About Jini Stolk

Jini Stolk was a true arts champion who dedicated her free time to taking in the arts of every kind, and her career to supporting the sustainability of Toronto arts organizations. Her guiding principle was that by nurturing healthy structures and organizations, including the often un-heralded behind-the-scenes work of arts administrators, dynamic artistic work could flourish.

She had a love for learning and excelled at establishing and maintaining networks. She thought critically about things and often challenged and reimagined current systems. Through her work she provided mentorship, opportunity and access.  

She was a loving wife, mother, grandmother and friend.

She died suddenly in August 2022.

“We all have a role to play in shaking off resistance and removing the barriers to change. Both funders and those of us who might find ourselves on peer juries, have to understand the value and real costs of change, supporting those who are searching for new ways of working. As a community we should be providing time and assistance to people creating new business plans and artistic platforms.”

— Jini Stolk

More about Jini’s career & life

Career

  • General Manager, Open Studio. 1974 – 1980

  • Associate Director, Association of Canadian Publishers. 1982 – 1984

  • Executive Director, Toronto Theatre Alliance (now Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts – TAPA). 1985 – 1995

  • Managing Director, Toronto Dance Theatre. 1995 – 2000

  • Founding Executive Director, Creative Trust. 2003 – 2012

  • Creative Trust Fellow, Toronto Arts Foundation. 2012 – 2021

  • Lead, Creative Champions Network at Toronto Arts Foundation. 2014 – 2021

Boards served

Jini served on many boards throughout her career. Notable roles include:

  • Vice President, Toronto Arts Council. 2007 – 2012

  • Chair, Artscape. 1998 – 2010

  • Treasurer, Centre for Social Innovation. 2004 – 2014

  • Founding Chair, Ontario Nonprofit Network. 2014 – 2017

  • Chair, Toronto Outdoor Art Fair. 2021 – her death

Awards

  • Harold Award. 2003

  • Sandra Tulloch Award for Innovation in Arts and Culture, Theatre Ontatio. 2004

  • William Kilbourn Award for the Celebration of Toronto’s Cultural Life (now Celebration of Cultural Life Award), Toronto Arts Foundation. 2012

Collaboration & mentorship

In July 2016, Jini told the readers of her monthly Creative Trust arts blog that her innovation style is that of a meerkat. This, she learned, by taking a 3-minute quiz on Lucidity. “I and other meerkats know that having ideas and making them happen is a team sport, involving provocation, cooperation, excitement, irritation, perspiration and inspiration. The only way ideas successfully make it into the world, according to all us meerkats, is through working with other people,” she wrote.

Jini often collaborated with others on new ideas, and later in her life, mentored emerging arts administrators. She took time to meet her colleagues over coffee, offering advice, encouragement and support. She was a people person who saw value in peer to peer knowledge sharing for the benefit of the sector as a whole.   

Creative Trust Blog and Open Source Toolkits

Jini worked with a group of arts leaders to establish Creative Trust in 2003. It was formed to strengthen the organizational health and sustainability of creative music, theatre and dance companies in Toronto. Jini served as the Founding Executive Director. After completing a successful three-year drive to raise endowment funds, the organization began the Working Capital for the Arts program, which became a model for capacity building in the cultural sector. Over ten years, beginning in 2002, Creative Trust assisted over 50 mid-size and small companies to eliminate deficits, create working capital reserves and improve their governance, planning and management skills.

In 2010, Jini began posting to a blog about her thoughts and learnings in the arts sector. After Creative Trust wound up its operations in 2012, Toronto Arts Foundation engaged her as the Creative Trust Research Fellow to continue her blog, share the inner processes, policies and program materials of Creative Trust through the publication of Open Source Toolkits, and lead an initiative that she co-developed with then Executive Director Claire Hopkinson to engage arts board members called Creative Champions Network.

From 2011 – 2016, Jini posted to her blog nearly every month. It was read by arts professionals in Toronto and beyond. Her last blog post was in 2017.

The Creative Trust Open Source Toolkits grew out of Jini’s desire to share Creative Trust’s approach and learnings, providing ideas and examples for other arts and non-profit leaders to explore and borrow from. They are still available on the Creative Trust website.