Music concerts as a fundraising campaign are quite the norm. I have been in countless of such concerts, mostly choir settings, as well as a solo instrumentalist or as an accompanist.
I would admit tho that it does take a lot of time, planning and a concerted effort to hold such fundraisers. You deal with bookings, logistics, itineraries, programming, finances, temperaments, and many other things. It can be quite overwhelming and a daunting task. But if successfully pulled off, reaps a lot of benefits.
But what if you’re someone with musical skills and you just want to use those skills to raise funds for, say, a mission trip? You don’t have a lot of time to prepare, you don’t have a set repertoire, you don’t even have the experience of organizing a concert. How do you pull off a fundraising concert at the last minute and still look like a professional?
Some things to consider first
1. Who’s going to help you during the concert?
Accompanist: If you’re a pianist, organist, guitarist, or harpist or other instruments that generally doesn’t need an accompanist, then you can somehow pull it off doing mostly everything on your own. If you play single-melody instruments such as the voice, violin, clarinet, trumpet, oboe, etc., then you might need to consider getting an accompanist.
Do you also need a greeter, offering collector, prayer, testimonials? If you do, determine who will do these for you so you can concentrate on making music.
2. Where are you going to do the fundraising concert?
Churches are the most viable solution for this one, especially if you’re fundraising for a church-related cause. It’s a great option because you already have a captive audience (e.g. members of the congregation) who are already understanding of your cause. Also, if you’re an organist or a pianist — the instruments are readily available at your disposal.
Other venues can be in a school, senior living center, gymnasium, or even someone’s home. Depending on how strapped you are for time, consider how long it will take to get permissions to use these venues
Because you’re trying to pull it off at the last minute, it’s best to stick to venues where you or a friend are personally connected because they already know and trust you.
3. How much time is allotted for the fundraising concert?
Knowing the amount of time you have in your hands will help give you a time-frame for your repertoire. More importantly, most venues have other bookings that they accommodate and you don’t want to be ‘booted-off’ the premises before you’re even finished with your concert. Generally, churches allow 90 – 120 minutes for such concerts. But it’s always best to ask the pastor or persons-in-charge exactly how much time are you allowed. Other venues will probably allow lesser time, depending on your arrangement with them.
Also consider the people attending your fundraiser. Even if you can use the venue for the whole day, you need to be considerate of your audience’s time.
From there you can decide how many pieces you’re going to play, whether you should say something in between, and how long you should talk in between. Musical pieces are usually 2-3 minutes long. So If you’re allowed an hour and a half, you can get by with 7-9 songs with some narration in between.
4. How will the funds be collected?
Again, it’s always best to ask persons-in-charge whether they are ok if money was to be collected during the said event. If everything is A-ok, some ways you can do it is by ticketing (people pay for tickets at the entrance), collecting a love offering during the concert, selling products at the end of the concert. You can also reserve a time during the concert where you or another person can announce the best ways they can channel the funds to you — maybe thru PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, tax-deductible checks, Zelle, a website page that you set-up, etc.
Keep in mind that certain venues have protocols on collecting donations. Some would want to know the set amount of money you want to raise, and they will give you back that exact amount and keep the rest of the donations. Others want the donations to be channeled to the venue, and the persons-in-charge will write the total amount in a check to be given to you.
In any case, just make sure you ask for and understand the protocols before proceeding.
Once you have done your part on these things, half of your work is done. The rest of the time can be spent setting up your repertoire.
Setting up your repertoire
Step 1 || Draft a program and put in the parts you want to be included in the order you want it. An initial basic draft may look like this:
Step 2 || Normally, the best way is to choose a theme and then select the songs. But given that you don’t have enough time to find the songs according to your theme, the best route is to pull together all the songs that you have performed before and will only need a few hours of practice. Find a common thread in these songs and let that be your theme.
Step 3 || What if you don’t have 7-9 songs that you can perform on your own? Then seek the help of some musical friends who can perform a song or two. Include their songs when you do Step No. 2. There was a time when I only had four 2-minute arrangements I can play in public. So I asked two of my friends to sing a song or two, and another friend to play the violin and to do the spoken parts. We were able to pull of an hour-long concert!
Step 4 || Practice! There’s no other way around this, my friend. You may not have a lot of time, but at least set 30 minutes of the day to polish your repertoire. A method of practicing that has worked well for me was fleshing out the most difficult parts of the piece and spending the first 15 minutes of my time practicing those. The next 5 minutes is spent on integrating the difficult parts with the rest of the piece. I play a few bars before and after the difficult section several times until it flows seamlessly. Next, I spend 2.5 more minutes in playing through the whole piece under tempo wherein which I’m completely focused on being able to play without mistakes as much as possible. The final minutes of the practice session are spent playing it once through like how I would play it in the performance. I may record that last run-through for reference so I know the parts I can work on immediately when I practice the next day. I would also quickly jot down notes to capture the musical ideas I have at the moment.
Step 5 || Determine what you want to do with the spoken parts. Do you want to speak in between songs or do you want someone else to do that for you? Do you want the spoken parts to be a review of its history, or how the particular song affected your life? You can also intersperse it by reading your favorite quotes, poems, stories or anecdotes that have a direct relevance to your overall theme.
Step 6 || Prepare a 3-5 minute video or slideshow stating your cause. People like to see what you are fundraising for. And the more visual you are with it, the better. However, this step is optional. You might be able to do away with 2 or 3 pictures on the projector screen.
Step 7 || Prepare an extra song to be played during the collection of love the love offering, and another just in case people want an encore. If this is too much of a stretch for you, you can always repeat a song you already performed for them.
7 days of preparation
Let’s say you have a week to prepare for the fundraiser. Your daily preparation towards the event may look like this.
To do list: Day 1
1. Brainstorm on which venue might be open for you. Have at least 3-4 venues and call the people-in-charge. Reserve a date and time for the concert. They may not have an answer for you right away, but you can hustle while you wait.
2. Enlist your friends for help. Be specific with the kind of help you need from them. The more specific and clear you are, the more efficiently can they help you.
3. Make a list of songs you want to play at the concert. The longer the list the better. You can trim this down later during the week.
To do list: Day 2
1. Play through the songs you have on your list. Take note of the difficulty and kind of time investment you need to put out for each song. Consider also the common thread that run through the songs so you can have some sort of a theme.
2. Set up an online funds-receiving account if you don’t have one yet.
To do list: Day 3
1. Call venue and finalize the date and times with them. Talk about your plans of collecting funds and ask them what their protocols are.
2. Make a simple video or slideshow about your cause
2. Practice your songs!
To do list: Day 4
1. Announce your concert in social media. Make an events page on Facebook and ask friends to share it. Make a nice visual poster on Canva and post it on Instagram. If you have a website, post it on there as well. If this is too much, this can be one of the things a friend can help you with.
2. Make a rough draft of what order the songs are going to be in. Have a storyline and then line up the songs according to that story.
3. Practice your songs!
To do list: Day 5
1. Have another round of announcements in social media.
2. Make personal invites by calling people and encouraging them to come. You may also send them a text message or an email, stating the exact time and date of the concert, why you are doing ti and why you want them to come. I don’t advice mass emailing. Be as personal as you can get. People are more likely to show up if you personally invite them.
3. Brainstorm some ideas regarding the spoken parts of your program. Based on the storyline, you may have a personal testimony, a story, a special connection to some of the songs that you would like to share with your audience. Jot these ideas down.
4. Practice your songs!
To do list: Day 6
1. Spend some time really internalizing the messages of your songs. If you are doing the spoken parts, jot down your ideas on what exactly you want to say. However, the less scripted it is, the better! If you’re too shy to do this or think that it will distract you from music-making, ask someone who can do it. If you can, choose a person who has natural gift for impromptu speaking. Brainstorm your ideas with that person then do a quick run through of the songs and spoken parts.
2. Have another round of announcements in social media.
3. Practice your songs in the order you have chosen. Loosely time yourself and see how long the pieces go.
To do list: DOC (Day of the concert)
1. Have another round of announcements on social media.
2. Come to the venue early and run through your songs and for some troubleshooting. You might also need to do a sound and audiovisual check.
3. Ask your helping friends to come early as well. Depending on the venue and time you’re going to do it, you might need to arrange some chairs or clean up some things.
4. Make sure you eat something light before the concert. The last thing you want is a growling stomach while you perform!
5. Relax, pray and enjoy the moment. People will come partly because of your performance, but more so for your cause. They are there not judge, but to support you!
To do list: Day after
1. Send personal expressions of gratitude to the people who came, donated, and helped.
2. Post pictures on social media of the concert and a link to how people can donate.
3. Don’t stop connecting with these people. Every now and then, update them about your cause. Let them know how they made a difference. Who knows, a one-time donation can become recurring.
Do you have other suggestions regarding how to pull off a fundraising concert and still look like a professional? If so, I can’t wait to read your ideas below!
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