Dose of Arts exists to change how the world treats creativity: from a privilege for the talented few, to a fundamental part of how people heal, connect, and live. We do that by advocating loudly, connecting artists and organizations to the places that need them, and helping the arts get funded like the health infrastructure they are.
People will stop seeing creativity as something reserved for "the talented" or "the privileged." They'll understand art as a fundamental human need, as essential to health, connection, and resilience as movement, rest, and nourishment.
I believe music, theatre, and art are magic.
I believe we can hear beauty, pain, joy, and connection in the notes of a song, the words of a melody, the stories of a loner, and the celebrations of a family on stage.
I believe there is no such thing as bad art.
I believe we are meant to make silly songs, messy art, playful stories, and other acts of creation.
I believe that in making and creating, we are living with joy, with heart, and the way we were meant to live.
I believe humans were built to create.
I believe this unique, singular gift of creativity is extraordinary.
I believe that we stop ourselves from creating because we are afraid of failing or being judged by others.
But I also believe that creating and showing our creations with joy to and with others is the deepest way to be accepted, to connect, and to sense our innate magic as humans.
I believe art is medicine. It changes us, heals us, mends us, unites us, and lets us breathe and be and settle.
For art is fundamental to our humanity. Like exercise, food, and water, we need a dose of art to feed our humanity. It is what makes us distinctive. It is what will save us. It is what will unite us. And it is what will heal us.
Not a nice-to-have. Not a school subject. A daily baseline for health, resilience, and a life worth living.
From reduced pain and anxiety to stronger immune function and slower cognitive decline. The evidence is overwhelming. The awareness isn't there yet.
"I'm not creative" is almost never true. It's learned. We exist to unlearn it, at scale, through the people and places already doing this work.
Local artists are one of the most underused resources in any community's well-being. We help them find funded, sustained work, not one-off gigs.
Attending live music, theatrical performances, and artistic experiences change us. They entertain us, help us see things in new ways, and connect us like few other things can.
Theatre, music, art, and storytelling have been part of our humanity since the beginning of time. Every community has a story to tell, a song to sing, and some art to share.
Speeches, policy engagement, research dissemination, and community education that push creative expression from "extracurricular" to public health priority: in healthcare systems, in Springfield, in classrooms, and wherever the case needs making. This is how the culture shifts.
AdvocacyWe're not building our own programs to run. We're building partnerships with the artists, galleries, theatres, and arts organizations already doing this work, and connecting them to the hospitals, care facilities, schools, and community centers that need them. The art already exists. Our job is to open the doors it hasn't walked through yet.
PartnershipGrant navigation, funder introductions, and advocacy for public and philanthropic dollars that pay artists fairly and keep arts-and-health programs alive past a single pilot. If artists and arts organizations can't get paid for this work, the movement doesn't scale, so this is core, not an afterthought.
Funding & AccessWe bring this message to colleges, arts programs, and young and emerging artists directly, before the world talks them out of believing creativity matters. The movement doesn't outlast us unless the next generation picks it up, so we're building relationships with campuses and student artists now, not someday.
Next GenerationGet connected to organizations that want your work, and to the funding that lets you get paid for it, not just volunteer it.
Join the artist network →Hospitals, hospices, schools, and community centers: we'll help you find the right artists and the case to bring them in.
Start a partnership →Back the infrastructure: the advocacy, the matchmaking, the policy work that lets this movement outlast any single program.
Fund the movement →Help us build support for social prescribing and arts-in-health policy in Illinois. Bring the case to your own community, workplace, or state rep.
Advocate with us →OTs, nurses, social workers, physicians: we'll bring the evidence and the language for creativity as part of the care plan, not separate from it.
Bring us to your team →You don't need a title to join. Come make something with us, tell someone else about this, or just believe the case out loud.
Get involved →Everyone who wants more music, stories, live experiences, and/or creative joy in their lives.
Reached before the story that "I'm not creative" has a chance to harden.
People rediscovering a creative life they set aside, or wanting to simply experience more music, theatre, art, and connection.
People who give everything to someone else's care and deserve a room of their own.
People for whom making, laughing, and being surprised is its own form of honoring a life.
Nursing homes, hospices, hospitals, memory care: where beauty and creative expression are too scarce.
People whose gifts deserve more places to land, and to be paid for landing there.
People who may never pick up a brush or a script, but whose lives are changed by a concert, a play, or a gallery they got to experience.
The next generation of creative champions, met early with the message that this work matters and can be a life.
There's a role for you in this movement, whether you're an artist, an organization, a funder, a healthcare professional, or just someone who believes the arts belong at the center of health and community life. So let's connect.