SHARED SERVICES
Easing the workload of Artists and Administrators
Professional Services for Artists & Organizations
Tired of wearing all the hats? The Shared Services program connects our members—organizations and artists alike—with affordable professional business services, simplifying administration and giving you more time to focus on the work that matters most to you. Born from a desire to reduce critical burnout across our sector and strengthen administrative capacity, this program includes one-time and ongoing specialized services in areas like bookkeeping, grant writing, and social media management.
Shop Artists Services
Access to services for artists.
Shop Organization Services
Access to services for organizations.
Subsidies Available
Arts BC is pleased to share that thanks to our program funders, Shared Service rates are generally subsidized throughout this pilot year. Additionally, there are further subsidized rates available for Organizations and Artists who are members of the following communities: Indigenous, Black, People of Color, Deaf and disability, and those living in remote communities.
To apply for a Shared Services subsidy, please apply here.
About the Program
Through the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and hard work of the Shared Service team, we have had the opportunity to develop a program that aligns with our values and makes sense for the sector.
How We Got Here
We regularly hear from organizations and artists that they are over-burdened with everything landing on their “to-do” lists, including marketing, bookkeeping, grant writing and other administrative work. Everyone seems beyond capacity, and burnout is just around the corner. Despite that, financial constraints or the lack of full-time work on offer means many people cannot hire support for these areas. Without professional support, many of us are taking on exceptional amounts of work far outside our areas of expertise (or interest), leaving little time and energy left to focus on our core work.
It feels like an endless cycle inevitably leading to burnout.
We hear you! With the support of a Canada Council for the Arts Cultivate Grant, Arts BC teamed up with Juan Ramirez (Program Designer) and Carla Stephenson of the Rural Arts Inclusion Lab (community-based Research Partner) to design a new program that will provide our members with affordable and timely access to vetted arts-informed service professionals such as bookkeepers, social media specialists, and grant advisors.
Throughout 2023 and early 2024, Juan and Carla met with Arts BC members, colleagues, and folks providing these services to the arts sector to collaborate on designing a program that provides access to needed services at accessible prices for those organizations and artists who would normally not have the opportunity to consider “hiring out.”
What We Learned
This program is designed around several key learnings from the community-based research and design process:
- Bookkeeping, grant writing, and social media are priority areas
- In addition to traditional ongoing services, one-time or pay per use services are needed (setup, audit of existing processes or materials, and coaching)
- Providing standardized or template options where possible will save time (bookkeeping processes and administrative documents for example)
Questions? Please email [email protected].
Program Research & Development Leads
Juan Ramirez | Program Designer, Shared Services
Juan Ramirez was born in the Amazonas region of Colombia. When he was 14 years old, his family immigrated to Canada as political refugees. Juan is a software developer, designer and musician, different skills which he combines to create digital collages and interactive installations. His artworks often explore the relationship between people and the digital world we have created around us, how it affects us and how we perceive it. All of his artworks are created digitally using a combination of traditional graphic design techniques and his own technique, which he calls “pixel sampling”. His latests series called “non-volatile memories” aims to transpose moments in time into pieces of art by sampling photographs provided by collectors.
Rural Arts Inclusion Lab, led by Carla Stephenson | Community-Based Research Partner, Shared Services
Carla Stephenson is the project lead for the Rural Arts Inclusion Lab (RAIL) a systems change project funded by the Vancouver Foundation. Carla has been working in small rural communities for over two decades, she is the co-founder of the Tiny Lights Festival and the Executive Director of Renascence Arts and Sustainability Society and a member of the Arts BC Insight team She has presented at the Canadian Arts Summit and the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation Conference about the innovations that her organizations have made in equity and sustainability. Through her work with RAIL, she has been facilitating many conversations to address colonial systems that perpetuate inequality by design. Her facilitation work is grounded in creating conditions where emergence can happen through listening and collective story harvesting. She believes art plays a vital role in disrupting and getting to the truth of issues in subversive and overt ways. Carla brings to her work the lived experience of being a mixed-race woman of colour and mother who is grateful to live and work on the unceded territories of the Sinixt and Ktunaxa Peoples.
Have Questions?
Are you interested in learning more or have questions about our Shared Services program? Email us at [email protected] or give us a call at +1-778-410-5104.
