CORKER Media is not a traditional media company; it’s a collaborative media company and social enterprise. When you buy a magazine, the money doesn’t go towards bankrolling the luxurious lifestyle of faceless shareholders, instead the profits are shared between the contributors and used to fund creative projects, so that you’re doing your bit by investing in the future of Australian arts and creative industries.
The guys at Thankyou Water explain what social enterprise is beautifully. Read their explanation and just replace the words “Thankyou Water”, “bottled water”, “water projects” and “$2” with “Corker magazine”, “magazines”, “creative projects”, and “$5”, respectively.
Example:
Original copy: “There is room for both Charity and Social Enterprise. If you had $2 in your hand and wanted to make the biggest impact with your money, I would tell you right now to give it directly to a charity that builds water projects. But if you had $2 and were about to purchase a bottle of water…well, let’s just say I would definitely recommend Thankyou Water.”
Tweaked copy: “There is room for both Charity and Social Enterprise. If you had $5 in your hand and wanted to make the biggest impact with your money, I would tell you right now to give it directly to a crowd-funding site that supports creative projects. But if you had $5 and were about to purchase a magazine …well, let’s just say I would definitely recommend CORKER.”
You get the gist. Please go directly to the website and replace the words in your head as you read. We don’t want to get done for plagiarism. (And go buy Thankyou Water!)
Joseph Gordon Levitt’s open-collaboration production company HitRecord has a good explanation as well. Watch the vid. Corker is similar in that 50 per cent of the profits are split between the contributors who work on the magazine, and the remaining 50 per cent goes towards funding local creative projects.