These organizations are mission-committed to fair pay for artists and provide a number of resources and tools for artists wishing to advocate for themselves on the matter of fair pay. Note: Not all are based in the U.S.
Artist Living Wage Resources
Created by Julia Muney Moore, Indy Arts Council
Updated February 11, 2025
This resource guide is part of the Indy Arts Council’s ongoing exploration of the conditions that support all central Indiana creatives to thrive. While fair pay is an important starting point, the conversation will continue to evolve as we work to build resources and create meaningful dialogue that supports arts and culture workers.
This page will be updated regularly as new information becomes available. Please email indyarts@indyarts.org if you have any questions or would like to share a resource.
Organizations Advocating for Artist Fair Wages

Organizations Advocating for Artist Fair Wages
- Certifies nonprofit organizations as paying artists a fair wage or fee
- Operates WAGENCY as an organizing infrastructure for artists to understand fair fees and advocate for them
- Fee Request Generator: tool to calculate a fair wage based on the characteristics of the requesting agency
- Skills Calculator: tool to calculate a fair wage based on skill level
- Coming soon: model contracts for artists
- CARFAC-RAAV Minimum Recommended Fee Schedule (for visual and media artists only) – includes annual increases through 2027
- Public Art Minimum Recommended Fee Schedule
- Research developing a fee schedule for performing artists (effort paused due to the pandemic)
- Guidelines for labor standards for independent curators
Artist-led UK-based nonprofit
- Fair Pay Principles
- Equity toolkits
- FRANKTools (requires a paid membership to access)
- Fair Pay Calculator
- Contract Builder (fill-in-the-blanks form)
Fair pay activist group
Theater pay advocacy organization
- Promotes pay equity standards for theater companies
- Certifies theater companies who opt-in and follow the standards, and issues a digital badge good for one year
- Pay equity resource list
- Advocates for fair pay for women-identifying and nonbinary artists
- List of entities who have pledged to increase pay to rates equal to white male artists
- Ongoing survey to assess pay conditions
Industry-Specific Advocacy Groups
These groups advocate on behalf of artists and other workers in specific arts fields. Pay equity may not be their sole focus, but they are engaged in ensuring fair pay within their industry. Not all are based in the U.S. Links are provided to their pay equity work; please contact them if you wish to explore their other services. If your practice has a formal union or collective bargaining unit associated with it, and you are eligible to join and are not a member, you may wish to visit their website and explore the benefits of membership and its potential impact on fair pay for you.

Industry Specific Advocacy Groups
- Pay Rate Calculator to ensure a living wage
- Information about the Living Wage for Musicians Act (federal legislation ensuring fair pay to artists for streaming)
- Fair pay demands at SXSW
- Justice at Spotify Day of Action
- Code of Practice for Visual Arts, Craft, and Design
- Section 8 of above: Pay Standards (comprehensive guide)
- Other fair pay advocacy issues
- Arts Compensation Project: Ongoing data collection and publication
- Serves the presenting industry
- Artists may wish to explore this material to understand the context behind how the venues they work for are setting their rates
- Contract terms advocacy for guest artists
- What You Need to Know About Actors’ Equity Contracts in Backstage about how Equity contracts work
Storytelling venue and support organization
- The Rising Tide Project: Pay equity research
- Statement of Policy on Pay Equity
- Pay rate transparency: public listing of 2nd Story’s pay rates
Calculators and Rate Tables
These are a few tools that have been created to assist artists as they decide how to price their work or understand what fees they should be asking. Some are industry-specific, some are more general.

Calculators and Rate Tables
- Interactive, produced by MIT
- Spreadsheet to plug in job conditions and calculate the asking wage
- For visual artists who sell uncommissioned work
- For visual artists who want to license uses of their copyrighted work
- For musicians, to understand whether what they’re being offered is fair under different fee options
- For musicians, to help divide gig fees among various parties
- Provides separate tables for London and outside of London
- Theater, music, and comedy artists
- Fair Pay Guidelines (based on US living wage calculators)
Policy Research and Advocacy Efforts
These resources are provided for review as background and context for fair pay equity efforts.

Policy Research and Advocacy Efforts
- Chicago-based arts nonprofit centered on Black feminist artists
- From Living to Thriving: Wage Policy Report (with extensive resources and a call to action)
- WE ARE BOUND: Excavating the Story of Artist Relief 2020
- We Are Bound: RECOMMENDATIONS.
- National survey for artists exploring issues with contracts
- Bay Area roots musician organization
- Ethical Pay and Professional Working Conditions for Musicians
- Overview/dashboard of guaranteed income pilots (not specific to artists)
- Another dashboard/summary
- Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) (Ireland)
- San Francisco Guaranteed Income Pilot for Artists (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts)
- Creative Communities Coalition for Guaranteed Income (San Francisco)
- Guaranteed Income for Artists (Springboard for the Arts)
- Creatives Rebuild New York’s Guaranteed Income for Artists
- Power of Cash Narrative Change Fellowship (Chicago)
Pay Data and Research Tools
Charts (often interactive) providing real pay rates based on data from tax forms, surveys, and other official sources

Pay Data and Research Tools
- Hourly and annual pay for “Artist I”, interactive tool (from surveys)
- National salary outlook, average as reported, by standard occupation code (SOC)
- Musicians and Singers
- Painters, Sculptors and Illustrators
- Actors
- Writers and Authors
- Photographers
- Dancers
- Choreographers
- Effort to revise the SOC categories for artists