Creators investing in creators.

The pandemic was the last straw for us.

Before that, we saw our friends and colleagues struggle to make ends meet, and stood by helplessly as those without family connections and wealth left the field. Before the pandemic, we cobbled together work through the gig economy, competing with our fellow artists for each grant and opportunity to have our work be seen. Before the pandemic, we put our own projects aside, prioritizing work that paid over work that stirred the common humanity that called us to be artists in the first place.

 
 

But when the pandemic shuttered our field entirely, our founding members knew we could never go back to the old ways. In those dark times, we came together, wrote a manifesto, and created a video.

But we didn’t stop there.

The problems we were facing were systemic. 

They stemmed from an outdated nonprofit patronage model and an inefficient and inequitable commercial model. And we knew that systemic problems require systemic solutions.  

We started exploring the financial models of venture capital, which has spurred rapid growth and innovation in tech, and cooperative economics, which has raised entire regions out of poverty. We began asking ourselves, what if we combined these two financial models?? 

 

Supported by mentors and advisers from four accelerator programs as well as the Yale Innovation and Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, we developed the model for the Midnight Oil Collective Venture Studio. 

 

In the years since our inception, we have grown in our understanding of business and finance, but our mission and vision have remained the same. We are creators investing in creators, working toward a world in which liberated creators liberate creation.