HOW WE ELEVATE CREATIVITY
Explore how Launchpad empowers creatives to reach their artistic and entrepreneurial potential: CREATEExplore your creative potential inside our state-of-the-art studios
CONNECTFind creative inspiration, partners, mentors and peer support among a diverse community of creators.
LEARNElevate your skills through live, virtual and on-demand workshops, member programming and industry activations.
Why Launchpad was created
Launchpad was developed by Artscape to help bridge the gap that exists between the tremendous cultural and economic value artists’ ideas contribute to society and what creative people earn for their work. Whether helping to ease the transition between post-secondary and self-employment or supporting a creative business to scale up, we help creatives succeed on their own terms. Artscape has a more than 30-year history of making space for creativity and transforming communities, and a goal to create the conditions for artists to thrive. In our over 10 years of research and consultation in developing this project, we learned that despite the fact that creative content makes up a growing share in the value of everything, it is becoming harder to make a living as an artist or designer in Canada due to a number of challenges, including: precarious contract to contract work, disparity between education and incomes, and transition from school to self-employment.
For Canadian artists
44%
are self-employed
Creatives are
2x
as likely to have a post-secondary education
With incomes up to
57%
below the average Canadian income
And almost
50%
of their income is derived from work outside of their creative practice
