Building capacity in an indigenous nonprofit artistic enterprise

Growth in Indigenous artistic enterprises has attracted government funding, cultural tourists, and arts managers with a strong interest in cultural democracy and, more recently, an interest in business models for these artists. This paper documents a case study of Arilla Paper, an artistic enterprise in Queensland, Australia, where a group of Aboriginal women, worked on making paper from natural materials, to create a sustainable non-profit arts business. Sections of the business manual developed for these women, together with primary and secondary data supporting the Indigenous creative industries, are presented. The paper concludes that success in such ventures requires a social entrepreneurship model of funding that recognises the challenges of Indigenous cultural ownership and capacity building in business practice.<br />