Envisioning Financial Sustainability for the NYS Creative Community
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In November of 2022 Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) announced that it had begun distribution of monthly payments to 2,400 artists, culture bearers, and culture makers across New York State. A total of $43.2M was distributed to artist participants in $1,000 monthly, no-strings-attached installments for 18 consecutive months.
CRNY was a three-year, $125 million initiative that provided guaranteed income and employment opportunities to artists. CRNY believes that artists are workers who deserve equitable, sustainable support structures, and that improving the lives of artists is paramount to the vitality of the State’s collective social and economic wellbeing. Fiscally sponsored by Tides Center, the funding commitment was anchored by $115 million from the Mellon Foundation and $5 million each from the Ford Foundation and Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
Though widely acknowledged as key drivers of social and economic health – contributing over $126 billion to the state’s economy in 2020 alone – artists are often severely under-resourced, relying on sparse and competitive grants, fellowships, and residencies to support their practice. The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed the precarity of making a living as an artist: in 2020, NYS lost 50 percent of its performing arts jobs, and in New York City, the figure was 72 percent—more than any other industry. CRNY's Guaranteed Income for Artists program was built on the premise that all artists are deserving of financial security, and was designed to help artists meet their basic needs.
"Since beginning to receive payments, my artistic practice has been affected in a million ways, the most significant of which perhaps is room to breathe,” says Guaranteed Income for Artists Participant Kristen Brooks Sandler, a dancer and choreographer based in Queens. “Scrambling at the end of the month to make rent because a gig's check hasn't come in the mail yet has become my reality. I didn't realize how stressful that was until I received this funding. The relief isn't just financial; it's emotional, physical, mental, and artistic."
As the project comes to a close at EOY 2024, there are a number of best practices and lessons learned from the program. Valuable metrics and outcomes from the program will be made available as part of a 'NYS Policy Playbook' toolkit that can be used to help influence communities and legislative bodies that are in the position to make decisions that have a positive impact on the creative communities.
"As the fight for permanent economic and labor policies to uplift artists continues, CRNY is honored to cement its legacy in the labor and economic justice movements. While CRNY is closing, the vision we share will carry on. We still have several things in the hopper that we’re excited to share over the next few weeks, including a new campaign for artists’ rights and new research on our GI program, so this isn’t our final goodbye." stated Sarah Calderón, Executive Director at CRNY. "As 2024 comes to a close, we want to extend our hearty thanks and holiday wishes to the entire CRNY community for helping us reimagine what is possible. New York isn’t New York without artists.”
Corey Aldrich is the Executive Director at ACE! Upstate Alliance for the Creative Economy
To Learn More : creativesrebuildny.org | IG: @creativesrebuildny
About ACE! : @upstatecreative
