A contingency plan is not just for the unexpected; it’s a responsible practice for artists to ensure their creative vision is not derailed by unforeseen circumstances.
— Barney Davey
As a solo entrepreneur artist, staying absorbed in creativity often overshadows the need for backup plans. Yet, a contingency plan is crucial for anyone serious about safeguarding their practice. In this updated guide, we explore why contingency plans matter more in 2025 and give you direct, current steps to create yours.
I help artists with art marketing and encourage them to live well according to their needs. This includes guidance that crosses business and personal lines, such as preparing a contingency plan. A good plan can help avoid disasters or make them more bearable. If you fail to act, the effects of an emergency quickly multiply. So, I advise you to protect your family and business with a contingency plan.
Why a Contingency Plan Is Essential for Solo Entrepreneur Artists
Your art business is your livelihood, and it’s not immune to unexpected events. The past five years have repeatedly taught us this lesson. You might be unable to run your business because of a sudden illness, a family emergency, a natural disaster, or even a cyber-attack that locks you out of critical accounts. Without a contingency plan, your business would halt, and no one would take care of your customers, fulfill orders, or pay your bills.
A contingency plan keeps your business running if you cannot work. It also protects your reputation with buyers and collectors who depend on you. A backup plan gives you a safety net and helps you stay calm when things are uncertain.
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In 2025, solo artists face new risks. Digital infrastructure, platform dependence, AI threats, and climate disruptions demand broader planning.
Start with This Expanded Seven-Point List
1. Identify potential risks and hazards: Solo business owners must identify risks that may impact their business. These include natural disasters like floods, fires, and earthquakes. There are also more frequent climate events, such as wildfires and extreme weather. In addition, digital threats include ransomware attacks, AI-generated phishing, social media account takeovers, platform policy changes, and possible loss of access to key online marketplaces.
2. Develop a communication plan: In an emergency, it’s critical to have a communication plan in place to reach out to customers, collaborators, and other stakeholders. This plan should include contact information for key individuals, alternative communication channels (email, text, social media, phone), and a method for communicating if your primary channels are compromised. Consider appointing a trusted person who can post updates on your behalf across your social media platforms and website.
3. Prepare an evacuation plan. Write out written steps for leaving your business location in an emergency. List items to prioritize: artwork, equipment, and important documents. Share this plan with your family and anyone involved so everyone understands where to go and what to take.
4. Protect important documents and data: In an emergency, keep backups of important items, such as financial records, customer information, artwork files, and intellectual property. Store backups in several secure locations, including encrypted cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, or dedicated options. Use automatic backup systems, not manual updates.
5. Secure your digital presence: In 2025, your digital assets will be as valuable as your physical ones. Implement strong security measures, including two-factor authentication (2FA) or passkeys for all accounts; use a password manager; maintain a secure list of all your login credentials; document your social media handles and associated email addresses; and keep records of your website hosting, domain registration, and content management system access.
6. Plan for platform contingencies: Many artists rely on specific platforms for sales and visibility. Decide what you’ll do if Instagram changes its algorithm, Etsy changes its fees, your marketplace closes, or you are banned from a platform. Diversify sales channels. Stay in touch with collectors through your own email list.
7. Plan for resuming operations: After an emergency, you must know how to get back to work. Plan steps for assessing damage, rebuilding, and contacting customers. Also, plan for sourcing replacement equipment and managing finances during any downtime.
Practical Advice for Creating a Contingency Plan in 2025
It’s crucial to involve trusted people in your contingency plan. This could be a friend, family member, or business associate who can take over running your business in your absence. Please ensure they are reliable, trustworthy, and understand your art business. Before you begin recruiting, you must work through your contingency plan to determine what you will ask for.
Visual Artists Emergency Plan
Document Critical Information: Create a comprehensive document that includes all critical information about your business. This data includes passwords (or access to your password manager), account numbers, login details, answers to security questions, API keys for automated systems, two-factor authentication backup codes, and other essential information. Store this document in an encrypted format and ensure your designated person knows where to access it. Update this document quarterly or whenever major changes occur.
Create a Digital Asset Inventory: Keep a current inventory of your digital assets. List website hosting, domain info, email providers, subscriber lists, social accounts, marketplace accounts, payment processors, cloud storage, subscription services, custom GPTs or AI tools, and intellectual property documents.
Make a Comprehensive Contacts List: Include the names, emails, and phone numbers of all the people and businesses you work with, such as customers (especially repeat collectors), galleries and retailers who carry your work, suppliers and manufacturers, shipping and fulfillment partners, accountant or bookkeeper, lawyer or legal advisor, insurance agent, website developer or tech support, and other artists or mentors in your network. Store this list securely and give access to your designated person.
Set Up an Adequate Emergency Fund: Set up an emergency fund that can cover your expenses if you cannot work. Given inflation and economic volatility in recent years, financial advisors now recommend 9 to 12 months’ worth of living expenses rather than the traditional 6 months. This fund should cover both personal living expenses and business operating costs, including website hosting, insurance premiums, storage fees, and minimum inventory maintenance.
Ensure Access to Your Tools and Equipment: Train the person you choose so they know how to access and use the tools, software, devices, and equipment your business needs. This list includes your computer and tablets, software licenses and subscription services, physical art-making equipment and supplies, shipping and packaging materials, printers and scanners, backup hardware, and any specialized tools or machinery. Document where the equipment is stored, how to operate it, and where to find instructional materials or manuals.
Prepare for AI and Digital Workflow Continuity: In 2025, many artists will incorporate AI tools into their workflow. Document any custom GPTs you’ve created, prompts or workflows you use regularly, AI services you subscribe to, training data or reference libraries you’ve built, and how these tools integrate with your creative process. This ensures your backup person can maintain consistency if you’re unable to work.
Create a Business Continuity Plan: Outline what will happen in an emergency. This plan should include who will take over and their specific responsibilities, how they will operate the business day-to-day, how they will communicate with customers and stakeholders, what decisions they are authorized to make, when and how they should consult with you if possible, how to access funds for business expenses, and clear instructions for fulfilling existing orders and commitments.
How to Make Your Contingency Plans Actionable
Plans without action are pointless. Artists can’t handle complexities in a crisis. The emergency may affect you directly or be overwhelming, so recruit help now and train them.
Don’t Put Off Recruiting Help
Tips for solo entrepreneurs: whom to involve in contingency plans, whom to inform, and how to select someone to run your business if you can’t.
Identify a trusted advisor: Work with a lawyer, accountant, or another qualified professional who can help you develop and implement your contingency plan. In 2025, consider consulting with a digital security expert as well, given the increasing sophistication of cyber threats.
Seek experienced guidance: Consider seeking advice from someone with experience in small business operations, particularly someone who has managed a business through a crisis or unexpected disruption.
Involve family or friends: Include them in your contingency planning process. Seek their input on potential risks and develop strategies considering their needs and capabilities.
Share the complete plan: Share the results of your contingency plan with family or friends so they know the strategy and their roles in executing it. Schedule annual reviews to keep the plan up to date and ensure everyone remembers their responsibilities.
Conduct practice runs: Don’t wait for an emergency to discover gaps in your plan. Have your designated person attempt to access key accounts (with your supervision), walk through order fulfillment processes, and practice customer communication. These dry runs will reveal weaknesses you can fix proactively.
You Need Willing and Capable Help
The best people to put on this list are those who could be at risk if an emergency happened at your business, or who have a vested interest in your success. For example, your spouse or partner, a family member, a close friend, an employee, an investor, or a vendor could be involved if the relationship allows.
Identify a dependable backup person: Choose someone who can step in and operate the business in your absence. This person should be someone you trust completely, who has a good understanding of your business model and values, who is willing and able to take on the responsibility, who is organized and detail-oriented, and who can communicate professionally with your customers.
Provide comprehensive training: Prepare the backup person with detailed information about your business operations, customer service standards, financial management, and other vital details. Train them on critical tasks and processes to prepare them to step in if needed. In 2025, this training should include digital security protocols, how to spot phishing attempts, and procedures for protecting sensitive customer data.
Consider long-term succession planning: Develop a succession plan should you become permanently unable to operate the business. This might include identifying someone to assume ownership, planning the sale of the business to a new owner, or establishing a process to wind down the business while fulfilling customer obligations.
Visual Artists Contingency Plan Checklist
Use this comprehensive guide to prepare your business for an emergency:
Risk Assessment
Identify potential risks:
- Physical risks: fire, flood, earthquake, extreme weather, power outages
- Health risks: illness, injury, hospitalization, long-term disability
- Digital risks: cyber-attacks, ransomware, account hacking, platform bans
- Business risks: supplier failures, shipping disruptions, equipment breakdowns
- Economic risks: inflation, loss of a major client, market downturns
- Platform risks: policy changes, algorithm updates, platform shutdowns
Assess the impact of each risk:
- For each identified risk, consider how it could affect your ability to produce and sell your art.
- Evaluate the likelihood of each risk occurring.
- Prioritize risks based on potential impact and probability.
- Consider cascading effects where one problem triggers others.
Response Planning
Develop a response plan for each major risk:
- Create specific action steps to minimize the impact.
- Identify alternative solutions and backup options.
- Document the decision-making process and priorities.
- Assign responsibilities for different scenarios.
For physical artwork and inventory:
- Maintain digital catalogs with high-resolution images.
- Store valuable pieces in multiple locations when possible.
- Keep detailed inventory lists with values for insurance purposes.
- Document your creative process and techniques.
- Consider fireproof and waterproof storage for irreplaceable items.
For digital assets and accounts:
- Enable two-factor authentication on all critical accounts.
- Use a reputable password manager and share emergency access.
- Maintain offline backups of all digital artwork and files.
- Store backup codes for account recovery in a secure location
- Document the recovery process for each critical platform.
For financial continuity:
- Build your nine to twelve-month emergency fund.
- Maintain business interruption insurance if possible.
- Keep meticulous financial records and back them up to the cloud.
- Have backup payment processing options
- Document all recurring expenses and due dates
Communication and Documentation
Communicate the plan:
- Ensure that anyone involved in your business knows the contingency plan.
- Provide written documentation that’s easy to follow.
- Store documentation in multiple accessible locations (cloud and physical)
- Include visual guides or video walkthroughs for complex processes.
- Create a quick-reference emergency contact sheet.
Make documentation accessible:
- Use a shared cloud folder with appropriate access controls.
- Provide your designated person with a sealed envelope containing critical information.
- Consider using a service like LastPass Families or 1Password Families for shared access.
- Keep a printed backup in a fireproof safe.
- Let trusted individuals know where to find emergency information.
Testing and Maintenance
Test the plan regularly:
- Schedule semi-annual reviews of your contingency plan.
- Run simulations or practice scenarios with your backup person.
- Attempt to access accounts and systems as your backup person would
- Test your backups by attempting to restore files.
- Identify any gaps, outdated information, or broken processes.
Update the plan continuously:
- Review and update after any major business changes.
- Update whenever you add new platforms, tools, or services
- Revise when you change banks, insurance, or service providers.
- Adjust financial targets based on current economic conditions.
- Document lessons learned from any actual emergencies or disruptions
Schedule specific review dates:
- Set calendar reminders for quarterly quick checks.
- Plan comprehensive annual reviews with your backup person.
- Update contact information whenever it changes.
- Refresh passwords and security measures regularly.
- Verify that all backup systems are functioning properly.
New Considerations for 2025: Platform Dependency and Digital Resilience
The art world has become increasingly digital, and with that comes new vulnerabilities. Consider these modern contingency planning elements:
Diversify your sales channels: Don’t rely on a single platform for sales or visibility. Maintain your own website with e-commerce capability, sell through multiple online marketplaces, develop direct relationships with galleries and retailers, build and maintain an email list of your own, and maintain an active presence on multiple social media platforms.
Protect your intellectual property: In the age of AI, vigilance is essential. Watermark digital images appropriately, register copyrights for significant works, document your creative process to prove originality, consider using services that track unauthorized use of your images, and understand how to file DMCA takedown notices.
Prepare for AI-related challenges: As AI tools become more prevalent, consider how you would respond to AI-generated copies of your style, false claims that your work is AI-generated, platforms implementing anti-AI policies that might affect you, or changes in how search engines and platforms treat AI-assisted work.
Climate resilience planning: With increasing climate volatility, artists need to consider the impacts of air quality on studio work (wildfire smoke, pollution), extreme heat or cold on materials and working conditions, increased shipping difficulties during severe weather, and the potential need to relocate temporarily or permanently.
Conclusion
As a one-person business in 2025, the success and survival of your art business depend more than ever on having a comprehensive Plan B. The risks we face today are more diverse and complex than ever before, spanning physical, digital, economic, and environmental domains.
By documenting key information, building a robust emergency fund, training trusted individuals, securing your digital presence, and planning for multiple contingencies, you ensure your business can weather unexpected storms. The past few years have shown us that disruptions we once thought unlikely can become reality without warning.
My best advice is to create your backup plan before anything unexpected happens. By planning for what to do if something goes wrong, you can have confidence that your business will continue even when you are not at the helm. The time you invest in contingency planning today will pay dividends in peace of mind and could save your business when you need it most.
So please don’t wait for unforeseen events; start planning now and be ready to navigate anything that comes your way. In our interconnected, rapidly changing world, a contingency plan isn’t optional—it’s essential business infrastructure.
Resources
Emergency Preparedness:
- Ready.gov Emergency Response Plan
- FEMA: Developing and Maintaining Emergency Operations Plans – Comprehensive Preparedness Guide 101
- The American Red Cross Emergency Preparedness
Business Support:
- SCORE – Nonprofit organization providing mentorship and resources to small businesses, including emergency planning templates and business continuity guidance
- State and local emergency management agencies provide resources and information on emergency preparedness specific to your region.
Digital Security:
- Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) – Resources on protecting against cyber threats
- Electronic Frontier Foundation Security Starter Pack – Digital security guidance for individuals and small businesses
Financial Planning:
- Insurance agencies can be valuable resources for contingency planning. Many insurance companies offer business interruption insurance, which can help cover lost income and expenses during unexpected interruptions. Some agencies offer risk assessment services to help identify potential vulnerabilities.
- Work with accountants or financial advisors who understand the unique challenges of creative businesses and can help you structure appropriate emergency reserves.
Artist-Specific Resources:
- Artists’ Emergency Resources – New York Foundation for the Arts maintains an updated list of emergency resources for artists.
- Professional artist organizations often provide disaster relief programs and guidance for their members.
Remember: The best contingency plan is one that’s documented, shared, tested, and regularly updated. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good—start with what you can do today and build from there.