Master of Arts Commencement Ceremony and Reception

Commencement Address
Laura Zabel, Executive Director, Springboard for the Arts

Laura Zabel is an advocate and champion of artists and their role in building healthy and just communities and systems. For more than 20 years, Zabel has worked to imagine and grow a more durable ecosystem of support for creativity and culture. Zabel is the Executive Director of Springboar d for the Arts, an economic and community development agency run by and for artists. Springboard’s mission is to support artists with the tools to make a living and a life, and to build just and equitable communities full of meaning, joy, and connection. Through their free toolkits, training and resources Springboard’s programs have been replicated in over 100 communities across the U.S. and internationally. Springboard is based in Minnesota; their urban home is in a former used car dealership in the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul and their rural home in a former funeral home in downtown Fergus Falls.

During the pandemic, Springboard provided emergency relief support to over 2,500 artists in their region and helped over 80 communities nationwide start their own locally-rooted emergency funds, while also supporting artists to respond directly to urgent community needs, including racial justice, social isolation, and rural-urban solidarity. In 2021, Springboard launched one of the nation’s first guaranteed income programs focused on artists, putting artists at the table of a national, economic justice movement.

Springboard’s work has been featured by the New York Times, PBS, Wall Street Journal, Stanford Social Innovation Review and The Guardian. Zabel has been honored with numerous awards, including the YBCA 100, Gard Foundation Award of Excellence, Common Future Local Economy Fellowship and the Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship. Zabel is also a theater artist.