's capital. And the only way you can get capital is through unrestricted funding that you are allowed to save for future use.
Host
And so where have you seen unrestricted funding show up in a time of need?
Eddie
The first maybe three years of the pandemic was one of the first times in the history of our field when the field has actually been approaching healthy capitalization. And the reason for that is unrestricted funding. The field said, "You know what? We're going to let go of all of these conditions on our support because we know you need this and we know that it's only by doing this that you're going to survive. Because the most important thing you need to do is to pay your staff, pay your artists."
Host
Let's say I'm a small arts organization or an independent artist, how can I use unrestricted capital to help me make my art for a living?
Eddie
There are just times when something presents itself and you said, "If only I had the cash to be able to take advantage of this opportunity." And that's what they call opportunity capital, right? Then there's risk capital there is like, "I want to try this thing, it may not work, and if it doesn't work, I need that to not shut us down."
Host
I see you're setting yourself up to resource the realities of a growing organization.
Eddie
And then there's change capital. Let's say you had the money to embrace an opportunity or to take a risk and it worked. Then you have the opportunity to say, I want us to do that all the time, and I'm probably going to have to put that up for the next two, three years. And year four, let's say, it has strengthened our reputation, it has strengthened our business practices, it has done whatever the heck it needs to do for it to become sustainable, but I need those three years of runway to make this work. That, again, is the difference between capital and revenue.
Host
It makes a lot of sense that foundations should provide organizations with funds to chart their own futures, especially those who are historically under-resourced. Why don't you think this is a more popular approach to funding?
Eddie
The infrastructure that pays arts administrators, that pays artists, et cetera, is largely the nonprofit infrastructure, which historically was modeled after corporate infrastructure, right? So a board of directors was modeled after a corporate board of directors, et cetera.
Host
We learned about the extractive origins of philanthropy in our first episode, but it's disappointing to hear that these capitalistic underpinnings are still alive generations later.
Eddie
You get these periodic waves of folks who want to make the nonprofit industry more like corporations. This is extremely dangerous for our field. The corporate model is built around extraction. It is not built around helping people. It is built around making as much money for as few people as humanly possible.
Host
And what's so dangerous about this corporate mentality?
Eddie
Corporate behavior is specifically exchange behavior. It's, "I'll give you this, if you give me that," it's specifically conditional giving. That's what's having these negative impacts on our field right now. We don't need to ape corporate behavior.
Host
Where do you see the resistance to moving away from this culture?
Eddie
I think a lot of people are worried, "Well then who am I if I'm not in control of this thing? What am I and what's my value?" Now the irony is that co-design facilitation relationships are remarkably time-consuming. You could very easily make the case for yourself as a facilitator of process as somebody who is well worth getting paid by your foundation, government agency, et cetera.
Host
And where are the gaps that you hope arts funders fill in this quest for financial independence for artists?
Eddie
It's in the public sector. It's in public policies. We believe that foundations spend their money basically trying to paper over the societal ills that bad public policies have created. When those public policies are fixed, then we should have a healthy society that supports all people, including artists, to do everything they want, including make art.
Host
We've seen glimmers of hope in this movement coalescing, like how artists received unemployment assistance during the pandemic, as Jess pointed out. Can we learn from moments like this to help us get to that healthier society you're envisioning at GIA?
Eddie
If we don't feel safe enough to say, "I didn't know that," we're not going to say it. And the easiest way to not say it is to refuse to learn it. It's only when we say, "I'm on your side. You learn something. I'm learning something. We're all in the process of learning something. That means we're all in the process of being humbled and recognizing how little we knew yesterday." And that's ultimately where our future lies. That's the only way we'll advance as individual people, and it's the only way we'll advance as a society.
[ music transition ]
Resources
Why Unrestricted Funds Are Important for Nonprofits
Charlotte Stasio (Article)Builders & Buyers: Securing Capitalization for Nonprofit Financial Health & Artistic Vitality
Grantmakers in the Arts (Article)Land Acknowledgement
Grantmakers in the Arts (Article)
segment 5
-
Ricardo
Artists are essential, essential to vibrant and just local economies. And we believe that if everyone believes artists are essential to vibrant and just local economies, that we can create more human-centered systems.
Host
This is Ricardo Beard theater maker, cheese curd enthusiast, and community development director for Springboard for the Arts', Guaranteed Income for Artists Program.
-
Ricardo
At Springboard, we provide really practical resources for artists how to sustain their livelihoods. This includes business skills, training, legal referrals, access to capital, and we also create mechanisms for artists to contribute to their communities by using their skills to address complex community challenges like housing, like environmental stewardship, like economic justice.
Host
Of all people who could benefit from guaranteed income, why are artists your primary focus?
Ricardo
I think artists often occupy this gray area between gig worker and business owners and just making them susceptible to falling through the cracks of safety net programs. And our aim is to address the root causes of why there's a need for emergency relief and wanting to contribute to larger systemic change and guaranteed income emerged as a significant interest for us.
Host
And so tell us how Springboard went about its pilot program.
Ricardo
We wanted to try it out and start it with a really small pilot, 25 artists in our local neighborhood of Frogtown in Rondo in St. Paul. The artists were selected from an eligible pool of artists in these two neighborhoods who had signed up for emergency relief or who had come to a workshop. We want to create programming and resources for BIPOC artists, and artists with disabilities, and artists living in rural spaces, and LGBTQ+ artists.
Host
How can you ensure this diverse array of artists actually align with the vision and values that Springboard is championing?
Ricardo
Instead of saying, "It needs to be an event here or installation here, and it needs to be shaped like this, and here are the goals," but really trusting artists to make best decisions for how they see their work intersecting with our goals.
Host
I've heard valid criticisms of guaranteed income programs for artists, that they can sharply define who is and isn't an artist who is, "Worthy of funding." How do you all mitigate against this?
Ricardo
We don't want to litigate who is an artist and who is not an artist. If you called yourself an artist by signing up for this workshop or saying that I lost money due to a gig falling through in the pandemic, then you say you're an artist, then you are an artist.
Host
So what is the impact of this program on an artist's economic independence? Realistically, a small monthly stipend won't yank somebody out of poverty.
Ricardo
No one is going to quit their job for that. No one is paying rent for 500 bucks a month, but small in the sense that I have a little extra breathing room, I can sleep a little harder at night and I can love up on the people even more due to this stipend.
Host
And so how does this modest but significant amount of recurring cash actually help these artists make more art?
Ricardo
I'm an artist. Everyone at Springboard is an artist, and I know that when I was really deep in my grind and hustle, I didn't have the ability to think about beyond a year, right? I didn't have the ability to think like I had this set gig and I didn't really have the space to think about anything else except for what is the next job to fill in my time and make sure I have everything I need to survive. But having just a supplemental income helps people envision a future in ways that they weren't able to because of the tumultuous gig system.
Host
What are some themes you're hearing from people who are experiencing this new form of supplemental income?
Ricardo
Freedom of creating experiences or working with their communities in deeper ways because they're not beholden to the next gig or the thing that sells. Right. Especially in talking to BIPOC artists, knowing that our funding structures right now really ask BIPOC artists to forefront their trauma in order to receive funding, and having the ability to say no to those funding opportunities or those gigs that just don't feel aligned with artists has been really, really paramount for those artists to explore and try new things and better understand what their purpose is in their community.
Host
Many folks are critical of these programs because they fear nefarious people taking advantage of a handout. How does Springboard learn and report out to its national audience that this in fact works and no, no one's taking advantage of it?
Ricardo
We envision a future where there is a universal basic income where no one's tracking. We're tracking the outcomes, we're tracking what happens to a place. Who enters a program and maybe has a better job, or feels like they have a great system of care for their parents or their children. Those are the things that I think is really important for us to think about how we can measure the impact of guaranteed income and not just what are people spending their money on because it's not really our business.
Host
Despite data-based evidence that people indeed don't just buy drugs with this money, I fear that this program has quite a ways to go before the public accepts it as a viable future.
Ricardo
What's really exciting about our work at Springboard with guaranteed income is we know that there is these dominant narratives around meritocracy and deservedness and people spending money on nefarious things. So one of the things that we are doing is holding these narrative change cohorts where we're engaging local artists to create work that helps people understand the potential impact of guaranteed income. They understand the larger guaranteed income movement and then create work out of that to reflect the stories that are coming out of this work from participants around guaranteed income.
Host
This form of philanthropy that's rooted in trust and relationships seems like a much more human-centered approach to giving.
Ricardo
When you think about what are your hopes and dreams for the future, or what might you do with an extra $500 a month? Like the stories that come out are stories of love, that I am an artist and I also have a corporate job, and I'm working 60 hours a week, and being able to shorten the amount of hours that I'm working a week gives me the opportunity to show up for my community, the community that I love.
Host
I would imagine in order to expand this past its pilot scale and share this love at a national level, more policy change would need to take place.
Ricardo
We're right now, convening and kind of reigniting this Minnesota basic guaranteed income coalition, where we did very well in the last legislative session of almost getting a bill passed that would support community-based organizations all over the state to run pilots from state money as another way to just bring more people into the understanding of what guaranteed income can do for them.
Host
Your guaranteed income program is constantly evolving and expanding, making it one of the longest running pilot programs in the nation, let alone specifically for rural artists. What do you hope to see as the lasting legacy of this work?
Ricardo
Our hope isn't just guaranteed income for artists. It is guaranteed income for everyone, but we know that artists are everyone. They're on every block, they're in every neighborhood, they're in every couple of acres in a rural area. So if we think about artists in that broad definition, that we know that artists are everywhere and can help this movement go forward because of the skills that artists bring in storytelling and narrative change and helping our economy.
[ music transition ]
Resources
The Art of Economic Justice Impact Report
Springboard for the Arts (Report)Guaranteed Income
Springboard for the Arts (Page)Guaranteed Income Program for Artists Kicks Off in NY
Jasmine Liu (Hyperallergic) (Article)GUARANTEED Podcast
Eve L. Ewing (Podcast)Guaranteed Income for Artists Program Evaluation
CRNY (Report)Guaranteed Income Information
Economic Security Project (Blog)
segment 6
wrap
with your host
Tom T. Young
begins at 36:10
-
Host
We got through a lot today. Everybody doing all right? We heard from Jess about the challenges of working as an artist in today's gig economy. We heard from Holly and Joua who are championing what it means to gift as you'd like to be gifted. We heard from Eddie who reminded us the critical nature of having unrestricted capital as a growing organization. And finally we heard from Ricardo about how just a little more dependable income can create financial independence for artists. And anybody who's creative. I hope you take their gifts with you today, but let me first be clear about something.
-
Host
The solution to these overlapping challenges is to condemn and dismantle these structures that beget terrible working conditions below livable wages, exploitation of bodies, inadequate housing and food, and irreparable damage to our planet and its climate. But we'll talk a little more about that in episode four.
In the meantime, please go and support your artist friend and see their show this weekend. You are not alone in your radical pursuits, and I hope you find community at GIA or in other spaces to support you in making necessary changes to your actions within philanthropy. Check out the GIA Reader website for resources and more information about this episode's guests. I'd like to take a moment to thank all of our guests for their contributions, to GIA for hosting and producing this miniseries, to Flannel & Blade for your ongoing support and to Nadia Elokdah for your friendship, guidance, wisdom, and wealth of knowledge. And thank you for listening.
This has been For the Love of Radical Giving.
Give often, give lovingly, give radically.
[ music playout ]
Next Episode…
EP04
Systems Change Right Now
Listen & Scroll >>
Check Out the Episode 03
Listening Guide
Each presentation deck includes powerful quotes, activities to get you started, links to resources, and QR codes that plug you into the miniseries.
Select one that best suits you today.
Funder
Funded
For Folks Currently Relying on Philanthropic Support
Movement Leaders, Cultural Producers, Teaching Artists
For Folks Who
Give Gifts Professionally Funders, Program Officers,
Board Members