Let’s raise $100,000,000 and lift the arts in our region out of poverty.

Yep, you read that right. We’re going to raise 100 million dollars to stabilize our regional small and midsize arts organizations. 

It’s broken, let’s fix it.

Arts funding in Atlanta has been broken for decades, and a group of diverse arts leaders, Arts Capital | Atlanta,  have come together to try to fix it and undo some of the damage and inequities that have persisted.

The arts in Atlanta are thriving! There is so much going on all the time it is impossible to experience even half of it. We are lucky to live in the Cultural Capital of the South. However, the cost of this incredibly rich tapestry has been shouldered by artists and arts administrators at small and midsize arts organizations for far too long. The artists have told us loud and clear they are not willing to do it anymore, and they must be paid a living wage.

If Atlanta wants to continue to be a thriving beacon of culture for the south, it is going to have to figure out how to pay for it. To that end, over 20 arts organizations of all sizes and disciplines have been meeting weekly for 2 years to solve some of the systemic issues. We have been meeting with funders in our community with a strong history of arts support and have asked them to give even more, and to encourage their peers to also step up to assist. We are well on our way to success, and now we are asking our community to help lift our message.

If you love and support the diverse arts ecosystem in Atlanta, let’s be loud about it together! Atlanta has some amazing funders in the family foundation space, and we are grateful to each and every one. They have been giving consistently, but it is simply not enough to support all the incredible work in our community. There is an immense gap between the available funding and the work being done every day on stages, in galleries, studios, parks and just about every public space you can think of.

There is also immense wealth in our community, and we need to lift our voices and talk about the arts with friends, neighbors, the business community and the press—anyone who will listen. We have to lift this narrative that the arts in Atlanta are at a crossroads. If enough of us speak up about it, often enough and loud enough, chances are the right people with the right access and control will hear it and support this effort. We’re calling on you, Atlanta, to speak up for the arts. 

We know there are incredible challenges in our world these days and perhaps it seems there are other more urgent matters. As we like to say in the improv world, “Yes and…” We need the arts more than ever to make it through the atrocities we’re witnessing every day. Now is the time. Arts and Culture is under attack, along with our other constitutional rights. Lift your voice. Without the arts, it would just be the atrocities. We need the arts to survive. 

Over 200 arts orgs have been identified in Metro Atlanta, and after surveying them it became clear we need $100M to just get on stable ground.

Once our goal is met, we will not stop there. That won’t fix the systemic issue. We will continue to be loud and fundraise every year and create a new arts funding stream for long-term health, tapping the growing wealth in our community.

Georgia consistently ranks among the lowest funding per capita in the country. Currently about $0.14 per person. There are 8 states above $5 and 3 above $10! Even Alabama has over $1.50. It’s embarrassing! This year Fulton County, one of our largest funders, reduced the budget appropriations for Arts and Culture by almost 50%.

The American Rescue Plan propped up the arts community through covid and we almost had adequate funding for once. Georgia Council for the Arts had an additional $3,000,000 to award for a few years, and it still paled in comparison to other states. The Federal funding around the Employment Retention Tax Credit and the Shuttered Venue Operating Grant provided stability for arts organizations across the country for a short time. All of that funding has ended, while costs have grown exponentially.

The latest blow came May 2nd when the National Endowment for the Arts cancelled and rescinded hundreds, if not thousands (we’re still counting), of grants previously awarded across the country. AC|A is calculating the local impact but the national total is over $20M so far.

Join us in making some noise on behalf of the arts in our region.

• Visit https://www.artscapitalatlanta.org/ to learn more about the current state of the arts in Atlanta and sign up for the newsletter.
• Talk to your representatives about why the arts are important to you and your community.
• Encourage your community to support arts organizations by attending events, donating, and volunteering.
• Write to your local paper.
• Amplify this message and your arts involvement, repost messages about the cuts and contract cancellations, post about your favorite shows and tell your friends when you make a donation. The arts need advocates!
• Tell everyone who will listen that you will be an arts voter in the next election.

AC|A in the News: https://www.artscapitalatlanta.org/news

AJC – NEA cancels previously awarded grants to GA organizations: 

https://www.ajc.com/arts-entertainment/2025/05/nea-cancels-previously-awarded-grants-to-georgia-arts-organizations/

Saporta Report – $100 Million needed to stabilize regional arts groups: 

https://saportareport.com/artscapitalatlanta-100-million-needed-to-stabilize-regional-arts-groups/columnists/mariasmetro/maria_saporta/

WABE – We’ve got about a $50 million dollar deficit:

https://www.wabe.org/weve-got-about-a-50-million-dollar-deficit-arts-capital-atlanta-advocates-for-more-investment-in-atlantas-art-scene/

Youth Creates is 7 Stages’ training program providing experiential learning and performance opportunities for teenagers. Through playwriting, design, and performance, students collaborate to create an original production.

To celebrate 20 years of the program, we started collecting stories from the alumni who made Youth Creates what it is today!

I was initially a dancer with Moving in the Spirit and learned about Youth Creates through their partnership during the summers. During my time with YC I was able to intern during the year, be a part of the first group of students to participate in Bootcamp in the Netherlands and was blessed enough to go back again. My experience in the program reiterated to me what my passions were, while allowing me the access to conceptualize what it takes to produce a full theatre production.

Since graduating from the program I’ve moved to Chicago and graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BA in Music/Vocal Performance. Over the past year I’ve acted in a short film which has been featured in three film festivals thus far, performed with Moving in the Spirit for their upcoming work in progress, and will be on tour this summer with Maverick City Music as an official member of their choir on the “Kingdom Tour.”

Hey there, I’m Geoffrey! Since moving on from YC in 2014, I went to Emory University, where I got a degree in Theater Studies and Painting. 

I’m now a painter, tattoo artist, and performer. I’ve got murals up in Decatur, Little 5, Cabbage Town and Bankhead. I’m traveling all over to tattoo. I’m also playing guitar in the local music scene, and am working on my first album.

YC was an incredible time for me to work deeply with other creatives. That time helped me further my own style, but most importantly introduced me to a community of artists I’m still very much a part of. Those years in YC taught me practical skills, provided fresh opportunities, and let me work with some truly delightful humans. I wish you well on your journey.

The time I spent with the Youth Creates program has definitely shaped the adult artist that I’ve become. Spending time overseas in the Netherlands definitely opened my eyes to the world around me. It helped me grow up and appreciate different cultures. My eight or so years in the program were artistically fulfilling. They informed my artistic voice and taught me compassion and compromise with love.

Since graduating the program I have starred in many short films and even a couple features. I started my own film company Trash Mouth Productions in late 2021. I am also a Local IATSE 479 film union member. I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else besides art.

http://www.editingle.com/

IG @trashmouthproductions

My time at YC can only be described as revolutionary. From my start at 7 Stages with sitting on the couch after school in the office to the one and only Heidi Howard forcing me to the stage, YC has shaped every fiber of my being and has constructed a future in theatre that would not have been possible without it. Thank you for my start in theatre with self-expression leading the way, my cultural expansion through creating in the Netherlands, and the lifelong friends I have gained along the way.

Since leaving YC I have graduated from Dekalb School of the Arts (2017) as an acting major, North Carolina A&T (2021) with a professional theatre with a concentration in Acting degree and am currently completing my master’s in arts management degree at Carnegie Mellon University (2023). I have had the opportunity to teach children acting, work administratively in the theatre, and have continued to act onstage with my most recent accomplishment being Joanne in Rent.

I’m Juno and I did YC 2015 through 2018! I am a senior at UGA double majoring in film and sociology.

My YC experience is a significant part of who I am. Through YC and boot camp I learned not only to collaborate but to take up space without being embarrassed. I’m still exploring career possibilities but YC only helped to solidify my dream to live and work where art and human relationships meet!

Hey Devi! My name is Tia! A YC memory from 2015: Looking up at the stars, we all brought out our instruments and sang what we felt. We made songs from random prompts (like spider monkey? 🤷🏽‍♀️😂) and made interpretive dances. It was truly a creative space. No expectations, just art.

That moment taught me the importance of presence. I still use that today; if I feel uninspired, I take a break from technology and just enjoy the space around me. What have you learned from YC that still inspires you today?

The days spent training under such powerful artists in such a rare and safe place in this world gave me space to grow. YC consciously shaped and guided my being long after my attendance as a young artist and intern.

Now I strive to add to such a community by establishing my own organization – built around a youth program heavily inspired by YC.

In my travels, networking and growing, I’ve utilized many of the skills developed in YC as A Bug Bounty Hunter, An MC, A Musician, A Choreographer, A Tech, A Defender, A Translator, A Teacher, As the “Solar-Powered Bard” that I strive to be, YC & the Queens & Kings that decided to share in knowledge with me will forever push me forward. Thank you YC for saving me.

Youth Creates has definitely been a life changing experience for me. Summer of 2014 was when I initially joined YC as a foreign exchange student from Israel. I loved the program so much that I came back the following summer. I can honestly say that YC felt like a “butterfly effect” for me by how randomly the bridge of events occurred to bring me here all the way from Israel which completely changed the path I decided to take in my life after that. I met so many incredible people that I am grateful to still be friends with to this day. YC also gave me the courage and will to move to Atlanta in 2018 despite fear and doubt of the unknown. 

I am currently a senior at SCAD with an illustration major and acting minor. about to graduate. I am also tattooing, illustrating and doing freelance graphic design at the moment.

https://www.aplaceineden.com/

IG: @a_place_in_eden

YC helped me to gain confidence as an artist and taught me the importance of working with others. Each person’s experience in this world is so different and helps to inform our art. The art we create in collaboration with those around us has the power to change the world. 

Since participating in Youth Creates, I graduated from Guilford College in 2019 with a degree in Technical Theater, focused in Lighting Design and Stage Management, and now work in theater.

Hello everyone! I am currently a Senior majoring in Film & Media, graduating early from Georgia State whoop whoop! The first glimpse I got of Youth Creates was the 2016 show “Dig” and at that moment I knew I wanted to join. Best decision I’ve ever made. I was quiet and very reserved at first, but YC taught me how to use my voice and to OWN it lol. It really is a safe space for your creativity without judgment.

Now I’m speaking up and exploring the art side of me as a young adult. There was also the opportunity to meet and create with people my age internationally! What an experience! but yes the friends, smiles and memories I have from YC and Bootcamp will always have a place in my heart.

I realize now that Youth Creates has shaped me in more ways than one. Initially, performing and sharing my experience gave me butterflies, and I wanted to learn to control that. I know now that everyone all over the world gets butterflies. Youth Creates teaches you to mold those butterflies into something to tell the world. Most of all, Youth Creates is here to remind you that the world embraces you for you. So let it shine!

Hi! My name is Larissa, I am from Amsterdam in The Netherlands, and I have been part of Youth Creates as a student in 2016 and as an intern in 2018 and 2019.

Youth Creates has been one of the most incredible and life-changing experiences of my life, teaching me not only about the beautiful arts and inspiring me to pursue music, but also about myself, inspiring me to use my voice and to grow as a person to become who I am today.

I am a singer-songwriter, guitarist, and aspiring music producer. In 2020, I co-founded a creative youth platform called ‘THE PACK’ at International Theater Amsterdam. I also organize local music events and work as a freelance producer for television, film, and theater.

Youth Creates, together with the incredible people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made, have a special place in my heart, and I am forever grateful to be part of the 7Stages Family.

There are so many beautiful things that I could say about my time with Youth Creates, and all of them would be true. I saw my first show at the age of 6 (Freddie Hendricks & Youth Ensemble of Atlanta’s “School House Rocks”) at 7 Stages and knew that I was destined to be on one of their stages. I didn’t know that I had manifested exactly that. Many years later my mom heard about Youth Creates from my cousin who starred in the YEA show. From the Age of 12 to now, YC has impacted my life in so many ways. I moved into TV & Film production with the skills that Heidi, Mack, Del & the rest of the gang taught. I met so many incredible talents along the way as well.

I will forever brag about my time with YC & the fact that It gave myself and many other creative children the outlet to just BE. Now I’m 34 and a parent to a 6yr old with an imagination and a passion for creating just as I had; and I know that YC will be a part of her life when the time presents itself as well. That’s just how the 7 Stages family works. Thank you Youth Creates & 7 Stages for giving a kid like me a chance.

xoxo, Britany L. White (YC, 2003-beyond)

Do YOU have a YC story to share? Contact Devi with your story and a recent photo of yourself!