Micro-​loans for Artists?

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Let’s all start a trend. This is not orig­i­nal to me but the idea needs to be cir­cu­lated fur­ther. Links to loan pro­grams are now located at the bot­tom of this page…

A micro-​loan pro­gram for artists. Here’s the way I’d set it up:

Sim­i­lar to Kiva, artists would be loaned rel­a­tively minor amounts of money but rather than reim­burse the lender in cash, the repay­ment would be in art. *Aug. ’09 update: see below for Micro-​loan resources for artists.

Exam­ple: I request a micro-​loan of $30 to pur­chase ephemera [books, adver­tis­ing, post­cards, pam­phlets]. The lender would receive a choice of one of three items:

1. a micro-​painting [self-​defined as: a 3“x3” can­vas. See the  Can­vas Project II cur­rently spon­sored by Art House Gallery] of either the project or another subject.

2. an artist trad­ing card

3. a 5“x7” pho­to­graph or print of the work sup­ported by the loan request — either as a work “in progress” or completed.

Loan amounts would be lim­ited to … let’s say, less than $50.

Micro-​Loan for Artists Resource Links (link­age here in no way implies sup­port for or agree­ment with the loan­ing entity’s pol­i­tics or func­tion)

Spring­board for the Arts St. Paul — Twin Cities area
Non­Profit Finance Fund
Micro­fundo for music microloans
The Cen­ter for Cul­tural Innovation

Nest

2 thoughts on “Micro-​loans for Artists?”

  1. This seems more like a grant with con­di­tional return of phys­i­cal prop­erty. It seems like a com­mis­sion as well — per­haps the best thing to do is state that a par­tic­u­lar com­mis­sion­ing of work will go towards fund­ing of other works, busi­ness expenses, etc. This seems like a log­i­cal way to spend this type of money.

    You could fur­ther solid­ify this by pro­vid­ing a cer­tifi­cate of authen­tic­ity with the work that announces this fact and set it apart from other works.

    Per­haps this is exactly the type of thing that an artist needs when other sorts of fund­ing is unavailable.

  2. I agree. Artists need to be clin­i­cal in their approach to fund­ing, more business-​like per­haps. I wrote this blog post pre-​Kickstarter and it seems my wishes have come true — we can get micro­fund­ing for projects. On Kick­starter, one promises a “return” on the fund­ing invest­ment, a CD, DVD, print or what­ever. I am seri­ously con­sid­er­ing sub­mit­ting a project — try to get it approved for funding.

    Apply­ing for grants is a very intim­i­dat­ing process and cer­tainly not for amateurs.

    I like the idea of some sort of cer­tifi­cate of authen­tic­ity. Some sort of assur­ance of where the $ is to be spent. Maybe an artist could do a Needs List with links to an item and the donor or fund­ing source could pur­chase it and have it deliv­ered, like a Wed­ding Gift Reg­istry via AC Moore or Michaels or a local art sup­ply store. Or some­one may need lodg­ing $ for a sem­i­nar or work­shop… hmmmm.…