Thinking Edge Interview with Liz Powers, Co-Founder & Chief Happiness Spreader at ArtLifting
Welcome to Thinking Edge with Edward Boudrot.
Ed
So we’re really happy to have Liz Powers here today. She’s the Co-Founder and Chief Happiness Spreader, which I love that title, of ArtLifting which is an incredible social good in the world, and I’m really excited for you Liz to share that with us. So, I’d love to hear a little bit more about your background and your history and what led to ArtLifting.
Liz
Yeah, thank you for having me!
Ed
Absolutely.
Liz
So, my background is starting when I was 18 I did volunteer social work. Learned so much while doing that. One main thing was clients told me, “Liz I want an opportunity, not a handout.” So much easier said than done to help employ individuals. Some clients I’ve worked with literally an hour a week for years, applying to hundreds of jobs, and it was really frustrating because, you know, seeing the heartbreak with the clients who I knew really deeply but also thinking through how can I redefine what a quote unquote job is in order to include more people in the economy. I didn’t have an answer to that immediately but was always thinking about that.
Ended up switching careers to art therapy in homeless shelters and that’s when everything clicked because I saw a really saleable artwork not just produced in my groups but all across the country. There are about 1000 existing art therapy groups and shelters and social service agencies. So, I thought what a no brainer, curate the top work from all these existing groups and create much needed income for these artists that also help them build confidence and be defined by their talent rather than their circumstance.
Ed
That’s amazing and one of the things I think about quite a bit as is the social determinants of health and we talk about it all the time and you’ve actually taken an action around that in terms of finding a way to help people help themselves through an amazing, you know, beautiful way. How do you think about putting the original ideas together around ArtLifting, and how did ArtLifting come to being?
Liz
Yeah so, I had this idea but in the back of my mind that I wanted to redefine what a job could be but it was you know floating in that mind of mine for about five years without a solution. And then when I was at the grassroots level running art therapy groups everything really clicked. Saw really sale-able artwork in front of me, realized it’s across the country in about 1000 existing groups, so that’s when I decided okay, I need to start ArtLifting as a way to create a marketplace that bridges individuals who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to sell their work with the endless buyers out there who would desperately love to support their community members and purchase beautiful work that also has an inspirational story attached.
Ed
That’s amazing. And how are companies receiving ArtLifting itself, and what engagements have you seen with companies?
Liz
It’s been wild so my brother and I started ArtLifting six years ago. Originally it was just a B to C company so just selling to individuals, and then we were really blessed to get big press. Today Show and cover of New York Times business section and that led to all these inbounds from companies. So, I wish we could say it was like this brilliant plan to pivot to B to B, but it was really learn as we go. And over the last three years we’ve built relationships with about 200 corporations which has been amazing. We did license gift cards with Starbucks with our art printed on their cards. Most of the companies we work with purchase wall art as a way to make their values visible.
One thing that I’ve learned is obviously almost every company has a corporate social responsibility wing, but typically those values aren’t visible every day to an employee. It might be a foundation that’s in a different building in a different state but having the artwork hanging above someone’s desk or in the cafeteria with the inspirational story on the artist’s plaque has really made a big impact on team cultures.
Ed
That’s amazing. I found myself yesterday walking through our building and thinking about ArtLifting and what kind of stories are behind you know the art itself. I’d love to hear from you if you’re willing to share you know some of the personal stories of transformation that you’ve seen with some of the artists.
Liz
It’s been unreal. That’s what motivates me every day is I think with the typical social enterprise most have the handout model where you sell a bunch of stuff and then you give a percentage to charity. But ArtLifting is really unique in that we know the tangible impact on individuals we’re making, and we’re creating jobs for them. One example is Scott Benner. He actually went from homelessness to housing. He has a really eye opening story which makes people realize okay homeless people aren’t quote on quote lazy. It’s often times either due to mental health or really tough circumstances.
So, Scott had done everything right. He saved six figures. He had been a steelworker his whole life, and then during the recession he lost his job. And that’s what he calls the beginning of the perfect storm. So, he was unemployed applying, applying, applying to jobs without luck, and then he got Horner’s syndrome which is a disease that makes you unpredictably dizzy and confused. So, all of a sudden he couldn’t even apply for steel working jobs because if a bout hit while he was operating heavy equipment, he could kill someone. But then the perfect storm continued, and Scott’s wife ended up getting cancer. So, all the sudden they were both unemployed, had really extreme medical expenses, and that six figures of savings went fairly quickly within a few years. And long story short, Scott ended up homeless sleeping under the bushes near a local subway station in Boston, and then later on when it got cold in October moving into a shelter called Father Bills in the Boston area. It’s been amazing to see Scott’s life change over the last few years. So, while he was in the shelter he just happened to see ArtLifting on the news, reached out to info@heartlifting.com, and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. He now has housing. He’s sold originals for as much as $25,000 and sold all over the world including to a bunch of Google offices, Starbucks chose his artwork to license on their gift cards. He’s really made a name for himself.
Ed
Wow, that’s just amazing. And you know it makes me think about bringing beauty to the world, and there are so many layers to what you do, what ArtLifting does, beauty to the world and helping folks who are in a situation like Scott and not only making his life beautiful but bringing art to other places as well, other companies. And there’s just multiple layers of beauty there. Really reminds me of a book that I’m currently reading, “The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek which is typical companies measure themselves by quarters by yearly revenue goals whatever it might be. But the point of this book is to take those kinds of false measures away and think about the world in the long run in terms of the social good you can do, the beauty you can bring to the world, and that becomes the infinite game.
In terms of incredible heartfelt story around Scott and what you do as a company, what do you see your growth path with ArtLifting in terms of that infinite game and how you can actually bring more social good to the world as you’re doing now?
Liz
Yeah, great question. So, I think of it in three categories. So, one is our impact on our artists. We’d love to continue to deepen our impact. We’re really proud that our artists have earned over $1,000,000 and several like Scott have gone from homelessness to housing. In terms of artists, I’d love to continue to expand our artist base, eventually be in all 50 states. We’re in 23 now, and after expanding in the US, continue to expand internationally.
In terms of impact on our customers, speaking of you know the domino effect of changing people, one thing that we’ve heard is if these pieces and the artist stories on the plaques really bring perspective to each day of if I’m having a bad day and planning didn’t work, well I look up and I see Eric Santa Maria’s art on the wall and planning didn’t work for him either because he couldn’t paint with his hands. He’s in a wheelchair and has Cerebral Palsy and didn’t decide to not create, instead he paints with his wheelchair with the canvas on the ground. So, I’d love to continue to bring that perspective to our clients and help provide just positive karma that you know effects them and their relationship with their own clients.
In terms of our third level impact, I think about other social entrepreneurs. About 95% of social enterprises today are that handout model that I was mentioning of selling stuff and then donating to charity. Provides so much more dignity to individuals by actually creating jobs for them. So, my goal is to inspire other social entrepreneurs that this much more difficult path within social enterprises is possible and that they can do it too.
Ed
Wow, that’s amazing. You truly think in the infinite mindset, it’s just incredibly inspiring around thinking about not only the artist themselves you know companies you’re impacting, people within the companies, and then transforming mindset around I called it the 1-degree shift in thinking. Transforming mindset around folks that are in social responsibility, social good and inspiring them to really think differently about their current models. That’s amazing. You find maybe they’re thinking in a finite way in terms of looking for donors and then giving folks instead of enabling them to actually create their own beautiful future, creating a relationship that is finite. So, I love that idea around you know the infinite relationship and building people to really create for themselves. That’s beautiful.
Liz
Yeah, one more layer on that is one thing that I think about. So, before ArtLifting, I was working with nonprofits for eight years, and it drove me crazy thinking about all of my friends in nonprofits and we’re all doing great things but we’re competing for this same pot of money. So I thought well how can we grow this pot of money, and I think that’s the beauty in for-profit, for-purpose companies. So ArtLifting when people hear our mission, they assume we’re a non-profit but we’re actually a for-profit company. It’s called a benefit corporation, so we have a legally binding social mission, but we also have shareholders and investors that have helped us scale much more quickly than we would have otherwise. So as for-profit social enterprises we’re helping grow that pot of money not only through our own business dealings but also with ArtLifting we donate 1% of profits back to all the shelters and disability centers we work to help them pay for art supplies. To give a sense of scale, so when I was running art groups in shelters, my annual budget was a couple $1000. So, we’re making a real impact on our partners’ budgets as well.
Ed
I want to dig in a little bit around your mindset because you’re one of the most profound folks we’ve have on the podcast, and the reason is because what you just articulated and how you’re thinking completely differently about everything. What’s your mental model, and how did you actually arrive at these conclusions? It’s just fascinating for me.
Liz
I think starting at the grassroots is how I arrived at these conclusions. So, to give a specific example, when I graduated college, Harvard has two fellowships a year that pays graduating seniors a quote unquote salary, it’s really a stipend, to create your own self designed public service project. So, mine was after four years of volunteer social work, clients kept telling me, “Liz I’m really lonely.” So, I’ve been an artist my whole life, so I thought why not create art groups in local shelters to solve at least a tiny bit of this loneliness problem. The challenge was the Harvard fellowship specifically only paid my salary, and I wasn’t allowed to use any of that money for supplies. Smart of them to do because the type of person that gets that fellowship is the type of person to you know only live on ramen and give everything they possibly could to the program. But I was stuck in a bind because I had 12 months. I recruited women in the shelter really quickly, so I’m sitting there with women in front of me, and they need art supplies today. They don’t need it in a year and a half, and one of the grants that I applied to for art supplies, it was 14 pages long for a $5000 grant. And from when I applied, spent many, many hours filling out the application to when I received the check, it was a year and a half. So just having bang your head against the wall moments like that made me realize okay there’s a lot of room for disruption within social good. My short-term solution was my parents weren’t very happy about, it was posting on Craigslist and different websites to get free art supplies, and I’d you know go to strangers basements and hope that I wouldn’t get killed. And then I was actually getting their grandmother’s crayons. But moments like that repeatedly over eight years are what let me to think a little bit more outside the box.
Ed
That’s amazing. So problem solving, looking at things in a different way, disrupting patterns, right? This just isn’t working, but looking for those patterns as well and looking for solutions you know for folks, and I’d love to drill on and it’s a little bit obvious but why the title Chief Happiness Spreader?
Liz
My brother came up with it. So originally when we started the company with $4000 of our savings and he was the Chief Boring Stuff Doer, and I was the Chief Happiness Spreader. The reason I have that title so one, we’re a very different company so we didn’t want to have normal titles. We wanted to embrace our difference. In terms of Chief Happiness Spreader specifically, I think about the happiness that obviously we’re spending to our artists of creating hope in their lives but also the happiness that we’re spreading to our customers. Having this piece that really makes them reflect each day and feel connected to the artists and also be aware of the tangible impact they’ve made on their life of they contributed to them getting housing or for artists who are autistic and nonverbal, they’ve contributed to creating alternative jobs.
Ed
That’s amazing. It reminds me of there’s a book, “Beautiful Constraints,” and it reminds me of you looking at the constraints you are currently under, thinking about driving happiness, having deep empathy for whom you are serving, and really enabling them to have a beautiful life. But others as well that are appreciating the art. And just couldn’t be more inspired by our conversation today and usually end with, I’d love for you to think about what are the three pieces of advice that you would give an inspiring entrepreneur in this space. What wisdom would you impart on them?
Liz
First, I would say stay balanced. It’s really, really easy as an entrepreneur to burnout, and I’ve seen many friends burnout. You know there’s 1000 things you could do every day, but if you work till 11:00 PM everyday then you’ll only last a few years. So, if you’re in it for the long run make sure you’re not working every moment of the day and you’re making time for friends and exercise because there will be many ups and downs and there will be points where you’re almost going out of business, and you need that support of community around you.
The second piece of advice I would say is always be mindful of the balance of being conservative and courageous. I constantly think about what level of risk is the appropriate amount to take. Of course, we want to grow our impact really quickly, but I’m very thoughtful on I don’t want to take too much risk because if we invest in a ton of staff and our revenue doesn’t grow as quickly as our expenses, then we go out of business. We’re really deeply affecting artists. For many of them, we’re the main piece of hope in their lives, and it would be crushing to me to not be able to continue to provide that hope. So, I think there’s much more pressure on social entrepreneurs than a typical entrepreneur to be sustainable. We constantly see in the news typical entrepreneurs getting hundreds of millions of investments and blowing through it and going out of business. But that deeply hurts people if you’re a social entrepreneur.
Third piece of advice let’s think of one. I think third piece of advice would be to obviously social entrepreneurs have empathy for the individuals they’re serving but to also have empathy for your team and make sure you’re very mindful of creating a positive team environment where everyone knows that their voice is heard. I think you know especially when I was younger and this was literally my first job even working in a business and I was starting a business, I wasn’t as aware of the importance of mentoring and really lifting up my fellow team members.
Ed
I love it. So, you know stay balanced, make sure you have good support system around you as you head into the new venture cause you’re going to need that structure behind you. And then I love your comment around being conservative but being creative and balancing risk of a new venture because you know what you’re doing is incredibly important, and then empathy for those around you because a lot of pressure perhaps especially within this area because your desire to help other people is probably so high and you have to be conscious of the folks that are around you. That’s amazing. Liz, this was one of the most powerful podcasts that we’ve had so far around social good and what you bring to the world, and I couldn’t thank you enough for being here today.
Liz
Thank you so much!
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