(upbeat music playing) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Jonathon Romain.

Jonathon is an artist, and along with his wife, Nikki, started ART Inc.

Which is a business that helps kids, families, and neighborhoods become stronger.

Welcome, Jonathon .

- Thanks for having me.

- I appreciate it.

Let's start off with you, you've got an incredible story.

But you haven't been in the nonprofit world for a long time, have you?

- Nope, not at all.

- Not at all.

- This is brand new to me, it's brand new, yeah.

- Brand new.

So you're an artist.

- Mm-hmm.

- And you decided to use your talent to start a business, explain that.

A business other than selling art.

- Right, right, right.

Well... For the past 20 odd years I've been asked to speak at schools in different places because of my very unique experience in life.

And one of the things that I've always felt when I spoke to young people, they were extremely receptive, and it always broke my heart that I only had 30 minutes with them.

In fact, one time I was speaking at a juvenile prison in Chicago, and when I walked in the door, it was this one little kid and he looked like the kiss of death.

He like...

I mean, you just knew this kid was bad news, right?

And I was speaking at that JD graduation, and after I finished speaking, a gentleman walked up to me and said that he wanted me to speak to his son because his son wanted to talk to me.

So I said, "Okay," and I went back to the table, and lo and behold it was the guy that I...

The little kid that I noticed right out the gate.

And the little kid looked up at me with tears rolling down his face.

And he said, "I wanna make a difference in my life, I just don't know how."

And I was like, "Man," and all I had with him was those 30 minutes, you know what I'm saying?

So you trying to figure out what can I say to this kid in the few moments that I have left that will make a difference.

So that was always in the back of my mind, and when the opportunity availed itself, I was like, "Man here's a chance that I could actually have an impact on young people for the vast majority of their childhood years."

- That was the pivoting moment.

- That was the impetus for me.

- Okay.

- There were several things that I had done before that, that didn't include buying a school, but the studio that I have on Sheridan, it was a pretty big studio, we would have boys to men's meetings and I would go talk to schools and I would try to mentor kids but it was nothing to the level that it is now.

But when I...

When I stumbled upon Greeley, it's just something went off in my head and... And at first it was just a thought, I wondered.

- Yeah.

- Is this a possibility?

- Yeah, Greeley school.

- The Greeley school, right?

And so I got...

I got the realtor to show me the building and I was surprised at... What good shape it was in.

And then my mind just started to process things and like literally before I even put together a proposal, before I talked to anybody about it, I would go sit in the parking lot for like hours and just contemplate it.

And then eventually I got the nerve to go home and tell the wife that I wanted this school.

(laughing) And to my surprise, she was like, "All right, let's do it."

So I was excited that I had the type of person in my life that... Who was just as compelled as I am to reach back and do something with our young people.

- And so here in Peoria, Greeley school is just sitting there.

- Right.

- You go into the parking lot, you have a vision, and now the vision has been realized, but you're just starting.

- Right.

- I mean, you're just starting.

So let's go back just a second here, and how did you get into art?

- So...

I grew up on the West side of Chicago and was involved with all of the horrible things that you hear on the West side of Chicago, from drug dealing to gang banging and all of those things, and I tell people that I started throwing bricks at the penitentiary when I was a kid, because I was in and out of jail for different things.

And I just barely graduated from high school, I never took an ACT or an SAT, but I knew that I had to do something more than what I saw around me, and that actually led me to want to go to college.

I talked to my guidance counselor in high school about the possibility of going to college, and she... Out of hand dismissed it, looking at my transcripts, but fortunately I ran into a friend who told me that I could go to a junior college if... And it didn't matter how good or bad I did in high school, and so that's what I did.

The following year I transferred to Bradley and what I had done was I successfully removed myself from the ghetto, but I didn't remove the ghetto from me.

- Okay.

- And so I was down in Peoria going to Bradley, doing everything that I was doing on the West side of Chicago which ultimately led to me being arrested for selling drugs at the end of my junior year in college.

I bonded out, fought the case my entire senior year, and two weeks before I was supposed to graduate, I was convicted.

The judge, ironically enough who's a friend of mine now, Richard Eagleson, allowed me to bond out to graduate, and two weeks later I turned myself in and was received 15 years, and of which I did seven and a half.

But it was in prison, I studied psychology at Bradley, but it was in prison where I actually reacquainted myself with my childhood love, which was art.

And just... As fate would have it, I stumbled into a guy who was in prison as well, but he was an incredible artist.

Oh my God.

He was... And he made it look so easy.

And so I just watched him for a few weeks and lo and behold, that's all it took.

And I knew then that I was gonna spend the rest of my life doing art, especially because I knew that my employment prospects will be limited coming out of prison, and I knew that this was something that I could do and I could control my own fate doing it.

- And so art saved your life.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- Like not even figuratively speaking.

It was like, it did.

- It did.

- Right.

- And the day you and your wife, Nikki, you take on this old building, Greeley, and you renovate it, you raise money, you start a nonprofit, you make change, and as soon as you started doing that, I started riding your coattails because... - No, we were a joke out there.

- Well, it's an impressive, impressive story.

And so what is ART Inc now?

- So what it is is, we wanted to create a fun, creative space for young people to come in and to... We just use art as a carrot.

We really just wanted to have a place for them to come as an alternative to the streets.

And with art...

It's fun, it's enjoyable, we can keep them there, we can keep them channeled in on that, and then we can inject in them some things that's actually going to push them on the right...

Right path and become productive members of society.

- What are some of those things besides art?

- Well, life building skills, you know what I'm saying?

We're heavy on education.

When I get an opportunity to deal with these young people I tell them how important education is, and we can do that...

Without forcing it on them, and we just them a whole platform of what are the things that you need to succeed in life, and we talk about how consistency is important, we talk about how you have to have a goal, a vision, you have to believe in yourself, and nothing happens overnight, it's all about a process.

And... We can...

I can literally show a kid, anybody for that matter, how processes work through painting a picture.

- Right.

- You start with a blank canvas, in psychology we call it tabula rasa, a blank slate, and then you put on to that canvas whatever you want.

And if you put forth the right amount of time and the right amount of effort, you can create whatever you want.

And we can do the same thing in showing them how to do that with their life.

- Yeah, it's interesting because... And then Nikki, your wife has a whole set of talents too besides art.

- Absolutely.

- And she's instilling those talents.

- Right?

- The arts.

- Well you know... - Not art, the arts.

- The arts, but you know Nikki is like such a phenomenal woman.

She toured Northern Italy as a young adult in a choir, she left Chicago when she was...

Early twenties and went out to LA to pursue her dream and passion of acting and I mean... Just, she's so worldly, you know what I mean?

And I'll be honest with you, 10% of our success so far is because of me, 90% is because of Nikki.

- Yeah.

- 'Cause she is amazing.

- She is amazing.

She's done a great job, but your vision's there, I mean, you have that vision.

- Yeah, we work well together.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

- We work well together.

- So I love...

I read something about you and I love this... How it was put.

From a business standpoint, you want to help people or teach individuals to monetize their talents.

- Right, right.

- To monetize their talents.

So it doesn't matter what the talent is.

- It doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't.

And...

So... That was the impetus for me when I was in prison.

'Cause I...

I put a painting in the visiting room, we could put paintings in the visiting room and if anybody bought them... We would get the money.

And so I just had the audacity to put $500 on a painting only because I didn't wanna sell it.

Because at the time I was literally selling paintings for cartons of cigarettes, and lo and behold, somebody bought it.

- Wow.

- And I said to myself, "Man, if I can sell a painting once in prison for $500, I can do that every week."

And that was... That was my motto.

I said, "When I come out of prison, my objective is to sell a painting every week for $500."

And... That obviously got better and better and better, but it was really...

It was a way that I could have 100% control of my fate, and if I sold the painting, it would be because of the effort that I put forth, if I didn't sell a painting, it would be because I didn't put forth that effort.

And so now...

I've kind of mastered that.

I've taken this off the beaten track approach to being an artist and an entrepreneur.

In fact I could probably even teach a class in that.

But...

It's looking for opportunities in places that they don't... You don't normally think that they exist.

And the same thing with Nikki, she was an actress and she did this one woman play and she didn't have much success with it, and I said, "Let me show you how we're going to do this."

So I literally produced her play, we rented out the Royal George Theatre in Chicago for one night, it sat maybe 350 people, we sold maybe 450 tickets.

And in one night, we probably cleared about 10 or $15,000.

On just that... We had standing room only in the audience, and I was saying, "This is how you do it," instead of knocking on somebody's door saying, "Can you do this for me?"

Let's figure out how we can do it for ourselves.

And this is a skill that's teachable.

- And it's a business.

- And it's a business.

- Yeah, and so back to Greeley real quick, you know what's interesting?

Is you see these buildings, you see old schools, you see old buildings all the time and they just sit there sometimes.

- Right?

- You not only had the vision, but you had the... You've put in the sweat equity to fix this up.

Give some examples 'cause this is actually one of the coolest parts of your story is how you've made this building what it is today.

- Well, it is not as complicated as it seems only because of this, over the past 25 years, I've had galleries, I've had six different galleries, and every time I went into a gallery it was just an empty box, and I would have to build it out.

And because in the beginning I couldn't afford to pay anybody to do it, I had to teach myself these skills.

Which were... light carpentry, light electricity, light plumbing, so I was pretty hands-on, but each facility was bigger and bigger and bigger.

And so... By the time I got to Greeley...

The last facility was on Sheridan and it's 15,000 square feet.

The one before that was 4,000 and the one before that was 2000 and the one before that was 1200.

- What is this one?

60 or 70?

- This was 50,000.

- Oh, wow.

- But if you think, to go from a 4,000 square feet facility to a 15,000 is not much different than to go from a 15 to a 50.

- Okay.

- So it was...

It was baby steps.

And people catch me at the end of 20 years and they think I've done something incredible but it's just a steady progression.

And that's what really made it possible, was to be able to come in there, and then another thing too, is that I'm an artist, and as an artist, I've exhibited my work in every kind of venue you can imagine.

- That's true, yeah.

- You know what I'm saying?

So I've literally had art shows in garages, and I've seen how art can transform some of the scariest and the ugliest places.

So I knew that at the very least when I put art on the wall, that's gonna be a transformation all of itself.

And... We had the foresight to know that because it was 50,000 square feet we needed to get a lot of stuff in there.

- Yeah.

- So we started buying stuff from the department stores when they went out of business.

- Yeah.

- And... We stocked all that up in Sheridan, so when we opened the doors to Greeley and you walked in, it didn't look like we just got it.

- Right.

- We made it look like we had been there for years, and I think that probably gave us a vote of confidence with the community more than anything else.

And then when we slapped those murals on outside, and slapped some paint on the building, that went a long way too.

- Well I think it...

The community piece is important but I think the story and the initiative of helping kids and helping community.

- That's the biggest thing.

It's the biggest thing.

- It's the mission.

- Right, it is.

- It's a mission.

- And the sacrifice... To sacrifice for others is important.

And that's what... We have committed our lives to this, we know that this is something that we're gonna spend the rest of our life doing.

And it's not... For us it's not a joke, it's not a punchline.

- It's a business.

- It's not even a business.

- Okay.

- It's like...

I feel like... - A calling?

- It's a calling.

- Okay.

- It is a calling.

- All right.

- You know what I'm saying?

Like, this is not a business that I would choose to go into.

You know what I'm saying?

You have to be committed to this beyond a monetary value, because at the end of the day, nonprofits are not money makers.

- Right.

- You know what I'm saying?

So it's...

I mean, I can think of a ton of other businesses that if it was about the money that we could be doing.

- Right.

- So it's not about the money.

- Well, yeah, when I said business, I... You have to run it like a business.

- Yeah, you have to run it like a business.

- It's not something that you're going to...

In the goals hind become a millionaire or something on.

- Right.

- But the goal is people.

- It's people, man.

It's people.

And...

When a kid comes in there and their eyes like light up, it's like, man what is that worth?

When I took these kids that I just took to New York with me and I saw how they responded on this trip, it's like, man, you couldn't pay me for that feeling.

- Do you mind telling that story?

I mean, that's a cool story.

- Yeah, no, absolutely.

So...

I'm out in front of the school, working another day and a couple of guys walked by...

They looked like they were up to no good.

And so I just pulled them to the side and talked to them and trying to see where they were at, and they would say they wanted to find a job, they weren't looking really but they just wanted to find a job through osmosis, I guess.

(both laughing) And I was just happening to be going to New York the following week, and I just had this crazy idea, "Why don't you guys come with me?"

"You can make a few dollars and you can see something that you've never seen before."

And they were like agreeable to it, and I went to their...

The one guy lived with his uncle, I went to his uncle, another guy lived with his mother, and you know after... Assuring them that their kids were in good hands, we pulled it off and I took them to New York.

And then we went to some nice restaurants, we went to... On Times Square.

They've taken pictures and videos on Times Square and like, when I first saw these kids, they looked like the same little kid I saw in that prison.

- Wow.

- And when I got them into New York, you know what they look like?

- Kids.

- Little kids.

- Yup.

- Little kids.

And boy that's...

I mean, what is that worth, Matt?

- A million dollars.

- You know what I'm saying?

- Yeah.

You can't put a number on it.

- You can't put a price on that.

- No you can't, I mean that... - You can't put a price on that.

That's the changing lives and saving lives piece that ART Inc and others do, but that's the goal.

- That's it.

- Right.

- That's it, man.

- But you still have to stay in business.

- Yeah, you have to stay in business.

- And so you still have to sell art.

- Right.

And you still have fundraising.

- Right.

You still have...

There's grant opportunities.

- Right.

- So you still have to do those internal controls, those things that run a business.

- Well one of the things that we were... We were pretty savvy about when we...

When we stepped into this space was that we knew we didn't know anything.

- Right.

- And so if you don't know anything, surround yourself around people that do.

And so our first objective was to figure out who knew how to do this thing that we were trying to do.

And man, we clung onto them like white on rice.

I mean, you and I...

I mean I call you every time I have a question, we sit down and have lunch and...

I'm picking your brains, I'm seeking advice from you.

- But many...

There's many people you call.

- It's a lot of people.

It's a lot of people man.

- Because people wanna help.

- Yes it's a lot of people.

I talked to McFarland Bragg at PCCEO, I would say, "Mack, I need your help," and he put me on a board of PCCEO so that I can get a firsthand experience on how that works.

Nikki is on the board of United Way, you know what I'm saying?

So we just surrounded ourselves around like-minded people who also understand that the ultimate objective is to save as many of these children's lives as possible.

And so... From the knowledge perspective we just had a lot of help, man, we really did.

- Yeah.

- And... Another thing too, and I don't wanna take away this, over the last 25 years, I've built an incredible network base of people that when we set out to do this, I mean, I literally went to one of my friends, and said what we were doing, and I wanted them to write me a check, and they said, "How much?"

And I was aggressive, I said, "Give me 10 grand."

And she literally said to me, "You know, I woke up with 12 on my mind this morning," and wrote a check for $12,000.

- That's awesome.

- You know what I'm saying?

We had...

I mean we've had several people give us $10,000, $5,000, in the beginning when it was extremely crucial.

Because that was the seed capital that we needed to do some of the heavy lifting.

- And the confidence.

- Absolutely.

- I mean, the confidence is key because there's ups and downs when you're starting a business.

- It is, it is.

- And you've got a lot on your mind because there's... You wanna to do 50 different things, right?

- Right.

- So when you look at your art do you have one piece and maybe that piece is that piece in prison that you put out there as $500, but do you have one piece that you've done where you say, "Man, I just love that."

I... - Yeah...

I'd say all of them are like that.

It's like this, right?

When I do a new piece, it becomes that piece.

- Okay.

- You know what I'm saying?

- Yeah, that's cool.

- And then the next piece becomes that piece, and then the next piece becomes that piece.

- But as someone who buys art, that's not how... How you look at it.

- Right, right, right.

But for me, all of my paintings are like my children.

- Okay.

- You know what I'm saying?

- Yeah, so If you go by Greeley right now, and I'm asking everybody to drive by 'cause the building is so cool, but you've put these murals up.

- Right - And there's a couple of those murals that those are my favorite pieces, they're actual pieces you did, and then... - Blew them up.

- But you transformed the... You blew them up.

And so those are my favorite pieces and I think it's pretty cool how you and Nikki are taking this and just in the beginning stages.

- Yeah, yeah.

I think we made some extremely smart choices from the very beginning... Understanding that we didn't wanna get in over our head and choices that allowed us to pace ourselves which became like...

I mean like a Nostradamus effect when COVID hit.

And one of those things was to buy the building straight out.

- Yeah.

- We didn't take out a loan for anything.

And so that the very worst case scenario, we would just be on a standstill, but it just turned out that we we were able to grow even during this period.

But we didn't feel the pain because we didn't overextend ourselves.

- There's a lesson there.

There's a lesson in all business right there.

- Yeah.

- So what can we do as community members in all middle Illinois to do better?

Coming out of COVID, what can every viewer do to do better for their community?

- I think it starts with stepping outside of ourselves and not looking at whatever pain that we're experiencing and to start looking at what pain others are experiencing.

- Well said.

- When you start reaching to help others, like whatever you're going through seems like it's less.

And so I think we just have to be more empathetic and understanding of other people's plights, and to just get in there and get dirty wherever you can.

It's not everybody's calling to buy a school building, but anybody can go and help deliver some meals at a homeless shelter, anybody can...

I mean there's so many things that people can do instead of looking in on what's affecting them.

Just let's just start helping your fellow man.

I read a book once, it was called, "The World's Greatest Salesman."

And the key to being a great salesman, according to this guy was... and he had some Latin term, some tershia, some... Something like that, but it...

It essentially said, "I am third."

If you keep God first in your life, the other man second and yourself third, you'll be all right.

- That's pretty strong words.

Well I...

I just wanna tell you, you and Nikki have done an unbelievable job.

- Thank you.

- The communities behind you, Middle Illinois is behind you.

It's a great place to live, isn't it?

- It is man, it is.

- We get this... - We have to make it a great place.

- We have to make it a great place and I think it's working together.

- Yeah.

- Putting our differences aside, I think that's... - Right.

- Moving out of COVID.

- Yeah.

- It's gotta be a focus, right?

- It does.

- Well, tell Nikki, we said, "Great job."

I know she's gonna watch this here and we appreciate everything that you do for the community and Nikki.

So keep caring about our community and keep helping those kids.

- We feel the same way about you, Matt.

We really do.

- I appreciate.

So, well thank you, Jonathon .

Jonathon Romain of ART Inc.

I'm Matt George and this is another episode of "Business Forward."

(upbeat music playing)