In 2013 artists in YAC’s after school program identified the need to learn business skills, and learn to make money using their creative talents.

Many of these youth couldn’t attend YAC programs and access the opportunities they needed to build on their creative skills, being too busy working minimum wage jobs after school to make ends meet.

Together with these creative pioneers, YAC developed the ARTpreneurs program to support highly talented youth to access the earning opportunities their talent merited.

In 2015, after developing the initial model and graduating 20 artists from the program, YAC scaled ARTpreneurs to communities across Nova Scotia including Clare, Bridgewater and Sydney.

In 2017, with support from the Telus, YAC developed an online toolkit to help expand the ARTpreneurs program. We are currently developing a webapp based on the online toolkit to help bring ARTpreneurs to new communities in Canada and beyond.

To date there are over 140 ARTpreneurs alumni from 10 different communities in Nova Scotia. ARTpreneurs stay connected to each other and often come back to run or volunteer at ongoing programs. The ARTpreneurs network of young artists continues to grow and through the power of social media and online tools, and ongoing events the alumni, and are increasingly active in business and art in communities throughout Nova Scotia.