artocrat: custom art, with a purpose
incredible art, with social impact
artocrat is a social enterprise, which means that in every aspect of our business, we assess social and environmental impact. We strive to have a positive impact on the world with every painting we create, and we are proud to operate sustainably.
We wrote up this post for artocrats around the world to understand why we call ourselves a social enterprise and how each of your painting purchases makes the world a little bit kinder.
What is a social enterprise? Social enterprises are businesses that apply their commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being.
The way we see it, being a social enterprise is just like being any other kind of for-profit business, except when we think about what we sell and the way we do business, we aim to improve the outlook for humans and for the environment. We avoid shortcuts that hurt people or the environment, and we architect our business and products to operate sustainably in harmony with people and the environment.
Why should you buy from a social enterprise? 1. Because you love our products. We don't expect people to choose our company simply because of our social impact. Our talented artists use the highest quality materials to bring stunning, affordable custom art to you that will last for generations. We expect you to choose us because our product is superior, end of story. Our social impact allows you to rack up those karma points with every purchase and be proud to buy from us.
2. Because you want to invest in companies that care. We love making profits, but our focus is on building a thriving business that is sustainable in its impacts to people and the environment. We hope you find it comforting to know that the company you support through your patronage has the right intentions and a mission that matters.
What else do social enterprises do to make an impact? Many social enterprises, like ours, donate portions of their profits to support initiatives they believe in.
At artocrat, we take this a step further and donate a portion of our revenues, rather than our profits. By donating revenues, we force ourselves to create efficiency throughout the business and commit to fund the non-profits we support, even if we aren't profitable.
artocrat's approach to social impact Improving access issues around the world is a critical part of our mission. To achieve this, artocrat takes a two-pronged approach:
(1) create access to the custom art market. It's super hard to get custom are made at a price point that isn't jaw-dropping.
We create sustainable market access by:
finding supremely talented artists and convincing them to join our collective by offering them significant opportunities
selling on popular platforms so customers can find us
building trust with our customers by producing high quality art with great service
building trust with our artists by delivering on our promises, always
(2) improve access to basic needs. We pay our artists fairly, 100% upfront and in USD, to improve their economic access.
We then extend access to basic needs beyond the artists, to underserved communities around the world. As part our annual funding effort, we:
research charitable organizations and initiatives to identify a short list of organizations doing the most good, most effectively and most sustainably
match each organization to one of our popular painting categories: people portraits, travel paintings, and pet portraits.
select one additional standout charitable organization to pair with the extra fun "other" category which includes abstracts and nudes(!)
At the end of each year, we donate to each organization proportionally with the revenues we generated from the painting orders from each of those categories. The organizations then use the funds for their development efforts, and the world gets a little bit kinder.
Efforts we currently support
for People portraits, we currently donate to GiveDirectly.org, an organization that aims to transform international giving by sending money unconditionally and
directly to the extremely poor.
for Pet portraits, we donate to the Wildlife Conservation Network, an organization that sponsors wildlife heroes (think: anti-poaching cowboys) to save endangered animals. fun fact since most of our pet portraits are dog paintings, we directed the full donation to the extremely adorable African Wild Dog (pictured above).
for Travel paintings, we donate to Engineers Without Borders, an organization that sponsors engineering projects around the world that empower communities to meet their basic human needs.
for all Other paintings, we donate to Evidence Action's Deworm the World Initiative, an initiative that uses low cost treatments to rid the world of parasitic worm infections, which are endemic in many of the poorest countries in the world and take an enormous toll on human capital.
The bottom line
Every painting purchase you make from artocrat supports development projects around the world. You get amazing art, and the world gets a little boost. Nice!
What customers say about our art
"I can't even find the words to describe how beautiful this is. It's absolutely amazing and blew my expectations out of the water."
— custom painting order, customer review
"I researched most of the other sellers online and ultimately I'm glad I went with this one! The paint texture is rich, the canvas is thick, and the quality is remarkable. I'm really happy with my painting!"
—artocrat original painting collection buyer review
