Art-Business Accelerator

A 12-month Intensive Virtual Education Program for Artists

Accelerate Your Career!

Our Fellowship application period is currently closed, but you can access many of the courses taught in past Accelerator programs via the Digital Learning Portal. Register at the Member level or higher to unlock these workshops.

"My sales have increased dramatically, and I have already set up meetings to move my project forward.”

Gregg Chadwick

2018 Fellow

Artists are the ultimate entrepreneurs...

...but they lack access to the kinds of incubator and business-development programs that are widely available to technology start-ups and other small enterprises. Art schools rarely teach business skills, but these are essential if artists are to take charge of their careers, and navigate an industry rife with predatory middlemen who are looking to exploit their lack of management experience.

“Art is not a charity,” says CHF Director Elizabeth Hulings, “and artists deserve every opportunity to earn a living from their work. To do this, business expertise is just as vital as creativity and artistic technique.”

Transform your career by joining our Art-Business Accelerator program, a virtual non-residency program that can be seamlessly integrated into your art practice.

Program Benefits

Some of the Opportunities Participants Receive

Business Training

First-year Fellows complete an intensive online business-education program that helps these working artists plan pivotal business projects, create a brand narrative, develop an Investment-Grade Proposal, and acquire a skill set that's designed to serve them throughout their careers.

Customized Learning

Interactive online workshops, labs, electives, and 1:1 consultations provide for a high-degree of individual learner direction. All are designed by business-education experts, in collaboration with working artists, and led by art-industry professionals and business leaders.

PR & Sales Promotion

Fellows receive year-long promotion for their work and events through all of CHF's marketing and PR channels, including a professionally produced web interview and/or media broadcast, as well as customized opportunities, such as event passes and introductions to art-industry experts. CHF also promotes and sells art by the Fellows via group shows and our online Artwork Archive portfolio.

Advanced Fellowship

CHF offers advanced fellowships to selected first-year Fellows, to deepen the scope of their work. This includes honing their skills and viable business objectives, creating investment-grade business plans for entrepreneurial projects, maintaining project accountability, and help with capitalizing their plans.

Program Overview

How it Works

CHF has given me the push I needed to get my work out there and I now feel I have the tools and information to turn my practice into a business. I now have a lot more awareness of what’s needed to have a successful art career.

Kristen Brown

Entrepreneur Fellow

CHF's Art-Business Accelerator Program is a yearlong virtual course of business study for visual artists that's designed to impart the necessary business training to succeed as entrepreneurs and make a complete living through the creation of their art.

Fellows in the program receive customized business training, publicity, network-building opportunities, sales assistance, and one-on-one support to boost their careers and help make their businesses self-sustaining.

The educational program consists of broad strategic workshops and labs delivered by remote technology (a laptop or desktop computer is required!), and provides participants with practical knowledge that’s actionable in the real world, including information about how to develop a business strategy, build a compelling brand narrative, find buyers for their art, negotiate contracts, handle copyrights, communicate more effectively, and manage their finances and taxes.

Each workshop is led by an expert in the pertinent subject matter, and the labs are deep dives that include extensive time for Q&A, allowing our Fellows to obtain feedback on their specific questions and hear the perspectives of their peers.

Syllabus

Fellows Advance in 9 Practice Areas

Career Blueprint

Viable Business Objectives

Brand Story & Marketing

Transmitting an Engaging Narrative

Sales & Selling

Opening Doors & Getting to Yes

Networks & Collaboration

Finding Your Tribe, Hunting in a Pack

Financial

Economic Competence & Confidence

Technology

Essential Tools to Extend Your Capability

Managing Projects

Ventures that Propel Your Career

Legal

From Copyright to Contracts

Logistics

Nuts & Bolts of Running a Business

Application Details

Get Ready to Accelerate Your Career

Following our call for Fellows, a total of up to 20 working artists will be awarded free admission to our Art-Business Accelerator, as well as individualized guidance from the experts on CHF's educational team.

For information on eligibility requirements and the selection process, please visit our guidelines page. For additional background on how the program was developed read this interview with our Director of Education.

In Their Words

Comments from 2018 Art-Business Accelerator Fellows

CHF has broadened my mind to how my art is relevant and how I make money from it. What’s been great about this whole process is creating momentum, which involves all of my peers, and an ongoing evolution of business concepts and how they relate. My goals have evolved.

Aaron Laux

Entrepreneur Fellow

CHF has totally rewired my brain. I now think of both cost and opportunity potential for everything I consider doing in my business. I used to think small but am baby stepping my way toward being a bold businessperson and active artist community builder/member.