Episode 14: Stacy Busch | No Divide KC

In this episode of The Pinnacle Pod, we sit down with Stacy Busch—composer, changemaker, and co-founder of No Divide KC. Stacy shares her powerful journey from personal recovery to community transformation, revealing how the arts became her tool for healing and social impact. Through No Divide KC, Stacy is democratizing access to the arts, amplifying underrepresented voices, and building bridges across Kansas City’s diverse communities.

Transcript

Maurice Watson:
Welcome to The Pinnacle Pod, the voice of The Pinnacle Prize, an annual award recognizing and supporting passionate people who are driving positive change in the very fabric of Kansas City. I am Maurice Watson, your host on this conversational journey to meet people leading organizations and movements that make significant change in our community. Join us as we dive into tales of resilience, learn from innovative approaches, and be inspired by the determination of remarkable individuals. In this episode of The Pinnacle Pod, I'm excited to welcome Stacey Busch. Stacey is the executive director and co-founder of No Divide KC, a nonprofit that uses the arts as a vehicle for stimulating social awareness, participation, and community building. She is also a composer whose works have been performed across the country and around the world. Stacey has been recognized for her work in the Kansas City community and beyond by organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, One Beat, The MidAmerica Arts Alliance and the UMKC Women's Council. Stacy, thank you for being here today.

Stacy Busch:
It's a pleasure to be here.

Maurice Watson:
Let's begin by having you tell us about your background and how you took your experiences and channeled it into No Divide KC.

Stacy Busch:
Community saved my life, and a lot of people say that, and it's kind of a nice catchall phrase, but it truly did. I grew up as an athlete and really believed in this individualistic approach to life where you work harder than everybody else and you practice one thing that you should do for the rest of your life, and you become really excellent at it. And then with that comes success. And um, as long as you dedicate yourself to that completely, then your dreams will come true. And that individualistic approach failed. You know, I ran myself into the ground and I had a lot of really challenging times right when I was finishing high school and I started struggling with alcohol and drug addiction at a young age and really lost my way. It destroyed much of my life. I dropped out of college and it was a truly humbling experience and took away a lot of my thoughts about how the world is structured and what you're supposed to get out of the world, particularly when I entered recovery and found that the people that truly nursed me back to health, that made me change my life, where I saw miracles actually happening, people getting better, myself, getting better. It was just a room full of people nodding their heads saying that they've been through what I've been through, and I listened to them. And through that experience, it was truly life changing. And that was 13 years ago, now. When I think of that young girl looking in that room, at that time, I just would not have been able to imagine any life, let alone this life that I have had now. And it's thanks to regular people that I would not normally meet in a, you know, normal setting, talking to me and offering their love and support to me for nothing in return. And that truly developed my perspective on life, that we are not alone, that no one is a lone wolf. That this is a network of support and that community efforts and community healing is the strongest and, uh, most important aspect of our lives together.

Maurice Watson:
So, tell us a little bit more about how that experience that you've just described informed how you formed No Divide KC and the mission of No Divide KC, the animating principles behind the organization. You know, what it stands for, why you do what you do, and how you do what you do.

Stacy Busch:
Sure. So, at the same time that I was in recovery, I was also moving to Kansas City and pursuing my master's degree in in Music. And this was all culminating in 2016 where there was a presidential election that year, if you remember. And -

Maurice Watson:
We all do.

Stacy Busch:
Yes. And the rhetoric that was happening at the time and ultimately the results of that election compared to what I was experiencing in my life, which was this incredible recovery and resistance and resilience in community spaces that have no funding, no support, and you know, such great work being done in that area led me to create something that was in that image, a passing of the mic, that I could give what Kansas City gave to me back to the community, which was a support, a being able to show up when you're not at your best, a place where people nod their heads and welcome you no matter what stage of life you may be in. And I do that through the arts, which is my own practice. My partner is also English-language learner instructor. And so, our first event was a benefit concert where all of the funds went to immigrant and refugee populations along with the L-G-B-T-Q community. And that event was called No Divide. And we, it was not intentional that we were going to start an organization or have any dreams of what the organization is right now. It was just a grassroots coming together. And from that, we are where we are now, which is at a much different structural place and where we're making much greater change.

Maurice Watson:
No Divide has had the opportunity to partner with many local organizations. What have you learned from your community partners and how has that impacted how you manage No Divide?

Stacy Busch:
There's so many organizations in Kansas City, and the first element of No Divide in our mission statement is partnership. And the reason why partnership is in our mission statement is because we're still a young organization. We know that organizations have been in these areas in the community working for far longer than we have. And No Divide has always been positioned in a place where we are listening, where we are being flexible, adapting to what elders and what people in the community have been doing for far longer than we have. And coming in to fill necessary gaps within all of that already. So partnership is integral because we know of the work that other people are doing, and we wanna bridge the gaps between kind of siloing within nonprofit sector, within the art sector, within our community sectors. And then it's also, you know, something that I've noticed within all of our organizations that there's, we're in survival mode, almost everyone is in survival mode. And when I'm thinking about how to structure an organization, I have tried to learn the lessons of how do we avoid burnout? How do we avoid the survivor mentality that is thrust upon us because of lack of resources, of course, but it is in terms of management looking forward and seeing how do we plan structurally to make changes into our organization where we can have an organization, an arts organization that lasts beyond 10 years, that after its 10 year anniversary, is actually creating a larger impact than it was before. And that stands, the test of time in the Kansas City community actually grows and impact over the decades.

Maurice Watson:
So you've talked about the fact that many organizations like yours have struggled, especially in these times regarding the constraints on funding, especially the lack of support from the government and state and federal levels for organizations like yours. What are some of the strategies that you hope your organization and others like you will be able to deploy in order to ensure your survival? You mentioned something about the need for, uh, organizations like yours that really evolve and grow from nothing. How do you ensure that survival for, you know, 10 years or more that you just referenced?

Stacy Busch:
Well, first of all, it's not necessarily all bad news. I do think that there's an upside, which is that as our institutions are breaking and as they're failing us, the result needs to be that we're focusing on smaller local organizations and networks that have agility, that have more accessibility to the people that they serve. Thinking of healthcare in particular, and the arts, I I consider parts part of healthcare. And so smaller organizations that have trust within the communities that they serve, that have a greater accessibility within the communities that they serve. This is what people really need right now in this time as our larger institutions are failing to provide the services that we all need. So there is definitely a shift that No Divide is positioned in that I think is important for all of us as we kind of function into the next, you know, years in this modern life that we have in this country. So it's not all bad. I think it's also we need to reduce the barriers between each other and release this kind of scarcity mindset, which is not a fault that, that it is there, that we have to address it and realize that a rising tide raises all sails.

Maurice Watson:
Have you been able to broaden or diversify your funding sources?

Stacy Busch:
So this is a great question and yes. Okay. So, we've lost funding. You know, we've lost national funding, we've lost state funding. Of course we have based on the demographics we serve. Our goal and what I see is that people are rising to the occasion. So yes, a diversification in funding sources is critical. It's not just about grant funds, it's not just about corporate sponsorships as they're kind of moving away from some of those goals. It's also not just about community raising either, because everyone's pockets are tight too, but it is a much more diverse pie chart. And those fractions are all smaller, but there's more of them. And I do think that those opportunities are happening out of necessity more than anything.

Maurice Watson:
I understand that you devoted more than half of your budget to paying artist fees for programming. How important is it to you to support artists financially?

Stacy Busch:
Okay, it's a big question and it seems like a, a simple question, but I don't think it is, and I spend all my time thinking about this. There's a micro and there's a macro answer. The micro answer is that it sums up to be support local businesses, just as I mentioned about third spaces, about smaller spaces as institutions fail, artists are an integral and essential part of every single community. It's an intentional and important part of a healthy life and healthy community. So it's support local businesses. The macro is looking at arts from a much larger perspective than we are, than we currently do. The arts changes humanity, it pushes humanity forward. It is not a outlet that improves convenience or efficiency in our modern life as we see modern life getting advanced very, very quickly, far more quickly than our own humanity advances. And I think we're seeing some of the serious structural issues and people in power that are facing these issues. And so the arts has the impact to change internal structures that have been cyclical problems and individuals and societies for generations and generations. And if we change that, then we're able to change massive parts of our society on the external level. And so we have to stop thinking about the arts as something that's entertainment, that's something that's nice to have. The arts are what pushes our humanity, our modern life forward in order to catch up to the advancements in technology and all of the features that we have in our modern life. So it is essential to provide funding and to support the arts for that reason.

Maurice Watson:
So, underrepresented artists and their stories are often marginalized or pushed to the sidelines. What does No Divide do to bring them to the forefront? And what do you do in order to ensure that the community is as committed to supporting underrepresented artists in their work as No Divide KC and you are personally?

Stacy Busch:
Sure. Well, I actually think, you know, in terms of the community, people want to support artists in the community. I actually don't think that that's one of the issues. People wanna go see a show. People want to go to the opera and to the ballet and to the music venue. They just can't. And so that is one problem that we're trying to solve. So I think the community already yearns to have an arts practice that is available, that is affordable, and that the art actually is confronting what we're all dealing with on a day-to-day basis. You know, rather than playing the symphony from 200 years ago, again, we actually make art that is based on what's happening today. And in that way people heal from it.

Maurice Watson:
What do you view as some of the barriers or the impediments to people engaging or attending or participating in arts productions?

Stacy Busch:
Well of course there's a, there's a certain privilege that is already stuck to some of the higher arts and no Divide works to break that down. We work to break that down tangibly with, you know, donation based events and we pay all the artists and things like that. However, we have on a larger structure, again, we have to kind of redefine what artistic excellence is because artistic excellence, just like anything else, is so codified that it is, it is part of privilege that being, having artistic excellence also means that that artist has privilege. And we need to separate that and we need to broaden our minds into what artistic excellence actually is, what it looks like, how it appears in our daily lives. Once we start to do that, then we are, we see a greater pool of artists being able to work and reflect different experiences.

Maurice Watson:
It sounds to me that your mission in life is to democratize access to the arts, to make, to make arts in many different forms accessible to all.

Stacy Busch:
I think that's fair, and I also think it's my mission in life is to improve humanity and the way that we improve humanity, I firmly believe, the strongest method we have is an artistic element.

Maurice Watson:
As an artist yourself, what inspires your work and how has that changed since you started No Divide?

Stacy Busch:
My work started. I, I did not study music and I wound up in an academic environment. I have a master's degree in music composition. And, and I found myself a little bit not in line with some of the cultures in that environment. And that led me to No Divide and it also led me to kind of work towards creating art that was a little more holistic, that was a little more based on collaboration, on understanding how people are behaving, how they feel, how we feel as a part of a community, and to kind of break down some elements that are kind of cerebral, academic, intellectual, in the concert space. So that's something that really inspires me within my own work. And recently I've been really getting into science and particularly quantum physics and the relationship with music and art. And I just wanna leave you with a quote from Stephen Hawking who said “that there must be some type of fire that breathes life into an equation.” And so it seems to me there must be something to the universe beyond mathematics. And to me, this is Stephen Hawking telling us that art exists. And it is, it fuels our life, our consciousness, our universe. And if we put more resources towards it, if we geared ourselves, angled ourselves more towards in that direction, I think not only will our, our own personal selves improve, but I think our whole society would improve too.

Maurice Watson:
Stacy, you and the work you do certainly will fascinate our audience as they learn more about you and your organization, No Divide KC. How can people connect with you? How can they find out more about you, your work, and how some of our listeners may support your work?

Stacy Busch:
Please visit know nodividekc.org, follow us on social media at No Divide KC, and of course, my name is Stacy Busch. Please get in touch with me in all of your regular ways of getting in touch.

Maurice Watson:
Thanks very much, Stacy, for spending the day with us. And thanks to our listeners. The Pinnacle Prize believes in the power of one person sparking collective change. If you enjoy hearing directly from leaders pushing Kansas City Forward, please share this episode with your friends and family. To learn more about people creating change in our community, follow the Pinnacle Prize on LinkedIn. Check out previous Pinnacle Pod episodes and sign up for our newsletter at pinnacleprizekc.org.