The Work in Culture team wishes you a wonderful holiday season and a very happy new year! ✨
Please note that our office will be closed for the holidays from December 21 to January 5, reopening on Monday, January 6, 2025.
Due to our holiday closure, the main office email will only be monitored occasionally and delayed responses can be expected regarding questions about Work in Culture programs as well as job postings and career development opportunities on the Job Board.
We look forward to seeing you in the new year!
Here for you,
WIC Team
2024: A Year in Review
by Diane Davy, Executive Director of Work in Culture
What a year it’s been at Work in Culture! As 2024 comes to a close, I’m reflecting on the incredible moments, achievements, and connections that made this year so special. From inspiring events to impactful programs, it’s been a journey filled with creativity, collaboration, and community.
We reached a major milestone at the end of 2023 – 25 years of Work in Culture! We celebrated our 25th anniversary throughout 2024 with a special series of professional development events, opportunities, and engagements for the WIC community.
All of our 25th anniversary programming was conceived of and led by our very own Naomi Stokes, WIC’s programming and marketing coordinator extraordinaire. It is bittersweet for us to announce that Naomi is leaving WIC for a new position in the arts and culture sector, but we couldn’t be happier for her as she embarks on this exciting new chapter in her career.
Thank you, Naomi, for your incredible contributions to the Work in Culture community over the past three years. We wish you all the best in your next adventure!
We are also bidding a fond farewell to two outgoing members of our Board: Erin Finlay and Zainub Verjee. Since joining the Board in 2018, Erin and Zainub have served Work in Culture with invaluable guidance, support, and leadership throughout the pandemic and beyond.
Thank you, Erin and Zainub! We appreciate you more than we can say. You will always be lifelong friends of WIC.
It is a core principle at Work in Culture that we help one another prosper and grow through knowledge sharing, partnership, and collaboration. This was certainly a theme throughout 2024, as we launched a new program to help create work-integrated learning opportunities in the arts for post-secondary students in partnership with the Business + Higher Education Roundtable; and announced the return of the Catalyst and Transformation Fund, which provides funding to Ontario-based arts organizations to help navigate significant change.
Together with Music Publishers Canada we released Future of Work, a suite of practical HR tools and templates for the arts and culture community; and worked with UNITY Charity on an incubator-style mentorship program for young, emerging spoken word poets.
We also reunited with the Brampton Arts Organization to collaborate on a longer-term mentorship program for Brampton artists, creative businesses, and arts organizations. This program has gotten off to a great start and will continue into 2025 with a special series of virtual “Meet the Expert” workshops on growing a creative career in Brampton.
If you are based in the Brampton area, we invite you to join us for the next session on securing funding with grant professional Vanessa Burns, happening online on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 from 6 to 8 pm ET. Registration is open now and it’s free to attend.
I’d like to thank all of our wonderful partners and friends that we have worked with throughout the year to serve the arts and culture sector – the Brampton Arts Organization, Business + Higher Education Roundtable, Music Publishers Canada, Ontario Culture Days, Substrakt, Surface Impression, Toronto Metropolitan University, UNITY Charity, and University of Toronto Scarborough, just to name a few.
Thank you to the funders and supporters of the Catalyst and Transformation Fund – the Canada Council for the Arts, City of Toronto, Metcalf Foundation, Ontario Arts Council, Azrieli Foundation, and Toronto Arts Council.
Thank you to the Ontario Arts Council, whose operating funding provides vital support for Work in Culture and everything that we do.
And finally, thank YOU – the artists, creatives, and cultural workers that we are here to support at every step of your creative career. We wish you a happy holiday season and look forward to being here for you again in 2025.