crcls manifesto

We envision a world where people are the basis of events, where individual relationships with collectives are the core driving force behind the way we engage with public expressions of all kind. Illuminating pathways from vision to belonging, empowering every host to create, connect, and thrive within the crcls that matter most.

Current artistic and cultural landscapes are stifled by a capitalist, zero sum framework that prioritizes shareholder profits over community health. This commodification of culture creates a barrier to entry for grassroots movements, where subcultures are focused on survival and forced to compete for resources rather than collaborate. Ultimately preventing the cultures of tomorrow from taking root. Artistic expression is being strangled by rigid, profit driven structures that treat community as a commodity. Because existing tools are built for management instead of participation, local initiatives struggle to turn ideas into experiences, resulting in a world where subcultures wither instead of flourish. crcls is structured as a non profit, driven by a public good model, unlike shareholder based corporations that must prioritize user growth to increase stock value. crcls primary mandate is to lower the cost of organization for everyone in the network. Any potential profit generated by the platform is legally bound to be reinvested into the technology and the collective resource pool. This eliminates the conflict of interest where a platform might otherwise prioritize high fee transactions over genuine community health.

Imagine flourishing subcultures driven by the pop cultural elements of our society, the success of more widely consumed events help create the substrate for subcultures to form and grow, enabling for the cultures of tomorrow. A world where every community can easily come together, self organize, and celebrate what matters most. We see crcls of people, collectives, grassroots movements, festivals, and local initiatives empowered to turn ideas into real experiences, connected by technology that puts community first. crcls builds a regenerative cultural infrastructure, a circular cultural economy, the success of mass market events provide the financial and technical substrate for smaller collectives. This means a portion of the resources, network reach, infrastructure access, and capital generated by pop culture is programmatically reinvested into grassroots movements. Ensuring subcultures are not forced to compete for survival in a zero sum market, but are instead supported by the larger ecosystem they belong to.

The current model of commodification forces the events of today to operate as closed loops, extracting revenue and data into shareholder accounts. Disempowering subcultures from thriving as a result of a zero sum mentality and capitalist framework currently plaguing the artistic expressions of today.

Crcls, driven by a non profit core, is a network of collectives providing each other the platform resources necessary to drive one another. Motivated by sharing art without the need to create value for those with an innate conflict of interest as a result of their shareholder based structures clearly at odds with the collectives innate need to express themselves. Built for participation, not just management, prioritizing empowerment, accessibility, and true community building. Flexible and adaptable for any group structure or ambition from small gathering to festival, from solo vision to collective action. We are entering an era where the traditional framework of growth at any cost is being questioned across all sectors. From ecology to economics, there is a move toward regenerative, non profit, and circular models. crcls applies this shift to culture, by building a network where success fuels the growth of others rather than extracting value for the few, crcls aligns with a global movement toward sustainability and collective empowerment. The current model of cultural commodification is breaking. As a nonprofit e.V., crcls has built-in permanence, we cannot be sold or acquired, pivot to a shareholder model. This isn't a promise, it's law! crcls is structurally incapable of the extraction we critique. We are not offering a shortcut, we are offering a new foundation. Start a crcl, let's prove that a community first approach is not just possible, but necessary!