Arts for Social Change
DAO CreaTech™ is a UK government-supported community arts and creative technology initiative led by Intercultural Roots, developed through the DCMS Create Growth Programme with Innovate UK support. It offers a protocol, framework and digital platform for community groups, artists, venues, cultural organisations and local leaders who want to co-organise, co-resource and co-create arts, cultural and creative events in more transparent, participatory and many-to-many ways.
Rather than treating people only as audiences, DAO CreaTech™ invites communities to become co-organisers: proposing ideas, shaping programmes, sharing skills and resources, taking part in decisions, and helping decide how value generated through events can be reinvested for community benefit.
Visit the DAO CreaTech™ platform
Contact us to discuss using DAO CreaTech™ with your community
DAO CreaTech™ brings together community organising, arts and culture, creative technology and decentralised governance.
“DAO” stands for Decentralised Autonomous Organisation. In DAO CreaTech™, this means using DAO principles — shared decision-making, transparency, participation and collective stewardship — to support real people, real places and real communities.
The project explores how communities can move from top-down event models towards many-to-many cultural production, where artists, audiences, venues, local groups, public bodies and supporters can all contribute meaningfully and financially benefit in socially just ways.
DAO CreaTech™ is especially relevant for groups who want to:
- co-create local festivals, workshops, performances, exhibitions, walks, talks or creative gatherings
- invite community members to become shared revenue co-organisers
- make decision-making and money flows transparent
- support artists, facilitators and community contributors more fairly
- test new models for cultural co-production, shared values and benefit local economies
- use digital tools without losing the warmth, trust and relational depth of community work
The DAO CreaTech™ platform — daocreatech.com — has been developed as a digital hub for co-organising creative events.
The platform and its backend features are being designed to support:
- creation and listing of events and co-production
- co-organiser token-based participation
- ticketing and financial administration
- voting and shared decision-making
- transparent allocation of resources
- community discussion and coordination
- documentation of learning, participation and impact
- co-financing and shared revenue distribution mechanisms
The aim is to make decentralised cultural organising practical and accessible.
DAO CreaTech™ therefore works as both a digital tool and a human process: a way to bring people together, agree shared principles, organise activity, make decisions openly and test fairer ways of resourcing creative work.
DAO CreaTech™ is built on many-to-many principles.
In a traditional event model, a small number of organisers programme an event and invite people to attend. In a many-to-many model, the community helps shape what happens, who is involved, how resources are shared, and what continues afterwards.
This can include:
- artists proposing performances, workshops or creative experiments
- community leaders identifying local needs, stories and opportunities
- venues offering space or practical support
- audiences helping shape programmes and priorities
- volunteers contributing care, welcome, stewarding, documentation or promotion
- funders and local authorities joining as partners and co-organisers rather than distant gatekeepers
- surplus, learning and relationships being reinvested into the local creative ecosystem
DAO CreaTech™ values both financial and non-financial contributions. Money matters, but so do time, skill, care, lived experience, creativity, space, networks and trust.
DAO CreaTech™ was developed and tested through a six-month DCMS Create Growth project led by Intercultural Roots with EAST2046 CIC and the Youth Media Group charity.
The project included:
- a 9-day Regenerative Futures community-led intercultural arts festival & symposium in Coventry
- a Spring Equinox ‘Tides of the Moon’ programme in London with international collaborators
- live testing of the daocreatech.com platform
- co-organiser invitations and participatory programme design
- exploration of ethical, legal and governance frameworks for decentralised cultural production
- a Rooted in Coventry day of critical hope in partnership with FarGo Village and local artists
- BridgeAI Case Study - transforming stakeholder collaboration and community participation
- independent evaluation by Dr Jo Scott
The evaluation found that DAO CreaTech™ opened up new possibilities for artists, venues, community groups, funders and creative technologies to relate differently. It showed how decentralised and commoning principles can support co-organisation, shared responsibility, creative exchange, community sovereignty and more transparent cultural production.
DAO CreaTech™ may be useful for:
- community leaders
- local artists and creative practitioners
- cultural venues and independent arts spaces
- charities and community organisations
- youth, disability, migrant, intercultural and neighbourhood groups
- local authorities and cultural development teams
- creative health and social prescribing networks
- funders interested in participatory grantmaking or community-led cultural infrastructure
- festivals, residencies and place-based creative programmes
DAO CreaTech™ is designed to translate these ideas into accessible community practice.
Intercultural Roots is now inviting conversations with community leaders, artists, venues, organisations and local groups who would like to explore using DAO CreaTech™.
You might already have an idea for a festival, gathering, cultural programme, workshop series, creative health event, community celebration or place-based arts project. Or you may simply want to explore how your community could use DAO CreaTech™ principles and tools to organise differently.
We are particularly interested in hearing from groups who want to test:
- decentralised co-organisation
- community-led event design
- participatory budgeting or shared resource allocation
- ethical co-financing for creative and cultural work
- arts and culture for social connection, wellbeing, belonging or environmental awareness
- partnerships between artists, communities, venues, public bodies and funders
If you would like to discuss utilising DAO CreaTech™ with your community, please contact us.
Contact Intercultural Roots about DAO CreaTech™
Visit daocreatech.com
DAO CreaTech™ has been developed with support from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Create Growth Programme and Innovate UK.
Thanks also to The Big Give’s ‘Arts for Impact’ campaign, public donations and match funding from FPAC – Figurative Philanthropy for Arts & Culture
Intercultural Roots also thanks EAST2046 CIC, Youth Media Group, participating artists, venues, community leaders, co-organisers, contributors, audiences and advisors who have helped shape the project so far.