Building a thriving community and arts scene doesn’t happen overnight, but the Futuremakers Club is sowing more seeds with their recently announced micro-grant program for local artists.
Founded in March 2026, the Futuremakers Club’s mission is focused on community and civic development in Downtown St. Louis and bringing together the artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs who live there to help make it a more vibrant place. Lindsay Pattan, founder and executive director of The Department of Futuremaking organization, has been involved in the community and arts in St. Louis for more than 20 years and saw an opportunity for a downtown community-centered organization to make an impact.
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“We have so many friends who are artists who want to do stuff downtown or have dreams of opening a small business, and we were just talking about ‘Man, I wish this existed,’ or ‘I wish we had this resource,’” Pattan says. “We had been having very informal conversations, and then finally we decided we should just do it. As long as we listen to the community and center the community, we’ll be on the right path.”
Futuremakers strives to bring together a network of creatives, artists, entrepreneurs, and business owners based in Downtown St. Louis, as well as the professionals who govern and run the area. This way, they can truly get a sense of what would be impactful and use those insights to drive initiatives that better support and enable the community, with buy-in from the people who can make it happen.
“Futuremakers’ theory of change is that if we choose to tell people ‘yes’ and choose to be encouraging and operate with an abundance mindset, we will all reap the benefits,” Pattan says. “We really believe in that ripple effect.”
In an effort to build a strong foundation and show proof of concept, one of the first projects Futuremakers has set in motion is a micro-grants program for local performing artists. Futuremakers took to social media and opened applications for local artists to apply for micro-grants of $250 per artist, with the stipulation that each recipient must book a date to perform at The Moniker before June 8. Out of 23 applicants, five recipients were selected for this first round of micro-grants: Ivey Amour, Kendall Davidson, Toraino Hellems, Anthony Lucius, and Shaelyn Rolf.
“The coolest part about micro-grants is that, in order to affect a creative ecosystem, it doesn’t take loads of capital to do that,” says Muhammad Austin, AKA Mvstermind, a Futuremakers board member.
Austin notes that $250 can sometimes be the difference between an up-and-coming artist being able to pay someone to be their music director and focus on their craft and live experience, rather than having to do everything on their own.
“The difference between an artist being able to lean into their artistry, that’s when you get a chance to redeem the benefits of being brilliant,” Austin says. “Sometimes it’s just that simple. If an artist is struggling to manage all of these different priorities, the end result is an artist being able to give their all. That’s when life-changing moments happen.”
A program like this also opens up more opportunities for smaller venues, which were hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic and have slowly started springing up again. To wit, these micro-grant-funded performances will all be part of the upcoming The Moniker Presents: Thursday Nights Live weekly performance series at The Moniker, which will feature a rotating mix of live music, spoken word, comedy, and more at the cocktail bar. All of these elements go a long way to help encourage and elevate these artists while also supporting and growing the Downtown St. Louis arts scene.
Overall, Pattan hopes to use the success of this micro-grant as a proof of concept for future development and plant the seeds for many other exciting endeavors to come.
“If we can pull all of this off in 45 days, and a social post brings in nearly 25 artist applicants, we can take that to institutional funders and say, ‘What if you gave us $150,000, roughly the cost of one street festival?” Pattan says. “That could be roughly 200 to 1,000 throughout the year, whether that’s walking groups, artists’ performances, voter registration, or civic meetups. The more you have of that, the more it is going to add up over time.”
