Music City launches recurring gift campaign
Donations to Music City allow the organization to continue fulfilling the mission of providing accessible and experiential education in music and visual arts to young people through programming emphasizing camaraderie, well-being, and leadership development.
“Recurring Donations are a great way for you to give to Music City each month all year and help provide sustainability between our peak giving seasons,” said Mike Webb, executive director MCYA. “It allows us to continue our vision of positively transforming young people’s lives.”
We all know “drum corps” as the activity that changed our lives, the activity where we may have met our significant other, the activity where we learned that hard work, dedication, perseverance, and commitment to a common goal led to the individual you are today, is unfortunately not getting any cheaper. However, the mission of Music City remains the same while costs continue to rise.
The Music City Youth in the Arts administrative team takes an in-depth review of our budget every year before submitting a proposal to the board of directors for review and approval. We ensure funds are being allocated where they need to be to cover annual operational costs, and we cut back wherever we can.
Unfortunately, the organization did not receive grant money from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program. (SVOG) during the pandemic as other like organizations. Funds from this grant program provided emergency funding which would have helped offset operating expenses Music City continued to incur while providing a world class drum corps experience in 2021 and 2022 with a lean budget. In fact, between 2020 and 2022, the Music City Youth in the Arts organization incurred higher than anticipated expenses, lower participation numbers driven by heightened COVID concerns and new requirements associated with the activity such as wellness and participant safety. These combined factors have reduced Music City’s working capital by approximately $100,000.
The proposed operating expense budget for the upcoming fiscal year is likely to land around $1.25M.
Music City’s top three expenses are:
Personnel, 40% - design and educational staff, administrative staff
Transportation, 26% - 4 charter buses, hotels for bus drivers, 2 semi tractors, box truck, admin vehicle, and fuel
Production Costs, 13% - uniforms, instruments, props, sound system
We share this information with you to provide a glimpse of what it takes to operate a World Class drum corps. Yes, it’s true costs are high and are probably higher than when you were involved in drum corps. Music City’s membership dues for the 2024 season will be between $5,000 and $5,500, remaining one of the lowest fees in the activity. For Music City to operate, the cost is closer to $8,000+ per contracted member. The Music City organization raises the additional funds through donations, fundraisers, grants, and miscellaneous contributions.
In order to maintain and enhance the level of excellence Music City strives to provide; we need your support now more than ever. Music City belongs to you as well as every new participant who attends one of our events. You can help Music City continue to provide young performers with unparalleled opportunities for growth, discipline, teamwork, and artistic expression. Invest in tomorrow’s leaders today and “positively impact young people’s lives”!
We are asking for you to participate in our monthly or annual donation campaign. Your contribution will be set to a continuous auto-renewal on the same day of every month (month and day for recurring annual donations) as your initial give. For example, if you purchase a monthly subscription on November 25th then the 25th of every month is when your donation will be made going forward. You can cancel at any time. This is similar to the Netflix, AppleTV, Disney+ subscriptions or Amazon membership you may already have.
Our initial campaign goal is for 50 individuals to subscribe to our monthly or annual giving campaign by December 31, 2023. A gift of $5, $10 or $20 a month goes a long way when you’re joined by other Music City supporters, helping to provide sustainability for Music City between our peak giving seasons and to forward our vision of positively transforming young people’s lives.
Music City Youth in the Arts is a 501(c)3 organization; all donations are tax deductible.
