Financial Fundamentals for Creatives
A workshop focused on demystifying the commerce of creative projects and building a path towards financial sustainability.
Financial and administrative tasks are often confusing and intimidating to those in the creative and media fields, and many working in the fields lack the time, experience, and knowledge to approach these crucial responsibilities with confidence.
In this interactive session, we’ll discuss tools and actionable strategies for understanding your finances and charting a course for success. Whether you’re new to freelancing and want to better understand the financial challenges ahead or are striving for high degree of financial sustainability in your creative business, you’ll come away with understandable approaches to develop a clear financial picture of your project.
Bring your open minds and curiosity!
Program
This program is all about clarifying financial concepts for smaller sized creative businesses.
We’ll start with where to begin when having conversations about money and best practices for organizing cash flows.
We’ll move into simple bookkeeping strategies and applications for good budgeting and planning.
We’ll wrap up with a few different types of financial reports, how to put them together, and what they can tell us.
And of course, we’ll have plenty of time for questions and the opportunity to engage with others on the same journey as you.
Facilitator
Ryan has a decade of finance experience, both in highly professional environments and vibrant DIY projects.
He is currently the Associate Director of FP&A for Sony Music’s US Frontline Label Finance Group, managing Columbia’s $300M annual revenue forecast and implementing best practices for Recording Project P&L Reports across Sony Music Frontline labels. Additionally, from 2020-2025, Ryan was Co-Director of NYC’s legendary 8-Ball Community, a volunteer-run art collective known for their extensive zine library, robust digital radio and video programming, and boundary-pushing zine fairs.
In 2025, Ryan started Above The Line Artist Consulting & Business Management to help those in the creative and media worlds make better informed decisions by demystifying and streamlining their business and administrative responsibilities.