You are right about everything in this posting. Artists are entrepreneurs and I know that world as well as anyone alive. You live in a horrible place for entrepreneurs. The community is very unsophisticated and sprawled so that the possible funding sources are spread thin and attacked on all fronts all the time. The non-profits you speak of are diverse - some are good for some things and many are absolute disgraces. In every sector in this small economy there are core non-profits that suck huge funding and attention away from action - I see it more in environmentalism, er, sustainability, but I see it in the arts as well. Now the fact you are an artist in this unsophisticated sprawled region means you are likely to go unappreciate no matter what - I'd say the better the artist you are the more likely you are to be underappreciated by "the masses"... just look on the office and home walls around you at the crap people surround themselves with and you know this is a poor market for art... imagine if every one here actually bought local art, versus shoppingmall fluff - what if people designed their own spaces instead of hiring supposed interior designers. Now, I know you are a go getter - so, what do you - we - do? Be bold with your art and presentation of your art and yourself as an artist. I remember at a design symposium at the CIA last year, Robynne Raye and her partners of design firm Modern Dog Design of Seattle came up with all sorts of very creative ways to promote themselves and they anded up getting huge accounts. Rather than doing things like everyone else, they were unique. That is the competitive advantage artists have, that they can be more creative and communicate more uniquely than most people, so they can get more attention. Ultimately, even if underappreciated by the masses, good art rises above the crap and smart people see it and appreciate it - be bold, even if late at night, while making money as a janitor. Also, knowing how lame it is here, you need to go global - and again being an artist is a competitive advantage as there's lots of crap in cyberspace so it is possible to stand out. Locally, I support artists working more in cooperation. Forget OneCleveland and IdeaStream and the Film Commission and think the "Idea Factory" and the "Cleveland School" and the "May Show" - those were all artist driven phenomenons that changed the arts scene in Cleveland for generations... what is this generation going to do to match those creative dynamics, when all were killed by failure of the establishment here... take over and let's make something big happen here again. We're now in a cool building for an arts incubator and I have developers coming to me to help them get artists into their communities... they don't even know what the arts are or what they want but they know art is core to the economy... forget about all the foundations and non-profits here and find lots of artists to collaborate in new ways... many new ways - I'm working on finding others - combine the networks and you have critical mass and I can show you plenty of ways to not only make money but take over a large segment of the economy that is lagging but is always core... it just needs more better leaders who are actually artists instead of administrators...