More Canvas Consulting is certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) through the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the nation’s largest third party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women in the US.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses, regardless of their size, were forced to shift to remote operations. This had a particularly significant impact on growing, independently-owned businesses. With this transition, email became even more important than before: internal communications, customer relations, and supply chain monitoring became more reliant on messages sent from inbox to inbox.

Drip campaigns are a customer communication approach that both large and independent businesses can benefit from. By streamlining your outreach and automating the follow-up, drip campaigns can effectively bring in new clients and help you to stay in contact with current ones.

One billion people globally are living with a disability. 

As a business operations and strategy consultant, More Canvas is often asked, “Why should my business care about accessibility?” The quick answer is to point back to those one billion individuals. Digital accessibility is no longer an option—no longer a nice-to-have feature. Without making it a priority in your organization, you are potentially excluding a seventh of the global population. 

Recently, I was talking to a small business owner whose clientele includes many disabled individuals (about half of his patrons have at least one disability, he estimates). The web developers that built his business’s website assured him that the website was accessible, yet he still felt it his responsibility to test all the accessibility features the developers had built. He quickly realized that many of the promised tools were unstable and frustrating to use. He reported back to the developers, enumerating the issues with the tools, such as an “invert color” button that turned the background black without turning the text white. As a blind user, I gave the website a quick pass with VoiceOver for iOS and found the website to be mostly usable, but it was far from a slick experience, since no one had given feedback specifically on the nonvisual experience. Some of the issues that the small business owner and I noticed were examples of non-compliance with accessibility guidelines, but many other issues were more subjective in nature.

If you have no idea what a screen reader is, there is no need to feel embarrassed—I hadn’t the slightest clue either until I went blind in 2020. Put simply, a screen reader is an assistive technology used on electronic devices that renders portions of the display as synthesized speech or refreshable braille. Screen readers were first developed for and by members of the blind community, and some sighted individuals use these applications for a variety of reasons, including learning impairments and issues stemming from eye strain.

In the age of technology, data is becoming increasingly available to companies of all sizes. With many softwares and systems collecting information, all of that data can make it overwhelming to understand what is worth analyzing or even worth collecting. Starting simple can be a great way to learn what data is beneficial and what problems need to be solved. This article covers the importance of collecting a variety of data, recommendations of data to consider, and key steps to take before starting. 

In the age of technology, data is becoming increasingly available to companies of all sizes. With many softwares and systems collecting information, all of that data can make it overwhelming to understand what is worth analyzing or even worth collecting. Starting simple can be a great way to learn what data is beneficial and what problems need to be solved. This article covers the importance of collecting a variety of data, recommendations of data to consider, and key steps to take before starting.

At More Canvas Consulting, we have witnessed first-hand the hardships that the pandemic has brought upon the artistic community. With more than half our staff straddling the arts and business sectors, we bring our personal commitment to the arts and direct experiences to our client base. Initially founded by artists for artists, we hope to help our clients be adaptable to changing market needs and grow their careers, from the viewpoint of a business owner and entrepreneur. We know what it takes to be an artist — the management skills no one taught you along the way.

More than just a tool, an Issue Tracker is a critical cultural shift that empowers your teams, leverages the experiences at every layer of your organization, and de-stigmatizes mistakes, transforming them into opportunities for understanding, learning, and improvement.

Whether we’re pushing through summer break, struggling with a national pandemic, or perhaps juggling an ongoing, fully remote career, more families than ever have experienced a rocky work-family balance in the past year.

For this year's #moneymattersmarch Alveo Creative invited Pilar Castro-Kiltz, founder of More Canvas Consulting to share how an individual artist might reframe their side hustle or survival job as a business to support their art and life. Changing your mindset and using proven frameworks, strategies, and business techniques can unlock earning potential and infuse the work you do to earn money with a refreshed sense of possibility and purpose.

For any business owner or effective collaborator, creativity and problem solving are important ingredients to a successful outcome. However, getting into a creative mindset and fostering those “aha!” moments of connection can be challenging. When it comes to generating new and fresh ideas, your environment and surroundings can play an important role. In 2021 distractions are inevitable. We have our phones, laptops, iPads, Apple Watches, and so on, keeping us distracted. These things can hold us back when trying to generate some creative juices. 

Entrepreneurs know the importance of a unique company name and an eye-catching logo. Those business requirements are right up there with opening bank accounts and registering an LLC. Though, while equally important for successful start-ups, brand identity is often put on the back burner. 

In just days, New York City will be embarking on a new experiment in how to nurture its arts ecosystem.

Leaving many artists lacking in mental and financial support, COVID-19 continues to impact the performing arts sector. Some artists have transitioned to virtual performances or discovered other work alternatives, but many remain questioning how to survive the day-to-day, unknowing of what their futures hold.

The new Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program is included in the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act, which was signed into law on December 27, 2020. It is being administered by the SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance.

2020 saw some major shifts in the US’s workforce due to COVID-19. Companies implemented work-from-home models, allowing employees to work from just about any location. Some tech-driven industries have seen business boom, while others have been hit hard by COVID restrictions, driving up unemployment. With vaccination rollout commencing, 2021 is sure to bring new changes that could shift us back to normal, or a new normal entirely.

The virtual office is here to stay with many companies offering full or partially remote opportunities for their employees. Whether working from home is one’s choice or not, separating your job from your living space and life can prove challenging. Below are some helpful tips to stay on task and organized when working remotely.

With work-from-home becoming a mainstay and the pandemic lasting well into 2020, companies are rethinking how to hire for and grow their businesses once again, often with remote options. New challenges have presented themselves, however, in the form of deciding how best to restructure your hiring process and what platforms to use when searching for your next candidate in the midst of COVID-19. Below are some helpful resources for how your business can begin to think about the hiring process in this environment.