To Market, To Market!
Since our founding in 2009, we’ve hosted annual vendor markets to celebrate the work of our member artists and the broader community of makers. These markets also support the overall efforts of the studio and open our doors broadly to the community. Our markets have gone through a lot of growth and change, often through the generous feedback of the good folks who participate.
This blog post is for anyone wondering how our markets work, what commission covers, and how markets fold into the greater mission, vision and capacity of Studio Two Three.
What is Studio Two Three and how do we operate?
Studio Two Three is a community arts nonprofit and print studio. Our mission is to support artists to make art and make change. To this end, we host a wide range of holistic programs to:
provide affordable or no-cost artist studios to over 140 Richmond-area artists
connect artists to programs and services to support their health, wellbeing and professional practices
provide artist residency & mentorship for life-long learning
engage the broader community in the art and power of printmaking
What does it mean to be a nonprofit?
The history of the nonprofit industry is long and winding, but simply put: nonprofit organizations do not exist to generate profits and do not have owners or stockholders. The money and assets accrued by nonprofits go toward supporting their mission; if a nonprofit shuts down, those assets will be redistributed to other nonprofits or the government.
We don’t own our presses–– the public does. When staff or board members leave the organization, they leave behind the assets and any organizational capital they generated during their time there. Staff are not investors seeking a return, they are stewards of a public good. And that’s magical, beautiful, and challenging, in equal parts.
Our nonprofit status enables us to apply for grants (which account for less than 30% of our annual budget) and to accept tax-deductible donations. Even with these benefits, we rely on a healthy amount of earned income to keep our doors open,our equipment and materials stocked and to provide free & low-cost services to artists and the broader Richmond community.
Although we do not exist to generate profits, we do need to earn income to survive. We can dive down the rabbit hole of the obvious and harmful repercussions of existing and working within a capitalist economy–– but barring those philosophical considerations––we consider earned income to be positive, healthy and meaningful because it enables us to pursue our mission.
Earning our own money means that we get to make decisions regarding what’s best for our membership, our community and our space–– rather than adhering to the outside expectations of funders or corporate donors. This keeps us accountable to our community, first and foremost.
Robust earned income makes nonprofits vital and healthy. Why is this so? Grant funding can be unreliable over the long term. If you become overly dependent on grants, you risk:
Applying for funding for projects that you might not necessarily want to do just to survive.
Becoming dependent on a risky source of funding. This risk is called a “funding cliff”–– you get a large grant for a period of time, hire new staff and poof! The funder’s priority changes, funding disappears and you suddenly have to scale back, fire people and eliminate entire programs.
Moving slower than the speed of community. By this, we mean that society moves fast. On average, we don’t receive the actual money from a grant for 6 months to 1 year, which means we’re on a lag. We like to have our own money so we can quickly say YES to the needs of those around us. This was particularly empowering during the pandemic–– when our community needed masks, we were able to say yes to sewing them. When the protests began, we were able to say yes to community printmaking and public events.
Experiencing the challenges of restricted funding. Most grants or large donations are restricted, which means that they can only be used for specific purposes. It’s rare that you find grants for general operating expenses–– rent, bills, payroll and for supplies. Funders like to give money to big flashy projects but seldom like to fund the mundane realities of buying toilet paper for 140 people. Toilet paper isn’t sexy, but we all need it. If you’ve come to Studio Two Three, you’ve likely cleaned yourself with something we’ve paid for with our earned income.
What are our biggest expenses as a nonprofit?
Rent & Bills:
Every month we cut a big old check to our landlords, insurance, and utility providers to the tune of approximately $16,000.00. Our studio is designed to cover approximately 70% of those costs through private & communal membership. This source of earned income enables us to budget 6 months in advance, knowing that if our membership is full and other earned revenue streams are predictable, we can keep the doors open and the lights on.
Program Expenses:
Make Art Work Residency - Cost: $90,000 annually This comprehensive artist residency is completely free for participating artists, and provides artists one year of 24/7 access to studio space and tools, one-to-one artist instructor support, exhibition opportunities, free access to all creative technique classes and business resources, ACA/Medicaid enrollment support and access to consultations from CPAs and lawyers specializing in copyright & art licensing.
Barter & Discounted Memberships - Cost: $45,000 annually Though paid memberships are a robust form of earned income, we do not want cost to be a barrier for artists who need access to our space. To this end, we offer barter for volunteering at the studio, and discounted memberships for those who need it. This amounts to $45,000 a year in reduced or free memberships for artists and small organizations who call the studio home.
Community Print Days - Cost: $20,000 Annually We bring our mobile print truck out in support of organizations and efforts with boots on the ground making our community stronger. We hold several Community Print Days a year; the content and printing vary each time.
Education & Field Trips - Cost: $10,000 Annually We offer low-cost classes, field trips and workshops for the community, including our Make Art Work business classes which are offered free of charge to the community. These programs cost us approximately $10,000 a year after fees, to cover teacher stipends, materials, space, and promotion.
Staff, Equipment, Supplies & Everything Else Outside of rent and bills and facilitating free and low-cost programs, we also have to pay our payroll (3 full time staff, 1 part time employee plus hourly folks who help staff markets and events), equipment and supplies, capital improvements (building repairs), and marketing & advertising costs.
How do we pay for these mundane general operating expenses?
With a big old pot full of various ingredients...
Retail Sales (online & in-person shop sales of our own hand-printed items)
Vendor Markets (large markets at Studio Two Three w/ 40-60 artist vendors)
Event Space Rentals (renting a portion of our building for events)
Print Services (printing items for other companies and organizations)
Grant funding
Private Donations from community members & peers
Class & Field Trip fees
Participating in Markets (South of the James, RVA Big Market, Folk Fest, etc)
This brings us to our Vendor Markets! Why do we host them? Why do we ask for a commission from participating vendors?
Annually, Studio Two Three hosts 3-4 vendor markets in our large event space. These markets generally include 40-60 local vendors, many of whom are S23 artists, interns and people within our network of support. They also bring new artists into our orbit, which we love. Our markets usually last 1-2 days, but some run an entire month (like our Winter Market).
Our vendor markets make up one small piece of the pie, generating approximately $30,000 in earned income, after expenses, each year. This is about 5% of our overall revenue, which is meaningful and important. Beyond this income, markets help us to connect to new artists, share the work of people we love and to open our doors more broadly to the community.
In 2020 & 2021, our vendor markets put over $150,000 directly into the hands of artists.
We ask a 30% fee for vendors to participate in our markets–– a market-based rate that enables us to pay our overhead costs and to make enough earnings to justify the enormous amount of effort it takes to coordinate large markets while also managing and maintaining an organization. This is not exploitative or unusual; it’s necessary.
We charge vending fees because markets cost money to host. Fees cover some of the baseline costs of pulling the market off. These costs include:
Space rental - We have to pay the rent on our 3,000 sq. ft event space every month. When we host a market in that space we cannot use it for event rentals or educational income.
Staffing - This expense breaks into two areas, which include:
Staff hours to plan, organize, set-up, deconstruct and manage large-scale markets that can serve anywhere from 1,000-5,000 shoppers. Our markets generally require 80-100 full-time staff hours to run.
Contract employment to run the market itself ($15/hourly). After years of having vendors run their own tables, we listened to the feedback of artists and decided to take over that responsibility for them. This means that we stock the tables, staff the building, ring the items up, pay the credit card charges & sales taxes and even for the bags that people use to carry their purchases.
Marketing & Supplies - We pay to promote these events widely! We run paid ads on social media, in Google Ads, and on the radio, print large banners & print and distribute thousands of flyers. Not to harp on the toilet paper but… people use our bathrooms, our electricity, our bags.
Markets: A Case Study
Studio Two Three’s 2020 Winter Market
For our Winter Market, we net just a little above what we would earn without hosting a market during that time period, after we remove all of these expenses. For us, those earnings aren’t small. They’re meaningful and we’re grateful for them. Most importantly, we believe in opening our doors widely to artists to share and sell their work with the broader community.
Here’s how the market income and expense breaks down:
