When Michael Doyle studied professional music at Berklee, his professors kept repeating the same refrain: You’re not going to make any money doing this. “They were always talking about how the music industry was in this weird state of flux, and sort of dying,” Doyle says. “That’s what started me thinking, ‘Wow, we have all this technology at our disposal, and the platform is just not there.’”

Enter Music Commons, a crowdfunding site founded by Doyle and fellow Berklee grads. Launching with a party at Church on Aug. 23, it’s a sponsorship platform for fans, who can donate as much money as they want, for as long as they want, to help musicians build sustainable careers—without, as Doyle puts it, having to “sign it [their music] over to some dude in a suit.”

The concept draws from crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the latter of which Doyle and his co-founders used to raise money for the project. But he says theirs is a different kind of platform, one stressing fan interaction. “Musicians are way more than just the album that comes out at the end of the year, or the T-shirt you get. They are a story. People get all excited just to shake the hand of their favorite musician, right? What if, instead, you were telling your favorite musician a story, and then a week later they’ve written a song about it?”

Such video chat sessions are just one of the perks offered in exchange for fan sponsorship. They’ll vary from musician to musician, but the Music Commons crew has some suggestions—early access to new music, tickets to shows, private shows streaming online. Basically, if artists can dream it, they can make it happen.

Twenty-three artists have signed on for the beta launch, an eclectic mix culled by Doyle and an on-the-street A&R team, who hit small clubs and pitched artists they dug. Going forward, though, the platform will be open to any musician who wants to join—regardless of talent.

“They don’t have to be good,” Doyle laughs. “But that’s the point, too. You might meet someone on our site who is terrible, but for whatever reason they intrigue you. Maybe you don’t give them money at first, but you have little interactions with them, and eventually they get good, and then you do start giving them money. Then 10 years later, they’re the next Bob Dylan, and you were that person who saw them when they were terrible and helped them get to that point.”

In the end, he says, it’s all about helping artists support themselves while doing what they love. “[I hope ] 50 years from now, when someone asks, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up, little guy?’ and they say, ‘I want to be a musician,’ they’ll go, ‘That’s a really stable job. You should do that.’”