Organising a Notes for Nourishment Concert

Some Tools and Suggestions

1) Find a charity that you admire that has an office in or near your city.

2) Contact them to explain that you would like to make a donation to their cause – but a much larger donation than you could afford to make on your own. You would like to instead donate your time and gifts to play a free fundraising concert as a benefit for their cause.

3) Explain to them that you will be happy to donate your services if they are willing to organise a venue (which ideally would also be donated) and enlist their own volunteers/staff to do the PR, advertising, and publicity of the concert.

The concert can be organised in one of two ways as far as collecting money goes.

1) The charity can charge a set ticket price / admission fee and all the proceeds can go to the charity

Or

2) You can advertise the event as free of charge and collect donations

We have actually found that making the concerts free of charge has worked out very well, gaining much more donation revenue per person (audience member) than from any of the events that chose to charge admission fees at a set price.

Making the concerts free of charge often invites more people to come who otherwise might not feel comfortable spending money on something they are not sure that they will enjoy. The wonderful side effect of widening the audience pool is that we have had many people approach us after the concert to tell us that they had never been to a concert before. They came because they were interested in the cause, or wanted to support or accompany a friend. However, in each case they ended up loving the music, discovering new styles they enjoyed, and wanting to listen to more. Therefore these concerts not only help raise large amounts for wonderful charities, but they also help us musicians to gain new audience members for live music of all kinds!

When to collect donations

Often the charity (if you offer them the opportunity) will wish to speak briefly about their mission or show a short video presentation as part of the event- usually this is done either before the concert begins, or half way through the concert (though from our experience we would recommend half way through). Envelopes for the donations can be handed to each concert-goer with their programmes as they enter the venue, and then collection baskets for donations can be passed around immediately after the presentation by the charity. It is better not to leave the collection of donations until the end of the concert, as many people will want to leave quickly to get home.

Venues

If the charity you contact are not sure where to hold the event, it is worth suggesting churches or places of worship that are near by. Churches will often donate their space free of charge. The charity you wish to help may already have a connection to a church. This is even better because if the church or place of worship is supportive of the cause, they will often advertise the event well to their congregation both in their bulletin and during their church services. Any extra advertisement helps! Often local papers will also have a ‘calendar’ section in which the event can be advertised free of charge. The charity will also obviously have their own list of benefactors, volunteers, and friends which they can (and should) contact.

Don’t be discouraged if you advertise and advertise and not as many people show up as you would have liked. We have noticed that the small audiences can often be extremely generous, and if you end up doing multiple concerts in various venues on a yearly basis, the audience numbers in each venue will grow with each concert as previous audience members tell their friends, and as the charity itself learns how best to reach more people.

Every event has a beginning before it becomes a regular fixture in the minds of the public.

We do have a list of other advertising ideas, information, and recommended advertising timelines if you are interested. Or if you have any questions, feel free to email us on: info@notesfornourishment.org

Don't musicians play charity concerts already?

Yes, they do, but charity concerts are often quite expensive to attend, which means that many people can not afford to go to these concerts. As most of you already know, the cost of concerts is a big problem and is contributing in a large way to the decline in audience members all over the world. By providing as many concerts as possible free of charge, we are trying to reach as many people as possible with the beauty and gift that music is for the soul. In doing this we hope to help replenish audience members for the future.

Another point is that it is also often only musicians with big names that are invited to play concerts for a charity event. While this is understandable as big names do draw big crowds, these musicians can also come with quite a fee making the possibility of organising such an event all the more difficult and rare.

I personally know many wonderful musicians who 1) would like to use their musical gifts to do good and 2) would also very much like the opportunity to perform more chamber music (as an example). The problem is that the most common thought process is ‘how much good could I really do by myself – one musician, one concert?’ and ‘organising a concert costs money – for the hall, the advertising etc. and I don’t have that kind of money.’

My hope in spreading this idea is to help all musicians to see that, working with a charity, they can each do a tremendous amount of good and it doesn’t need to cost any more than their time and the gift of their talent and love for music.

How many Notes for Nourishment concerts can YOU commit to planning and playing in 2011?

Why do we need donations?

Our goal is that with time musicians all over the world will be organising these concerts in the towns where they live. When this is the case, Notes for Nourishment will have done its job. However, at the moment, we are trying to get the message out to musicians. We are trying to do this via facebook, our blog, and other internet avenues, but we have found that the best way of reaching the musicians, and getting them involved, is by meeting and talking with them in person. In order to do this, we need to travel – which has its costs. We also did not expect the idea of Notes for Nourishment to work as well as it has, which means that we continue to get invited to play concerts all over the United States and internationally. While this is wonderful, we don’t have the money to pay for the plane tickets, the rental cars, and the accommodations. The charities we are benefiting also don’t have the funds to pay our expenses, and we do not wish to deplete the donation revenue from the concert we are offering to perform for them (this would defeat the purpose). In short, with your donations we could play more concerts, aid more charities, and most importantly encourage more musicians. Once more musicians come on board, they can take over the concerts in their cities and the travel costs will drop, thereby making it possible to offer even more concerts, and aid even more charities. Your donations will aid us in spreading the message!

We have come up with a way of combining the concerts and the outreach to the musicians: In each of the places where we are able to play a Notes for Nourishment concert, we will also organise to meet or contact musicians in that area (for example by scheduling a talk to music students at the local music conservatory, or by reaching the orchestral musicians in the local symphony and chamber orchestras). To do this, however, we need your donations.