“Artist Thrive” is here to help.

Artists Thrive is an initiative that began in 2016 when a group of arts professionals and artists produced the first draft of a field-wide assessment rubric. Through multiple rounds of feedback, Artists Thrive was publicly launched in 2017. Artists Thrive is driven by a leadership team of artists and diverse collaborators from different sectors and communities across the country and is supported by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.

The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation has a focus on supporting artist careers. Their website states, “Since 2002, EHTF directly expanded career opportunities for artists by increasing access to business development expertise, entrepreneurial skills, and related professional practice and career supports.” Through Artist Thrive, the foundation aims to identify the things that help artists pursue their vision and to enable communities to benefit from the arts in all aspects of life. Resources and tools within Artists Thrive help artists, arts organizations, and other groups that work with artists collaborate and craft meaningful stories about why art-making matters. 

Why is this important? Well, I wish that people and communities all inherently understood the importance of arts organizations and artists in a community but sadly we often have to make the “case” for their importance. Let me frank though, the organizations and stories that we have focused on through our blog and podcast are successful because they are valuable to their communities. This means the case that they make to funders and partners is understood, felt, and very very true. What Artists Thrive provides are invaluable tools to help guide you down a path of creating community value while also providing you metrics and narratives to articulate that value back to new and existing constituents.

Artist Thrive draws heavy inspiration from “The Social Profit Handbook” by David Grant. He states, “If you measure what you value, people will value what you measure.” A common theme I am finding with successful small town organizations is that they have clearly identified true value they can provide their community and that value is understood by the community and funders. Artist Thrive has a set of tools to send you on this path.

Artist Thrive also holds an annual summit which I strongly encourage you to engage with. Artists, arts leaders, educators and funders from across the country come together annually, in-person and online, to collaborate, gain inspiration, engage and align.

They have re-opened registration for those interested in joining thier community.  New registrants have access to all the on-demand content, session recordings, art breaks, and all the new opportunities that will continue to roll out through the virtual portal. 

To learn more, visit: https://www.artiststhrive.org/