How business in Okanagan, Kamloops can make mutually beneficial donations to artists

A woman in Vernon is working on a website that would help those who support the arts get something in return. 

Michelle Bylow has been in the art industry for more than a decade and she knows that art and business don’t often mix well, so she has started the Public Display Agency, or PDA, to try to help.

The agency is raising money for a website that would host fundraisers for artists and local businesses, and give donors marketing exposure in return for their donations.

She’s trying to raise $30,000 to build the PDA Economy, a site that would work like a combination of LinkedIn, fundraising sites and a marketing network. Donations to fundraisers on the site will give donors credits that can be spent like marketing dollars on the site and through the agency’s existing marketing system.

“Small businesses and artists can often feel very isolated,” she said. “There are aspects from other areas like a LinkedIn or a fundraiser page, but bringing them all together in this way is not something that we’ve seen done before.”

Bylow said this is a way for artists to make a business case rather than a charity case.

“It truly is a system where everyone supports one another and you are rewarded for supporting,” she said. “Instead of just supporting and that’s kind of it, you get a thank you and a nod.”

It’s a way to help incentivize supporting local businesses and artists in need while making it mutually beneficial. 

“A business might have run into a problem where they need money to fix something or an artist needs money for supplies they can ask within the ecosystem for support,” she said. 

Bylow has owned an art gallery and throughout her career she has seen artists who don’t have the business skill set to turn their work into a way to make a living.

“They’re not necessarily motivated to get those skills and it’s fine if you can hire someone to do that for you but a lot of artists at the beginning parts of their career are not going to be able to afford to hire someone to kind of take over the reins of the business side for them,” she said. 

Currently, the Public Display Agency connects artists with galleries, runs business workshops and promotional events for artists. Bylow wants to take it a step further and give businesses a way to support local causes while cutting out social media tech giants like Meta. 

“Instead of a local Kelowna business spending their advertising dollars in Meta they could support a business, or support an artist within our ecosystem, get their credit and then we’ll support them by giving them a marketing boost,” she said. 

While the agency is building the website from scratch it already has 25,000 followers on social media and a mailing list with people in major cities around the country. 

“If you’re a Kelowna-based artist you really want to get into a Toronto gallery, well we could get you out to our community through our mailing list for Toronto,” she said. “Say… you’re from Vernon and you really want to get visibility in Calgary, well we’ve got a huge support system in Calgary.”

The fundraiser for the site just launched, but it’s kind of its own first customer.

“My business partner and I were talking about this. We’re like ‘how are we going to pay for this and hey we should just ask for some help’… it’s kind of like a full circle moment,” she said.