From the March 2016 issue of The Rotarian

When Liz Powers went to Harvard University, she saw the huge homeless population in the Boston area and volunteered to help. “Lots of them said to me, ‘Liz, I’m incredibly lonely.’ Bringing them together didn’t seem like rocket science,” says Powers, 28. An artist, she received a post-graduation fellowship from Harvard to create art groups in women’s shelters, giving people a creative outlet and a way to socialize. Today the former global grant scholar is co-founder and “chief happiness spreader” of ArtLifting, a corporation that gives homeless and disabled artists the opportunity to earn income through the sales of their work.

THE ROTARIAN: How did ArtLifting come about?

POWERS: In 2011 and 2012, I was in Edinburgh, Scotland, on a Rotary global grant scholarship, where I earned a master’s in interdisciplinary creative practices. I had my first exposure to for-profit social enterprises and began thinking about how I could create scalable, sustainable impact.

When I came back to the United States, I ran an annual art show for homeless artists, and I realized, “This is just one day a year, and it’s just in Boston. How can I help artists across the country every day?”

My brother and I started ArtLifting in 2013. We each put in $2,000, and that has turned into six figures of revenue. Our goal is to help homeless and disabled artists sell their work. Because I had done these art groups and seen all this amazing artwork ending up in shelter closets, it was a no-brainer: The supply was already there; it was just a matter of enabling customers to see it.