The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has announced a three-year, $125 million initiative to reactivate New York State's creative economy and secure the future of its artists.

Funded by the Mellon Foundation with additional support from the Ford and Stavros Niarchos foundations, Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) is a two-part initiative that will provide artists with either full-time employment opportunities or guaranteed income to mitigate the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the goal of catalyzing a national movement to put artists back to work and highlight their contributions to society — as culture-bearers, changemakers, and teachers — the initiative's guaranteed income program will provide monthly no-strings-attached payments to up to twenty-four hundred artists with financial need, while its employment program will provide three hundred artists with employment in full-time, salaried positions with benefits at small and midsize community arts organizations.

In July, CRNY will announce an advisory board that includes artists, policy makers, researchers, and nonprofit leaders and release details in August about the funding process. According to the Mellon Foundation, New York State's arts and culture sector, which typically generates about $120 billion annually and supports nearly half a million jobs, lost 50 percent of its performing arts jobs across the state and 72 percent in New York City as a result of the pandemic.

"CRNY is a direct response to the complex and unique employment realities faced by artists including the challenges of persistent artist underemployment," said Emil J. Kang, program director for arts and culture at the Mellon Foundation. "These funds will address the financial hardship and combat systemic inequities that have long plagued the sector. This is particularly the case for those artists serving small-to-midsized organizations, often led by and serving BIPOC communities."

"The artists whose work helps to sustain us have faced particularly devastating circumstances resulting from unemployment, underemployment, and a lack of predictable paid incomes," said Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander. "As we look to emerge from this pandemic, it's critical for the vibrancy of our cities that we recognize that making art is work, and artists are among our nation's most dedicated and necessary drivers of our economy. We are thrilled that the Ford and Stavros Niarchos foundations are joining with us to provide artists with the income and stability they need to continue their creative practices as the state rebuilds."

(Photo credit: Katie Haugland Bowen)