September Digital Cover Story - Miah Michaelsen

Miah Michaelsen: Scaling Arts & Culture Across Indiana

Miah Michaelsen is the Executive Director of the Indiana Arts Commission, where she leads statewide strategies to strengthen arts, culture, and the creative economy. With a career spanning nonprofit leadership, public service, and arts administration, Michaelsen has worked at the intersection of culture and community development for decades. Prior to joining the Commission, she served as Bloomington’s first Assistant Economic Development Director for the Arts and has held leadership roles in arts councils and museums across the Midwest and South. At the IAC, she has prioritized creative entrepreneurship, regional planning, and positioning Indiana’s arts sector as a driver of economic vitality. In this conversation, Michaelsen reflects on the role of nonprofit arts within the larger creative economy, the challenges of collecting meaningful data, how the Commission navigates rural and urban needs, and what she hopes will emerge from Indiana’s historic READi and Lilly Endowment–supported arts and culture planning efforts.

Per usual, we’ve edited the transcript for clarity and brevity.

Special thank you to The Cabaret for the use of their wonderful space.

Polina Osherov: The big question is how the nonprofit arts sector fits into the broader creative economy. How do you see that relationship?

Miah Michaelsen: The nonprofit sector is absolutely key to Indiana’s creative economy. In many of our communities, especially rural ones, there simply aren’t many for-profit creative industries. So the nonprofit sector is the backbone. For most people, when they think of the creative economy, they picture nonprofit arts organizations, because that’s what they know.

That said, nonprofit arts groups don’t always see themselves as part of the creative economy. Their focus is mission-driven—producing theater, music, or visual arts—and not necessarily on the economic benefits they create. Yet when you start breaking down their contributions—spending at the local hardware store for building theater sets, paying art instructors or musicians —you see the lightbulb go on. They realize they are part of the local economic engine, even if that’s not central to their mission.

PO: You and I have talked about how nonprofits and for-profits are motivated so differently. Do you think keeping that distinction is useful, or does it hold us back?

MM: They are structured differently—different tax statuses, different stakeholders. For-profits have owners or shareholders; nonprofits have missions and a charitable purpose. But both are important. 

Where it becomes powerful is when they work together. The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant during the pandemic is a great example. For-profit and nonprofit performance entities were both struggling with the loss of audiences. By uniting, they were recognized as one industry. That collaboration shifted the paradigm—allowing for the development of a grant program that helped ensure the ongoing viability of the live performance industry which is a significant contributor to many state and local economies.

PO: One obstacle for all of us is measuring the creative economy. What makes it so difficult?

MM: First, there’s no consensus on what constitutes the creative economy. Other industries have clear classifications, but for the creative economy it’s more nuanced. If we had standardized NAICS or SOC codes that defined creative economy jobs and industries, that would help tremendously.

Second, collecting and reporting the data is challenging. Nonprofits often lack the capacity to track it consistently, and for-profits may not see the value in reporting. Until we address both the definitional piece and the collection mechanisms, it will remain difficult to get a full, accurate picture.

PO: Balancing statewide priorities with rural and urban differences is complicated. How do you approach it?

MM: We start from the belief that communities are more alike than different. Whether you live in a large city or a small town, people want quality places to live, meaningful work, opportunities for their families, and a vibrant local economy.

We don’t arrive in communities with preconceived notions. Every place and region has its own vision for how it wants to move forward, and our role is to help them realize it through arts and creativity.

PO: Do you see common challenges across regions, despite the differences?

MM: Absolutely. Marketing and communication are universal challenges. Whether in large cities or small towns, arts and cultural organizations struggle to reach audiences. People simply don’t know what’s happening in their communities. I didn’t expect that to emerge so strongly across the state, but it has.

PO: If Indiana wants to compete with places like Nashville or Denver, what creative infrastructure should we prioritize?

MM: For us, infrastructure begins with people—our creative community. Supporting creative entrepreneurs is a priority. We’ve built a suite of programs around that: the On-Ramp Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator, an incubator for early ideas, and career series for next steps. We’re trying to create a full ecosystem, from the spark of an idea to a fully formed creative-based business.

Within the Office of Commerce at the state, we’re working together on collaborations to integrate creatives into the broader small business ecosystem. That’s an area where we’re poised to make Indiana’s main street-based businesses more visible and vibrant.

PO: You’ve been deeply involved with the READi and Lilly Endowment–supported arts and culture planning. What outcomes are you hoping for when all the regional plans are complete?

MM: The State is looking to see three things. First, a clear understanding of each region’s creative assets. Regions are surprising us with what they consider creative assets—places, organizations or cultural traditions we weren’t aware of previously or didn’t realize were so highly valued within their regions.

Second, providing each region an opportunity to define their unique vision and goals for arts and culture. What do they want to achieve, how do they want to move their region forward? It’s going to look different in rural and urban places and across each region, and that’s exciting.

Third, building stronger connections between regional economic development and the creative sector. We’ve already heard from leaders who’ve said, “I didn’t know these cultural assets or these creatives were in this region.” Those new relationships are already beginning to bring about regional change.

PO: Implementation is always the tricky part. How do you see that phase unfolding?

MM: Some regions already have identified who will take the lead. Others say, “We don’t have a who.” Some have a “who” but need support to be effective. That’s why we built into the planning process an opportunity for regions to share not only their vision and goals but also what assistance they’ll need—capacity - building, training, connections.

Not every region has a strong arts council or connector organization like Indianapolis does, for example. That’s a gap that will need to be addressed —helping communities build the structures that link artists, organizations, civic leaders and the economic development community. Once all the plans are in, we’ll analyze opportunities, needs, and resources available.

PO: Looking a decade ahead, what would success look like for you and the Arts Commission?

MM: We’re part of the larger Office of Commerce —economic development, workforce, tourism, and more—all aligned around Governor Braun’s pillars. Success will mean arts and culture are fully integrated into that broader vision of success in Indiana. It will mean we’ve advanced the creative economy by working together with our partners.

On a more concrete level, the fact that for the first time Indiana will have 15 regionally-focused plans for arts and culture is transformational, thanks to the Lilly Endowment’s investment in READi. If, ten years from now, we can say that we leveraged that opportunity to make Indiana stronger, more creative, and more vibrant—that will feel like success.

PO: You’ve talked about the role of nonprofits, for-profits, and regional differences. If you had to distill one message about Indiana’s creative economy, what would it be?

MM: That it’s bigger than we think. It’s not just the arts organizations you know in your town. It’s the designers, the musicians, the filmmakers, the creative entrepreneurs. It’s people who may not call themselves artists but who are contributing creatively every day. The more we recognize that, the stronger we’ll be as an economic sector.

Get a first look at the preliminary findings from the READi Arts & Culture studies at the Indiana Creative Economy Summit, where regions will share insights and lessons learned in advancing their creative economies.

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This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our friends at Life in Indy.