Working on something meaningful is a common desire – but how? We started asking folks to share the story of how they ended up working on a project they felt was meaningful because we wanted inspiration but also because we wondered if hearing from people from across a range of industries would help us identify patterns making it more likely for anyone to be able to find and work on projects that they would find meaningful. 

Juana Moriel-Payne

One of my most meaningful writing project was the first one: writing a historical novel. I had already learned about this historical character, Juana de Cobos, a woman who lived in Northern Mexico during colonial times. Her story impacted me; she was a woman of character, an early feminist who fight for her right to have a business in a highly patriarchal society. Read More>>

Lisa James

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on so far is a current commercial project in a small, close-knit town in the Bay Area. While I can’t share details yet, what makes it special to me is that it goes far beyond designing a beautiful space—it’s about creating a place where people naturally come together. Read More>>

Horysn

My EP Toska is probably one of my most recent meaningful projects! I created it during a time of rediscovery and grievance of myself. I had experienced so much turmoil, so much resistance, and inauthenticity to who I truly was and who I had become. Toska was a way of speaking my truth in a timeline that mapped out my emotions. Read More>>

Chris Thomas

Without a doubt, an experience with immense meaning for me was a last-minute score I wrote for a short film by Cathy Cahn, a wonderful filmmaker who was rapidly dying. She had maybe a month or two at most, so we had only one shot to finish her film in time. Read More>>

Jason Andre

I’ve volunteered with Plastic Ocean Project, a local environmental non-profit for many years. Read More>>

Erica Fini-Marten Jen Marcott-Bong

Our Humble Start In 2021, Jen and I launched Wisco Sled Divas as a casual passion project. We started with no formal funding and a very relaxed approach, simply wanting to see where the idea of a women-only snowmobile community might go. To our surprise, the group experienced rapid, organic growth, signaling that women riders were looking for a space exactly like this. Read More>>

Melanie Curry

Sometimes, it feels like the world around us absorbs all the light, leading us to struggle to make sense of it. In our attempts to understand, we often find ourselves retreating in our minds to simpler, easier times. Read More>>

Peter Trinh

I very recently worked on a staged production of THE WORLD IS NOT SILENT by Don X. Nguyen at Northern Stage in White River Junction, Vermont. This was the second production of this play. The world premiere was in Houston, Texas in 2024. Read More>>

Mara Lea Brown

I have always had a strong desire to create art. I love drawing and painting people’s faces, but I have been somewhat less interested in the product. When I first came to the Bay Area I completed some portrait commissions, but much preferred drawing a friend’s likeness or spontaneously creating from my memory. Read More>>

WEIYU TIAN

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is AAAAH! Culture (Asian Artist and Activities Hub), a cultural platform I founded in New York in 2023. The idea came from a gap I kept noticing in the city’s cultural landscape. While New York is one of the world’s major cultural capitals, many emerging Asian artists, designers, and creative entrepreneurs still struggle to access visible public platforms. Read More>>

Marlon McKenney

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is my animated short film Switch’n Lanez. Animation has always been a passion of mine, and I’ve always wanted to build toward a feature film or series that tells stories that don’t always get a voice. Stories rooted in real culture and lived experience. Switch’n Lanez became that first step. Read More>>

Yasmin Lee

Around 2024, after creating my first short film since graduating from undergrad, I had an idea. My idea started as an array of images: brown girls conjuring spells, furniture engulfed by moss, silhouettes, and clotheslines. I didn’t know it at the time, but I told my soon-to-be Executive Producer, Destiny Macon, the title before I knew the story. Read More>>

Kyll Mara

June 6, 2026: Kyll’s project “STANDSTILL” will be released to the public. After 3 years of label rejection, hard work, lost time, lost friends and sleepless nights spent on perfecting a solo body of work; STANDSTILL will release 12AM 06/06/26. Kyll began writing this body of work from an introspective standing. July 15th of 2022, his life changed under the effect of an extreme event. Read More>>

M.C. KEV

I had a residency through Arts Westchester for a shelter in White Plains NY. This project was meaningful because they gave me the creative freedom to paint a mural. But when I started painting the concept. The kids from the shelter would come watch and give me ideas that I would inorporate to inspire them and motivate them along with their families. Read More>>

Babsy Artner

As an actress, filmmaker and graphic designer I’ve discovered AI for myself at the end of 2025. I’m quite versatile, I’ve done a lot of stuff. I’ve appeared in movies and TV shows, sang live on stage, produced short films and music videos, and got a degree in graphic design. But creativity knows no boundaries. Read More>>

Trinity Griffith

I have a couple projects that stick out to me, back in September of last year I had the immense pleasure of doing a gig poster for at Hardlove where all of my friends played the bill, one of them being a rather rare appearance especially. Los Muertos, an incredible cumbia band made up of various friends from the music scene and other bands i.e. Read More>>

Steph West

My novel, and now screenplay, ‘Newcross,’ is the most meaningful fiction project I’ve worked on to-date, for many reasons. It actually started as a short story called, ‘Nellie,’ which I started to shoot as a short film. But halfway through production, I needed to select a thesis for my MFA and ‘Nellie,’ always seemed to pack the most emotional punch with readers. Read More>>

Elodie Dufroux

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is a contemporary full-length dance show I created called UNspoken. It was born from a very personal place—my own experience of being bullied for many years growing up. For a long time, those memories lived quietly in the background of who I was, shaping how I moved through the world without me fully acknowledging their impact. Read More>>

Nyah Zo

My most meaningful project to date has been my latest album, While You Were Asleep. This body of work represents a deeply personal journey of self-actualization, surrender, and transformation. It reflects the process of unlearning — letting go of old habits, beliefs, and versions of myself that no longer aligned with who I was becoming. Read More>>

Mike Ward

Throughout my career in advertising, I sat on the board of Michigan United Cerebral Palsy and also participated in many activities to assist the less fortunate in the Detroit area. Read More>>

Tabi Engler

Lately, the most meaningful project I’ve been part of was The Bula Eclipse at Kava & Canvas. It started as a vision to reflect, slow down, connect, and celebrate the start of the new year. I was involved in the experience itself and behind the scenes. Read More>>

Mark Greenbaum

One that had a lasting impact on me, was creating ‘Goats Vs Llamas’. A DIY, sustainably produced, 3D board game. It all started when I shared a Ninja Turtles playset that I had made out of cardboard for my son. Read More>>

Domonique ZEN

One of the most significant projects I’ve recently completed is writing the short film Never Can Say Goodbye. This poignant film takes audiences on a journey through the complex emotions of grief, love, and acceptance, capturing the universal struggle of letting go. Growing up in South Florida, I’ve faced numerous losses, which compelled me to explore my own grief through this story. Read More>>

Danielle Diniz

Meaningful can be encompassing of so many factors- whether you found a coveted rapport with your collaborators, or it happens to be your favorite choreography you’ve created thus far, or if the subject matter of the piece was personal to you and your views, or everything seemed to click and you found an ease within process and product… Read More>>

Taylor Emery Eck

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve been part of was with a couple who included my mugs in several major milestones in their life together. It started when one of them commissioned a custom mug that said “Will You Marry Me?” to propose. Read More>>

Francesca Bolam

It’s a toss-up between Tenner Bag and Book Club. With Tenner Bag, there was something liberating about writing exactly where I’m from—the specific takeout, the raw Northern banter, and the grit of Teesside. I’ve lived away for 13 years and never felt like I ‘fit in’ back home, but that identity is in every fiber of my work whether I want it there or not. Read More>>

Cheri Glover

One meaningful project that I’ve worked on was a fundraiser event I created called the Beauty Empowerment Workshop. This event was so meaningful because I was collecting funds to give to MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital. I chose this hospital because the staff helps families who have loved ones with critical needs. At birth, I was born at 24 weeks. Read More>>

Rachel Hull

Every song I have released to the world means so much to me, but if I had to choose one that means the most, I would have to give the award to my most recent single “Secret.” This was the first single that I felt represented exactly how I wanted to sound as an artist. Read More>>

Sofia Hauser

To date, the project that I am most proud of is my debut album that I released last year, Blame It on My Heart. Read More>>

Cedric Gegel

The most meaningful project to me, personally, would definitely be my debut feature as a writer/director, Cadia: The World Within. I wrote and directed that film when I was just twenty-three years old, only a year out of undergrad. Read More>>

Jessica L. Folk

One of the current screenwriting projects I’m involved with has stood out as particularly meaningful to me. The project is a feature-length screenplay titled, LET THERE BE LIGHT (LTBL). My co-writer, Paula Andrea Cajiao, and I have been developing this project since 2022 after we met at the Richmond International Film Festival. Read More>>

Brittney ‘BOBBIE’ DeMars

The most meaningful projects I’ve worked on have been dance recital showcases, as they were spaces I was able not only to share my art and creativity, but also build up and encourage clients to step outside of their comfort zones! Read More>>

Kacey Primer

One of the most meaningful projects for me wasn’t necessarily the biggest or the most visually dramatic (although it was out of the box for my client), it was one where the transformation truly changed how they lived in and felt about their home. Read More>>