Much like other administrators of guaranteed income programs, we stared at our calendars anticipating the end of payment distribution with some fear. This was true for the Artist Employment Program as well. Although the end of payments was a known fact and communicated throughout the program, in the case of guaranteed income, we also knew that for some artists, the end of payments would mean facing the same precarious financial situation that made them eligible for this program in the first place. We asked ourselves: how do we approach the end of payment distribution with as much care and intention as we approached other aspects of these programs?

Finding Our Approach

The answer came by aligning the principles of guaranteed income with a solidarity framework. The principles of a guaranteed income put utmost respect and trust in people to do what they need with given resources, to hold each individual’s agency as sacred. For us solidarity can mean: a shared understanding that our livelihoods are interdependent, and our needs can be met within community when we support one another and build power together.

By meshing these two concepts along with feedback and requests from artists, teams from both the Guaranteed Income for Artists and the Artist Employment Programs collaborated on a series of transition support offerings to support transition off of payments. 

Communicating the End

We organized all transition support into three categories: building community, direct services, and collective action, all of which needed to be communicated with clarity and tenderness.

To ensure that artists were aware of all of these supports, we created a robust packet of information outlining all the resources made available through our partners as well as information available to the wider public. 

In the Guaranteed Income for Artists program, we made individual phone calls to over 700 artists whom we knew had barriers to communicating over email or text message to check in on their wellbeing and ensure they received information about all transition support offerings. 

We also created a ‘help-hotline’ where artists could schedule an appointment to meet one-on-one with a CRNY team member to receive further support in an intimate setting. 

We continued to host semi-monthly virtual gatherings which took on a new purpose, making room to learn about the offboarding support, share testimony with each other, and find mutual support in this transitional period. 

Building Community

At times, artists have described receiving GI as isolating. Program participants desired connections with others who shared this experience. We set up spaces for community in a few ways:

• We hosted regional in-person gatherings with artist-participants all across New York State. These were a combination of creative facilitated conversation and just down-right fun. The end of payments was an explicit discussion topic. People shared moving testimony and learned about how others were navigating this season. Our partners, Leila Tamari of This Place Works and Jason Isaacs supported the design, facilitation, and logistics of these deeply meaningful gatherings. 
• We launched a digital platform for participants to connect and share resources via Mighty Networks with our partners Tribeworks. 
• We hosted semi-monthly virtual hangouts for over a year which sometimes have over 100 people in attendance! Providing access support like language interpretation, ASL and Cart captioning was a standard. 

Services That Prioritize 1-on-1 Support and Peer Wisdom  

• We partnered with organizations who already serve artists and share similar experiences of our artists. We heard time and time again: what folks need is not so much a workshop on how to budget, but rather the support of peers navigating the same complex systems or time with a mentor to sit with and work on a plan together.  
• We prioritized services that were requested by our participants and that could be provided in multiple formats. This included topics like finding affordable housing, signing up for healthcare, mental health support, and for our group financial planning for non-traditional workers and support with their creative careers. 
• Our partnerships with Artists U, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Entertainment Community Fund provided exceptional and tailored support to over 1,000 artists across both programs. Organization collaborations in the Artist Employment Program were also supported with customized coaching and mentorship support from our team and consultants such as David Dean. 

Opportunities for Collective Action

Many of the artists who reached out to us during the transition season offered gratitude for the payments and want to know how they can help ensure guaranteed income or artist employment could become a reality for more people. Following guidance from movement leaders as well as recommendations from the GI and AEP Working groups, we knew that transition support also called for segue from pilot participant to building a base of artists who champion guaranteed income. 

• By framing participation in research as a way to support the movement, we have both been able to move additional funds to artists and have an impressive response rate, leaving an enormous data set that will support the movement long past CRNY’s timeline.  
• We launched the Artist Power Building School, home to support artists, arts collectives, and organizations in New York State and across the country to spread knowledge about economic justice and foster base-building within the guaranteed income movement. This offered an opportunity to  amplify political education tools to support artists-organizers within the program. 
• We collaborated with AEP participants to develop the Artist and Cultural Workers’ Bill of Rights, addressing systemic inequities and labor concerns for artists and cultural workers, with a focus on fair compensation, safe working conditions, and transparent decision-making.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, over 1,000 artists engaged across all of our offerings. While many received support that was right-sized for their need, we feel it is important to also acknowledge that many of these solutions are band-aids to larger systemic interventions, of which we hope to see more after CRNY ends its operations. 

As a principle, we think it’s important to be critical about the barriers that exist to people accessing the resources they need, leaving adequate room to acknowledge what doesn’t work. We are so grateful for the impressive team of partners who made all of this happen with care, held hard questions with us, and were adaptive to the needs and desires of artists.

Photo from the October 2023 Guaranteed Income Regional Gathering in Brooklyn, New York. Photo courtesy of Fenton Communications.