A clear-eyed look at the revenue architecture behind four documentary environments, a growing civic archive, and the first immersive civic experience built for the dome.
Most civic media projects are grants-dependent forever. This one doesn't have to be. Four licensable documentary environments. A curriculum product already in pilot. A 20-year archive that grows with every school that participates. And an opening at the only Deep Space installation in the United States. The revenue is real. The question is whether we build the structure to capture it.
The only Deep Space in the United States opens in October 2026. We are in conversation. This is an anchor deal.
A commissioning fee for the premiere civic experience at their opening — negotiated as a co-production. The 20-year arc of Table of Free Voices is our leverage. They need their opening to mean something beyond technical spectacle. We give them that. Models vary: flat commission, revenue share on ticket sales, or a sponsored residency funded through their institutional partners. The floor is $50K. With the right framing and the right funder behind it, this reaches $150K.
1,800+ planetariums in the US. Most are content-starved outside of astronomy. We have something they've never seen.
Standard fulldome show licensing runs $500–$3,000 per venue as a one-time fee, plus $300–$500 annual renewal. Four environments means four licensable products. Year one conservative target: 50 venues at $1,500 average = $75K. Aggressive target: 90 venues across all four environments = $270K. The IPS network and Dome Fest West are the distribution channels. One appearance at Dome Fest West puts you in front of every decision-maker simultaneously.
You or a trained facilitator shows up, runs the experience, leads the civic discussion. Schools, museums, and civic organizations pay for this directly.
Day rate for a facilitated educational program: $1,500–$3,500 per engagement depending on institution type. Two engagements per week at 40 weeks = $120K–$280K at full capacity. Realistic year one with one facilitator running two days per week: $60K–$140K. The facilitation model is also what makes this defensible — you're not selling a film, you're selling a guided civic experience with discussion. That's a different and higher-value proposition than a license.
A packaged civic engagement curriculum — 360° environments plus the OVU student submission framework — licensed to colleges and universities. The pilot runs this summer.
Higher education curriculum licensing: $5K–$20K per institution per year depending on enrollment and usage rights. The summer pilot course is your proof of concept. Ten schools in year one = $50K–$200K. The student content contribution layer — where students submit questions that enter the environment — is the differentiator. No other curriculum lets students become co-authors of a 20-year global archive. That is a fundable, publishable, replicable model.
The most immediate runway. Civic Designers is a 501(c)(3) with a mission that maps directly onto the stated priorities of multiple major funders right now.
Knight Foundation funds civic engagement technology — your most natural fit, $50K–$500K range. NEH funds documentary, civic education, and underserved community stories. NEA funds community media and immersive arts. MacArthur and Ford have active civic tech programs. IMLS funds exactly the school outreach dome model. NSF informal science education with the MIT connection as a door. One Knight or NEH grant changes the trajectory entirely. The September 9 launch date creates urgency and narrative. Apply now.
As OVU grows and Asili proves its cross-corpus interpretive intelligence at scale, the platform itself becomes licensable to organizations running civic voice campaigns globally.
Asili™ is held by inknow.ai LLC — separate from the nonprofit — which means this revenue is not restricted. Organizations running civic engagement campaigns, community oral history projects, or institutional memory initiatives pay to use Asili's dimensional analysis on their own corpora. This is the engine that scales without you in the room. Early adopters: civic tech nonprofits, universities, international democracy organizations. SaaS licensing at $20K–$100K per organization per year. Ten clients = $200K–$1M. This is a 2027 story but it starts with the infrastructure you're building now.
Explicitly funds civic engagement technology and community media. OVU is a textbook Knight project — local communities, digital participation, civic voice.
Documentary, civic education, underserved communities, cultural preservation. Table of Free Voices + Clarksdale + Parramore is a NEH story.
Funds exactly the school outreach dome program. Libraries and museums as civic infrastructure. The Providence and Boston connections are direct assets.
Active civic technology and community narrative programs. Requires relationships but the MIT ODL connection is a door. Long lead time — start now.
Media arts, immersive arts, community cultural programs. The Clarksdale blues environment and the dome distribution model both qualify.
Funds informal learning — exactly what planetarium and dome experiences are. MIT connection as co-investigator is significant leverage here.
The firewall between Civic Designers and inknow.ai is not bureaucratic — it is strategic. It needs to be clean before the first licensing deal closes.
The archive is built. The content exists. The relationships are open. What this work needs now is not more creation — it needs capture.
Every week without a licensing structure in place is a week of potential revenue uncollected. Every grant cycle that passes without an application is money left on the table. The September 9 launch is not just a civic milestone — it is a funding narrative with a deadline. Funders respond to deadlines. The 20-year arc from Berlin to Pawtucket is one of the most compelling origin stories in civic media right now. Use it.