Statistics Canada reported in 2005 that the arts in Canada employed twice as many people as forestry or banking. Most of these people work for very small not-for-profit organizations or are self-employed. They are a highly diverse group, whose language skills and economic profiles vary greatly.
The large number of artists creates new problems and challenges around finding performance spaces, obtaining media coverage, and building audiences. The primary focus of ELAN's work has been collective projects involving visibility for artists and access to audiences. All of these projects are designed to improve the economic conditions of artists.
ELAN's first visibility project was called RAEV, Recognizing Artists: Enfin Visibles! which created 150 profiles of artists, 25 videos about the costs and benefits of being an English-language artist in Quebec, and short histories of the development of each artistic discipline. The RAEV project has been helpful in strengthening the idea of an English-speaking brand within Quebec because we're forgotten by the rest of English-speaking Canada and ignored by French-speaking Quebec.
The ACCORD project was developed to assist regional communities all around Quebec to produce special arts events. The project was designed to develop skills in small communities so that they would be encouraged to produce more events in the future. The project's website was designed to allow communities to identify artists who would work for a modest fee in small communities.