Five arts groups that are as creative in the rehearsal room as the board room 2017 Arts Entrepreneurship Awards Honorees: The Black List, Hire Notes, Gigsy, Southern Theater, Opera Vireo This past year saw new paradigms for defining entrepreneurship in the arts and culture sector, and we had an amazing group of nominees. We are excited to honor these five organizations whose experimentation and innovation in the field truly stood out. Whether its elevating Hollywood’s unproduced hidden gems, helping musicians get booked and get paid, solving New Orleans’s digital media needs by training the next generation of media artists, bringing the content bundling model to the performing arts, or creating an new genre of opera by embracing online television… these organizations are each in their own way using cutting edge solutions to deliver their messages.

2017 Arts Entrepreneurs Awards — Honorable Mentions: Inclusive Fashion + Design Collective, Jukely, Mosaic America, Sofar Sounds, and Theater of Public Policy This year, the nominations for the 2017 Arts Entrepreneurship Awards were chock full of amazing and entrepreneurial arts projects. While we forced ourselves to name just five honorees, we also wanted to tip our collective hat to these awesome creative projects that impressed us with their ingenuity, drive, and business savvy.

Clockwise from top left: Sarah Carson, Sriram Emani, Erica Taylor, Jess Peterson. Event featured Adam Huttler and Courtney Duffy as panelist and moderator, respectively by Courtney Duffy, Robert W. Deutsch Arts & Technology Policy Fellow at Fractured Atlas What better day than February 14 to celebrate our love for creative entrepreneurship? Last Tuesday, Adam Huttler and I joined four arts entrepreneurs for a Capitol Hill panel hosted in conjunction with the Congressional Arts Caucus, and in collaboration with Public Knowledge. In addition to Adam, our talented panel consisted of the following entrepreneurs:

by Courtney Duffy, Robert W. Deutsch Arts & Technology Policy Fellow at Fractured Atlas Source: Flickr Event will feature Founder/CEO as panelist and Deutsch Fellow as moderator Fractured Atlas has a history of supporting artist innovation and entrepreneurship — our mission is to remove practical barriers to creative expression, after all. We’re not alone: the arts and culture sector is a $699 billion industry, and arts-related businesses employ nearly 3 million American workers. In this spirit, we’ve teamed up with the Congressional Arts Caucus and Public Knowledge to sponsor a conversation on Capitol Hill in celebration of arts entrepreneurship (RSVP here) on February 14. I will moderate a panel discussion with five entrepreneurs in the arts space — including our own Adam Huttler — who have disrupted the worlds of fashion, music, technology, animation, and design. Over a catered lunch, the panelists will discuss the challenges they’ve overcome, as well as policy opportunities to bolster the creative economy moving forward. Joining Adam at the event are the following entrepreneurs: Sarah Carson, Founder and President of Leota Sriram Emani, Co-Founder and CEO of Raga Labs Jess Peterson, CEO and Creative Producer of Mighty Oak Erica Taylor, Co-Founding Partner of Tinsel & TWINE The event, which we are hosting in conjunction with Congressional Arts Caucus co-chairs Rep. Louise Slaughter and Rep. Leonard Lance, and in collaboration with Public Knowledge, will take place in Cannon House Office Building (Room 121) at noon on Tuesday, February 14. We’d love to see you there! Be sure to RSVP. Have questions you’d like our panelists to be asked? Post them on Twitter using #ArtsEntreLunch. You can find Courtney on Twitter @cduffy90.

But very much look forward to cracking open in 2017 It’s that time of year again. That time when I feel surrounded by “Best Books” lists and realize that I purchased more than a handful of them during the past year that I’ve yet to crack open. It’s not because I’m no longer interested in reading them, it’s more because a few other things jumped the queue. (Thanks a lot, Netflix, for dropping The Crown and making me unexpectedly binge watch it.)

Fractured Atlas empowers artists to be entrepreneurs by removing practical barriers to creative expression. As a nonprofit technology organization, we take this entrepreneurial spirit to heart as we create novel and innovative solutions for age-old problems.

This May, Fractured Atlas had the opportunity to bring together the 2016 Arts Entrepreneurship Awards honorees in New York City. The event, Creative to the Core, celebrated the work of five organizations who are pushing the boundaries of conventional business practice in the arts. Representatives from each organization engaged in an insightful panel discussion about what it takes to bring innovative approaches to their arts businesses and their visions for the future of the field.

Each month we feature one of our fiscally sponsored projects who have been successful at using our program to advance their art/cause/career. This month’s featured project is The Dirty Blondes.

Fractured Atlas introduces Arts Smarts: an Arts Business Intensive, April 30th, 2016, Los Angeles, CA Fractured Atlas is not CrossFit and getting better at your arts business is not the same as getting shredded abs for the beach.

This past year saw new paradigms for defining entrepreneurship in the arts and culture sector, and we had an amazing group of nominees. We are excited to honor these five organizations whose experimentation and innovation in the field truly stood out. By creatively leveraging the intersection between technology and the arts, giving voice to social justice issues, and creating revolutionary transparency around budgeting, these organizations are each in their own way using cutting edge solutions to deliver their messages.