POWER UP PF: $30,000 to Stay Strong

For 13 years, Public Functionary has uplifted emerging artists, held space, and created powerful art experiences for our communities. 

Power Up PF supports our continuation and celebrates what we have accomplished.

Thirteen years ago, Public Functionary began with an act of risk: a 2,500 square foot space in Northeast Minneapolis and a $30,000 Kickstarter campaign funded by people who believed in a vision for a space that didn’t exist yet. We’ve been able to serve the arts community since then, in large part because of you and your belief in us.

Today, we find ourselves coming full circle. We've moved spaces, launched new programs, and built a legacy. We're asking our community to invest $30,000 to sustain what we've built together.

Platforms Like Ours Are Essential

Platforms like PF are at the core of creative ecosystems. Without them, emerging artists face an impossible gap, somewhere between doubt and confidence, art school or self-taught practice, between making work in isolation or finding their people. Public Functionary fills that gap. We’re the bridge, the incubator, the place to land when you're still figuring it out. And right now, that bridge needs reinforcement.

There aren't many spaces like Public Functionary. Places that are:

• Artist-led and artist-defined — for us, by us.

• Built by community, sustained by collective belief and energy.

• Invested in long-term, relationship-centered support for artists.

• Challenging systems and creating space for new narratives and underrepresented stories.

Why This Matters Now

Public Functionary has survived, and in this arts ecosystem, survival is radical. We've weathered a pandemic, economic uncertainty, neighborhood transformation, and all the particular challenges of sustaining creative infrastructure in Minneapolis. Through it all we've been a constant. A place where artists at the very beginnings of their practices have been able to experiment, take risks, collaborate, and build community with one another. For over a decade, we've been shaped by the artists we serve. 

The Reality

2025 has been hard. We're facing a funding gap that is challenging our ability to close out the year stable and ready for what comes next. We've trimmed where we can. We've always been resourceful and creative, with a DIY ethos but there's a limit to what scrappiness can solve. 

Now more than ever, we need our community to rally.

What We're Asking For

$30,000. The same number that got us started 13 years ago. 

In this moment, with the circumstances we are living through: this is about continuation and safety. It's about affirming that spaces like Public Functionary are worth protecting.

How Can You Help?

Some of you have been part of this story from the beginning. Some of you had your first solo show here. Some of you have been to dozens of openings, performances, and experimental events; some that didn't quite work, and many that transcended what we ever imagined possible.

Public Functionary exists because the community says YES when we ask for help building something. 

We're asking you to say yes again to affirm that continuation matters, and that staying power is its own kind of radical act. The truth is that it's easier to fundraise for shiny and new –– for expansion, for buildings, for growth. It's harder to ask for support to remain, to hold steady, to keep being the constant platform artists can count on. 

This $30,000 closes our funding gap and ensures we can keep showing up in 2026 and beyond. To continue to be shaped by the artists who need us. 

Supporting us means Public Functionary remains here and able to support you.