ResearchPDF Available

COVID-19 and the Creative Economy Impact Study: Phase Two

January 2022

DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.11429.27361

Authors:

Erika Pettersen

Independent Researcher

Dianne Walsh

University of Edinburgh

Content uploaded by Erika Pettersen

Content may be subject to copyright.

COVID-19 AND THE

CREATIVE ECONOMY

IMPACT STUDY

PHASE II: DETERMINING CONDITIONS BEFORE & AFTER COVID

& IDENTIFYING KEY COMMUNITY STRATEGIES FOR CRISIS

MANAGEMENT

COVID-19 and the Creative Economy Impact StudyCOVID-19 and the Creative Economy Impact Study

This Report as well as the photographic works within are published in their original versions

on the website of the Arts Business Collaborative, and may be published elsewhere only with

permission. Please contact info@artsbusinesscollaborative.org for more information.

Arts Business Collaborative

www.artsbusinesscollaborative.org

This report should be cited as:

Pautz, C., Ignace, V., Pettersen, E., Walsh, D. (2022). COVID-19 And The Creative Economy

Impact Study: Determining Conditions Before & After Covid And Identifying Key Community

Strategies For Crisis Management (Phase 2). Arts Business Collaborative. https:/ www.

artsbusinesscollaborative.org/research/key-ndings-in-the-time-of-covid

The original photography in this report is credited to Kelly Paulémon: cover page, pgs. 4, 9, 12-

16, 18-20, 33-34, 38-40. The original photography in this report may not be copied in part or in

full without express permission from its owner.

COVID-19 AND THE CREATIVE ECONOMY IMPACT STUDY

Executive Summary

The future of the creative economy, and

the manner in which it articulates with other

industries and social sectors, is undergoing a

deep transformation. As the American economy

slowly adapts to the endemic presence of

COVID-19, in an attempt to strategize for future

stability and success, individuals and businesses

laboring in the creative economy as artists,

administrators and supporting staff, must wrestle

with a variety of pre-existing conditions alongside

new complexities that call into question norms in

operational models, nance models, inter-industry

relations, community development strategies and

hierarchies of labor.

Within this transformation, Black, Latinx and

Indigenous artists and arts business leaders

face signicant challenges in rebuilding and

strategizing for future success as COVID-19

exacted the largest loss of life amongst these

communities, which exacerbated the pre-existing

wealth gap, and subsequent future access to

capital. The profound and monumental losses and

the correlating future implications faced by these

communities is rooted at the intersection of the

country’s pandemic management strategies and

its unbroken history of systemic racism, which has

shaped American economic, public health and

civic engagement models since the founding of

the country.

As part of Rising Tides Research Institute’s

(RTRI) critical examination of socioeconomic

and sociopolitical conditions contributing to

barriers that negatively impact Black, Latinx

and Indigenous artists and arts entrepreneurs,

a ten-month study, funded by The Endeavor

Foundation, M&T Bank, and The William Talbot

Hillman Foundation, was executed in partnership

with artists and arts business leaders of color. The

mixed-method study culminating in 120+ hours

of ethnographic interviews, a three day strategy

impact lab and in-person creative economy

strategy workshops, focused on the intersection

of business conditions, social conditions and

crisis management. Interviews took place with

artists, grantmakers, administrators, technical

assistance providers, teachers, and scholars.

Specically, researchers examined the intersection

of systemic racism, the pandemic, and sociopolitical

upheavals of 2020 with access to emergency

aid, operating models, nancial strategies, labor

conditions, and crisis management approaches

of artists and arts business leaders of color.

The study was centered in the New York City

metropolitan area as Kings, Queens and Bronx

counties account for a substantial amount of total

national receipts produced by businesses owned

by people of color, and communities of color here

suffered some of the highest COVID mortality

rates in the country at the height of the pandemic.

By focusing on the most vulnerable communities

within the creative economy, researchers hoped

to offer insight supporting community-centered

strategies for success as well as advocacy at

the local, state, and federal levels calling for the

incorporation of racial equity practices into a

variety of policy platforms.

The necessity and timeliness of this study cannot

be overestimated. Since the creative economy

articulates with, supplies labor to, and drives

the stability and growth of a variety of other

industries and markets, its attempts to disrupt

and redesign norms in business frameworks and

practices through the lens of racial equity indexes

the potential paths of multiple other industries

and markets simultaneously. However, the drive

to adequately address equity in the creative

economy is already losing steam on the national

stage amidst other political and socioeconomic

concerns facing the country.

Therefore, with urgency to capture the moment

before it is lost, the insights presented below

substantiate demands to incorporate racial

equity into legislation for broad post-COVID

recovery plans at local, state, and federal levels.

As demonstrated by our research participants,

whose work bridges the nonprot and for prot

worlds and spans multiple industries, art genres,

communities, audiences and goals, protecting

the labor and value produced by artsworkers of

color, and implementing changes that ensure their

quality of life and their business’s viability is critical

to achieving economic revitalization post-COVID.

In order to effectively revitalize the creative

economy, it is imperative that consideration be

given to necessary reforms, education, and

aid that might reshape inter-industry relations,

labor protection, philanthropic giving, business

planning, and nancial literacy, specically for

artists and arts business leaders of color.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: From Surveying Emergency Aid to an Ethnographic Exploration

of the Arts Business Economy

Identifying and Asserting the Researcher’s Standpoint and Method Choices

Research Design

Phase Two Survey and Interview Design and Questions

Discussion and Recommendations

Conclusion

Appendix

INTRODUCTION

FROM SURVEYING EMERGENCY AID TO AN ETHNOGRAPHIC

EXPLORATION OF THE ARTS BUSINESS ECONOMY

Introduction: From Surveying Emergency Aid to an

Ethnographic Exploration of the Arts Business Economy

The future of the creative economy, and

the manner in which it articulates with other

industries and social sectors, is undergoing a

deep transformation. As the American economy

slowly adapts to the endemic presence of

COVID-19, in an attempt to strategize for

future stability and success, individuals and

businesses laboring in the creative economy as

artists, administrators and supporting staff, must

wrestle with a variety of pre-existing conditions

alongside new complexities that call into question

norms in operational models, nance models,

inter-industry relations, community development

strategies, and hierarchies of labor. Indeed, the

precarity of laboring in the creative economy,

known for its “gig” employment structure that

supplies labor to other industries, has deepened

since the start of 2020 as independent contractors

were offered fewer safety nets compared to

standard employees during the height of the

pandemic. Furthermore, across the country

the public education sector, the largest direct

employer of full time and contract arts labor,

decreased budgets for the arts, in some cases

up to 70%.1

Within this transformation, Black, Latinx and

Indigenous artists and arts business leaders

face signicant challenges in rebuilding and

strategizing for future success as COVID-19

exacted the largest loss of life amongst these

communities, which exacerbated the pre-

existing wealth gap, and subsequent future

access to capital. The profound and monumental

losses and the correlating future implications

faced by these communities is rooted at

the intersection of the country’s pandemic

management strategies and its unbroken

history of systemic racism, which has shaped

American economic, public health, and civic

engagement models since the founding of the

country. Thus, led by voices from arts instituions

1 Cascone, Sarah (2020). “New York City 2021 Budget Slashes Already Modest Funding for Public School Arts Eductation

by 70%”. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/nyc-slashes-art-education-budget-1891325

led by people of color, problematic norms

in business frameworks and practices are

undergoing a critical examination through the

lens of racial equity, alongside discussions

concerning the need to collaboratively

strategize for future success. Since June of

2020 Arts Business Collaborative, a research

and technical assistance 501c3, has been in

partnership with these leaders concerning the

critical examination of the intersections of the

following: pre-existing power dynamics within the

philanthropy/government/nonprot landscape;

conditions within operations, nance, and

community development faced by Black, Latinx

and Indigenous artists and arts businesses

prior to COVID-19; crisis management

strategies employed during COVID-19; and the

sociopolitical upheavals that took place through

2020. The goal of reexamining norms in business

frameworks and practices has been to analyze

and advise on alternatives in practice and policy

that create more equitable and sustainable

futures for artists and arts business owners of

color.

As part of this critical examination, the

Rising Tides Research Institute (RTRI), a

department of Arts Business Collaborative

(ABC), executed a ten-month study, funded

by The Endeavor Foundation, M&T Bank,

and The William Talbot Hillman Foundation.

The study focused on the intersection of

business conditions, social conditions, and

crisis management. Specically, researchers

examined the intersection of systemic racism,

the pandemic, and sociopolitical upheavals of

2020 with access to emergency aid, operating

models, nancial strategies, labor conditions,

and crisis management approaches of artists

and arts business leaders of color. The decision

2 Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2020, “N Fed Releases Brief on Covid-19’s Effects on Black-owned Businesses”.

https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/regional_outreach/2020/20200804

to undertake this study was directly informed by

RTRI’s departmental vision for impact, which

involves contributing to progressive public

policies and community-centered methods for

advocacy by addressing enduring systems of

inequalities that have impacted people of color,

with a focus on key stakeholders in the arts

ecosystem.

Operating with the foundational understanding

that artists and arts business leaders of color

face systemic barriers to raising capital for

nancing business operations, and that the arts

and arts education often occupy a marginalized

space in the American economic hierarchy, ABC

researchers divided the study into three phases.

Initially, researchers conducted a six-week

landscape analysis survey assessing access to

emergency aid and other conditions impacting

business performance. From this, four key areas

were identied that would inform later research.

These included:

1. Precarity in the dance and theater

employment, capital, and income

ecosystems

2. Obfuscation of knowledge and associated

qualications of emergency aid types

3. A need for the comparison of business

conditions prior to and during COVID-19

4. Calls for wider increased opportunities

for operational training, leadership

development, and education

Based on the information gathered, researchers

executed phase two, involving virtual

ethnographic interviews and quantitative data

collection with individual artists, nonprot

leaders, and for prot business owners. These

interviews focused on business conditions

that artists and arts businesses leaders of

color faced before and since COVID; the core

strategies employed for stability and growth;

the impact of sociopolitical conditions on

business performance; and whether or not these

conditions and strategies served as barriers

for successful crisis management. Finally, the

study culminated in a three-day impact lab that

convened research participants, industry experts,

community leaders, and the ABC staff to reect

upon ndings and collaboratively strategize for

future success in a changing creative economy.

The study was centered in the New York City

metropolitan area as Kings, Queens and Bronx

counties account for a substantial amount of

total national receipts produced by businesses

owned by people of color, and communities of

color here suffered some of the highest COVID

mortality rates in the country at the height of

the pandemic.2 Furthermore, the study’s initial

design centered on the dance and theater elds

as their reliance on embodied craft in terms of

process and product was severely inhibited,

making already precarious employment more

vulnerable to shifting economic, social, and

political conditions. By focusing on the most

vulnerable communities within the creative

economy, researchers hoped to offer insight

supporting community-centered strategies for

success as well as advocacy at the local, state,

and federal levels calling for the incorporation

of racial equity practices into a variety of policy

platforms.

The necessity and timeliness of this study

cannot be overestimated. Closely examining

the creative economy from a parallax view

that considers how existing power dynamics

intersected with COVID-19 at different points in

the arts and culture sector, from the individual

to the small business, is imperative as strategic

shifts in business frameworks and practices have

long term practical and existential implications

for individuals and society. Since the creative

economy articulates with, supplies labor to, and

drives the stability and growth of a variety of other

industries and markets, its attempts to disrupt

and redesign norms in business frameworks

and practices through the lens of racial

equity indexes the potential paths of multiple

other industries and markets simultaneously.

Hence, shifts in accepted business frameworks

and practices within the creative economy

will certainly shape the trajectory of labor and

small business legislation as well as economic,

cultural, and political agendas. However, the

drive to adequately address equity in the creative

economy is already losing steam on the national

stage amidst other political and socioeconomic

concerns facing the country.

Therefore, with urgency to capture the moment

before it is lost, the insights presented below

substantiate demands to incorporate racial equity

into legislation for broad post-COVID recovery

plans at local, state, and federal levels. RTRI

asserts that racial equity is both a method for

data collection and analysis, as well as a political

position. As a method, it is a pool of approaches

engaged to combat and eliminate enduring

cultural messages, policies and practices

that either reinforce differential outcomes of

thrivability based on race or do nothing to

interrupt such an outcome. As a political position,

racial equity argues that in order to restore

the soundness and health of society at large,

addressing and solving the underlying causes of

intractable harm committed against communities

of color is paramount. Economic recovery plans

that fail to address the needs of Black, Latinx

and Indigenous business owners and/or do not

directly improve the quality of life for people

of color will both perpetuate what amounts to

human rights abuses in communities of color

and hamper U.S. economic and social stability.

COVID-19 exacerbated historical inequities and

exposed the manner in which all industries in the

American economy have continued to replicate

systemic practices of white supremacy, with its

interwoven hierarchies of race, gender, labor,

and class. During the height of the pandemic,

on average each week more than 60% of Black-

owned businesses were forced to remain closed.

Between July of 2020 and December 2021,

on average each week 1-2% of Black-owned

businesses in New York City permanently closed

due to conditions related to COVID.3 Despite

communities of color being hardest hit during

the pandemic, PPP loans reached only 20% of

businesses in states with the highest number of

Black-owned businesses.4 However, it cannot be

overlooked that these systemic practices remain

undergirded by legislation across a variety of

other political platforms beyond economics.

Thus, in order for industries to be compelled

to adopt new norms that do not perpetuate

historical inequities, it is imperative that post-

COVID recovery plans include legislation that

addresses the micro- and macro-socioeconomic

conditions that uphold systemic racism and anti-

labor movement sentiment.

3 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1222202/us-covid-19-closings-small-businesses/

4 House Small Business Committee (2021), “The State of Black-owned Small Businesses in America”, https://smallbusiness.

house.gov/uploadedles/bob_report_nal.pdf

Literature published since the advent of COVID-19

from peer organizations, including Art.coop and

Urban Institute, also supports RTRI’s examination

of the intersection of business conditions, social

conditions, and overall individual business

crisis management. Nati Linares and Caroline

Woolard (2021) of Art.coop poetically capture the

manner in which the arts and culture sector has

replicated systemic racism.5 They document both

the cavernous disparity in pandemic response

funds and general grants made by foundations

with 95% of monies going to white-led arts

organizations (49); and the systemic exploitative

labor conditions that undergird and exacerbate

these practices. The authors argue that many

in the arts and culture sector have been actively

seeking alternatives to current economic and

labor practices and offer astute, actionable

recommendations for organizations to support a

solidarity economy. In particular, they recommend

conducting power analyses; collecting data that

leads to reparative practices; engaging in regular

DEI training led by artists and culture bearers; and

networking across peer organizations in a manner

that supports giving circles and collective action.

Urban Institute (2021) has also conducted in-depth

analysis on the necessity of actively involving and

planning for arts workers in order to rebuild the

U.S. workforce.6 Identifying the precarious position

of freelance arts workers, particularly those of

color, the authors point to two areas that must be

amended in order to foster a stable and prosperous

workforce. First, they note the manner in which

businesses nd themselves increasingly reliant

on contract labor when, in fact, those workers

are legally entitled to be employees. Second,

the authors highlight policy gaps that inhibit

collective action where unions cannot be formed.

These particular roadblocks to formal employment

and worker protection directly contributed to

the peak unemployment rate of 21.7% and the

$13 billion dollar loss to the arts and culture

sector during the pandemic (VI). Ultimately,

researchers at the Urban Institute recommend

social contracts and policy interventions that

provide freelance arts workers with fundamental

social insurance programs and formal workers’

protection rights.

The COVID-19 and the Creative Economy

Study, conducted by RTRI, is in concert with

the above research. Additionally, it contributes

original information critical to understanding

and supporting small arts organizations as

employers. As part of the project design,

researchers positioned the creative economy

as an ecosystem of circular needs involving

individuals, small arts businesses as employers,

and larger arts institutions, both nonprot and

for-prot. This study does so by revealing

the day-to-day realities that simultaneously

informed business strategy and decision making

for independent artists and arts organization

leaders prior to and during COVID, and captures

the manner in which entrenched systemic

racism shaped quality of life, business stability,

and community health throughout the pandemic.

Most importantly, the culminating analysis of this

study links the individual and small business to

the total health of a community and provides:

key data for policy-makers concerning the

equitable distribution of funds and necessary

interventions in labor policy; evidence to support

the advancement of coop structures; communal

strategies for equitably sharing resources; and

programmatic recommendations for small-

business skill-building and support.

Literature Review

5 Linares, Nati and Caroline Woolard (2021), “Solidarity Not Charity: Arts and Culture Grant Making in the Solidarity

Economy”. Grant Makers in the Arts.

6 Yang, Jenny R., et al (2021), “Arts Workers in California: Creating a More Inclusive Social Contract to Meet Arts Workers’

and Other Independent Contractors’ Needs”. Urban Institute.

IDENTIFYING AND

ASSERTING THE

RESEARCHER’S

STANDPOINT AND

METHOD CHOICES

Identifying and Asserting the Researcher’s

Standpoint and Method Choices

Scientic inquiry is fundamental in explaining the relationship between human beings and society.

However, its systems, structures, and methods still bear the mark of logocentrism, which has historically

emphasized that researchers ought to detach themselves from aspects of their humanity in order to

engage the inquiry process. The assumption is that the distance set between the researcher and the

“researched” offers added value to any given study through the guise of objectivity projected onto its

own principles, tools, and protocols. This has been interrogated over the past several decades by

scholars engaged in ethnography, such as Talal Asad, Amiri Baraka, James Clifford, and Deidre Sklar

(to only name a few).

However, scientic inquiry is at another crossroads. During the COVID-19 global pandemic, being

critically engaged in scientic research requires an unprecedented level of awareness of the implications

of the concept of critical distance. Everyone’s “new normal” and the subsequent blurred lines between

researcher and subject are complex. Even ethnography, which serves as a critical research method

through which researchers can account for and respond to the reality of blurred lines, are challenged

to engage more deeply in reexive and reective practice.

The intersecting conditions related to pandemic and other key topics in this research study are a

shared lived experience. Researchers, partners, participants, and funders involved in this study are

all facing the dynamic effects of a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon that is reshaping what is considered

acceptable critical distance in scientic inquiry. For the RTRI research team, every member overlapped

with multiple communities centered in our examination, whether that be as a dance artist, a theater

artist, a person of color, a resident of a community hit hard by the pandemic or an arts business owner.

This may raise questions of neutrality in interpreting data sets. Or, it may be understood as a strength

because the proximity to the qualitative information, in particular, enables researchers to attend to

nuanced data that might be overlooked by someone external to the communities mentioned.

As part of the design and execution, researchers designed a rigorous ethnographic process in

conjunction with surveys, partner dialogue and other methods for data collection. This was done as a

means to center lived experiences and embodied knowledge, while allowing us to acknowledge and

assert our own prior understandings, expertise and experiences as creatives in the arts economy,

consumers of collaborative art-making, beneciaries of philanthropic arts funding, and casualties in

the daily onslaught of systemic inequities.

We assert that our research method design was both a moral obligation and social responsibility;

and engaged research participants as partners, instead of as subjects. The ethical framework that

we applied is rooted in dening the extent to which we rely on our identication as members of the

communities we describe to facilitate our analyses. Key principles of this framework include:

1. We execute our work from a racial equity lens and engage communities and subjects as

partners-in-process as opposed to objects of inquiry.

2. We intentionally prioritize and safeguard the spaces, identities, and needs of our partners and

their communities.

3. We value deep listening and exchange, and practice respect, accountability, and integrity as

we aim to generate bottom-up contributions.

4. We center lived experiences and embodied knowledge to voice the complexity of partner

experiences, and build and implement sustainable business practices informed by their lived

experiences.

5. We are committed to anti-racist and anti-white supremacist thought that also challenges the

tenets of laissez faire capitalism in theory and in practice.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Research Design

In June 2020, ABC researchers executed an artist and arts business landscape analysis survey which

included 150 artists and arts administrators, of which the majority were people of color, to determine

their access to emergency aid and to establish a preliminary understanding of barriers to aid and

other conditions impacting business performance and artistic practice. The goal was to gain insight

into whether aid was reaching artists of color, to facilitate more focused technical assistance and

direct delivery to people of color in the arts. However, the complexity of the information suggested that

many of the businesses were not operationally or strategically well-positioned to endure a long term

economic upheaval, even with free technical assistance. This prompted researchers at ABC to design

and conduct an ethnographic study, phase two of the COVID-19 & the Creative Economy Study, with

the hopes of understanding, describing, and positioning the pre-existing conditions faced by BIPOC

artists and arts business leaders within the context of their crisis management strategies during the

COVID-19 pandemic.

During phase two, researchers completed 126 hours of dialogue which included thirty-ve intake

questionnaires, and twenty-nine ethnographic interviews with artists, arts nonprot leaders, and small

business owners, in the elds of dance, theater, curation, arts advocacy, and philanthropy. Conversations

with participants focused on their operational models, crisis management strategies prior to and during

COVID, and approaches to capacity building. Ethnographic interviews were structured as two deep

talks. The rst of which focused primarily on business structure, funding models, and relevant social

conditions impacting business operations, while the second focused on capacity, crisis-management,

mission, vision, and strategy building. In addition, the talks included a uniform set of questions about

nancial literacy; business structure; operational knowledge; organizational mission and values; the

impact of death; grief and social protests on business performance; and the impact of the closure of

spaces on personal and professional activities.

With the intention of collecting as much contextual information as possible, deep talks were conducted

as free-owing discussion whereby researchers were at liberty to ask follow up questions based on

the responses they received and participants were also able to ask questions of the researchers

as well. What emerged were stories that highlighted the interconnectedness of the arts to the lived

experiences of individuals and communities as they engaged with issues of systemic and structural

racism, public health, loss and death, economics, and politics. The stories shared reached inward to

touch on the most mundane and personal aspects of culture and life, while also reaching outward to

speak back to regional, national, and global issues.

During interviews and conversations, participants were meant to feel that the deep talks were a safe

space within which to share the reasons, or lack thereof, for business decisions made. In order to

ensure that researchers remained unbiased during the process two critical truths were foregrounded

allowing researchers to appropriately collect and analyze data:

1. That individual artists are businesses themselves.

2. The types of structures that an artist might engage to support themselves are business

structures regardless of scale or formal classication.

Applying this thinking ensured that all participants were treated and coded equally.

PHASE TWO SURVEY

AND INTERVIEW DESIGN

AND QUESTIONS

Phase Two Survey and Interview Design

and Questions

Intake Questionnaire

The intake questionnaire collected information about demographics, quality of life and business and

organizational structures. The questionnaire helped researchers to better understand how research

partners relate to and operate within the arts nonprot and for-prot business landscapes before

diving into the more pointed questions during the Deep Talks.

Demographics

: The intake questionnaire offered research partners the opportunity to self-identify

concerning race, gender and pronoun identication. Measuring demographic information in this way

is paramount to the value of the research goals and to the reexive quality of the study as it supports

evaluating whether this research can offer insight on the experience of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx

artists, nonprots and businesses. Furthermore, this can illuminate potential gaps in outreach.

Quality of Life

: The intake questionnaire identied participant health insurance status prior to and during

the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as whether they identify as differently-abled, are recipients of social

security benets from the state, and how many hours are spent working in their art business. From

this, researchers were able to understand whether the research partners were receiving adequate

and necessary services from the state prior to and during COVID; and how their relationship to care

could reect historical inequities in under-resourced populations that impacted their current conditions

during COVID.

General Business/Organizational structure

: A set of questions on business and organizational structure

focused on how various artists, business owners and administrators do their work and manage their

resources. Researchers collected information about the number of employees (i.e., part time, full

time employees and independent contractors) to understand operational and programmatic capacity,

hiring practices, and resource distribution. This data was critical to creating a baseline assessment of

the level of knowledge and awareness of correlating factors necessary for nancial and operational

health.

In general, the intake questionnaire lacked information about how participants dene direct services,

educational workshops and classes. These are signicant classications to note given the importance

of these categories when seeking public and/or philanthropic funding and technical assistance

necessary to manage the various types of services and programming research partners propose to

offer.

Ethnographic Interviews: 1st Deep Talk on Structures and Conditions

Business Structure

: The research partners were asked to describe their business structure and how

they justify the operational value of their decisions. From these questions, the researchers determined

the level of knowledge and access to information essential to planning for viability and sustainability.

Funding Your Business

: A set of questions focused on how research partners understand their

nancial and funding history, funding strategies and nancial literacy prior to and since the onset of

the COVID-19 pandemic. This helped researchers map the various experiences that partners had

when applying for emergency aid opportunities. In addition, researchers captured how injections of

emergency funding, in the form of grants, PPP, PUA, disaster loans, unemployment assistance, and

crowdfunding were allocated.

Conditions Impacting Structural Performance

: These questions measured the effects of the socio-

political and socio-cultural issues during 2020, and how the partners processed and explored these

personally and in their professional work. This was critical for the researchers to appreciate the scope

of impact across social, political and economic arenas. Indoor space closure, loss of life, and social

protests during 2020 are collectively positioned as conditions impacting the research partners’ ability

to operate, perform and create.

Ethnographic Interviews: 2nd Deep Talk on Prior Assumptions, Knowledge, Crisis Management and

Strategies

Capacity and Crisis Management: These questions examined challenges and opportunities faced by

leadership and staff in executing their responsibilities before and since COVID-19. These questions

also examined how nances were prioritized before and since COVID-19 in order to advance the

overall goals of the organization/business. Additionally these questions explored how the operating

structure of the organization/business affected the ability to respond to pandemic-related vulnerabilities

and strategize for future crisis management.

Mission, Vision, and Strategy-Building

: Researchers

asked: What is the ultimate goal of the organization

and how well-positioned was the organization

in order to achieve this goal? Building from

related information in the intake questionnaire,

researchers probed further to determine how

the history and practice of the research partner’s

organization or arts practice described an articulated or

implicit mission, vision, and value statement.

Open Ended Reections

: The nal prompt provided

research partners the space and time to reect

openly on the discussions thus far, sharing

thoughts and considerations that emerged and

are useful in approaching their work moving

forward.

DISCUSSION AND

RECOMMENDATIONS

The collected responses were robust in nature and offered a wealth of material for analysis. From

these responses, and in conjunction with the phase one survey, Rising Tides researchers delineated

four thematic areas for analysis. These areas are listed as follows:

1. Dance and theater employment, capital, and income ecosystems

2. Knowledge of emergency aid types and associated qualications

3. Comparison of business conditions prior to and during COVID-19

4. Potential opportunities for training and education

The discussion points below uncover how people prioritize mission and vision; how impact is measured;

changes in ideology since COVID-19; and visions for future business and sector practices. Based on

the calls to action made by our research partners, our recommendations frame a desire to shift away

from structures and practices that perpetuate instability, and instead move toward structures that are

intended to facilitate strategy, equitable resource building, sustainability and comprehensive mission,

vision, and values design.

Dance and theater employment, capital and income ecosystems

Discussion

Broadly, the collapse of the creative economy during COVID-19 put a spotlight on the lack of labor

rights afforded to contract workers and the unidirectional movement of capital produced from artistic

labor. As noted by Americans for the Arts, 60% of arts workers were fully unemployed by July of 2020.7

Furthermore, during our phase one survey, we found that 92% of our participants pulled multiple

sources of income in the creative economy and 44% applied for pandemic unemployment assistance

(PUA) which suggests they lost at least one source of income from independent contract labor within

education or arts nonprots.8 This gestures to the fact that many artsworkers lost employment in

two or often three spaces. If we factor in the pre-existing disparities in pay for Black, Indigenous,

and Latinx people, we are looking at levels of precarity for individuals and families that account for

more than 25% of our arts labor force here in New York City. Overlapping with this is a general issue

rooted in neoliberal labor trends where large arts businesses are just as likely to rely on contract

artsworkers as small arts businesses. However, there is a threshold in prot, as well as a series of

tactical reinvestment maneuvers, that actually allow large businesses with a higher prot to pay less

7 Americans for the Arts (2020), https://www.americansforthearts.org/news-room/americans-for-the-arts-news/covid-19-

impact-on-the-arts-research-update-may-4-2020

8 Pautz, Carolyn & Veroneque Ignace (2020), “COVID-19 and the Creative Economy: Phase 1 Emergency Aid Report,”

pg. 9

Discussion and Recommendations

in taxes than small businesses. Thus, during COVID-19, unlike industries composed of businesses

that have larger numbers of traditional employees, the Arts and Culture sector was prime for an

unemployment crisis.

As we put forward in the Phase One Emergency Aid Report, the relationship of other industries

(including hospitality, tourism and education) to the arts, particularly dance and theater, is predominantly

extractive in terms of both capital and labor, which has undermined the ability of arts businesses to

cultivate sustainable management practices.9 While dance and theater arts intersect with and produce

revenue for other industries via artsworkers’ labor, the reinvestment from other industries into the arts,

in terms of capital and labor, is not in kind. For example, Broadway talent management and production

companies do not invest in dance education businesses or programs, though without them, there

would not be a labor force to staff one of the largest economic drivers in New York City entertainment

and tourism industries.

At a more granular level, roles in small arts businesses spanning education, administration, operations,

and performance almost always articulate with and produce “value” from creative capital for another

sector, such as public education or hospitality. As evidenced, while eighteen (51%) of those we

interviewed situated their primary or secondary source of income within an arts business, the labor

associated with that income was actually in service of one or more other sectors, including secondary

education (6), higher education (3), DEI consulting (2), talent management (3), philanthropy (1),

hospitality (2), and tourism (3). Additionally, of the eighteen participants whose labor produced capital

that was utilized for revenue in another industry, fteen (42%) conducted that work as an independent

contractor, which affords them little to no social benets protection, such as unemployment insurance.

The problematic nature of gig employment is present within the arts Arts and Culture sector as well.

Fifteen (42%) of those participants we interviewed worked for or ran arts businesses that contracted

the majority of its staff. The decision to employ artists and arts administrators as contract labor most

often stemmed from the need to save on payroll and benets costs.

Additionally, three participants (8%) who own or run small dance education programs or businesses

described the loss of students to larger institutions in terms of loss of capital.

9 Ibid. pg. 8

This respondent went on to note that her students with professional aspirations have a high admissions

rate to high schools in New York City with pre-professional programs. The respondent commented that

the talent of her former students at pre-professional high schools is used in fundraising campaigns

and contributes greatly to the image of these institutions, giving them higher social and cultural capital

than her local studio. However, these larger institutions rarely participate in collaborative fundraising

or other cooperative models. This means that when a student, who the respondent has cultivated as

an artist since early childhood, leaves a program, multiple forms of capital leave with that student and

rarely circulate back to the original source.

Furthermore, one participant working in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consulting commented

that DEI services are often a one-way ow of intellectual capital. Additionally, they noted that they are

not optimistic that DEI training programs are here to stay, which has been reported elsewhere by other

experts in DEI consulting.10 Thus, even with the sudden expansion of DEI consulting businesses,

which often hire artists when serving philanthropic and municipal clients, the services offered do not

necessarily translate into reciprocal investments in the arts practices that produced the knowledge

that grounds their DEI trainings.

Recommendations

With these issues of labor and capital in mind, we offer three recommendations to create more

sustainable labor practices and capital reinvestment. First, we recommend shifting categorization

of arts work, labor sourcing, and income generation from reactionary to proactive. It is imperative to

acknowledge the imbalances in the creative labor supply chain and build in failsafes to impede future

structural collapses impacting large organizations, small businesses, and individuals alike. This can be

achieved through broader labor protection that includes social welfare access for independent contract

workers; changing legislation on labor rights by making it more difcult for businesses to classify

workers as non-traditional employees; and through small business tax reform that prevents already-

strapped small business owners from having to foot the proverbial bill for these labor protections.

Second, we need to cultivate economic practices of reciprocity across industries, in a manner that

acknowledges the importance and tangible value of arts labor and related capital in cultural supply

chains. This includes actively creating new spaces and new opportunities for value retention of

professional experience and proprietary work. In particular, K-12 education and higher education/

academia, both major employers of artists, could support this in two ways. In terms of retaining value of

professional experience, public school reciprocity beyond teaching certications should be expanded

to also include, towards the application of tenureship, years of teaching artist experience. Accredited

universities should be required to recognize years of labor for the purposes of rank and tenureship if

10 Dong, Sarah. June 2021. “The HIstory of Growth of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Profesion”. https://insights.

grcglobalgroup.com/the-history-and-growth-of-the-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-profession/ Accessed December 2020.

I’m the pipeline. When these kids can’t get to Manhattan [where more

well-known dance education programs are located] because they aren’t

commuters yet or their parents don’t want them on the train and can’t

drop them [...] they come to me. When the parents don’t have the money

[for a well-known dance education program] they come to me. So I am the

pipeline [for talent for larger institutions].

a faculty member changes their university employer. (As of now, adjunct employment does not count

towards tensureship and should a full time educator move to a new institution, their years of service

rarely transfer between universities for tenureship requirement.)

Third, in conjunction with practices of reciprocity across industries, within the Arts and Culture sector,

we recommend an increase in development of mutual aid infrastructures, including but not limited

to cooperatives, unions, etc., that include both nancial and non-nancial resources and tools.

Unionization has been shown to decrease wage and benets gaps.11 Mutual aid circles that involve both

small and large arts businesses could be used to cultivate a range of strategies that may help address

concerns about labor protection, income stability, and movement of capital, including but not limited

to: collaborative hiring and employment strategies; strengthening interorganizational communication;

stabilization funding for stafng and administration; collaborative fundraising; creating and deploying

response tools, such as legal support, media and public relations services; legislative lobbying; and

the formation of community land trusts.

Knowledge of emergency aid types and associated qualications

Discussion

In addition to the arts, most participants in the study expressed additional professional backgrounds

in economics, management, arts administration, software engineering, therapy, spirituality, and social

work, among others. Attempting to classify these backgrounds into their similar attributes, we identied

two groups: those with an understanding of business management in the tactical sense and those

working as wellness agents and concerned with sustainability of their arts practice.

In general we found several key characteristics that require attention when crafting recommendations

to revitalize and increase equity in the creative economy.

Characteristics of the Business Management Training

• Ability to visualize and implement creative solutions for operating the business and developing

business structure (e.g. running a nonprot organization alongside 2-3 other for-prot LLC-

registered organizations).

• Creative understanding of managing funding for the company (e.g having a concurrently run

for-prot LLC-register organization ‘donate’ to the main nonprot organization).

Characteristics of Wellness Agents and Arts Practice Sustainability-Focused

• Critical thinking and consciousness about whether as providers they too can benet from

services they offer.

• Creating business services based on what best supports the arts and wellness practice for

the business owners themselves on a day-to-day basis, regardless of whether or not these

services demonstrate long term nancial protability.

11 Beyer, Don. (2020), https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/les/ccf4dbe2-810a-44f8-b3e7-14f7e5143ba6/economic-

state-of-black-america-2020.pdf, Joint Economic Committee.

• A range of lack of administrative and technical knowledge about which business model or

structure is best suited for the future success of the business.

• Reactionary model of doing business inherently tied to the prioritization of wellness in society

(e.g. COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for wellness and therefore supported the

proliferation of business activities).

For either group, considering the relationship between business structure and the larger economic

system through a racial equity lens, there is serious tension between wanting to thrive as business

owners in today’s economy and recognizing that this very economy is built on exploitative and

exclusionary supply-and-demand practices that present obstacles to business sustainability and

personal wellness. This is exemplary of a critical theme: the desire to disrupt Western, white patriarchal

systems while needing to thrive within them.

Those with prior business administration or management training fared best in terms of navigating

nance and emergency aid opportunities. However, most participants were untrained in business

administration and the impact of business models on operational and funding mechanisms and

therefore selected models based on previously established standards. For those without training, it

is important to note that the challenges to applying for aid often paralleled lack of knowledge about a

business structure’s mechanisms (i.e. 501c3, LLC, S-corp) selected upon founding an organization.

Thus, awareness, capacity and technical knowledge required for identifying and accessing emergency

funds opportunities were a substantial hurdle. As noted in the phase one report, lack of clarity around

eligibility was identied as a signicant issue, whereby respondents describe it as either a barrier to

applying for emergency aid or a drain on valuable resources as they spent time applying for opportunities

for which they do not qualify. Unsurprisingly, larger organizations, equipped with either nance teams

or consulting resources had higher levels of support to research information about various types of

emergency aid and pandemic support funding. Smaller organizations and independent artists relied

on individual capacity to seek out, apply for, and stay abreast of aid opportunities while also managing

all other logistics of running their business. Unfortunately, during the pandemic this meant many artists

either did not have knowledge of what their nancial options were according to the business’s IRS

classication, the necessary information to troubleshoot based on their operational models or the

support to implement troubleshooting strategies.

In summary, the complex and sometimes ambivalent approach towards business structures related

to the educational and professional backgrounds of our respondents. This then

informed the creation of operational business models, to which we provide

recommendations in the following section, as well as their capacity to

critically engage in the emergency aid application process.

Recommendations

We urgently call for widely available, real-time assistance from

government agencies, foundations, corporations, and other

funding entities aimed at helping artists and arts business

owners of color navigate business and

nancial development for post-COVID

recovery. It is critical that we identify new and

existing structures to increase more equitable

access to technical support and education on

post-COVID business development, sustainable

nancial planning, and long-term preemptive

crisis-management. Additionally, the

experience of our research partners, from

the time their businesses were created

through the time they needed emergency

aid, demonstrated that, for most,

access to and/or awareness of technical

assistance and emergency aid support was

often mediated by a general lack of clarity around what was available from the government and

from nonprots conducting education and support in the aforementioned areas. For example, one

respondent commenting on their strategy for securing emergency aid stated, “We had the approach

of let’s apply and see what happens. We were not totally clear what we qualied for.” However, this

approach proved to be a drain on resources that did not necessarily yield a return. Unfortunately, by

not effectively reaching out to and engaging with organizations led by and serving people of color,

providers of emergency aid missed critical opportunities to help small arts businesses.

Hence, we also recommend that the city and state develop a community outreach plan that builds

a network of communication pathways through existing, trusted arts organizations led by people of

color. This would improve the likelihood that information about nancial aid and other resources might

reach the large pool of artists of color and small arts organizations led by and serving people of

color. As part of this outreach, assistance needs to include expert services able to match artists and

administrators with appropriate funding opportunities. Employing targeted outreach to connect artists

and cultural producers or color to appropriate organizations and nancial opportunities, such as was

done in the Creatives Rebuild New York grant, fosters long-term sustainability and an improved quality

of life, particularly because if one does not have a stable income in this society, it is difcult to care for

oneself and community. In the words of poet Audre Lourde, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it

is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare”. Hence, recognizing that one’s work overlaps

with one’s well-being is an engagement in artists’ and art business owners’ self-preservation, which,

then, is an engagement in disruption.

Finally, nancial aid and technical assistance support needs to be designed and executed in such a

way that does not harm artists who must engage in a variety of employment structures. As noted in our

Phase One Report, in the process of applying for unemployment through an employer, several artists

were denied PUA and/or grant writing support for their independent projects even though they lost

substantial income from independent contract labor. This sort of structural bias in favor of traditional

employment structures is neglectful of the reality of most artists.

Comparison of business conditions prior to and during COVID-19

Discussion Point

When comparing conditions prior to and since COVID-19, our respondents highlighted how the

pandemic exacerbated existing conditions, and offered critical reections of the dominant systems

organizing the creative economy, including philanthropic-centric giving, government service contracts,

corporatization and unregulated labor. Additionally, respondents noted that nancial literacy training

was critical before and since the pandemic, but noted that navigating the best learning process was

and continues to be a challenge. All of these pre-existing conditions were magnied by new conditions,

including the inability to operate in-person due to the health restrictions imposed by government

ofcials, the uncertainty and rapidly changing public health information, the shift to a fully virtual space,

and the reliance on that technology reducing or upending funding and income sources signicantly.

The sum total of these conditions drastically affected the total ecosystem, including expenditures and

heightened levels of mental, emotional, and physical stress that cannot be understated in impact.

As noted in appendix A, when responding to our survey question: “Were the challenges you faced

during the COVID-19 pandemic same or similar to what you faced before?,” 64% of participants

answered ‘Yes,’ 18% answered ‘No,’ and 18% answered ‘Maybe’ or ‘Not Sure.’ For those respondents

who answered ‘Yes,’ the macro issues of systemic racism, the devaluation of artists in society, and the

lack of labor protection were always already shaping the viability and sustainability of both their arts

practices and business endeavors. Additionally, interviews demonstrated that prior to the pandemic,

many small business owners were not well-versed in nancial literacy, crisis management and/

or operational strategy. Thus, the core aws in nancial, operational, and capacity systems within

which businesses were designed and operating were magnied by new conditions brought on by the

pandemic.

A minority of participants, particularly wellness agents and those centering sustainability in their arts

practice, expressed that regardless of their knowledge of business administration and management,

they choose to operate as a part-time or secondary business because of the contentious relationship

between maintaining one’s own personal artistic practice while also working in the larger, prot-driven

arts and culture sector. In this case, prior to the pandemic, business structures and operational designs

were selected to negotiate a balance between these two factors rather than based on economic

sustainability and available nancial support. Respondents shared the following:

Part of the reason I wanted to create a project-based organization is I

didn’t like I was indebted to the creative process as a means of making

money.

The way it is structured now is that I work a [fulltime] job and then the

time I have otherwise I am producing choreography and working in the

studio. I am also teaching as well and that feeds into it. The income I make

in my job ﬂoats a lot of what I do in dance right now... I could keep being

dormant and wait for public money or I can just say thank goodness I’m

making money at my job. I can afford to take the hit for a few thousand

dollars if it comes to that. I am self-subsidizing whatever I can’t fundraise

at this point.

Before I had people giving just to support the work, but during COVID

that time of giving didn’t exist. Now that we are coming on the other side

of this, I don’t know that we will have that again...The way moving forward

[requires] you deﬁnitely...have a corporate approach because [those

already with one] were able to withstand not being able to have their

doors open for a longer amount of [time].

For the respondents who answered ‘No’ or ‘Not Sure’ to the aforementioned survey question, new

challenges, such as hybrid programming, loss of in-person venues, and loss of life, materialized since

the onset of the pandemic. Below are several quotations that illustrate the specters of pre-COVID

conditions and their connection to new challenges.

Comparing nonprot fundraising and for prot corporate revenue generating norms, Kevin McEwen,

Executive Director of Kofago Dance, who also runs a for prot arts business, reected on the noticeable

decrease in individual giving since COVID and the potential turn to corporatization as a strategy for

crisis management. He continued by saying that,

Catherine, an arts administrator working in arts education, connects the lack of sustained giving to the

ongoing issue of convincing individuals and the general public that the arts is a valuable investment

across all demographics and sectors of society. She captures the tension between the low prioritization

of the arts when crises arise alongside the actual cost of providing accessible arts programs to all

people. She comments,

Money is being shifted away from the arts to “more important endeavors”,

so how do we get people to see the arts as a valuable investment? How

do you educate the general public on the cost of providing art while also

creating a sustainable and accessible model for all families?

Speaking about foundation giving, Amy Andrieux, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum

of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), referenced learning how to navigate ‘guilt funding’

from funders - a response to the momentum in social justice work during the convergence of the BLM

protests and COVID’s disproportionate effect on communities of color. Additionally, she noted that

due to the uncertainty produced by COVID, funders were temporarily more exible and shifted from

earmarked funding to accessible and useful general operating support. Initially, she hoped this would

be the norm going forward. However, she no longer believes these practices will be sustained or

produce long-term systemic change within the capitalistic, competitive nature of the nonprot industrial

complex.

Illustrating this, Amy describes her organization’s experience working with city and state agencies and

the frustration of operating in a disconnected system that results in piecemeal support and untenable

expectations. Shayna Sholsberg, Director of Strategy and Operations at Women of Color in the

Arts (WOCA), similarly addresses the disjointed relationship between nonprots and funders. She

expressed the difculty nding funding prior to and during COVID that is contributed in partnership and

with deep care for the mission, vision, expertise, needs and wants of the funds-seeking organization

and its community.

WOCA faces funding challenges. This is a primary challenge. By that I

mean funding that is from supporters that are aligned with our mission,

from foundations that see us as full partners, that are not trying to force

us to ﬁt their needs. Funding is out there, but it is a challenge to ﬁnd

funding from an equitable space.

Simultaneous to the lack of business administration knowledge and educational resources mentioned

in the previous section is this existent lack of adequate and equitable funding and meaningful change

to grantmaking and service contract practices. Both of these conditions lead to an unsustainable

distribution of labor amongst limited staff. Analysis of business conditions prior to and during COVID-19

center the historically exploitative positionalities and structures that sustain capitalism in conjunction

with eurocentric, patriarchal narratives. Responses below exemplify how this period of deep global

crisis was managed and reconciled from the understanding that respondents’ organizations pre-

COVID were already operating on the edge of crisis.

[I] spoke with the DCLA, because of the things they have

required to be done during the pandemic and [I] need leeway on

timing, but DCLA said they are back on normal terms and cannot

give extensions on programming. [This is] unrealistic when the

DOE isn’t back on track fully yet, when teaching artists cannot do

complete work...compliance needs to be rethought, ﬁscal year to

ﬁscal year compliance is basically like living check to check.

...nonproﬁts administrators are always overworked and underpaid, but

being in a developing crisis took a mental toll on staff, members...The

pandemic added a layer of stress and trauma that compounded an

already difﬁcult situation in an already challenging environment.

– Shayna Schlosberg, Director at WOCA

12 “Arts Funders Forum’s Research: A Look at What We Learned,” Art Funders Forum (September 2019).

I think a big challenge is that on the admin side there is just me and I can’t possibly

manage 6 departments and all their unique needs, and throughout COVID we

saw the leadership gap in Finance, HR, and Facilities, and our staff felt that...

During COVID our ﬁnance consultants were not people we could approach daily

for guidance even though they are great. We are actively trying to hire a managing

director to ﬁll that void that came about during COVID.

– Jenny Thompson, arts administrator

Artists and arts leaders can feel further ambivalence about the effectiveness of nancial literacy

education within the context of being part of, or proximate to, the nonprot sector. Of 500 cultural

leaders surveyed by the Arts Funders Forum in 2019, 78% of respondents indicated that they

were either “somewhat concerned” or “very concerned” about funding trends in the arts.12 Shayna

Schlosberg, Director of Operations & Strategy at Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA), centers the

dynamics of nonprot philanthropy as a complicating factor in achieving nancial health. She asserts,

“Funding agencies have made it very difcult to stay nancially healthy. That’s not necessarily a

reection of nancial literacy on the organization’s part.” Clara Takarabe’s lecture entitled, “‘The Way it

Works’: Abuse, Alienation, and Our Current Condition as Arts & Culture Workers,” provides compelling

context for and extrapolation on Shayna’s assertion. Contending that “artists often live at the mercy

of the nonprot sector and live by its rules,” Takarabe counters the common notion that this sector is

a “neutral” space separate from commercial activity, describing it as the runoff from extractive prot

making.13 In this sense, we can understand the nonprot sector as serving to reinforce the exploitation

of arts labor. The reality that artists and arts leaders face in being subject to the whims of funding

entities and donors makes the limitations of nancial planning even more transparent.

As it concerns common grant-making practices, capitalist norms, and labor conditions, one participant

gestured towards both the need and the challenges of establishing collaborative development and

fundraising practices.

When asked how participants dene and envision collaboration, Judy, a dancer and arts administrator,

and Mary, an arts administrator, conceive of collaboration as a redistribution of labor and an antidote

to competition. Judy called for more cooperative structures, noting she “would love a common

space for artists and arts programming to set oneself up with other arts organizations instead of

being a solo entity doing everything themselves.” Additionally, referencing a strategic management

technique, Mary highlights the distrust in peers in their eld noting that “SWOT analysis frames peers

as competitors...What’s the potential problem there? This mentality has to change, we’re ghting that

within our community. How do we make space for each even if we’re doing similar work?”

Necessarily, two respondents, Amy Andrieux and Rebecca Fitton, complicate ideals of collaboration

by questioning what the practice and operationalization of inter-organizational and intra-creative

economy collaborations would actually look like to reimagine narratives of power within an economy

that currently reies disparity. Amy observes that,

The way capitalism functions means that everyone is struggling to work

on their own...the funding structure is that everyone is in competition with

each other...it takes time, resources and headspace to consider what a

cross-organization collab would look like. A smaller arts organization will

have 12-14 hour days, which does not leave you time to think about how to

work with others.

– Lisa M., dancer

...it would be cool if mainstream organizations like MOMA or Brooklyn

Museum would focus on medium or small organizations that do focused

programming to do the work for them. It would ensure circulation within

the arts economy and longevity for smaller and medium organizations...

but at the same time, is the work of small and medium groups to build up

even larger organizations? What would inter-organizational collabs look

like, so it isn’t you eating/using me to do the work and to legitimize you,

but that there is an exchange that levels the playing ﬁeld for both of us.

Before the pandemic, my deﬁnition would be different. Now, I have more

questions: how are we making more equitable collaboration happen

between administration and artists, between presenters and artists?

I think we have been having to make collaboration happen without

addressing the intrinsic hierarchy behind our economy. It is clear that

there are more people that have more power.

[Financial literacy] is absolutely essential

in prepping for crises because we were

not taught what if. Of course we had a

cash reserve, but we needed to think

ahead and think bigger about that.

Rebecca additionally offers that,

Adjacent to concerns about how to effectively collaborate, eight out of the twenty-three individuals

who completed our second Deep Talk interviews stated that nancial literacy was the individual skill

they needed the most support in order to prepare for the future. As explained by Jenny Thompson

and Sabine Blaizin, nancial literacy training enables a person or team to plan for ‘what if’ and ‘what

might happen.’ Jenny explains,

Sabine further elucidates on the multitude of

complexities shaping her nances sharing that

she “would have liked to have a reserve and

have more knowledge about grants and monetary

opportunities.” She felt like she did not take advantage

of emergency funding programs while also struggling

to support her parents and extended family. She

continues by saying how she “would’ve liked an investor, a reserve, and/or a second aligned creative

strategy to be able to predict what might happen in the years to come.”

Both Jenny and Sabine highlight the common lack of strategic planning that looks beyond immediate

needs and is critical for preparedness. In the next thematic discussion section, we further discuss

participant experiences or lack thereof with nancial literacy and recommendations to increase

accessibility and equity in nancial literacy training.

Recommendations

For smaller budgeted and smaller staffed organizations, we emphasize that mutual aid approaches

to resource sharing, including learning how to set up cooperatives, would help business owners and

administrators to operate less from constant crisis mode, and with increased agility and capacity to

plan and pivot.

First, In conjunction with nancial literacy training, there is an increased need for business coaching

for artists and arts business owners on the appropriate business structures and failsafes (i.e. liability

insurance, disaster planning, nancial planning, equity) to implement prior to and in the face of crisis.

Secondly, in order to address the signicant disparities in power and resulting friction between arts

organizations and philanthropy and government agencies within the creative economy, we recommend

a comprehensive shift to general operations grants, multi-year funding, and more exible grant

compliance. We also recommend that grantmakers and government agencies provide education on

pre-established reporting structures intended to monitor how the money is used. This would have two

positive effects. First, it would decrease the all too common issue faced by grant-seeking organizations

whereby all available resources are earmarked for programming, resulting in the nancial neglect of

overall operational and strategic needs that undergird an organization’s viability. Second, it would

decrease the codependent relationship between philanthropy and nonprots by improving the

operational efciency of service providers.

Thirdly, we recommend shifting grantmaking practices to support grant collaboration between peer

organizations. Collaboration predicates sharing, reciprocity, and redistribution of funds, labor and other

resources amongst creative economy stakeholders. This shift would disrupt the existing “winner takes

all” approach which is depriving small nonprots and nonprots led by people of color of signicant

opportunities for growth. Furthermore, collaborative grantmaking would leverage the innovation

that is possible when different ontologies and epistemologies are given space to co-exist. Although

collaboration can be attributed to a democratic value, it is a practice that is not inherently equitable,

so these are all important and critical questions to consistently examine in the interest of centering

equity and anti-oppression.

Based on the pre-existing conditions described above, we underscore that artists and organizations

need sustainable approaches that address the full creative economy and prioritize the agency and

wellbeing of BIPOC artists and entrepreneurs. These recommendations include extensive nancial

literacy training, collaborative grantmaking, business administration training, and tools and practices

rooted in mutual aid approaches to minimize the effects of future crises.

And nally, introducing the exercise of reexivity and operationalizing collaborative practices internally

within an organization by shifting authority and accountability towards being more democratically

held. Similar to how Hope Mohr is active in decolonizing her dance company by reshaping leadership

(e.g. replacing her title of Executive Director) and pay, one participant, Sulu LeoNimm, the Executive

Director of Theater of the Oppressed NYC (TONYC), is also in the midst of interrogating how TONYC

can embody its mission and values through its internal structures and operations. They describe how

they are currently “reexamining internal organizational structure of power and authority to function

collaboratively e.g. possibly eliminating the Executive Director role.” They continue by explaining that,

“What I am interested in and other folks have identied...the titles and roles are not so much what

matter...but how the accountability ows between co-workers really.”

Potential opportunities for training and education

Discussion

Our quantitative and qualitative ndings demonstrate a gulf between favorable attitudes toward

nancial literacy and concerted action to secure this knowledge amongst the artists and arts leaders we

interviewed, as well as ambivalence about quantifying the value of one’s labor. While a small majority

– 62% – of participants reported having taken nancial literacy classes before the pandemic, only

31% took nancial literacy classes during this global crisis. At the same time, 95% of all respondents

expressed valuing nancial literacy in the wake of COVID-19. What accounts for this discrepancy

in attitudes and action? One clear obstacle in the way of pursuing nancial literacy education for

many research partners was limited funds, time and capacity. This is unsurprising given the fact that

respondents consistently articulated concerns regarding the need for increased monetary resources

and related issues around undercompensated labor and inadequate stafng.

Amy Andrieux, Executive Director and Chief Curator at MoCADA, expressed time and capacity barriers

to nancial literacy education not only in terms of personal bandwidth, but also in regards to the larger

issue of efcacy at the organizational level:

I have to do so much multitasking, so ﬁnding the time to do ﬁnancial

literacy training is difﬁcult to ﬁt in. I have so little time outside of

work. Finding ways to embed ﬁnancial literacy in the fabric of what

an organization does is key, because with understafﬁng and lack of

immediate resources to allow people to step away for training, it becomes

so difﬁcult to do a full ﬁnancial literacy training beyond just a couple

hours. How much impact does a 1-2 hour course have versus a long-term

rebuilding and education of multiple hours spread out over time?

Amy’s comments bring to bare considerations around quantifying the time, labor, and resources

required for both comprehensive nancial literacy training and effective implementation of secured

knowledge and skills. An anonymous respondent similarly problematized the practicality of nancial

literacy education when stating, “You can take all the nancial literacy [instruction] in the world, but

if you don’t act on that knowledge you’re going to make the same mistakes.” Sabine Blaizin, artist

and founder of Oyasound, echoed these concerns within the context of the consistency needed for

applying nancial literacy in practice and the necessity of ongoing support from professionals with

expertise in this subject area:

Here, Sabine conveys that implementing nancial literacy knowledge is not something she feels

she can do without sustained guidance. Her concerns converge with another theme that arose in

conversations with arts practitioners in particular: the sense that creativity and nancial savvy are

competing skill sets. Multidisciplinary artist Lauren Oliver expressed this tension when she shared:

Shelly’s comments are important to consider within the context that over 70% of participants in this

study reported working in roles with responsibilities that fall into at least three distinct job functions,

including administrative, operational, pedagogical, creative, technical, and nancial duties. Additionally,

her insights on the time required to switch gears to engage in labor outside one’s fully-honed skill

sets sheds further light on the fact that 43% of study participants reported working over 40 hours per

week, including 26% who work over 60 hours per week. Many of the practicing artists in the study

express that they are doing “everything,” largely as a function of not having the nancial means to

hire others. A respondent going by the ctional name Lisa M. stated, “I don’t ask for things if I can’t

pay [for] something, even if it’s small.” This sentiment is repeated by an anonymous respondent who

says, “I have a hard time asking people to do things for free.” For many arts workers, especially artists

supporting their own creative work, the prospect of making nancial literacy functionable for their

businesses presents prohibitive time and labor demands on individuals and teams who are already

Another respondent going by the ctional name Shelly Campbell expanded on this perceived friction

between artistic practice and business practice in a manner that once again centers concerns about

time and capacity:

I need a [ﬁnancial literacy] refresher. I’ve started and stopped. Haven’t

had time and capacity to do it. I feel overwhelmed because I’d want to

apply it right away and in the moment and really want someone with

the skillset so I can learn in a hands-on way with a professional. I need to

be consistent with putting ﬁnancial literacy into practice and feel I need

professional support to do that.

My arts practice is a bit more intuitive and spontaneous.

The business practice has to be more premeditated

and planned. That’s why it’s difﬁcult for the artist to be

a business person... Difﬁcult because it feels like we’re

wearing two different hats, and you can’t wear both at

the same time.

I recognize I could be more ﬁnancially literate. I also

recognize that part of my approach to being more

ﬁnancially literate would require me to slow the pace of

what I can actually get done because I would need time

to understand what I am learning. As a person/creative

I am very fast - creating, empathizing, with genuine

answers, but when it comes to learning something that

is not natural to me, I would need to slow down and

have the literacy portion pared down and given in bite

sizes so I can fully understand what is going on... I know

there are other areas I can be more informed, but I need

the bandwidth and that would take away from where I

need time to create.

overextended and overburdened. As a result, it appears that many arts workers understandably

question the return on investment for pursuing nancial literacy education within the existing capacity

constraints of their businesses. Thus, while the vast majority of respondents acknowledge the value

of nancial literacy in theory, serious reservations arise in the face of envisioning how to put this

education into practice.

Some respondents’ concerns rose above and beyond capacity concerns, revealing deeper distrust

and cynicism when diving into the mechanics of securing nancial literacy education. Lisa M. shared

her misgivings about soliciting guidance:

I don’t know what entities are reliable for the information, knowing that

some companies exploit communities of color or take advantage of them.

Some are rip offs. Some give only a little information. I’m never sure who is

giving the right 101 on a one-on-one basis that feels comfortable and safe.

Lisa’s comments are representative of the attitudes of many other business owners of color who have

developed skepticism towards institutions based on personal experiences with racial bias along with

knowledge of our nation’s pervasive history of systemic racism. Scholarship on entrepreneurs of color

has supported the validity of these concerns, documenting lower lines of credit, more frequent loan

application rejections, and host of other disadvantages at the starting stage of building a business.14

Furthermore, a 2016 US Census survey of entrepreneurs found that only 58% of Black business owners

solicited nancial and/or legal advice compared to 70% of white business owners.15 These numbers

suggest that distrust of nancial institutions resulting from experiences of racial discrimination can

lessen the likelihood that entrepreneurs of color seek crucial services and support, such as nancial

literacy training and guidance.

Other research participants felt ambivalence towards the incongruity between nances and arts

practice. Writer and lmmaker Jeffery U. Darrensbourg puts it plainly, “I like doing things that don’t

make money.” A subsequent comment sheds light on the root of their uneasiness: “Running a

production company really made me hate the combination of art and money and needing money to

do art.” These perspectives fall in line with what sociologist Katja Praznik terms “the paradox of art”

in Western culture. She describes the core feature of this condition as “the idea that art is not labour

but an essentialised expression of individual creativity or an individual need for self-expression.” This

ideology, Praznik explains, converges with larger issues around the invisibility and privatization of

labor in Western society, rendering art and its products as distinct from economic activity.16 As such, it

is not only artists and arts leaders who struggle to reconcile the relationship between their own work

and compensation that suffer from the effects of this pervasive paradox. Even artists who have clearly

quantied the economic value of their own work must contend with the undervaluing of arts labor

created by the conditions of capitalism.

Sabine Blaizin’s experiences securing work opportunities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

demonstrate arts labor bias in action. Here, Sabine describes a process of price negotiation wherein

14 David Baboolall, Kelemwork Cook, Nick Noel, Shelley Stewart, and Nina Yancy, “Building Supportive Ecosystems for

Black-owned U.S. Businesses”.

McKinsey & Company

(October 2020).

15 2016 Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, “Providers of Business Advice or Mentoring,” US Census Bureau, census.gov.

16 Katja Praznik, “Wages for and against Art Work: On Economy, Autonomy, and the Future of Artistic Labour,”

Reshape

(December 2020).

artists feel the pressure to take what they can get and compromise on the rates they feel they deserve:

Extractive labor practices in the arts sector and

the perpetuation of the starving artist trope in

Western culture undergird this sense of a lack

of control over compensation, especially for

BIPOC artists and BIPOC-led arts organizations

whose nancial struggles are compounded by

the inequities of systemic racism. Ultimately,

arts workers participating in our study are

keenly aware that arts labor is treated differently

from other kinds of labor. They understand that

I’m thinking about the Western ways of putting businesses together

versus putting a business together via a natural construction of

community... Black folks have been doing this work forever, but there

hasn’t been a space to do it in the way that markets allow white people [to

succeed].

Things are opening up. I’ve been accepting

any gigs that come my way. Not being paid

at my highest rate, but hopefully that’ll start

coming back... Because folks haven’t been in

business since places are just reopening and

restrategizing, they can’t offer the same rates...

A lot of new venues are ﬁguring out their

budgets. Some offers I turn down, but I’ve had to

reconﬁgure what my base rate is.

artistic work is generally exploited within current economic conditions, causing added reservations

about the actual relevance and value of pursuing nancial literacy training.

As explored in our discussion of emergency aid, participants’ considerations around business

structures and funding strategies sit within a friction between the desire to thrive within existing

economic conditions and the knowledge that the exploitation of creative labor is endemic to these

very conditions. Exceedingly aware of this tension, many of our research participants position their

business practices as both working with and against capitalist structures. This leaves some uncertain of

their place within existing business frameworks. For example, multidisciplinary artist Dominic Bradley

expressed, “Conditions are precarious so it is difcult to assess where [my business model] can t into

the creative economy.” They further explained that they don’t see others in the Black, queer, disability

community succeeding, citing a lack of mentorship specic to this particular group working within

the arts sector. However, others are consciously working to carve out a space for themselves and

their communities outside of prevailing business structures that participate in and uphold capitalism.

Oludaré Bernard, founder of Kiire Wellness, shared:

Similarly, Amy Andrieux communicated a drive toward positioning MoCADA as a truly global platform,

asking, “How do we bring the rest of the world in—not just Brooklyn—to connect the dots to what it

means to be an artist in the diaspora?” She explicitly ties this goal to exploring shared values and

shared systems that create a consistent network of cross-cultural exchange as “a practice of diaspora,

to create a cultural landscape, to create pipelines for artists.” The ways in which artists and arts leaders

are challenging existing business practices put into question the relevance of traditional iterations of

nancial literacy education that simply provide guidelines for surviving within an economic system that

maintains and advances racial and labor bias.

Recommendations

Delving into our interviews with research participants unveils the fact that attitudes toward nancial

literacy are not as clear cut as our quantitative data initially suggests. The overwhelming majority of

17 Elizabeth Sternbenz, Dylan L. Ross, Raylee Melton, Jed Smith, Megan McCoy, Blain Pearson, “Using Scaffolding

Learning Theory as a Framework to Enhance Financial Education with Financial Planning Clients,” Journal of Financial

Planning (December 2021).

artists and arts leaders in our study report that they value nancial literacy education, but closer

consideration reveals ambivalence around putting this kind of knowledge into practice. Limited

capacity amongst artists, administrators, and business owners alike presents itself as a primary

barrier to pursuing nancial literacy education. Research participants express cogent concerns

regarding the time, funds, and labor required not only to gain nancial literacy knowledge and skill

sets, but also to make this education and prociency actionable. On top of these doubts regarding the

ultimate practicality of nancial literacy, many of the artists and arts leaders we interviewed expressed

signicant cynicism about nancial literacy in the face of larger economic systems and structures that

perpetuate racial and labor bias.

With the understanding that BIPOC arts workers want to achieve more than bare survival within

oppressive conditions, we recognize that artists, administrators, and

business owners seek to both better navigate existing circumstances

and to change them. As such, we ground our recommendations on

nancial literacy training and education within the context of Pablo

Picasso’s maxim: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them

like an artist.” From this perspective, we offer insights on potential

improvements to the accessibility and applicability of nancial literacy

offerings along with suggestions regarding supplemental education,

resources, and strategies that can aid arts workers in creating conditions

in which they can thrive.

At minimum, entities providing nancial literacy offerings must

address arts workers’ understandable qualms regarding the return

on investment for pursuing nancial literacy education within the

existing capacity constraints of their businesses. Meeting artists

and arts leaders where they are at requires transparency and

guidance around the time, labor, and resources necessary to both

secure nancial literacy knowledge and skills as well as to effectively

implement them. For training, counseling, and other services to better

appeal to and serve arts workers, care must be taken to advertise and plan in ways that clearly

articulate how time committed to the offerings can translate into clear deliverables for attaining

nancial health. This can look like following the lead of nancial professionals who are newly turning

to the principles of Scaffolding Learning Theory, which are oriented toward both enhancing the quality

of nancial literacy education and the feasibility of its implementation.17 The scaffolding approach

would encourage: (1) intersubjectivity, wherein nancial professionals and arts workers arrive at a

mutual understanding of and investment in goals; (2) an ongoing diagnosis, characterized by nancial

professionals continually adapting to arts workers learning processes via appropriate scaffolds or

aids; (3) a two-way sociocultural process, promoting dialogue and exchange of information between

nancial professionals and arts workers; and (4) fading, wherein in nancial professionals gradually

withdraw scaffolds so that arts workers can independently move forward with new knowledge and skill

sets.

Furthermore, nancial literacy educators must endeavor to craft instruction, curricula, and advisement

18 Jason C. White, “A Theory of Why Arts Entrepreneurship Matters,”

Journal of Arts Entrepreneurship Education

3, no. 2

(2021): 4 - 16.

19 Stephen Rueff,. “Creative Freedom: Arts Entrepreneurship as a Mindset,” Journal of Arts Entrepreneurship Education

2, no.1 (2020): 48 - 52.

in ways that meet the particular needs of BIPOC artists and arts leaders. One important step is to

recognize arts entrepreneurship as a unique realm of business and to more fully theorize its processes

and practices. As arts administration scholar Jason C. White explains, arts entrepreneurship theories

can help to contextualize the distinct needs of arts workers in entrepreneurial spaces in addition to

providing new pedagogical pathways in and around business education.18 Another key measure would

entail efforts to help arts workers, and artists in particular, build condence in the translatability of their

creative talents and skills. Stephen Rueff, Chair of Arts Entrepreneurship at Minneapolis College of

Art and Design, points to attributes and abilities such as “self-awareness, acute observation, empathy,

critical thinking, creative problem-solving and comfort with critique and iteration” that are core aspects

of artistic processes as also being essential components of business acumen and success.19 Making

connections between creative processes and traditional business practices can help arts workers

develop condence in their capacities to achieve nancial health for their businesses.

Discussions on nancial health at our “COVID-19 & The

Creative Economy” Impact Lab disclosed additional

considerations around updating traditional nancial

literacy frameworks and assumptions to address

various dimensions of nancial health, such as effective

budgeting, building emergency savings, lowering debt,

and increasing credit. Advisors acknowledged stark realities,

emphasizing that half of business fail within their rst ve years,

noting if you’re starting with minimal resources, you may need

to work a day job while establishing your enterprise, and that

even with the best nancial planning, a global crisis like the

pandemic can set things in disarray. Financial literacy

offerings must be transparent about the difculties that

BIPOC arts workers can and will face in their efforts to

pursue nancial health.

Financial literacy education must also recognize and address various tensions between traditional

nancial literacy perspectives and the motivations, values, and goals that BIPOC arts workers root

themselves in. A prime example of the importance of this practice is the dialogue sparked by inviting

Daniel Aguirre, the founder of Pueblo Engage, to contribute to our discussion of nancial health. He

shared his perspectives on what he called “nancial liberation,” which he described as the ability

to earn money in ways that feel personally purposeful and also support collective opportunities for

nancial gain. Expanding on this denition, he stated, “For me, nancial liberation is being able to hold

the door open for my people.” These sentiments presented a friction with some of the conventional

wisdom offered during this conversation, such as Rahsaan’s statement that the “foundational purpose

of your business is to grow the income.” Exploring seemingly contrary standpoints within the nancial

literacy space can open up crucial dialetics. In this case, asking a question such as, “How do nancial

health and nancial liberation interplay with each other, in theory and practice?” offers generative

possibilities for BIPOC arts workers to envision themselves both thriving in current socio-economic

conditions while also striving to realize systems and structures that uplift their entire communities.

Ultimately, nancial literacy education should not sit in a silo. Training, advisement, and other services

should be folded into a suite of additional capacity building resources. This includes guidance on

existing support systems for achieving nancial health, running the gamut from cooperative models for

bookkeeping and nancial management, such as ArtsPool and Open Collective, to more exhaustive

scal sponsorship options at Arts Business Collaborative and additional entities. Artists in particular

should be connected to groups endeavoring to achieve fair compensation for creatives, such as

Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E) and Arts Union. Furthermore, peer mentorship

is especially crucial for BIPOC arts workers who have difculty identifying gures who represent how

they can achieve both nancial sustainability and community accountability. Finally, nancial literacy

offerings should interconnect with larger movement-building activities by promoting awareness of

advocacy efforts that can improve the nancial health of BIPOC arts workers and integrating tools for

supporting these causes. These recommendations present pathways for both engaging disillusioned

BIPOC arts workers with nancial literacy education and leveraging acquired knowledge in service of

efforts to address racial and labor bias in the United States.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, in conjunction with areas of reform, education and aid, local governments, funders

and service providers have substantial work to do in order to repair relationships with disinvested

and disenfranchised communities of color who are wary of promises and unphased by reports that

document disparities. The skepticism of our respondents has both historical precedent and current

supporting evidence. As has already been seen, the shift that occurred in 2020 of resources towards

artists and arts nonprots led by people of color has slowed to pre-pandemic rates as pressure for

diversity, equity, inclusion and reparative action is overpowered by pre-existing systemic socioeconomic

norms and new sociopolitical concerns. From Broadway to universities to commercial industries, the

pledge to equity has grown faint. However, we offer a well-founded warning that a critical opportunity

is being missed by local governments, funders and service providers should they follow industry

trends. Post-COVID recovery efforts will only be successful to the degree in which they address the

conditions impacting the most disadvantaged communities. Much like technology, transportation and

other essential services, the arts touch every aspect of private industry and the public sector. Just as

we saw the impact of the digital divide and supply chain obstacles overwhelmingly negatively impact

communities of color, a lack of earnest participatory planning for the recovery of the arts and culture

sector, and more specically, of reforms beneting marginalized communities will only prolong and

enlarge the barriers that BIPOC artists and arts businesses face, thereby deepening socioeconomic

disparities and obstructing the stability and growth of BIPOC-owned businesses.

As demonstrated by our research participants, whose work bridges the nonprot and for prot world

and spans multiple industries, art genres, communities, audiences and goals, protecting the labor

and value produced by artsworkers of color, and implementing changes that ensure their quality of

life and their business’s viability is critical to achieving economic revitalization post-COVID. In order

to effectively revitalize the creative economy, it is imperative that consideration be given to necessary

reforms, education, and aid that might reshape inter-industry relations, labor protection, philanthropic

giving, business planning and nancial literacy specically for artists and arts business leaders of

color. The intersection of inter-industry relations reforms and labor protection specically for artists

working as non-traditional employees would help to decrease the loss of income and, indeed, tax

revenue that exploitative conditions currently produce. Likewise, reforms to philanthropic grantmaking

practices that give preference to general operating funds and collaborative programming would reduce

the issue of scarcity plaguing most nonprots. Finally, additional education and technical assistance in

business administration and nancial literacy, rooted in the lived experiences and correlating needs of

artists and arts business owners of color, would help to ensure viable capacity and nancial longevity,

thereby supporting the post-COVID recovery and creation of wealth in communities of color.

Conclusion

APPENDIX

A. Intake Questionnaire

Intake sessions prior to deep talks collected demographic data along with basic information about

business structures and operations. A total of 35 artists and arts leaders participated in these virtual

interviews, which consisted of 23 questions and a nal prompt to volunteer any additional notes or

feedback. Just over half of those interviewed (19) identied themselves as Black, 21% (7) identied as

Mixed or Biracial, 9% (3) identied as white, 6% (2) identied as Latinx or Hispanic, 6% (2) identied

as Asian, and 6% (2) identied as Indigenous or Native American. When asked to self-identify their

gender, 63% (22) responded as Female, 20% (7) as Male, and 17% (6) as Nonbinary. Two individuals

considered themselves to be disabled, but neither received disability or social security benets. The

majority of respondents (29) lived and/or worked in the New York metropolitan area. Of the remaining

four, two individuals had moved from New York City to another area of the US during the pandemic.

Appendix A. | Results

Participant Demographics

Race & Ethnicity Gender

Participant Art/Business Discipline(s)

Participants included arts administrators, small business owners, and practicing artists. Sixteen

participants reported practicing or supporting a single arts discipline, including fourteen focusing on

dance, one dedicated to theater, and one specializing in literary arts. Just over half of participants (19)

practiced or supported two or more disciplines, including dance, theater, photography, lmmaking, and

digital media. Eleven represented non-prot organizations and eleven represented for-prot entities.

Seven were independent contractors and six indicated that they were speaking from their experiences

in multiple roles. Four in the latter category were artists working as independent contractors as well as

founders of their own organizations. The other two earned from their artistic practice as independent

contractors while employed in leadership roles at arts organizations that they did not found. Of all

participants representing organizations, twenty-two were in leadership positions, including a total of

ten founders. Respondents spoke from a wide range of time and experiences in the eld: ten had

been in their line of work for less than two years, nine for between two and ve years, six for between

ve and ten years, and nine for a decade or longer.

Participants were asked to select from the following job categories: Administrative, Operations,

Teaching, Creative, Technical Support, or Finance. Over 70% of respondents (25) selected at least

three of these categories. Twenty-four respondents described at least a portion of their role to be

administrative, six of which expressed that administration was their sole responsibility. Twenty-three

described their work as creative, including performance and curation. When asked how many hours

per week they work in their business, 17% answered less than 20, 40% answered between 20 and

40, 17% answered between 40 and 60, and 26% answered more than 60 hours per week. Three

respondents reported they did not have health insurance prior to and/or during the pandemic. At the

time of their interviews, twenty-ve participants were providing direct services, educational workshops

and/or classes.

Including independent contractors, twenty-one participants

indicated that their business employed between one and ve

people. Four worked in businesses with 5 - 10 employees,

six with 10 - 20 employees, and three with 20+ employees.

Of twenty-size respondents with ofcially registered

businesses, twelve were 501c3s, nine were LLCs, two were

sole proprietorships, two were scally sponsored, one was

an S-Corp, and one had multiple registrations. Thirteen

businesses reported having insurance prior to COVID-19,

while only eight reported having insurance during the time

of the interviews in spring and summer of 2021.

The Rising Tides Research Institute did not set out to recruit a group of research partners that reect

existing demographics and conditions within the New York City Arts and Culture workforce. Instead,

we intentionally amplify marginalized experiences and perspectives or people of color, nonbinary

people and women in a sector that is far less diverse than the city’s overall population. A 2019 study

by SMU Data Arts found that people identifying as Black only made up 10% of the local arts workforce

when they account for 22% of the city’s population; people of Latinx descent only made up 11% of

the city’s arts workforce while accounting for 29% of all city residents; and people of Asian descent

only made up 6% of the arts workforce while making up 14% of the local population.20 Our efforts to

magnify the obstacles faced by cultural producers of color are evidenced by the data collected over

the course of our intake interviews. Our group of research partners was overwhelmingly composed of

people of color, with an especially outsized number of Black participants.

Participant Afﬁliation(s)

20 SMU Data Arts, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dcla/downloads/pdf/NYC%20DCLA%20Full%202018%20WfD%20

Report%207-24-19.pdf, pg. 3

Similarly, while 3% of arts organization staff identied as

nonbinary, only 1% of executives leadership roles were

held by individuals from this demographic group.21 Our

intake data also demonstrates our effots to prioritize the

voices of women and nonbinary arts workers who are

underrepresented in positions of power and inuence.

Working to elevate insights from people of color, women and

nonbinary artsworkers, we cultivated a group of partners

speaking from diverse experiences and positions within

the Arts and Culture eld. The majority of participants,

91%, worked in or led organizations with less than twenty

traditional employees (non-contractor roles), making this a common denominator amongst research

partners. Additionally, most participants, 70%, occupied multiple roles within the same organization.

Seventeen, 48%, had multiple forms of independent contractor employment as creatives, educators,

administrators, and technicians. However, in many other regards, individuals taking part in the study

spoke from an array of contexts, shedding light on a wide range of conditions and challenges within

the sector prior to and during COVID-19.

B. Deep Talks

Intake interview participants were asked to take part in two deep talks, one hour and fteen minutes

each. We experienced some loss to follow up, resulting in twenty-nine individuals participating in the

rst deep talk and twenty-three participating in the second. During these talks, we asked participants

to share their experiences with and perspectives on nancial management, funding, emergency aid,

nancial literacy, and mission, vision and strategy. The following is a synthesis of quantitative and

qualitative ndings from both sets of deep talks.

Arts Business Income and Support Streams Prior to and During COVID-19

Over the course of our rst deep talk sessions, 93% of study participants (27) reportedreceiving multiple

streams of income for their arts businesses prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The most common form

of income, reported by 79% of respondents (23),was revenue from business activities. Personal or

secondary income was a closesecond, with 69% of respondents (20) indicating that income they

received outside oftheir business’s activities supplemented their work. Just over half of respondents

(15) reported receiving grants from foundations and/or corporations, 24% (7) credited the use of

a co-op structure as a key form of support, 10% (3) reported using prot from another or previous

business, 10% (3) indicated that family loans supported their business, and 7% (2) indicated access

to institutional loans. Furthermore, 45% (13) of respondents specied support outside of these funding

categories, including personal savings, small stipends, government grants, private donations, and

sub-grants and fellowships offered by nonprots. One respondent donated a portion of their budgeted

salary in order to offset costs, and another participant expressed that “faith” fueled their work.

21 SMU Data Arts, pg. 17

Arts Business Size

We also asked these same study participants about funding at the time of their interviews during

spring and summer of 2021. A majority of respondents, 86% (25), still received multiple streams of

income. The number of respondents receiving a single stream of income remained the same at 7%

(2), but the number of those receiving no income at all rose from 0% to 7% (2). Additionally, there were

signicant decreases in the number of respondents receiving support in the top categories of funding.

Only 59% of participants (17) reported receiving revenue from their businesses, 48% (14) indicated

use of personal/secondary income, and 41% (12) said they received grants. Support via a co-op

structure and family loans dropped slightly to 21% (6) and 3% (1) respectively. Income from another

or previous business kept steady at 10% (3), as did institutional loans at 7% (2). On the other hand,

respondents reporting other kinds of support rose to 66% (19). Alternative sources of income included

residencies, small stipends, consortiums, individual giving and crowdfunding, board fundraising, past

income and savings, unemployment insurance, and “sweat equity.”

Decreases in the number of respondents who received support in most income categories, along with

an increase in “other” sources of income is credited to interruptions in typical income streams during

the pandemic and the subsequent need for artists and arts organizations to employ new approaches

for generating revenue and sources of funds. For example, board fundraising was not mentioned by

any respondents regarding fundraising prior to COVID, but was mentioned by two individuals when

asked about income streams during the pandemic.

While the pressures of COVID-19 in particular pushed

participants in our study to be more creative in their pursuit

of funds, certain pre-existing trends endured. Most notably,

many respondents continued to self-fund via personal

or secondary income. It is critical to note that although

secondary income dropped twenty-one percentage points

during the pandemic, it remained the second most prevalent

form of support. As stated in our Phase One Emergency

Aid Report, the fact that artists and arts organizations rely

on personal income to support their work not only conveys

that these enterprises struggle with long term protability,

but also underscores that they lack the means to scale and

strategize for the future.22 Moreover, the precipitous drop

in this funding category over the course of the pandemic

demonstrates the precarity of relying on individual

secondary income streams that may need to be directed

elsewhere, or cease altogether, during moments of crisis.

The primacy of secondary income for some participants was further evinced by responses to our

inquiries into the nancial forecasts of arts businesses. Almost half of participants (16) stated that their

business could not survive six more months without new sources of funding and 17% (5) were unsure

if survival without funding was feasible. At the same time, 86% of participants in our second deep talks

(19) expressed they were in need of continuous nancial aid while only 14% (3) did not. Those ten

participants (28%) who expressed the ability to weather a sustained drought in revenuel were either

Arts Business Income Streams

22 Pautz, Carolyn & Veroneque Ignace (2020), “COVID-19 and the Creative Economy: Phase 1 Emergency Aid Report,”

pg. 12

explicitly using secondary employment as a means for continuing their work in the absence of other

funding, which included prots from an additional or previous business, or representatives from larger

institutions of budgets of 1.5M or more with multi-year philanthropic funding and robust programmatic

revenue. This phenomenon demonstrates that certain participants had the ability to generate prots

from non-arts businesses, yet their arts businesses relied on these prots to survive. In any case, all

of the respondents utilizing secondary income eliminated debt or loss in one space but incurred it in

another.

Co-op structures also proved to be fairly stable, with the number of participants reporting this form of

support dropping only three percentage points during the pandemic. Some respondents did not credit

co-op structures as an avenue of support, but reported mutual aid and other shared labor practices

under the “other” umbrella. Moreover, twenty participants indicated that they collaborated with other

businesses and independent contractors since the start of COVID-19 pandemic. Although not all

collaborations are necessarily based in cooperative models, it is likely that we did not fully capture the

prevalence and durability of cooperative strategies in our data due to lack of consensus on vocabulary

for solidarity economy practices. Further inquiry into the ways in which cooperation manifests within

arts businesses should delve into the nature of these reciprocal relationships.

Emergency Aid During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Just over three-quarters of participants (22) applied for

emergency aid during the pandemic. However, only 24%

(7) of respondents were sure of forms of aid for which

they qualied. Nearly one third (9) did not know what aid

they qualied for and 45% (13) were unsure whether they

understood qualications for emergency aid opportunities.

Many of those in the latter category utilized an approach

of applying to everything in order to compensate for lack

of available guidance about qualications. Just over half

of participants (15) applied for grants from foundations

and/or corporations, 45% (13) applied to the Paycheck

Protection Program (PPP), 24% (7) applied for general

unemployment assistance, 24% (7) engaged with mutual

aid or crowdfunding, 21% (6) applied for Pandemic Unemployment Insurance, and 7% (2) applied

for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan. Eleven respondents turned to other sources of emergency

aid, including individual donors from within and without the community being served, sub-grants from

nonprots, the Employee Retention Tax Credit, and U.S. Small Business Administration disaster relief,

including the Shuttered Venues Operators Grant.

Out of the twenty-two who applied, nineteen succeeded in securing some form of emergency aid.

Ten of the thirteen respondents who applied for PPP told us that they qualied for loan forgiveness or

other similar programs. These are fairly high rates of success and point to the fact that awareness of

opportunities may be the biggest hurdle to accessing emergency funds.

Out of the nineteen respondents who received emergency aid of some kind, 47% (9) spent funds on

keeping other employees, 37% (7) used funds to maintain their own self-employment, 32% (6) spent

Participant Emergency Aid Applications

funds on supplies, and 16% (3) put funds toward long term

stability planning. The vast majority of these respondents

(18) reported uses of emergency funding falling outside of

these categories. Some funds went to additional means

of upkeeping pre-existing business needs, including

maintaining contractors and paying occupancy costs.

Participants also allocated funds to specic basic survival

needs, including groceries and home rent and utilities. One

respondent reported using aid funds on an emergency

dental procedure. Other participants put emergency funds

toward emerging needs, such as new hires and consultants

as well as new software and remote work technologies.

One respondent put his funds toward establishing a new

nonprot organization. The wide array of emergency aid uses points to the overlapping nature of

business and non-business challenges faced by artists and arts administrators during the pandemic.

Some were struggling to simply stay aoat while others were leaning into evolving circumstances.

Arts Business Management Practices, Financial Literacy, and Strategy

The majority of respondents (20) indicated that they manage their business’s nances, while ve

said they did not. The remaining three respondents did not give an afrmative or negative response,

but rather emphasized that their nancial management was a shared process with accountants or

colleagues. Additional respondents who answered either “Yes” or “No” also elaborated on shared

processes. As such, 24% (7) noted some form of shared labor in their nancial management processes.

When asked if they were responsible for an operating budget, revenue, and/or capital budgets, 62%

of respondents (18) said “Yes,” 14% (4) said “No,” and 24% (7) described a collaborative approach

to managing budgets and revenue, including two respondents who each noted contracting a support

services organization. One worked with Arts Pool and the other with Fractured Atlas. This seems to

account for the discrepancy between there being 73% who indicated that they manage their business’s

nances and only 62% who said they were responsible for budgets and revenue. Just over half of

respondents identied with the statement “I/We manage all the nancials, but to be honest I am not

sure if I am doing everything correctly.” Only one respondent identied with the statement, “Someone

else manages it all for me/us.” This indexes the need for greater nancial literacy training for artists

and arts business leaders.

Asked if the executive director has a plan to protect assets

such as intellectual property and general funds, 34% (10)

said “Yes,” 38% (11) said “No,” and 28% (8) expressed

being in the process of exploring ways to protect assets. Of

thirteen respondents who indicated that they have liability

insurance, seven were aware of what it covers, two stated

that they don’t know what it covers, and four had some

familiarity with what it covered but didn’t feel completely

clear on the entire policy. None were aware of disaster

insurance options that may have supported them during

Comprehension of Emergency Aid

Eligibility Guidelines

Arts Business Budget Management

the pandemic. Most respondents (20), said that COVID changed the way they budgeted for their

businesses and/or self, while 14% (4) said it did not and 17% (5) were not sure. Access to PPE also

impacted just under half of respondents (12). Ten respondents in our second deep talks indicated that

the number of employees in their business had changed since March 2020.

Just under two-thirds of participants (18) reported that they

had taken nancial literacy classes prior to COVID-19,

while 35% (10) had not and one respondent was not sure.

About a third (9) had taken nancial literacy classes since

COVID-19, while 66% (19) had not, and one respondent

was not sure. Seven out of the nine total respondents

who indicated that they took nancial literacy classes

since the start of the pandemic had also taken nancial

literacy classes prior to the pandemic. As such, only two

respondents who hadn’t taken nancial literacy classes

before COVID-19 took classes after the pandemic began.

When asked, “Considering the toll that COVID-19 took on

the creative economy overall, do you value nancial literacy as a business skill set?,” twenty-one of

the twenty-two respondents in our second deep talk said “Yes.” In response to the follow-up question,

“Do you consider nancial literacy key to managing your business currently and in preparation for

future crises?,” nineteen participants said “Yes.”

While the majority of respondents agreed on the fact that nancial literacy is an important business skill

that is crucial for current and future success, approximately a third of study participants (8) have not

engaged in any nancial literacy education. Furthermore, eleven participants who had taken nancial

literacy classes in the past did not opt to update their knowledge during a time of social and nancial

crisis.

Two-thirds of respondents (19) answered “Yes” when

asked whether they have a mission, vision, and/or strategy

statement. Nonprots and scal sponsorees were most likely

to have at least one of these statements. Fourteen out of a

total of fteen answered “Yes.” Only two out of six total non-

sponsored independent contractors and three out of eight

LLCs answered “Yes.” Of those who answered “Yes,” 58%

(11) expressed that their mission/vision/strategy statements

changed over the course of the pandemic, 26% (5) said “No”

and 11% (2) weren’t sure. Five of the ten participants who

do not have mission/vision/strategy statements said they

have or are working on an artist statement. Participants in

the second deep talk were asked to assess on a scale of 1 - 5 how prepared their business is to

execute its--formal or informal--mission as of today. The top response was “4,” the answer from 10 of

respondents, followed by “3” (5), 5 (4), 1 (2) and 2 (1).

Despite the many challenges that participants describe facing, the majority felt optimistic about the

Participant Engagement with Financial

Literacy Offerings

Participant Self-Assessment on Arts

Business Preparedness to Execute Mission

impact of their work. In light of the nancial precarity that the overwhelming majority of artists and arts

organizations in this study describe, the fact that 63% of respondents assessed their preparedness at

four or ve suggests that many participants understand their ability to effect their mission as distinct

from their capacity to manage and sustain their business’ nances.

The data presented above offers an entry point into understanding the conditions faced by arts

practitioners and administrators or color prior to and during COVID-19, and the various manners by

which they navigated evolving socio-political and economic circumstances. Findings speak to the

nancial precarity of arts business led by and serving people of color and the barriers to their thrivability

created by extractive arts labor practices and white patriarchal power structures, which have been

compounded by the public health and economic crises brought forth by a global pandemic. Though

these numbers may speak to larger trends in the Arts and Culture sector, the research team has used

them as a guide to dive deeply into the specic experiences of our study participants. The thematic

analysis that follows explores important and/or repetitive concerns that presented themselves during

the qualitative interviews as well as recommendations based on those answers.

INTAKE QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Are you representing an organization or are you representing yourself as an individual

artist? (Organization, Individual, Both)

2. Have you read, answered, and signed a RTRI informed consent form?

3. Name

4. Pronouns

5. Email

6. Primary arts discipline

a. Dance, Theater, Other

7. How do you self-identify your race/ethnicity? (Write-In)

8. How do you self-identify your gender? (Write-In)

9. Do you identify as differently-abled? If so, are you receiving disability and social security

benets? (Y, N, Other)

10. Did you have personal health insurance prior to and/or during COVID? (Y, N, Maybe, Other)

11. How do you do your art business as of March 2021? (Independent Contractor, For-prot,

Non-prot, Other)

12. Is your business ofcially registered in the above capacity from question 6? (Y, N)

13. In what capacity? (S-Corp, LLC, 501c3, Other)

14. In which state?

15. If you’re an independent contractor or Sole Proprietor LLC, did you have liability insurance?

If yes, do you know what it covers? (Y, N, Maybe, Other)

16. Did your business have insurance prior to COVID?

17. Does your business have insurance now? Are you aware of the details of what this insurance

covers?

18. On average, how many hours per week do you work in your business?

19. In what capacity do you work in your business? (I.e. job title)

20. Job category? (Administrative, Operations, Teaching, Creative (performance, curation,

visual), Technical Support (AV), Finance, Other)

21. How many people does your business employ? (Include part time and full time employees

and independent contractors). (1-5, 5-10, 10-20, 20+)

22. Length of time working as above (Less than 2 years, 2-5 years, 5-10 years, 10+ years,

Business has closed since March 2020)

23. Were you providing direct services, educational workshops and classes? If yes, can you

please elaborate on what those were?

24. What’s your understanding of the research project so far? Is there anything you would like

claried now or during your intake call?

25. Moving forward there will be ~1.25 hour deep talk with our lead researchers. Do you have

any questions? What would be your general availability?

Appendix B. | Survey Questions

1ST DEEP TALK QUESTIONS | STRUCTURES AND CONDITIONS

Business StructureBusiness Structure

1. Why did you decide to enter this particular business/eld?

2. How much did you know about business operations, marketing, crisis management,nance,

etc prior to entering this business/eld?

3. What made you choose this operating structure over others?

4. Where do you think your organization/business ts in the creative economy?

5. How is your business currently structured? For example, do you break intodepartments? Do

you have a CEO, accountant, administrative assistant, etc? Howmany of these roles do you

ll?

6. What would you or have you changed about the structure of your business since thestart of

COVID?

7. Does your organization or business have a mission, vision and strategy statement? Ifso, how

has it changed over the past year?

Funding Your BusinessFunding Your Business

8. How did you fund your arts business before the current COVID-19 pandemic? Please check

all that apply.

a. Grants from foundations and corporations

b. Personal income/Secondary employment

c. Family loans

d. Prot

e. A previous/other business

f. Co-op structure (artists pool money)

g. Other

9. Did you apply for emergency aid?

a. Yes

b. No

10. What emergency aid did you apply for? (check all that apply)

a. Grants from foundations and corporations

b. Paycheck Protection Program

c. Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (specic to sole proprietor and independent

contractors)

d. Economic Injury Disaster Loan

e. General Unemployment Assistance

f. Mutual Aid Circles/CrowdFunding

g. Other

11. Were you aware of which forms of aid your business qualied for? If so, which ones were you

certain you qualied for?

12. Were you able to secure any of the above forms of aid?

13. How was the funding used?

a. Keeping other employees

b. Maintaining self-employment

c. Supplies

d. Long Term stability planning

14. Do you qualify for any form of loan forgiveness (for PPP, etc)?

15. How are you funding your arts business now? (during the current COVID-19 pandemic)

a. Grants from foundations and corporations

b. Personal income/Secondary employment

c. Institutional loans

d. Family loans

e. Prot

f. A previous/other business

g. Co-op structure (artists pool money)

h. Revenue from the arts business

i. Other

16. Do you manage the business nances?

17. Are you responsible for an operating budget, revenue, and/or capital budgets? If no, how are

these tracked by you or your organization?

18. Could your nonprot survey 6 more months if no new sources of revenue were acquired for

the rest of the year?

19. Did COVID change the way you budgeted for your organization/self? If so, how? What

conditions in your own life shaped your capacity to do your job and/or impact your budgeting?

20. How would you describe your nancial management for your particular form of business?

a. Someone else manages it all for me/us.

b. I manage all the nancials, but to be honest I am not sure if I am doing everything correctly.

c. I have a basic understanding of how I/my organization should be structured nancially and

taxed, but I’d rather not deal with the spreadsheets.

d. I have had an accountant explain to me how to organize a budget spreadsheet and how to

incorporate general operating funds, board restricted funds, and foundation funds, which

allows me to manage it throughout the year, but someone else still organizes my taxes at

the end of the year.

e. I/We have an in-house accountant.

f. I manage all the nancials and have taken courses or had extensive training in managing

business/nonprot nancial policy.

g. I/We have clear nancial guidelines regarding operating budgets, capital, the disbursal of

money and the reporting of each of these areas.

21. Does your executive director have a plan on how to protect assets such as intellectual

property, general funds, etc?

22. Have you taken nancial literacy classes prior to COVID? (Y/N)

23. Have you taken nancial literacy classes since COVID? (Y/N)

Conditions Impacting Structural PerformanceConditions Impacting Structural Performance

24. Did access to PPE impact your business?

25. How did the closure of indoor spaces affect your business?

26. In general, reecting over the last year, how has loss of life related to COVID impacting

business management and performance?

a. Has survivor’s guilt, death of loved ones, loss of neighbors impacted your work at all?

27. In general, reecting over the last year, how did the events around George Floyd and the

social protest related to this, impact the way you think about doing business in the arts? How

did it impact your business operations directly?

28. In general, reecting over the last few months, how did the events around AAPI hate crimes,

and the social protest related to this, impact the way you think about doing business in the

arts? How did it impact your business operations directly?

2ND DEEP TALK QUESTIONS | PRIOR ASSUMPTIONS, KNOWLEDGE, CRISIS MANAGEMENT

& STRATEGIES

Capacity & Crisis ManagementCapacity & Crisis Management

1. Has the number of employees changed since March 2020? And subsequently?

a. How did the emergency aid you receive facilitate your ability to maintain these employees?

2. What crisis management strategies did you employ from March 2020 - September of 2020 to

maintain your business? Did those strategies change from September onward?

3. Are you in continuous need of nancial aid?

a. Yes

b. No

4. Does your business have liability insurance? Are you aware of what the policy covers?

5. Considering the toll that COVID-19 took on the creative economy overall, do you value

nancial literacy as a business skill set? If so, do you consider it key to managing your

business currently and in preparation for future crises?

6. If you have not ever taken a nancial literacy course, why? Are you intimidated by the idea

of this?

7. Were the challenges you faced during the COVID-19 pandemic same or similar to what you

faced before? How so or how were they different?

8. What challenges do you face now?

Mission, Vision, and Strategy BuildingMission, Vision, and Strategy Building

9. Does your arts practice mirror your business structure? Would you consume your business

offerings?

10. Do you have a plan for growth, development, or other business-building activities?

11. How do you dene collaboration within the arts economy?

12. Have you worked in a collaborative capacity with other businesses or independent contractors

since the start of COVID?

13. How do you dene your key values?

14. How do you self-evaluate your work in relation to your mission?

15. Based on your current mission statement (*pull it up and read it), what are the values that

you hear embedded there?

16. How do you measure the impact of your business in theory and in practice?

17. How prepared is your business to execute its mission as of today?

18. In your own words, as an artist/arts business, where do you need the most support in skill

development?

19. How hopeful do you feel about the future of your arts business? What drives those sentiments?

Open-Ended ReectionsOpen-Ended Reections

20. Based on our last conversation together, what were some things you noticed about your

business overall that you had not considered before? How will you work to address this

moving forward?

1. 1. Arts and Culture sectorArts and Culture sector: Arts and cultural production from 35 industries, both commercial and

nonprot. Those 35 industries range from architectural services to sound recording and in

whole or in varying percentages are considered to be a distinct sector of the nation’s economy.

(

Sources

: National Endowment for the Arts; Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account)

2. 2. Co-operativeCo-operative: It is a people-centered, enterprise owned, controlled and run by and for their

members to realize their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations. They

are democratically managed, driven by values, are sustainable enterprises, and are not owned

by shareholders. (

Source

: International Cooperative Alliance)

3. 3. Creative economyCreative economy: Dened not singularly, but an amalgamation of four denitions –

Economic ecosystem

: The creative economy is an economic ecosystem of for-prot and

nonprot creative industries, artists and artist workforce, educators, entrepreneurs, vendors,

policy makers and funders that produce and distribute creativity- and artistic-based goods

and services.

Economic Activity

: The creative economy consists of economic activity that depends on

individuals and organizations using their creativity to drive jobs, revenue, community

resources, and cultural engagement.

Inclusive Creative Economy

: We dene an inclusive creative economy as one that centers

marginalized individuals in the pursuit of economic and restorative justice using creativity

and the arts as the vehicle to reach individual and community potential.

Creative Economy Practices

: Creative economy practices are activities or methods used in

policy, research, programmatic, academic, or funding spaces that are designed to amplify

and advance the inclusive creative economy in local communities, as is applicable to the

uniqueness of each community. (

Source

: Americans for the Arts | Creative Economy)

4. 4. Crisis managementCrisis management: Reacting to negative events during and after they occurred by having a

business continuity plan put in place in case of unforeseen contingencies. (

Source

: Investopedia)

5. 5. EmbodimentEmbodiment: A way of describing porous, visceral, felt, enlivened bodily experiences, in and

with inhabited worlds. It speaks to the historical and embodied character of experience that

dees a predetermined world and dualism of mind and body. (

Sources

: Oxford Bibliographies;

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | Maurice Merleau-Ponty)

6. 6. Financial literacyFinancial literacy: The ability to use knowledge and skills to manage nancial resources

effectively for a lifetime of nancial well-being. More than just balancing a checkbook and

comparing prices, it includes long-term vision and planning for the future, and the discipline to

use those skills every day. (

Sources

: PBS; President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy)

7. 7. Lived experienceLived experience: Expertise of people who know the reality of economic security, education,

health, equity & justice, and other societal issues by living them on a daily basis – whether

young people, working adults, parents, students, older adults. Phenomenologically and

hermeneutically, it is not only something that is experienced, its being experienced makes a

special impression that gives it lasting importance. (

Sources

: Root Cause; “Capturing Lived

Experience: Methodological Considerations for Interpretive Phenomenological Inquiry”)

Appendix C. | Glossary

8. 8. Mixed Methods ResearchMixed Methods Research: Mixed methods research is the type of research in which a researcher or

team of researchers combines elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches (e.g.,

use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference techniques) for

the broad purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration. (

Source

: “How to

Construct a Mixed Methods Research Design”)

9. 9. Racial equityRacial equity: It is the process of eliminating racial disparities and improving outcomes for everyone.

It is the intentional and continual practice of changing policies, practices, systems, and structures

by prioritizing measurable change in the lives of people of color. (

Source

: Race Forward)

10. 10. ReexivityReexivity: Researchers’ methodological analysis of own positioning and judgment-making.

Generally refers to the examination of one’s own beliefs, judgments and practices during the

research process and how these may have inuenced the research. (

Source

: Warwick University)

11. 11. Solidarity economySolidarity economy: The solidarity economy is a global movement to build a just and sustainable

economy where we prioritize people and the planet over endless prot and growth. Growing out

of social movements in Latin America and the Global South, the solidarity economy provides real

alternatives to capitalism, where communities govern themselves through participatory democracy,

cooperative and public ownership, and a culture of solidarity and respect for the earth. (

Sources

RIPESS; New Economy Coalition)

12. 12. Technical assistanceTechnical assistance: The process of providing targeted support to an organization with a

development need or problem. It is an effective method for building the capacity of an organization.

(

Source

: CDC)

ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.

Other) 14. In which state? 15. If you're an independent contractor or Sole Proprietor LLC, did you have liability insurance? If yes

S-Corp
Llc

In what capacity? (S-Corp, LLC, 501c3, Other) 14. In which state? 15. If you're an independent contractor or Sole Proprietor LLC, did you have liability insurance? If yes, do you know what it covers? (Y, N, Maybe, Other)

It is a people-centered, enterprise owned, controlled and run by and for their members to realize their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations. They are democratically managed, driven by values, are sustainable enterprises, and are not owned by shareholders

Co-Operative Co-Operative

Co-operative Co-operative: It is a people-centered, enterprise owned, controlled and run by and for their members to realize their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations. They are democratically managed, driven by values, are sustainable enterprises, and are not owned by shareholders. (Source: International Cooperative Alliance)

COVID-19 and the Creative Economy Impact Study: Phase Two

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