I have been trying to conceive of a new business model for CRADLE, one that be sustainable and unplug as much as possible from the grant-addicted non-profit mode’. It is expressed in the equation in the subject line: (Netflix + YouTube) / (time = money). Breathe, mathphobics — it will be OK.

1. Netflix: Netflix is a great model. Pay a monthly fee rather than buying tickets. Make this fee reasonable, and provide a family package that can be used by anyone in the family. But the important part of the Netflix model is variety: there needs to be a lot of different options.

The problem is that even a company of ten artists can’t create enough content to provide enough variety, especially in our current 4 – 6 week rehearsal traditions. One need only look at ACT, which is a big theatre, but it can only itself provide a few options, which is why it is beginning to partner with other organizations. This is where YouTube comes in.

2. YouTube: the artistic staff of a CRADLE organization has two functions: 1) create their own work, and 2) facilitate the work of others. The first function is necessary, otherwise why would any trained artists want to devote their time? The second function, however, is what provides the variety necessary. So in addition to the performances by the artists, there are performances by people in the community. Maybe there is a dance troupe that needs a place to perform: they’re in; maybe there are some storytellers or comedians who need a venue: they’re in; maybe there is a community choir who wants to sing: they’re in. The possibilities are endless: lectures, classes, meetings, displays of art, quilting or knitting groups, political meetings, improv or No Shame theatre events, dance classes, music lessons. Have a coffee house or bar where people can hang out.  The goal is to keep the space humming with activity, beacuse ultimately the priority is the creation of community, or what Robert Putnam calls social capital — face-to-face interaction. And your monthly membership fee gets you into everything free of charge. And yes, this means that everything needs to be created lightly: no monster sets for the productions — they need to come down, possibly after each performance (see my description of Sir Peter Hall’s Old Vic company, as well as Virginia Tech’s experiments with a system they called RALPH).

And like YouTube, the “quality” of these events will vary, and that’s OK. The artistic staff’s job is not to serve as gatekeepers, but rather to encourage community creativity and to provide as much variety as possible. The artists can lead through their own work, of course, providing things to aspire to. And they can (and should) help improve skills through teaching as well as facilitation. But if you buy a monthly membership, you are buying a chance to be a creator.

3. (Time = Money): But will there be an audience for all these events? After all, the long tail Chris Anderson described in a book by the same name means that there are some things that are only of interest to a few people. There are a lot of unwatched YouTube videos. Again, attendance is irrelevant, because what is being purchased are the options.

However, if your goal is to get as many people spending face-to-face time together as possible, if you want people to try out a variety of arts events, then there needs to be a little extra motivation. After all, we are all pretty content at home, and have lots of entertainment options there. Getting in the car and driving someplace requires a little push. That’s where (time = money) comes in.

Let’s say you buy a monthly subscription for $40, and you get a membership card that resembles a credit card with a swipe area. When you attend an event, your card gets swiped, and it is recorded in a database. Here’s the key: each time you attend an event or hang out in the coffee shop for an hour or more, a certain amount is subtracted from your next month’s fee. So if I come home from work and that night there is a choir concert, and I’m not totally certain that it really is something I want to do, but I’m sort of interested — the fact that it will subtract money from next month’s bill just might provide the little boost I need to get away from Kate and John and head over to the theatre. I might be willing to take risks I wouldn’t normally take if my time will not be wasted, but will be credited toward the future. So the result might be to create an atmosphere where risk is encouraged — or at least not discouraged. (P.S. I stole this idea from Chris Anderson’s Free: the Future of a Radical Price. He described a  Danish health club that charged members only when they didn’t work out once a week. The motivation of members was completely changed.)

Oh, and if you provide an event, it is an automatic full reduction for the next month for everybody involved.

But what if everybody kept coming to see things? How would you pay for the next month’s rent and salaries? Good question. First, members will always have to pay a small monthly fee no matter how much they attend — membership should never be completely free. The gap between what they pay and full price, which is necessary to keep the operation going, is paid by sponsors and advertisers. A sponsor might subsidize 25 members each month, and in exchange they get some sort of advertising option (and I don’t mean an ad in the program — how many of those ads do you actually look at?). A local government might sponsor some memberships in the interest of promoting community building. A foundation might do so out of an interest in the arts, or an individual might sponsor one or two a month just out of the goodness of their heart. A local business (and I think all advertisers need to be local businesses, not chains or multinational corporations) would sponsor because they want to reach the community. The difference is that they pay more the more people attend, so you are selling access to guaranteed eyes. In the traditional model, an advertiser buys space in the program for the same price no matter how many people actually attend; in this model, it is a sliding scale according to attendance.

I know this is a different way of thinking about the arts, and I’m certain that the model can be improved with the suggestions of others. But as a starting point, it accomplishes several things: 1) it gives full-time work to a core number of artists (the size would vary according to the number of memberships); 2) it encourages arts attendance by providing an extrinsic motivation in addition to the intrinsic motivation of a specific arts event; 3) it builds community by promoting face-to-face interaction; 4) it encourages local arts — arts by, for, and with the community; 5) it is sustainable.