Motivated by a vision of achieving a more equitable, healthy, and vibrant Los Angeles region through the arts, Snap Foundation grantee Arts for LA knows that being a working creative in Greater Los Angeles has never been a walk in the park. But the last handful of years have especially rattled the creative workforce, presenting arts, media, and entertainment workers with a slew of unanticipated social and economic curveballs.
First, in 2020, the pandemic arrived, driving the loss of over 175,000 industry jobs statewide, as noted in Otis College of Art and Design’s 2021 report on the creative economy. Then unfolded the 2023 Hollywood double strike. Fast forward to the present day: the devastation of January’s urban fires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades has left tens of thousands of Angelenos displaced, many of whom are members of the Los Angeles area’s more than 200,000-strong media, entertainment, and arts labor force.
That’s why Arts for LA—the only arts advocacy organization in LA County defying sector siloes and disciplinary divides to protect and promote creative career pathways, equitable arts education, arts funding, and affordable spaces for artists and arts organizations—created the Creative Jobs Collective Impact Initiative (CJCII). A multi-year partnership setting out to secure a more equitable and diverse creative sector for the region’s arts workers by building collective power across sectors, CJCII is fighting for the creation of a stable and sustainable future for all creative workers in the face of ongoing social and economic challenges.
Since 2006, AFLA has worked on the ground to build deep relationships with elected officials, foster networks of civically engaged advocates, and invest in advocacy training and leadership development. Rooting for AFLA’s work is also an expansive community of over 75,000 local supporters, more than 400 member advocates, and nearly 200 member organizations who share the conviction that when Los Angeles’ working artists thrive, so too does the region’s economy at large. According to Arts for LA Chief Executive Officer Gustavo Herrera, Arts for LA has finely honed its responsiveness and adaptability over the last two decades—and perhaps nothing illustrates AFLA’s resilience more than the Creative Jobs Collective Impact Initiative, launched in 2021.
While 2020 brought fresh attention to inequities in the creative workforce, the injustices themselves were hardly new. For example, in 2019, the LA County Department of Arts and Culture Workforce Demographic Study reported that people of color were significantly underrepresented in the arts workforce. At the time, while only approximately one-fourth (26%) of the region’s population identified as white, a whopping two out of every three (59%) arts workers were white; newer research published in 2023 illustrates similar findings. Thus, one of CJCII’s chief three goals is to achieve parity between regional demographics and creative workforce representation.
Arts for LA also understands that representation in the workforce doesn’t necessarily translate to economic justice in the workforce, which is why CJCII is specifically advocating for equitable access to financially sustainable work opportunities.
“We know that low entry-level wages are a huge barrier for low-income youth to enter or stay in the creative workforce,” explains CJCII Strategist Joanna Reynolds. “And when wages are low, historically underrepresented workers are pushed into other sectors—fueling the cycle of underrepresentation.” So the Creative Jobs Collective Impact Initiative has a second goal to disrupt the loop of underrepresentation by establishing a sector-wide median entry-level wage that, unlike the minimum wage, is at or above the Los Angeles area’s living wage (as estimated by MIT’s gold-standard Living Wage Calculator).
Demographic parity and fair pay aren’t all CJCII plans to achieve. Pandemic shutdowns infamously impacted Americans of color most severely—including teens and young adults of color ready to work but shut out of the workforce. In Spring 2020, when youth unemployment rates surged to 24.4%, Black, Hispanic, and AAPI workers experienced the highest rates of unemployment (approximately 30%; 28%; and 30%, respectively), as found in a study from the Economic Policy Institute. Researchers also concluded that the negative impacts of the unemployment crisis could endure for decades to come without policy interventions. Cue CJCII’s third commitment—to build 10,000 creative sector jobs centering youth and adults from historically under-resourced communities.
Just as Arts for LA understands that creative workers shouldn’t be left to overcome socioeconomic barriers on their own, the nonprofit knows that no single organization can bring about the critical, sector-level change that the creative industry needs to empower all arts workers (and thus, the entire local economy). So CJCII is all about building collective power across sectors—including government, the nonprofit space, local business, K-12 education, research, postsecondary and higher education, and labor.
“Workforce diversity and improving wages aren’t issues that can be solved by the arts sector alone, which is why CJCII brings together leaders and voices from all industries and sectors,” Herrera says. “The collective impact model unifies organizations that share our goals but expand our horizons—allowing us to address complex problems with new capabilities and expertise to push change forward.”
Guiding the way with their diverse perspectives and prowess are members of the CJCII Steering Committee, all of whom are champions for change in their respective sectors. Representing the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity is department director Kelly LoBianco, who emphasizes the importance of underrepresented creatives having equitable access to the very industries that define LA’s identity and economy. Indeed, the DEO supports two training partnerships focused on building a more equitable creative economy via workforce development. “Through our support of these programs, we equip diverse talent with industry-driven training, hands-on experience, and direct pathways to living-wage jobs in film, digital media, and entertainment,” says LoBianco. “By bridging economic and workforce development with the arts, we’re strengthening LA’s position as the creative capital of the world—ensuring creative workers don’t just survive but thrive.”
In charge of implementing the initiative’s strategic plan through community outreach and strategy development, the CJCII Steering Committee also uniquely includes those with lived experience—historically underrepresented artists who are actively working in the industry and thus are most intimately familiar with the real-life labor conditions characterizing the creative economy. While history has demonstrated how rare it is for artists to have their own seats at the decision-making table, for an equity-first organization like Arts for LA, the inclusion of those with lived experiences was a non-negotiable from the start. And artists, such as Steering Committee member Brittney Mendez, have certainly taken note.
“I’ve been involved with CJCII since 2023, and having been asked to be involved in the first place significantly stood out to me,” says Mendez, a first-generation Mexican American freelance illustrator and animator who also comes from a low-income background. “I honestly had felt surprised that amongst people that were educators, [more] established artists, and local leaders, my own views were equally valued.” Mendez (who followed an unconventional but prosperous path of enrolling in community college rather than a four-year visual arts program) explains that while the valuable perspective that she and those like her possess has fallen through the cracks in the past, CJCII’s approach to representation is the way forward for marginalized artists.
“Through my experiences from trying to enter the workforce after attending community college, then deciding to navigate freelance work, I quickly realized that experiences such as mine could fall into a blind spot amongst the greater vision that CJCII strives for,” she says. “The partnership’s inclusion of digital-first freelance workers shows how much care and consideration CJCII is putting in understanding all artists—including ones that follow alternative, nontraditional paths that aren’t easily identifiable.”
Helping to identify these paths has been a variety of research efforts led by Arts for LA. For example, over the years, two “world cafe”-style community engagement events—wherein diverse working creatives are given the opportunity to network and share their perspective as arts workers to shape policy recommendations and goals—have provided the nonprofit with invaluable insights into differences and similarities within the freelance/gig and W-2 creative workforce.
Moreover, CJCII’s research partner CVL Economics has worked with Arts for LA to glean qualitative and quantitative data and insights into the regional creative economy. Particularly illuminating has been CVL’s research into creative occupation “profiles,” which illustrate issues of wages, job security, diversity, and job growth in relation to the creative workforce. Through this research partnership, guided by CJCII Steering Committee member and CVL Founding Partner Adam Fowler, CJCII has already uncovered some of the most promising growth areas for creative workers: technical and media/communications jobs, which cover everything from lighting specialists and digital interface designers to marketing specialists and publicists.
“We know these kinds of roles are driving growth in the creative economy, so, given the anticipated expansion in both technical and media sectors over the next decade, investing in skills development and supportive infrastructure is crucial for nurturing the workforce pipeline and ensuring a dynamic, inclusive, and forward-looking creative economy,” explains Fowler.
All and all, a hearty blend of research-backed insights is the recipe behind AFLA’s ultra-impactful policy and advocacy work—characterized by action-oriented efforts that intersect directly with the Creative Jobs Collective Impact Initiative’s goals of demographic parity, fair wages, and equitable job placement.
Since CJCII’s founding, AFLA has continued to advocate for increased and sustained county-level investment into arts, media, and entertainment apprenticeships, along with fighting for a more robust Entertainment Business Interruption Fund and Organizational Grant Program for arts and culture nonprofits. AFLA Director of Policy and Advocacy Ricky Abilez also notes that the organization is also working to increase opportunities for arts educators by advocating for visual and performing arts to be designated as a “shortage field” (thereby in need of more resources) and by partnering with local agencies and funders to create credentialing pathways for aspiring arts workers.
That isn’t all, either: AFLA has big plans to continue advancing CJCII’s 2030 goals by extending health and safety protections, unemployment insurance, and paid leave to all freelance artists and entertainment workers: focus areas that coincide with social justice issues of demographic parity and entry-level living wages.
Moreover, AFLA is bolstering chains of support. The organization is developing an employer toolkit that sets measurable diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility standards for CJCII, so that employers can feel supported in their own efforts to support their employees; they are also launching the Creative Workforce Cultural Asset Map, a business-to-business tool that will map arts and culture workforce development organizations in Los Angeles, ultimately encouraging connectivity and partnership across the sector. Finally, AFLA is seeking to secure job placement commitments from a diverse group of employers that are willing to place 10,000 historically underrepresented arts and culture workers in jobs with a minimum living wage by 2030—kicking off with 500 placements by the end of 2025.
Closely detailing Arts for LA’s current playbook is their recently published 2025-2027 Policy and Advocacy Agenda—which, developed in collaboration with the arts and culture community—aims to deepen capacity-strengthening connections, share knowledge and learnings that build preparedness in times of crisis; and lead grassroots organizing efforts to drive policy change.
Though much of AFLA’s work to cultivate change through the Creative Jobs Collective Impact Initiative is related to policy, the advocacy nonprofit believes community engagement is an equally important part of the game plan. In addition to its ongoing World Cafe program, Arts for LA’s long-running ACTIVATE program—a no-cost advocacy training and leadership development program that supplies budding local arts leaders with the skills, knowledge, and professional network needed to foster change within themselves and their communities. Most significantly, ACTIVATE is a testament to AFLA living its values and CJCII goals: offering paid personal and professional development opportunities by granting participants a stipend equivalent to the aforementioned $26/hour wage, explains AFLA Director of People and Programs Melissa Flores. “ACTIVATE is more than just a leadership program; it’s an embodiment of CJCII’s mission to support workers and artists with their career paths so that they can become changemakers in their communities,” Flores says. “This program's longevity is a testament to the continued need in the sector to strengthen and support our workforce and amplify social impact in Los Angeles.”
So what’s next for the Creative Jobs Collective Impact Initiative? Implementation, Herrera explains—which, like all things CJCII, is rooted in the ethos of achieving more, together. “Right now, with the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games on the horizon and the State of California developing its first creative economy strategy for the state,” Herrera explains, “it’s the perfect time to collectively advance this initiative focused on strengthening access and economic opportunity within the creative economy.”
To find out how to support or learn more about Arts for LA and the Creative Jobs Collective Impact Initiative, visit artsforla.org.
