Save Artists' Global Environment (SAGE)

On a quarterly basis, SAGE will find between two and four artists from a selected country. These countries will include those with rich and varied cultural assets such as India, Brazil and Uganda. We will purchase, in total, between 5 and 10 paintings from the selected artists. Each purchase will be followed by an interview with the artist and research on the community. Based on our subscription level and projected sales, we will make prints out of the paintings and send them to our subscribers. In addition, we will create educational materials including videos and audio that tell the artist’s story. These materials will be distributed online as well as in a physical form along with the prints. To complete our cycle, we will reinvest the profits from our venture back to the artist, and to arts-related social enterprises in the community. We will partner with local NGOs to identify appropriate reinvestment opportunities. Customers can become members of SAGE on two levels — Premium: 4 prints a year (once per quarter), or Standard: 1 print a year. We will also allow customers to make a one-time purchase of prints without becoming members. At this time, we estimate the costs will run at $160 for a yearly premium membership and $50 for a standard membership. Individual prints will cost $60. Additionally, after we have profiled an artist, we will create an ongoing online marketplace for his (or her) actual paintings, so that he (or she) can have an ongoing online access to global markets.

Our model creates a multiplier effect — by leveraging the income that we earn from the sales of prints into social enterprise investments, SAGE will yield an even higher financial and social return. Investing into one painting could potentially educate or feed a whole village. Within five years we hope to have built a yearly subscriber base of 10,000 customers yielding revenues of nearly a half million dollars, support fifty artists, and have invested into 20 community projects.

Amongst our subscribers, we segment our product into two large groups: private individuals, and organizations. Our private individual customers are socially aware citizens who are concerned with the global issues. They are art lovers who like their homes and offices to be interesting and dynamic places however they find that original works of art may be too expensive, and the selection offered in print shops are overplayed. They may also have children, and care to teach them about world culture and arts. Furthermore, they are probably busy and would benefit from transacting online. The US-based customers in this segment are likely to shop at Trader Joes, Whole Foods, and REI, and listen to NPR. To get a rough sense of what this market size might be we can imagine that 10% of NPR’s 22 million weekly listeners would be interested in our product, yielding 2.2 million potential US-based customers. If we are able to reach 5% of these people, we have a potential base of over 100,000.

SAGE will also heavily target organizations that have public spaces. Public spaces often display artwork, need frequent turnover, and must exert effort to find new works. SAGE will solve this problem by offering them a new selection, sent to their door, every quarter. Specifically, these groups include corporate lobbies, doctor offices, educational institutions, and public administration buildings. This segment would benefit from having a quarterly rotation of artwork in their public spaces, and would socially benefit from signaling their commitment to social good.

There are a number of market players who sell prints, and others who sell fair-trade art from developing nations. However neither combines prints, unique product selection, fair-trade, subscription, reinvestment, and storytelling, as we will. Through a combination of art, text, audio, and video, we hope to give our customers a truly unique experience of both the art and the artist.

To organize funding for our venture we have entered the MIT 50K, and the Harvard Business School business plan contests. Furthermore, we will leverage our personal contacts with foundations and wealthy individuals to secure funding.

Assuming that 1 in every 100,000 people is a talented artist with no market access, we estimate that there are at least 300,000 underserved artists in developing countries. The artists we serve will gain access to markets, both through our print subscriptions, and sales for their original pieces. Through the income generate through our service, they will be able to continue their craft with more economic security, and alleviation from poverty. In 3 years we will have supported 36 artists, and within 10 year we will have supported 120 artists. As these artists will be able to continue their craft with economic security, they also will be more capable of passing on their knowledge to those who come after them, preserving cultural heritage.

In addition, the community where the artist lives will benefit from our reinvestment initiatives. Though we will share a percentage of the profits with the artist, we will also invest into arts-related social enterprise projects (possibly also acting as a market access for these projects) in the artists’ community. There is a tremendous opportunity to make modest, well-targeted investments in social-enterprises in the artists’ communities that will yield high social and economic value. Microfinance institutions claim up to 97% percent payback of investments that lead to job creation and reduce poverty. We will partner with NGOs to make high-return social and economic investments that either generate income for local community members, or social projects focusing on the arts and education. Thus our model creates a multiplier effect where our profits are multiplied into community benefit. Over the first 3 years, we will invest in 12 community projects, and over 10 years, we will have invested in 40 projects.