A nonprofit advancing the arts for health & well-being
Dose of Arts exists to prove it. Through advocacy, community education, and creative programming, we bring the arts to where people live, heal, grieve, grow, and work. And we make the case, loudly, that creative expression belongs at the center of public health.
Not a nice-to-have. Not a school subject. A daily baseline for health, resilience, and a life worth living.
From reduced pain and anxiety to stronger immune function and slower cognitive decline. The evidence is overwhelming. The awareness isn't. Yet.
"I'm not creative" is almost never true. It's learned. Dose of Arts exists to unlearn it, in classrooms, nursing homes, hospices, hospitals, and community centers across Illinois and beyond.
Play, laughter, making something terrible on purpose: these are not soft outcomes. They are neurologically restorative. We build every program around that truth.
Our Mission & Vision
Dose of Arts envisions a world where art becomes as habitual for health and well-being as exercise and healthy sleep.
We advance the arts through advocacy, programming, and community, bringing creative experiences to people in order to enhance joy, connection, and flourishing. We educate about the power of the arts to enhance health and well-being. And we make that case everywhere we can: in nursing homes, in hospitals, in schools, in policy rooms, and in the everyday moments when someone encounters art somewhere they didn't expect it and feels something shift.
We make the case, publicly, persistently, and with evidence, that the arts are a public health priority. This means speeches, policy engagement, community education, professional training for healthcare workers, and every other platform that moves the needle.
Our own signature programs plus a growing network of teaching artists and partner organizations bringing creative experiences into nursing homes, hospices, schools, libraries, wellness houses, and community centers everywhere.
The arts shouldn't require a gallery or a tuition check. Dose of Arts meets people where they already are and builds the partnerships, networks, and systems that make creative access sustainable and widespread.
Advocacy & Education
The research is clear. The awareness isn't. Dose of Arts makes the case, in healthcare settings, educational institutions, policy rooms, and public spaces, that creative expression is a health imperative and not an extracurricular.
"The evidence is overwhelming. The arts reduce pain, anxiety, and depression; strengthen the immune system; slow cognitive decline; and give people a reason to keep living fully. We don't need more studies. We need more people to know."— Dose of Arts
Programming & Community
We develop signature programs and activate a network of teaching artists and partner organizations to bring joyful, accessible creative experiences into the spaces where people already are and need them most.
"The programs we build are just one expression of what we do. Anywhere a teaching artist can walk in the door and give someone an hour of creative life they wouldn't otherwise have, that is Dose of Arts."— Dose of Arts
How We Show Up
Dose of Arts shows up in many forms. Some are programs we have built or are planning to launch soon. Some are partnerships we've activated or hope to activate. Some are conversations we want to start. All of them move the same mission forward.
Through the Alive Inside program, we are bringing personalized music to hospice patients, particularly those with dementia and cognitive decline, for whom a familiar song can open a door that nothing else can.
ProgramsWe are developing and piloting 10-week cohort programs, including The Creative Life Program, A Little Breathing Room for caregivers, and Still Here for grief communities. All are built around joyful creative reclamation and the radical idea that no talent is required.
ProgramsWe are building three tiered programs for ages 5–17 designed to plant a creative identity before the world tries to take it away. We're looking for school and community partners to help bring them to life.
ProgramsOne of our core commitments is getting more creative programming into long-term care settings. We want to work with facilities, teaching artists, and healthcare partners to make this happen, and we're actively seeking those conversations.
CommunityWe want to bring the research and the case for arts in health to OT programs, nursing schools, social work departments, and healthcare conferences. The goal is to help the next generation of care providers see creativity as part of the care plan, not separate from it.
AdvocacyPublic talks, community events, and creative outreach that help people understand what the research has been saying for years: the arts are genuinely good for your health. We make that case in plain language, in real communities, without the jargon.
EducationWe believe local artists (painters, potters, musicians, storytellers, movement artists) are one of the most underutilized health resources in any community. We want to build a network that connects their practice to the settings that need them most.
CommunityIn the UK and Canada, healthcare providers can formally prescribe arts and community activities as part of a care plan. It's called social prescribing, and it works. We're working to build awareness and momentum for this model in Illinois.
AdvocacyPublic art drops, community installations, and the kind of small, joyful surprises that remind people the arts belong in everyday life and not just in galleries and concert halls. We put them where people actually are.
CommunityWho We Serve
That sentence is almost never true. It's learned. Dose of Arts exists to interrupt that story, in every setting, at every age, for every person the arts haven't reached yet.
Little ones who haven't yet built the wall. Tweens where self-consciousness is just starting to take hold. Teens who've been quietly told to keep it down. We want to reach each age group before, or right as, the story that "I'm not creative" starts to harden.
People who used to make things and somewhere along the way stopped. People in the middle of a life transition, figuring out who they are now. People who never believed they were creative to begin with. We're building programs for all of them.
People who have spent months or years giving everything to someone else's care, often at the expense of their own inner life. They deserve a room of their own, one that asks nothing of them except to show up and make something imperfect.
People navigating loss who need a space that isn't entirely defined by what they've lost. We believe joy and grief can coexist, and that continuing to make things, laugh at things, and be surprised by things is its own form of honoring a life.
Nursing homes, hospices, hospitals, memory care units, wellness houses. Places where residents and patients often have too little beauty and too little creative expression in their daily lives, and where the research says it would make a real difference.
Occupational therapists, nurses, social workers, physicians. The people who are closest to those who need this most. We want to give them the evidence, the language, and the partnerships to bring creativity into their work.
Partner With Us
We partner with anyone who believes the arts belong at the center of health and community life. Organizations, schools, care facilities, community groups, individual artists, funders, advocates, and arts lovers of every kind. If it moves the mission forward, we're interested.
Bring Dose of Arts programs and teaching artists to your organization, facility, school, wellness house, or community. Wherever people are who would benefit from a dose of creativity, we want to be there.
Program PartnershipAre you an artist who wants to bring your practice into new settings like nursing homes, hospices, schools, and community centers? We want to build a network with you at the center.
Artist PartnershipIf you believe the arts are a public health imperative and want to help build the evidence, the programs, and the movement, we'd love to talk about what's possible together.
Funding & AdvocacyReady to connect? Reach out directly:
adoseofarts@gmail.comGet Involved
Whether you want to join a program, bring Dose of Arts to your organization, become a guest artist or teaching artist, or simply learn more, we want to hear from you.
Serving communities across Illinois and building statewide.
Partners welcome everywhere.