ROOT is a relationship between a work of art and the community that supported it. To root a project is to plant it in community and grow from that ground, not pulled up out of it. A rooted work is owned by its makers, funded by its community, and sustained, always, in reciprocity, its earnings flowing back to nurture the ground that grew it.
ROOT is a project of The Starfish Foundation and Number 0, with lead support from the Doris Duke Foundation.
ROOT is a free set of tools for artists to raise money from the people who already believe in what they do, pay themselves and their collaborators, release the work directly to that community, and put a share of what it earns back into the next project.
Think of a gallery's studio account. Galleries used to front artists a budget to build a new work against future sales, and replenished it when the work sold. That kept artists working, until mid-sized galleries disappeared, absorbed by mega galleries or gone altogether, the art world's version of disappearing development funds for filmmakers, advances for writers, and commissions for performing artists.
ROOT is a way for artists to build their own studio accounts. We call them ponds. Your practice runs it, filled by your community instead of a gallery, and replenished directly from what the work earns. You do the work you're already doing, keep your community, and get the upside:
You raise small amounts of money from the people who already believe in what you do.
That money allows you to pay yourself and your collaborators, more than shrinking budgets can afford, and hire the assistants you'd otherwise cut, all from the pond.
When the work is released to the public, you commit to offering it, or a piece of it, directly to your community for a price. This does not mean that the work can't be shown, licensed, or sold elsewhere. The direct channel is the commitment, and it stays open as a way to share value with your core collaborators and replenish your pond.
What flows through this channel splits automatically with your key collaborators. You set the terms: the split, the refill rate, what counts as earning, all set before a dollar comes in, based on terms your collaborators agree to, and can renegotiate together as the work evolves. A share goes to you and your collaborators. A share flows back into the pond, for the next project.
ROOT doesn't do the work for you, and it doesn't raise money for you. Keeping a practice alive is work, and the ask will always be yours to make. It doesn't make your community bigger than it already is either, a pond holds what your people put into it. What it removes is everything else: the platform fees, the data extraction, the middle people between you and your community.
ROOT is the free set of tools that lets you deploy this process and control it. The terms themselves are yours, set with full transparency to your community and collaborators.
Success is a practice completing the full cycle: raise funding from your core community, make the work, offer it, or a piece of it, directly to your community, share what it earns with your collaborators, and refill the pond.
Then start again.
Community funds are not investments.
It's not about giving people their money back.
It's about sharing what came in with the people who helped make it happen.
Join Us
for ROOT development updates and the 2027 launch.
Let's talk about funding the infrastructure, matching an artist's pond, or bringing ROOT to a cohort in your region.
Watch the recap from our May convening.