Artist INC Live: Mid-America Arts Alliance

Mid-America Arts Alliance wanted to take action to empower artists to continue their strong role in the ecology of the creative economy. So they decided to do something new: train artists as entrepreneurs. To this end, Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA) has entered into a partnership that invests more fully in the lives of the artists who work in their region providing a cutting-edge professional development for artists across six states.

Artist INC Live is an eight-week intensive program designed to provide working artists with the business skills needed to excel in their practice. Once a week for three hours, a small group of 25 artists meet and receive instruction from artist-facilitators and subject matter experts from the local community who impart skills in arts planning, marketing, finance, law, and technology. The program is open to artists working in a range of disciplines and with skill levels ranging from emerging to experienced. Guest lecturers and an intimate classroom setting with ample opportunity for group work are cornerstones of the program so the artist-participants have the opportunity to network with their peers and explore the practical applications of the lessons.“It’s a very intensive and rewarding program” says Mary Kennedy, Executive Director of M-AAA. “The eight-week structure allows the artists to absorb and incorporate the lessons into their practice. The fact that artists teach the program is also a strength, because it creates a network for both the facilitators and the artists enrolled in the program. The networking becomes a tremendous resource in their career and fulfills the artists’ desire to connect with other artists working in different disciplines.”

First launched in 2009, Artist INC Live is an outgrowth of research initially undertaken by Arts KC and the Charlotte Street Foundation in 2007, aimed at gaining a better understanding of the needs of artists in the Kansas City region. When it was discovered that the artists in the community desired business skills, the partnership expanded to include the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Innovation Center. Program Director Diane Scott was hired to conduct a feasibility study for developing such a program in the KC community.  After conducting extensive research on similar professional development programs across the country, Scott found that as successful as those programs had been, none offered a replicable or defined curriculum. “What’s novel about Artist INC Live is that it has longevity.” Scott remarks, “We have developed the entire curriculum so that it’s replicable anywhere. We don’t have to go into other communities to run this program; instead we train the facilitators and they return to their hometowns to run their own sessions of Artist INC Live.“  

At the time of its launch the program was available exclusively to Kansas City artists, but it was so successful among artist-participants that demand for the program soon grew beyond the City limits. The program has since expanded to include an online workshop (which is available to artists across the country), free one-day workshops, strategic counseling sessions and an advanced level course “Artist INC II” for continuing artists. Since the program launched in 2009 “Artist INC Live” has served an estimated 400+ artists in the Kansas City region. When M-AAA joined the partnership in 2013, it extended the reach of the in-person workshop “Artist INC Live” to more than 200 additional artists in Little Rock, Arkansas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This year in addition Little Rock and Oklahoma City, the program will expand once more to serve artists in Omaha, Nebraska and Austin, Texas.

“The proof of the program’s success is in the evaluative data. The program has tremendous staying power in the careers of participant artists,“ says Mary Kennedy. “It’s a program that could benefit artists in all 50 states. My hope is that we would be able to extend it beyond our region and serve artists across the country.”