Building sustainability fee
Starting March 10, 2025 The Dance Complex will initiate a small annual Building Sustainability Fee for repeat users of the building. A once-per-year fee of $24, the equivalent of just $2 per month, will be charged to current and new regular Complex visitors.
The Fee will help us offset rising costs of maintaining the building’s interior needs, everything from keeping bathrooms stocked with toilet paper to ensuring the floors you dance on are clean and safe. Fees will help pay utility costs, maintain dance floors, sound equipment, and much more.
We will process Building Sustainability Fees via users’ MindBody accounts after March 10, 2025. Please update your account with accurate credit card information. Payments via cash or check are an option for those who need it.
Sustainability Fee does not apply to single-visit users, event attendees, or children’s class participants (at this time). If you or someone you know needs to request a reduced fee, please connect with a staff member or email us at operations@dancecomplex.com.
We are eager for your feedback on our work and the usage of the funds raised through the Sustainability fee. Please seek out a staff member or use this Google Form, which will be reviewed and considered by Dance Complex staff.
NOTE: The Dance Complex Building Sustainability Fee will not be used for exterior construction projects that are currently in the planning stages. Such capital work will be accomplished in increments, with an initial $3 million budget allocated for structural brick and window replacement on the front of the building. More will be announced about this work later this spring
Background
The Dance Complex is a nonprofit organization in the enviable position of owning this marvelous 140-year-old building. The care and maintenance of an historical facility is costly and it increases each year. As operations costs rise, so does the need to cover those costs. The staff team considered many alternatives over the past few years, but none was as equitable, sustainable or inexpensive as this one.
Dance Complex teachers have paid a version of the Building Sustainability Fee for ten years, as a show of trust that the building we all love is kept usable. We offer rental subsidies, allowing us to keep our rates low to support the dance community. That allows more than 5,000 people to use and enjoy our spaces each year for the affordable study, creation and performance of dance. Of those 5,000 users, however, only 2% contribute donations to us.
FAQs
What is the Building Sustainability Fee?
- The Building Sustainability Fee is an annual $24 charge.
- If a community member has EBT/WIC/Card to Culture, etc. they may request a discounted rate of $12/annually.
- Families will be charged $24/person up to 3 people then a flat rate of $80 for 4 or more family members.
- Families with EBT/WIC/Card to Culture will be charged $12/person up to 3 people then a flat rate of $40 for 4 or more family members.
Who does this affect?
- All regular users of The Dance Complex for classes, workshops, rehearsals, etc.
- Non-regular visitors/guests may use the Visitor Sign-In for up to 3 visits at no initial charge.
How will this be processed?
All Community members must have a MindBody account. The Building Sustainability Fee will be added to your account. All users need to have a credit card on their secure MindBody account in order to facilitate this fee. If a card is not on account, cash or check may be accepted.
What other options have you considered?
The team at The Dance Complex has explored multiple options to raise additional money for operational expenses and feel that this is the most equitable in spreading the support across thousands of users. For the last 10 years, teaching artists have paid Sustainability Fees with their rental contracts.
History of The Dance Complex & the Building Sustainability Fee
In 1991, The Dance Complex came into being through the grit, hard work, and passion of its founding members who saved the foreclosed building from being sold to other entities, with the help of a down payment from The City of Cambridge. This kept the use of the building in the hands of the dance community.
The mortgage was initially held by another non-profit, Cambridge Multicultural Art Center. This allowed The DC to set up operations and ensure financial solvency and an effective administration. In the mid 2000s, the mortgage was turned over to The Dance Complex.
The context of the times allowed a very young organization to thrive. Some renovations were made through the years, but upkeep of an older building, constructed in 1884, has increasingly become more expensive. Three boilers supply radiator heat. With the advancing years and a maturing of city government meaning more restrictions, licenses and fees, ADA requirements, the resources needed – both human and monetary – have increased.
A strategic framework commissioned by The Dance Complex in 2014/15 identified several points unique to The DC and made recommendations in light of them.
These included an assessment of our finances, our donor base, and our community. Among these points included our lower (at times up to 50% lower) rental rates to teachers, which resulted in lower class costs to students. Another point noted a lack of connection from the users of the studios – now 5,000 students – to The DC, citing that the model of teachers being paid directly by students created a primary relationship with teacher/student. The suggestion of a user card that could encourage a financial connection to those who used the building with the sustaining of the building was brought to discussion, and viewed favorably by the board and teaching artists.
This card system came to be in mid 2020 with no financial cost, primarily as an assurance of due diligence in healthy use of the building for all who entered during the first years of COVID.
Lessons learned and dialogues with our community during the pandemic years resulted in:
- more energy toward free/low-cost mental and physical health programs (Reflection, Healing and Movement);
- opportunities to produce dance performance more economically with both the artist and The DC investing resources and sharing risk;
- and investment in artists through residencies and genre-specific exchanges – namely African Dance, African Diasporic, Street Dance and Disabilities Dance – that have resulted in our Friday Night Lights learn/party formats, awards of space, and continued dialogue and action.
And as we turn the corner into 2025:
Along with the Building Sustainability Fee, we are working toward more income from party and event rentals, especially early morning body/mindfulness classes for pre-work day and the rental of offices and meeting spaces. Our lead foundation donors have encouraged us to increase the engagement of our community users to support the organization. All these efforts will build toward the goal of being more self-sufficient for day-to-day operations.
Of our individual donors to the the DC from July to December 2024:
Total individual donors: 148
# of those who are current users: 78, representing 2% of active building users.
An example of Building Expenses in 2024*
Utilities: $32,692.14
Studio Improvements: $21,755
Cleaning: $20,738.64
Supplies: $6,221.28
Plumbing & Maintenance: $19,869
*This does not include everything.