The Endowment of Us
Right now, I’m writing from a former monastery on the island of São Miguel, where the volcanic cliffs of the Azores meet the ceaseless Atlantic. The wind speaks in layered languages here, carried across tectonic plates from Europe, Africa and the Americas. This place is not simply remote — it’s a confluence. It is edge and center, past and future. The ground breathes. The ocean churns. It is a site of emergence.
I am here with a circle of artists, futurists and system thinkers — guests of Bristol Baughan and her Regenerative Media Lab. Our days stretch across windswept mornings and long communal dinners. We’ve gathered a residency not only to foster a new cultural story, but to trace the outlines of new questions. We are each shaped by the elements here — the molten earth beneath us, the ever-moving clouds above, the ancestral currents that crisscross this archipelago. We are not designing a single future. We are listening for the fault lines of the one breaking open beneath us.
In Renewing the Possible, I posed the question: “Is it even possible to imagine anew?” This new essay is a continuation—an exploration of our next terrain together. Still porous. Still listening. Still rooted in lived experience as well as imagination. These ideas are sketches in the margins of an exhausted system — drawn in the hopes that something more beautiful and just might break through.
I am dreaming out loud about what might replace economic and tax models that still too often center power in the hands of a few. The fraught binary between the nonprofit and commercial sectors. What if we dared to imagine something else—not just for the arts, but for the economy itself? What’s emerging here isn’t just a better way to fund creativity — it’s a reframing of creativity as the infrastructure of a new economic imagination. I won’t be answering all of the questions here… merely foreshadowing some thoughts that are slowly taking shape in the corners of my mind.
We are in a moment that calls for courage. Yet too often, the very institutions we have entrusted with public good — our universities, our arts organizations — are shrinking back from this calling. Their silence, inaction or retreat are not merely strategic; they are symptomatic of a deeper design flaw in our systems of cultural and civic stewardship.
Universities, long considered bastions of progressive thought and public service, are revealing a different allegiance: to the preservation of wealth over the exercise of moral courage. Many have retreated into silence, choosing to guard their massive endowments rather than risk political or donor backlash. These endowments, often justified as tools for future resilience, are now functioning as vaults of caution. They sit, watching history unfold from behind gilded windows, unwilling to spend a fraction of their fortunes to stand on principle.
Arts organizations are echoing this same calculus, guarding their endowments under the guise of fiscal prudence while simultaneously laying off staff, cutting programming and denying artists the very work that gives them purpose. Even in moments of existential threat—to democracy, to free expression, to the basic dignity of cultural labor — many cling to scarcity mindsets, treating their endowments as sacred relics rather than tools of solidarity or sustenance. Instead of leveraging these funds to meet the urgency of this moment, they sideline artists, abandoning their communities to match the constraints of fear rather than the possibilities of courage. The irony is sharp, isn’t it? Spaces founded to uplift creativity and social inquiry are choosing to sit on their wealth, while the very communities they claim to serve are left struggling to breathe.
I propose, though, that this isn’t the end of the story. If anything, it clarifies the opening.
What if we could reimagine the purpose of an endowment altogether? What if, instead of a vault, it became a wellspring? Instead of a hedge against imagined futures, it became a lever for present-day justice? From this question — equal parts practical and poetic — comes a movement: one that exits the inertia of legacy institutions and builds a shared architecture of cultural wealth, rooted not in preservation, but in pulse — a rhythm felt in the dark stones of this monastery, in the breath of those gathered here, daring to reimagine.
The new question I now pose is: What if the future of funding isn’t funding at all?
What if we stopped quarantining the arts to the margins — treating them as a luxury — and instead wove them into the muscle and marrow of how we build, govern and grow? What if artistic labor was recognized not as ornament, but as essential R&D for a society struggling to remember its soul? This isn’t a plea for more grants. It’s a call to rewrite the blueprints — to reimagine the architecture of support itself. I’m envisioning an ecosystem where artists — especially those long excluded from wealth and power — are not charity cases, but co-architects of new financial systems.
This is reallocation. A rebalancing. A reclamation.
There is something radical about using the logic of the market to undo its excesses. The idea here is not to mimic Wall Street, but to subvert it. Gently, strategically and with purpose. To use the tools of investment, real estate and public financing not to extract, but to regenerate. Not to dominate, but to distribute. We are not asking for more scraps from the banquet of capital. We are building a new table. In this imagined system, power doesn’t flow toward the center. It disperses. It circulates. It belongs.
Philanthropy, in this new story, asks funders to fund the exit from philanthropy — to help build systems where their presence is no longer required.
This is not the erasure of institutions. It’s their evolution. It's a future where artists no longer need to seek legitimacy from their gatekeepers, because their value is embedded in the structure itself.
To contribute to this shift and shake things up, I’m putting forward three economic blueprints that could pave the way for a new cultural economy—one that’s far from business as usual.
Blueprint #1: Cultural Endowment Corporation (CEC)
The Cultural Endowment Corporation (CEC) is emerging for me as one such idea — a new hybrid form, not a nonprofit, not a co-op, and certainly not another shell for profit maximization. Instead, the CEC reimagines what a cultural entity can be: a democratic, community-owned engine of creative reinvestment.
At its core, the CEC shifts how we think about giving and value. Rather than relying solely on cash donations or tax-deductible giving, the model welcomes the contribution of assets—whether they be buildings, intellectual property, equipment, or even time. These resources, perhaps siloed or dormant, are brought into a shared endowment. From there, they generate income—through licensing, rentals, co-productions, or shared revenue from collaborative projects—that is reinvested directly into the cultural ecosystem.
But perhaps the most radical aspect of the CEC isn’t the asset portfolio—it’s the ownership structure. Artists and community members aren’t simply recipients or participants; they are co-owners and co-governors. Every stakeholder—whether contributing space, skill or creative labor—has a meaningful hand in shaping both the cultural output and economic outcomes of the entity. Decision-making is reciprocal, not hierarchical. This isn’t a boardroom—it’s a circle.
Rather than distributing profits to investors, earnings from the CEC’s portfolio are returned to those who make the work possible. This could mean long-term dividends to cultural workers, reinvestment in programming, or funding tools and technologies that reduce operational burdens. To make such a model viable, the CEC would require a new legal classification—one that grants bespoke tax exemptions and public credits in recognition of its role in cultural equity and regenerative economic development. Much like a conservation trust protects natural resources, the CEC would protect and grow cultural capital.
Though no jurisdiction yet offers a fully realized version of this model, glimpses of it already exist. Community land trusts steward property for long-term public benefit, ensuring that profits serve people over markets. Social wealth funds in places like Alaska and Norway redistribute public revenues as a shared dividend. New public benefit corporations are shifting how private companies account for purpose and social good. CultureBank, co-founded by Penelope Douglas and Megan McFadden, reimagines investment by centering cultural value rather than financial return. Art.Coop, co-founded by Caroline Woolard, has long been cultivating shared ownership and solidarity in the creative economy. And Transform Finance, where Julie Menter leads program strategy, is developing sophisticated cooperative finance models rooted in justice. These aren’t outliers—they’re early roots of something deeper taking hold.
Importantly, the CEC is not limited to organizations with physical infrastructure. A small artist-led collective, a media co-op, or a digital arts nonprofit could all adopt this model—especially if they already produce work that contributes to public life. The CEC is scalable across context: it’s as applicable to a rural craft guild as it is to an urban performance venue or an experimental film lab. Wherever there is cultural labor, there is potential for shared ownership. CEC is an invitation to reshape the terms of value and authorship. Not charity. Not extraction. A vessel. A future designed by all of us.
Blueprint #2: Creative Sovereignty Trust (CST)
A Creative Sovereignty Trust (CST) reframes the relationship between artists and donors with the resources that fuel creativity. It moves away from the hierarchical structures of philanthropy — where donors hold the purse strings and artists are at their mercy — and shifts towards a dynamic of shared resources and mutual exchange. At its core, Creative Sovereignty is about empowering artists, not just with financial support, but with tangible, valuable assets… assets that offer the artist a true form of agency and independence.
In this model, space, time and trust become the currencies of the economy. Through initiatives like The Enclave which I recently created, donors offer real estate rather than cash, artists gain access to physical spaces (holidays homes or hotel properties ) that are not just provided for a limited time but integrated into a larger system of “reciprocal philanthropy”. The Enclave creates a system where artists are invited to contribute not only their creativity but their presence and perspective, as they work in spaces provided by donors who understand that sharing their real estate isn't about charity — it's about fostering a culture where the artists’ presence is currency.
What makes Creative Sovereignty distinct is that it turns the traditional relationship between donor and recipient on its head. No longer are artists passive recipients of charity. Instead, they are co-creators of value, participating in an ecosystem that nourishes their work and their community.
In this system, the donor is no longer a patron with ultimate control; they become an active participant who recognizes that their contribution is not a one-way transaction, but part of a shared investment in a vibrant, living culture.
At its most radical, Creative Sovereignty demands that artists be viewed not as dependent and vulnerable, but as agents with capital. Their work has intrinsic value that is not to be measured by the market but by the broader cultural impact it has on the community. And, by the way, they don’t have to “give back” at the end of their stay either by giving a talk, leaving behind an artwork or giving a lecture.
Their very presence is their capital.
By granting artists access to the resources they need — space to create and time to reflect — they function as cultural stewards, drawing on the collective resources of the community to shape and expand the creative ecosystem.
Ultimately, Creative Sovereignty is not just an economic model; it is a new framework for how we relate to each other and how we value creativity.
Blueprint #3: Community-Owned Arts Endowments
What if the economic engine that powered an artist’s life wasn’t beholden to the market or fickle funders? What if instead it was co-owned — by the artist, by the community, by those who actually experience and shape culture every day?
The Community-Owned Arts Endowment is a tangible economic structure—a pool seeded by capital, grown through community investment and governed by a cooperative of artists and neighbors.
At its core, it’s about moving away from philanthropy as a transactional relationship, and toward a new model of shared stewardship and mutual accountability. It doesn’t just pay artists to make things; it invests in artists as enduring contributors to civic life.
As I said before, most endowments are structured to preserve memory and stability. They do this at the expense of flexibility, transparency and relevance. Money is locked away, controlled by a small board, and used primarily to support operations rather than people. The Community-Owned Arts Endowment flips this logic. Its objective is to ensure long-term income streams for artists — unrestricted distributions that recognize creative labor as labor.
In practice, this means the endowment generates dividends from values-aligned investments: cooperative housing, green infrastructure, artist-led enterprises or community-rooted real estate. Some arts institutions already own their buildings — and what if those buildings were reimagined as community assets, not just organizational ones? Imagine rehearsal studios upstairs, a co-op café or child care hub at street level, tenants whose rent helps sustain both the physical space and its creative pulse. Instead of asking donors to write a check every year, imagine a model where an initial gift—once—becomes an engine that never stops working.
This is not a fund run by a financial firm chasing returns, nor a vanity project steered by disconnected people. It’s a cooperative trust — where artists, community members and principled co-conspirators make decisions in the open, together.
Think participatory budgeting reimagined for cultural equity.
In this model, no voice is ornamental. A working artist stands shoulder-to-shoulder with a foundation executive — not beneath them.
Pieces of this already exist. Community land trusts hold property for public benefit. Worker cooperatives share profit and governance. Participatory grantmaking re-distributes decision-making power. Social impact funds already generate steady returns for things like affordable housing and sustainable agriculture. What’s missing is the connective tissue. A way to tie these mechanisms together into a cultural asset.
The endowment would begin in one city or region. It might start with a ~$20M seed fund—sourced from a mix of philanthropic capital, municipal funds, community bonds and earned income from artist-owned ventures. That initial pool is invested ethically and regeneratively. Over time, it grows. A cohort of artists receives baseline income: not as a one-time award, but as an ongoing return. Not all at once. Not every artist in the city. But enough to prove the concept. Enough to show that culture doesn’t have to rely on cycles of precarity, burnout or luck.
For too long, the arts have been held hostage by systems that were never truly designed for their flourishing. Exiting this isn’t just a strategic pivot — it’s a moral imperative. When we center community ownership, shared governance and models that are unshackled from the whims of corporate wealth, we write a new story. One where artists are not perpetual supplicants, but stewards. One where the metrics are measured not only in reach or revenue but in resonance, in how deeply the work shapes our collective sense of meaning, justice and possibility.
To those who have created in scarcity, who have given the world their stories, their sounds, their questions — despite broken systems — we owe more than applause. We owe a restructuring. Not charity wrapped in red tape. Not saviorism with a mission statement. But new systems rooted in trust, reciprocity and a fundamental belief: Culture is not the garnish. It’s the ground.
So this is the next step. Still a sketch. Still unfolding. And from this monastery in the middle of the Atlantic, I offer this: What if the next renaissance wasn’t about benevolence — but about belonging?
What if the endowment we’ve been waiting for… is us?
