Hyperallergic: Minnesota Nonprofit Takes the Lead in Guaranteed Income for Artists
By Hyperallergic
In the height of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Springboard for the Arts distributed over $1.5 million in emergency relief funds to 3000 Minnesota artists over the course of 18 months. The relief was immediate and deeply felt—but it was also temporary, offered in the midst of an unprecedented crisis.That experience sparked a set of questions at Springboard: Are there more sustainable ways to support artists over the long term? What is possible for our creative ecosystems, neighborhoods, and local economies when we provide artists with unrestricted cash? What happens when we shift from “helping” to investing—moving from a mindset of scarcity to one rooted in abundance, dignity, and trust?
In 2021, Springboard launched the Guaranteed Income for Artists Pilot as a “sidecar” to the City of Saint Paul’s People’s Prosperity Pilot. What began as a local experiment has since grown into a multi-year guaranteed income program supporting 100 artists across Minnesota—50 in Otter Tail County and 50 in the Frogtown/Rondo neighborhoods of Saint Paul. Now entering its fifth year, Springboard’s pilot is among the longest-running guaranteed income programs in the nation.
Alongside the pilot, Springboard co-led Artists Respond: People, Place, and Prosperity—an artist-led cohort that develops narrative change projects inspired by guaranteed income and economic justice. And to better understand what effective support looks like, Springboard is conducting deep research in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research, using comprehensive methods to study the pilot’s impact.
What started as curiosity has become a proven approach—one that is shaping lives and local communities while contributing to a wider national shift toward direct cash programs.
Minnesota is now home to more than a dozen guaranteed income pilots, funding over 1,000 households and counting. These initiatives serve a wide range of communities, including homeless youth, artists, newborns, and new Americans. In 2023, pilot administrators, local leaders, and economic justice advocates formed the Minnesota Financial Opportunity Coalition to explore pathways to move from pilots to policy.
Over the past three years, the coalition has engaged elected officials, built connections across coalitions and justice movements, and advocated at the Minnesota State Capitol championing statewide guaranteed income. Nationally, initiatives like RxKids’ community prenatal and infant cash prescription have increased family stability and improved maternal and infant health. Locally, coalition partners through the Birth Justice Collaborative run a successful postpartum and home visiting program in Minnesota with similarly impressive economic and health outcomes. Building on these examples, the coalition introduced the Minnesota Newborn Benefit Act during the last legislative session, proposing prenatal and postpartum cash support for new parents and newborns across the state.
Springboard is proud to help steward the coalition, especially as policies like the Minnesota Newborn Benefit Act recognize the interconnected needs of our community of artists, caretakers, and families. We believe artists are essential—to our communities, local economies, and social movements. Artists fuel movements by imagining new possibilities, dismantling harmful narratives, and inspiring action. They are also direct and influential contributors to economies, with Minnesota’s own arts sector contributing over $12 billion a year to the state economy. And when we provide cash as a form of radical care, we create the opportunity for everyone to dream bigger, and not only survive, but thrive.
Featured image credit: a photo of community activities le day artists Nicole Rojas-Oltmanns and Monica Rojas.
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