This is another fundraising blog aimed at helping musicians find the different paths towards achieving funding for their recordings.

It takes a creative approach to fundraise money. Ask any professional fundraiser or non-profit organization. You have to have the drive, creativity and the ability to take a lot of no's before even a single yes.

There are a lot of other avenues to finding funding besides just going directly to individuals. This is key since most people will exhaust all options with the individuals they go to directly before they have achieved their full budget.

Nourishing the Arts is a conceptual program that has been implemented by a number of different organizations and charities. It's been called different things by different people, but the concept is the same.

Nourishing the Arts concept

The first step is finding a restaurant, café, pizza place or any type of food establishment that has a history of supporting arts and charities in the past. Having some kind of personal attachment can often help, whether you know the owner, you know someone who works there or use to work there yourself.

The idea is that on the planned night, the restaurant will donate an agreed upon percentage of their profits to the artist and their project. With this, the restaurant helps the artist and the artist, in turn, helps the restaurant with the marketing and free advertising. The restaurant will also make stronger profits since the event will be planned on a normally slow night.

Discuss with the establishment what you are doing and how you intend to do it. Talk about the professional approach you are taking toward your album, your materials, and your marketing. Let them know that you will be donating a percentage from every sale of your recording to your chosen charity. (This is specifically for FSRP clients or musicians that are giving a percentage of their sales and profits to charity)

This showcases you as a solid investment on behalf of the establishment.

Pick a night that is usually a slow business night for the establishment, and remember to give yourself at least 6 weeks so you can properly advertise it.

Find an agreed upon percentage of profit that the establishment is willing to donate.

Discuss and add additional marketing elements. Some places will do a special dish or a dinner named after your band. Certain establishments might raise the price of a specific item for one night to assist in the donations.

For example – the shrimp Scampi dish could be raised to $25 instead of its usual $15. The extra ten dollars from each shrimp scampi sold will be donated to the artist in addition to the discussed percentage of whole night.

You can even work with some establishments on a dinner package where if the patron orders a three or four course special, they will get some kind of merchandise from the band as well.

For example – If someone orders the dinner special for Artist X – They get four courses, a bottle of wine and a tee shirt, hat or some other kind of merchandise item from the band.

If the restaurant is willing, donation jars can also be located around the restaurant and information on the group can go out with the menus.

It is up to the band to really advertise. The goal is to get the word out and get people in there that night. You don't need to get everybody to have dinner, but if people have a couple beers or an appetizer, it can help.

Putting together a press release can help as well. You may be able to get a higher amount of media attention since it is not the usual everyday occurrence.

When the night arrives, be there. This is a great opportunity to network with people, talk to strangers about your project and have some good eats as well.

In the last three of these events when an artist has thrown a Nourishing the Arts night, they have brought in more business for the establishment. Even after they gave the agreed percentage to the artist, these places still pulled in more revenue that night than a normal evening.

Take a different approach; try something like Nourishing or other fundraising style events. Often you will make money that evening, but it will also bring attention to your project and yourself while even securing some potential donors through media exposure or those visiting the establishment that night.

What places do you know? Who could you approach to set up an evening? Go through the list of people you know and who they know. This will add another layer to your fundraising all while bringing more attention to your band and your project. It's like a win win and then win again situation.

© Loren Weisman