Protosong’s Indie Music Bundle Benefits Water Fund & Seattle Musicians
Protosong is a creative effort by musicians to address issues of social need. They recently put together a bundle of previously unreleased songs by Seattle indie musicians as a playlist, supporters pay what they want for the bundle and the money is split between the ODW Water Fund and the musicians. The goal is $25,000 and Wednesday October 17 is the last day to preorder your music bundle that releases October 18.
Protosong is a Seattle-based organization developed by students. They started off with an initial fundraising goal of $1000 in exchange for a pay-what-you-want playlist of unreleased music from local musicians:
"We created our first playlist in February 2012 under the name 'The Protosong Project.' We asked 14 small bands from our school to take a chance on a new idea and give us a song that had never been heard before. In less than three days, we raised over $1,000 and released 14 songs to everyone who paid a minimum of one dollar through a simple website. We gave every penny to the nonprofit organization charity: water, providing 50 people with sustainable access to clean water for life."
"The average amount users paid for our first playlist was $13.56, which convinced us that the 'Give back. Get music.' concept is a powerful vehicle not only for sharing great music but also for raising funds and awareness for important causes."
With that early success, Protosong has upped the ante to $25,000 for a fresh bundle of unreleased tracks by Seattle musicians in a campaign running October 3 to 17. Minimum donation is $1 but average donations are over $11. Protosong will divide the funds after deducting credit card processing fees and taxes. They keep no additional funds for their own expenses.
30% is evenly distributed to the contributing artists and 70% goes to One Day's Wages Water Fund which has a current goal of $100,000.
So go support Protosong, help address water issues and check out some Seattle music!
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (Twitter/App.net) blogs about music crowdfunding at Crowdfunding For Musicians (@CrowdfundingM). To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
