Wild Open is a not-for-profit collaborative media project. By joining Wild Open you are joining a cause based project that is focused on a small number of foundational principles. Our most important requirement for people to join our team is that we have shared goals and principles. You can read about them in our Statement of Purpose.

Gifting Economy or Getting Paid?

At Wild Open, that’s completely up to you. We’re a cause based not-for-profit so people will be able to contribute in all kinds of ways, including donating content to the network, however not as many creative people are in a position to do that as we would like, so we want to make sure our business model is financially sustainable for our contributors. We want this community to be strong and resilient, so it’s important that our network is well nourished.

Some roles will be volunteer only and will provide an opportunity to receive mentoring and gain experience that could later lead to a paid role, however everything we publish will have the option to receive payment.

We’re Building this Together

From the midyear solstice of 2019 there will be a three month sprint through to the equinox where we’ll be pushing to get Wild Open to a state where it is economically viable.  Once we’ve reached the equinox we’ll make our first payment to our contributors and then make monthly payments after that. Once we can afford a bookkeeper we can start to look at paying more frequently.

Managing Deferred Payment

The contract is been modelled from the deferred payment system often used by independent filmmakers, which means that no debt will be incurred by Wild Open if for some reason we are unable to make enough money to pay people, however as soon as we do make enough money to pay our contributors we are contractually obliged to do so. Our books will be completely transparent to the network so you can see how our progress is going and assess whether further work is a good investment or not.

Fortunately, unlike in the film industry, we are not making a one off product that may or may not get a distribution deal. Thanks to social media we have distribution, and our audience is growing every day. We are also creating a body of work that is not a one off that will either sink or swim and then the project is over, like a film. Instead we are building a channel. We will continue to expand the amount of content we have on our network over time, while at the same time expanding the audience we’re sharing it to. One piece of content may be shared out to our audience many times over the years, and as we grow our audience the amount of sponsorship opportunities is also very likely to increase.

So for those who are interested in getting paid to create content for Wild Open, we are asking you to, in a sense be an investor. By creating content by deferral you are investing your time. The return on the investment is recieving payment for your work as soon as we have enough sponsorship revenue. The other kind of return on investment is the reward of having helped a cause based not-for-profit get off the ground and out into the world. Best of all, if we all get it off the ground so that it’s economically viable, we’ll be able to continue to make income from creating content for the network.

Using the Power of Collaboration to Grow

As a general rule, the more our audience grows, the more sponsors will be interested and the more they will be willing to pay. We have

One of the keys to our growth strategy is the fact that we are designing Wild Open to operate as a network, as a community. As every content creator and team member gets on board, we have another person who is part of the network able to promote the Wild Open content they love to their friends and followers on social media. The more we work collaboratively, the more rapidly the audience will grow and the more quickly people can start getting paid for their content.

If you’re ready to sign up and become content creator or team member, the next step is to simply sign up, so we can learn about what skills and passions you have to offer.