Damn the man! Save Spenard Song Circle!

Hi Folks!

Emma Hill here. I am writing to you with my artist and community organizer hats on. I'm going to be transparent. I am drowning financially with my long-running show, Spenard Song Circle. I am seeking immediate financial assistance and community sponsorship to cover the increased costs associated with hosting our events. This funding will allow us to continue offering our unique programming to the Anchorage community without interruption. Specifically, I am requesting community support now to create a financial bridge for the next 4-6 months while I work towards getting more sustainable funding for the future of the organization, which has just become a legally recognized 501c3 non-profit.

Since the fall of 2017 Spenard Song Circle has hosted over 100 events that directly benefit our songwriting community, but also provide an all-ages, listening room, and SOBER live music experience for the Anchorage community. As a one-person operation, I've always been content to just scrape by with my monthly showcase barely paying for space use, and to fairly pay my guest artists. Since January, SSC has also been hosting an all-ages open mic at the lounge in Rage City Vintage. We are currently the ONLY all-ages and sober space hosting regular open mics. It is imperative for there to be this space for young and beginning artists of all performance mediums to find their way within their craft and to meet and experience the art of like-minded individuals.

I do not want to stop an organization that has successfully existed for 7 years and featured over 200 artists because financial barriers make it impossible to continue. We are a little program that represents the huge power of vulnerability, community, and art, to help us all overcome the challenges life throws at us.

Please help if you can and I thank you so much for your time.

Yours humbly,

Emma

EDIT & UPDATE:

Transparency of budget:

Each event costs between $650-1100 to put on.

That covers the space rental fee, the live music licensing fees, the host fee, the artist stipends as well as graphic design and marketing costs.

We have already been hosting and are dedicated to continuing to host 4+ events a month in partnership with Rage City Vintage. Rage City Vintage has been and will continue to offer us an in kind donation of a 50% discount on the space use fee. The majority of these events are provided to the public for free or for sliding scale donation.

We are spending nearly $5000 a month on this programming.

This $20,000 fundraiser would provide us a financial bridge for the next 4-6 months while we secure more sustainable grant funding.

About Spenard Song Circle:

I began Spenard Song Circle in fall of 2017, originally hosting it at The Church of Love (now called The Nave) and The Writer’s Block, as well as online during the pandemic, until I moved the show to Rage City Vintage in January of 2023. The idea for Spenard Song Circle was to create a space for songwriters to be truly heard, in a space where the music is the sole focus and welcoming to people of all ages. In a listening room environment, the audience can hold space for artists in their most vulnerable moments. These moments are hard to find and experienced in a bar environment. By singing in the round and sharing the stories behind each song, the artists create an organic conversation tying together shared human experiences that everyone in the room can relate to. For those two hours, we put down our phones and share the energy transference between both the artists and listeners. This can be a truly healing experience for everyone involved.

With the community-oriented and inclusive space and mission of Rage City Vintage, it quickly became clear that there was a need for and a perfect opportunity to grow the music events offered by Spenard Song Circle in partnership with Rage City Vintage as a venue. We now provide several events per month, that not only showcase established and burgeoning music artists (singer-songwriters and local DJs), but also provide space for those exploring their music artistry via open mics and jams. For many early career and new artists, the opportunity to play in venues where their music can be respectfully experienced and appreciated is rare, as playing in bars tends to be one of the few avenues for shows.

In addition, the importance of providing a safe, sober, inclusive and community-oriented space, for both music artists and the community-at-large, cannot be understated. In Anchorage, we are experiencing unprecedented high rates of addiction, alcoholism, mental-health issues, homelessness, and suicide. As an artist and community activist, I have been heavily involved in advocating for mental health awareness (such as helping to host several Sound Over Silence fundraiser events with National Alliance for Mental Illness). The community events that Spenard Song Circle hosts at Rage City Vintage are among the very few in Anchorage that provide an all-ages, sober space in which to share and experience music. In particular by keeping tickets low cost or free/donation-based and intentionally curating an inclusive setting, these events have had a hugely positive impact on artists, young people, families, members of the LGBTQA+ community, people in recovery, students, and low-income community members.

Though I, as Spenard Song Circle and the team at Rage City Vintage have managed to host these events by largely donating our time and the venue, it is not sustainable to continue as both are operating at a loss in order to keep these community events going. We have had to underpay our artists, and Rage City Vintage as a business is taking a large hit to provide the venue along with donated time from the business owners and other partners (e.g. marketing graphic designer, event hosts, social media manager). Without crowdfunding and grants, we will have to largely shut down operations, which would provide a large gap in the community to experience music, art, and healing in a safe and inclusive environment.

I look forward with hope to the next chapter of Spenard Song Circle to not only continue to offer these unique events to the community, but to also do so in a way that pays the artists, organizers, staff, and venue hosts fairly and adequately covers operations cost.

Can you help make this possible?