Why are we investing in Open?

This weekend was our first Open event of the season, Open Denver. In two weeks I’ll go up to Vancouver. Then in late October we’re hosting two Open events on the same weekend, one in Seattle and the other in Paris. (Both cities have towers as their landmark, I’ll let you guess which one Kristen and I are headed to.) We’ve got 3 more Open’s coming this winter in San Francisco, Grand Rapids, and Boston.

We operate these events in the spirit of the open source movement. The organization of the events is very flat, I’m not in charge of any of them, the local team is. We don’t control how any of the events are structured. And, they are structured so that each of them basically breaks even for us. (We pay the local organizing team 33% of the profits and they designate a benefiting organization that receives 34%.) As a group they generate a couple thousand bucks.

So why are we investing in Open?

The Youth Cartel is not a charity. We are a fee-for-service company. If (and when) we lose money… we don’t have the ability to go out and raise funds to balance our budget. In fact, we don’t want to do that. We want to create stuff that the community wants and is willing to pay for. And being a fee-for-service company one way we know if we’re scratching an itch that needs to be scratched is if it pays for itself. No offense to non-profits but we think that being a for-profit is a great way to serve the church. 

So, why invest in Open… something built to break even? 

1. Getting the money out of the way invites everyone to the table. Yes, it costs money to make Open happen. And thanks to the partnership of awesome sponsors, we’ve been able to keep Open at (basically) $25 per person. But creating a space where presenters present for free and the venue hosts because they want to host and not because they are getting paid? Well, that creates an environment you just can’t find anywhere else.
2. Youth ministry is desperate for new ideas, we [as a tribe] need a space for them to emerge. There’s very little variation in what happens in church-based youth ministry. There’s a program and there is community. The last big idea that shaped youth ministry was small groups… and that was in the 90s. And while there’s tons of soft innovation we need to keep looking for stuff that’s brand new. My hunch is that this new idea will not emerge out of a youth ministry company (like us) and my second hunch is that it will start in a way that’s not commercially viable enough for mainstream youth ministry training events. So having a place where these ideas to develop without commercial pressure will… and is… helping.
3. There is a desperate need for new voices, we [as a tribe] need a space for them to emerge. Every organization that I know of says that one of their continued challenges is cultivating new voices and specifically finding voices that reflect the full tribe of youth ministry. (gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic background) Open is becoming that space. We’re investing our time and energy because we see Open as being a great testing grounds for new voices to emerge. Some are ready right now, just needing an opportunity. Jen Bradbury was the perfect example of that for us. She spoke at Open GR in February, her presentation was fantastic, her content was great, and she was saying something a broader audience was ready for right away. So we invited her to speak at The Summit as well as worked with her to release her book next month. And Morgan Schmidt is an example of someone who had great ideas and content but needed some opportunities so she could refine her content for a broader audience. So we invited her to speak at a couple more Open events… and the response exploded. Her book, Woo, has done really well. And her presentation on that content fills rooms.
4. When it comes to youth ministry training, context is critical. You can’t assume that something that works in Michigan or Southern California will work in Boston or Seattle. Why? Because these contexts are completely different. We’re cultivating Open in a way that keeps it local. It’s awesome to watch as each organizing group owns that. Each event gets proposals from all over the place… and it’s great to see them filter through these proposals from a “what does a youth worker in _____ need?” posture. That doesn’t mean all of the speakers are local. But it does mean that all of the speakers chosen are there because the proposal they’ve submitted fits a need in that region.
5. It’s crazy fun. Look, I could come up with a gigantic list of “business justifications” for running Open at break even. But one reason we do Open is because it’s fun for us to do Open. Last Friday night at our speakers dinner I met a room full of speaker I had never met before. Of the presentations on Saturday I had heard exactly zero. When I show up to a normal event I expect to meet 1-2 people for the first time. To have 100%? That’s a blast. I know it’s fun for us to be a part of Open. And I know the event itself is fun because that’s what people who come say about it. So “it’s crazy fun” is a pretty good selling point for us.

An Open Invitation

So here’s my invitation. If this post connected with you I am inviting you to be part of the Open movement in a few specific ways.

1. Bring yourself, bring your team, and bring your mom. OK, maybe not bring your mom. But in all seriousness, we need early adapters like you to come and be a part of Open then give us feedback for making it better.
2. Invest your time and energy. Open is intentionally flat. If you want to be part of the process, jump in. Contact me and I’ll connect you to a local organizing team that could use your help. (Want Open in your region? Coming to an Open is the first step to hosting an Open.)
3. Invest your organizations resources. Personally, I’m sick of the silos. We’ve never put our name all over this thing. I think The Youth Cartel champions it more than we “own” it. We’re actively interested in talking to other organizations who want to champion the values I’ve shared in this post. We’ve found that a posture of collaborating instead of competing is good for our tribe, I want to invite any/all youth ministry organizations to partner with us on this. (See getting money out of the way above.)

Have you been to an Open? What do you like about it? 

Not been to one but want to know something? Ask me a question.