This year, B Corps everywhere are celebrating the theme “This Way Forward”, which champions progress and improvement in all its forms. For the whole month of March, we’ll be joining them to celebrate our own progress towards making art affordable, accessible and a viable career for artists.
Why it’s important
B Corp sums up the campaign goals for 2024:
“Every B Corp business has their eye on progress. It’s what keeps our minds whirring and wheels turning.
We’re not afraid to gear up for change, course-correct as issues evolve, and choose to keep moving forward, whatever it takes.
Because B Corp Certification isn’t a destination. It’s an invitation to join the journey to better business. And we’re bringing as many people along for the ride as we can.
This year’s campaign champions the B Corp community as a perpetual work in progress, and asks them to share how they plan to keep growing their impact in the future.”
How we're moving art forward
There are over 8 million independent artists in the world who can't make a living from their art. To us, that just doesn’t add up. We work to provide them with a chance to build a career from their craft, and our international artist community are making art work for themselves (and for you) in their own way.
Last year, we saw 42.5% of our artists (the largest percentage we’ve ever seen) reporting that they made the majority of their income through art. We haven’t quite tipped the balance to over 50% yet, but this shows significant progress towards our mission to make art a viable career for artists, supporting change across the sector and empowering artists.
Building a thriving community
Members of our global community of artists have built long lasting relationships with each other and with art lovers all over the world. We believe in those interactions, and that's why we're proud to see thousands of conversations happening between artists, customers and fellow artists every day on Artfinder.
Moving into 2024, the cost of living increase means all supplies and shipping services have become more expensive for artists. That’s why we work to find ongoing discounts for art supply shops and plan contests and giveaways to give artists some support towards cost of living and increase their chance for exposure. Our latest — for the Artist of the Year awards we offered the winner a fully paid for artist residency at Chateau Orquevaux in France. You can read all about our Artist of the Year, Karim Carella, here.
Promoting equality
It’s no secret that the art world has been less accommodating to women artists throughout history. We’re here to change that, by offering equal opportunities to female artists and promoting their work to our audiences. We’re proud to have a community where 55% of artists identify as female.
On top of that, 68% of Artfinder staff identify as female. In early 2023, we were proud to appoint our first ever female CEO, Joshna Rughani. Joshna says, “it’s my prerogative to ensure our entire community feels supported, heard and confident enough to bring their own ideas to the table.” Read more about this in our 2023 Impact Report.
The million tree pledge
We're one of the founding members of the Million Tree Pledge, a coalition of individuals and businesses committed to combating the climate crisis by planting one million trees each. For every order, we'll plant one tree in the Artfinder forest, and so far have planted 227,450 trees! We’ve also funded 51 climate projects all over the world. Discover more about the Artfinder forest on the Ecologi website.
Sustainable art materials
In our latest Impact Report, we found that 69% of our artists have chosen environmentally safe, recycled, reclaimed or upcycled art materials in their artwork. 26% of our artists have excluded air freight when transporting their artwork to customers. We hope to continue to inspire our artists to be more sustainable every year.
Keep up with all things B Corp Month
We’ve got all kinds of fun stuff in store for B Corp Month. If you’d like to join in, head over to our Instagram to keep in the loop! We hope to see you there.
