Charlotte Is Creative co-founder steps back after a stroke, looks to what’s next

For many people in the city’s arts community, Tim Miner is synonymous with the Charlotte Is Creative arts networking nonprofit he co-founded. Over a decade, he helped cultivate an organization that supports creative expression.

He also put in long hours to run programs and grants. In December, Miner had a stroke in his sleep. He went back to work two weeks later, eventually taking a sabbatical to focus on healing.

In June, the 52-year-old announced his departure from his role as chief creative officer at Charlotte Is Creative.

“I have a lot to give the world, and I have really great passion and good ideas,” Miner said. “But that job — I can’t ever give it less than my whole self.”

How CreativeMornings was born in Charlotte

Miner first met Matt Olin at Charlotte Catholic High School. Over three decades, the duo went from play castmates to college roommates to ultimately founding Charlotte Is Creative in 2018.

Olin had moved to New York City to produce plays, and Miner was the director of marketing for Charlotte’s Brixx Wood Fired Pizza + Craft Bar.

After Olin moved back to his home city in 2013, he wanted to start a Charlotte chapter of CreativeMornings — a program where creative people gather monthly for a talk in the morning. Once he secured the bid, Olin reached out to Miner to hear his thoughts on what to do with the program.

“We wanted it to be a very joyful meeting to start the month out, but that also challenged the system a little bit,” Miner said.

As they put together the November 2015 event meant to encourage creatives to discuss challenges they faced, the collaborators didn’t know how many people would attend. Miner guessed around 35. Olin thought maybe 75.

Over 140 Charlotteans showed up. Miner said the plan was just to keep the monthly meetings going. “But very rapidly we began to realize that we had caught lightning in a bottle,” Miner said.

The #CharlotteIsCreative hashtag was born, and soon, so was the expanded nonprofit.

Building community during COVID

After balancing two time-consuming roles, Miner left his full-time marketing job at the end of 2018 to invest his energy in Charlotte Is Creative.

“It just kind of exploded and went from a 10-hour week avocation to an 80-hour week vocation, and running to catch up,” he said. “It really became a privilege and an honor to kind of represent the creative community that way.”

During the COVID pandemic, Miner said there was a gap in the market for creative people to express themselves, and companies were investing in organizations that united people.

“So the pandemic, whereas it was really hard for a lot of people, it kind of saved us as an organization,” he said.

Among their initiatives, the nonprofit’s leaders have established the HUG, or Helpful Unfettered Gift, Micro-Grant, distributing almost 700 awards of $250, and the Creative Entrepreneurs Initiative gifting small business skill classes and $1,500 stipends to creatives.

The organization also managed the city of Charlotte’s 2024 Opportunity Fund and 2025 Creative Growth Grants.

Miner said Charlotte Is Creative is open to people who work in creative fields and those who don’t think of themselves as artists.

Leaving Charlotte Is Creative

When Olin lost his mother in the fall of 2025, he took time off. Miner felt even more pressure than usual. Right when Olin was coming back to work, Miner had the stroke.

“It wasn’t the reason, but it was the catalyst,” he said.

The stroke was triggered by high blood pressure and made worse by untreated sleep apnea, causing Miner to stop breathing. Doctors said the lack of blood flow made a small spot in the front left hemisphere of his brain inactive, but those functions could rewire to another region over time.

Miner was told it would take four to six months to heal, and he chose to start working again after two weeks. He got tired easily when thinking about problems at work and his handwriting was impaired.

“I was messed up for a while, and I was the last person to realize it,” Miner said.

In February, his wife Kim and two adult daughters convinced him to take time off. Two months into his break, he realized it wasn’t sustainable to return to the same role.

“I felt like it was time for me to take on a new challenge, because I just don’t think with that job I could give it any less than 80 hours a week,” he said. “And that wasn’t going to work with the new lease on life that I had.”

When he posted an announcement about stepping back on Instagram and LinkedIn, he received over 200 comments of gratitude and well wishes across the platforms.

A new chapter of nonprofit work in Charlotte

As Miner decides his next career move, he is working with other organizations including Feeding Charlotte, and is a board member of the Charlotte-based nonprofits Our Daily Bread Foundation and Borrowed Hope Foundation.

He said he is looking for a position to help nonprofits and for-profit companies organize events and evaluate their public image.

Although Miner is no longer in his primary leadership position at Charlotte Is Creative, he is staying involved, co-hosting CreativeMornings meetings with Olin. Miner lost his mother Pat early this year, and her trust will be the main financier of the HUG Micro-Grant program that he will administrate, as well.

The CreativeMornings hashtag from 2015 has turned into an organization with an Instagram account, @cltiscreative, that has over 46,800 followers. The name was intentional.

“It wasn’t meant to look back. It wasn’t meant to be reflexive, and it wasn’t aspirational,” Miner said. “It was a statement of now: that Charlotte is a creative place.”

Miner has dedicated his career to spreading that message, and he doesn’t plan to stop any time soon.