WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MONEY

When you don’t have money it’s all consuming. 

When you do have money there’s time to take a breath. 

When you’re a freelancer you’re constantly batted between these two feelings.

Creatives are told being artistic and creative is the opposite to being good with money or numbers. But every freelancer is basically running a small business and they have way more knowledge on their money and taxes than most people just getting a regular pay-check every month. 

However, if you ask the average person in Rising’s community if they’re ‘good’ with money, they’d probably say no. Yet when they get in a space together it turns out they all have knowledge to share on which bank accounts give you the best offers, how to split any funding you get to pay the right tax each year or how to keep records that make your self assessment easier. There is a wealth of knowledge in the community but the narrative of creative = ‘bad’ with money is so prevalent that it’s hard to overcome.

Through Networks funding from the Arts & Fundraising Philanthropy Programme we’ve been able to create spaces where Rising’s community can come together and share this knowledge. To realise that they have skills and expertise worth sharing. And to explore their own relationships with money. 

Our first session started with personal finances, where we worked through a zine together with quizzes to figure out our ‘money attachment styles’ and more radical definitions for finance terms. It felt important to start here to dismantle some of those myths about creatives not knowing about money, and what actually happened was the whole group came away realising they knew a lot more than they give themselves credit for, sharing tips on which bank accounts they use and how they track their freelance income.

In the second session we invited Creative Consultant, Executive Producer and Coach Emily Williams – who also happens to be a Rising Non-Exec 😉 – to chat through funding and fundraising. Together we worked through a lot of complicated feelings around the grind of bid writing, pitching yourself and balancing funders expectations even when you are magically chosen to receive their grants. By the end of the session we all came away more excited to tell stories about our practices, our companies, our performances and pieces, to funders that would be excited to support making them happen. 

As me and Euella think about the next leadership transition for Rising – where next year we’ll be handing the Directorship to other young people to take on – finding potential leaders with money skills is important. The ability to create budgets, for funding bids but also for an organisation, but also the knowledge to question the status quo around money and think of more radical ways to distribute funds. 

That’s why later this month we’re excited to be bringing together, in a free public event, some people who are already reimagining how communities can fund themselves and make decisions about where money goes. We want to learn from them and invite our community into a conversation about how Rising can rethink our own fundraising and be more grassroots-led, less funder dependent and remain independent – not for sustainability’s sake but so we can keep doing the urgent radical work as and when we need to do it. On our own terms. 

Personally, I'm sort of an accidental money person. I’ve taught myself about money because I wanted to and I had to, but mainly because of the people in my life.

My ex-boss had an affinity for spreadsheets that he passed on to me. My mum is a money worrier. My Scottish cousin taught me about pensions and my Irish family were completely obsessed with class mobility. From my dad I inherited actual things when he died suddenly in 2020, but money wise? I just remember he always had a lot of credit cards so maybe that’s where my fear of debt comes from. 

We all have this tangled web of relationships and money, relationships with people, examples of what to do and what not to do with money. It’s impossible to avoid in a world where money so explicitly equals power and at Rising we often talk about how we wish all exchanges of value were weighted equally but that often it’s money that’s the best way we currently have for showing we care about something. That’s why we charge for our work, that’s why we pay young people for their work.

Unfortunately we cannot dismantle the current system overnight, but my hope is that through these workshops and continued conversations with Rising’s community we can all be a little bit less afraid of talking about money. Then the systems of power have to engage with us on that level, and we can design new systems rooted in communities that work more for everyone.

If you’re excited for this too, on Wednesday 23rd April we’ll be running an event at Bookhaus to continue the conversation on who makes decisions about funding and money. Click here to get your free ticket.