***Disclaimer, any stats/quotes that are not explicitly cited, are from a Google search***
The Elysian posed a great writing prompt in May about how we can fund the next Renaissance to encourage more art and fund artists better. (See Elysian post here: https://www.elysian.press/p/prompt-better-future-for-artists/comments). I think this is a hard topic and thing to achieve, when the original Renaissance took storm in Europe, it was on the coattails of the black plague, which killed an estimated 30-50% of the population (example here, I just googled what % of Europe was killed from the plague). I think it is probably fair to say that the deaths of the plague were disproportionate to the economic class of a person, so people living in poverty would die at a higher rate of the plague than those not living in poverty. The US has about 330 million people, within a 7-year span the population is reduced to 220 million, with 60 million of the 110 million passing being in the lowest financial earning bracket, which would give more economic assistance to those already better off, there for freeing up finances to fund more passion projects and being funneled into art.
That amount of death is not plausible in the modern day and can’t be replicated, or at least you can’t plan to have that replicated. However government assistance is still a great avenue. In Arizona, it is mandated that at least 1% of all publicly funded project costs be spent on public art, with some municipalities upping that to 1.3% (https://library.municode.com/az/surprise/codes/municipal_code?nodeId=PTIGEOR_CH2AD_ARTXONOIRPEPUARPR_S2-368NONEREPR). I think this is great, especially for youth, as the vast majority of humans in the USA under 18 spend most of their times in publicly built schools. The more art there, the more it can be imbued into youth how important art is, and inspiring further worth, from music to essays, etc. However inspiration is not the only thing needed to create another Renaissance, we still need more funding outside of 1% on only public projects in the 14th largest state in the Union.
With the government doing a share, but not enough we must turn to private investors. Once private non-religious philanthropy started to come about, there was a renewed spirit to it. It became almost a competition between men and their corporations to see who could give the most, with the likes of Andrew Carnegie building over 1600 libraries across the United States, and John Rockefeller building multiple universities of health institutes, it was a Renaissance of sorts at the start of the 1900s for sciences and education. But it was the competitive spirit that made it catch hold in the men with the pockets to do it. Carnegie built the most libraries, so Rockefeller had to build a university. Back and forth. To see who could be the “better” man for society. If we can help imbue this kind of spirit in today’s society. With the elite of the world growing ever more wealthy, if we could inspire the likes of Brandon Bechtel, Arthur Patterson, and other massive business owners and multi-millionaires to give to the community not for the sciences, but for the arts, the beauty, and the graceful. I think that could be a path. It starts with a company like Intel donating, which instigates a “war” with Microsoft, and to not be out done Apple also donates. Then all three companies require sub-contracting companies with gross revenue over 600k per employee to donate a percent of gross revenue. That branches it into the construction, security, and commercial food service industries. Now that the Dow Jones companies are requiring it for the smaller ones, it could become a point of pride, a marketing and sales pitch. “Switch your company to Microsoft collab apps over Google, it will put a mural up in your city”. This doesnt sound great to a non-art lover, but if *everyone* buys in, it could be the difference. I know that asking millions of people to try to buy into a idea is difficult and near impossible, but this post shows that at least a couple hundred are bought in, and thats the start to a million.