CASH Music

[cashmusic]

Summit conversation: Anil Dash and Dapwell

There's really no introduction that can do this proper justice. Anil Dash and Ashok Kondabolu, better known to some as Dapwell, talk about tech, music, and the culture that surrounds it all. Just watch it.

This is really the first of series that we're hoping to expand into a true community conversation and learning effort. Much more on that soon, and more on our upcoming summits here.

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MozFest here we come!

Hello!

We’ve had an amazing and extremely busy first half of 2014 over here and it’s showing no sign of slowing down. Our summits in Chicago and New York were incredible - full of amazing conversations, great ideas, and inspiring people. Thanks so much to all the fantastic people that came out, participated, and helped support them. There’s a lot of moving parts to making those events happen and we most definitely couldn’t do it alone.

We wanted to share some really exciting news and let you know about a little bit of a schedule change for the remaining upcoming summits in Seattle and Atlanta.

First things first, the big news: we’re headed to London this fall (!!!) where we will be helping organize the music track at this year’s MozFest. We are over the moon about this development. Mozilla and CASH obviously share a very similar vision for building open source solutions to real problems. We are honored and excited to be asked to be a part of their yearly festival.

MozFest will be held on October 24-26 at Ravensbourne. It’s a collaborative event and as such is currently seeking proposals for sessions. We’d love you to take part if you’ve got a great discussion you’d like to curate, a hack you’d like to work, or an awesome brainstorming session you’d like it lead. All ideas are welcomed. Proposals will be accepted until August 22nd and we look forward to reading yours.

Lastly, as mentioned above, the summit schedule has changed for 2014. We had originally planned to host the Seattle summit in late August. Unfortunately it turns out that August/September is literally the WORST time to host anything related to music or technology in the Northwest. Nearly every weekend there seemed to be some established festival or conference already happening, between MFNW, Bumbershoot, OSCON, Pickathon, and XOXO we were doomed to have a sub par event. We just weren’t willing to do that, we want the summits to be full of the best and brightest people in their respective fields. So we decided we had to move it to mid November.

Right now we’re working on the premise that the Seattle summit will be the weekend of November 15 & 16 and are in the process of securing venues and speakers. That also means the Atlanta summit, originally scheduled for November, will be moving to February 2015. We’re sorry for the schedule change but we know it means better events all around. We’ll be posting more details as we have them.

There are a ton of really exciting things going on over here between platform development, artist programs, learning initiatives, and events. Expect to hear more news from us soon on all fronts. We know we’ve been quiet but don’t expect us to be that way for much longer. We’ve got a whole lot up our sleeves.

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Quick preview of the new admin interface

Hi there.

We've been so busy lately that we haven't been posting updates nearly enough. So I thought I'd put up a bit of a preview of the work we've been doing on a new admin app for the platform:

New interface preview video

In the video you'll see a lot of the new layout in action — both on the desktop and how it looks as it scales down to a phone. It's also faster than before, and we've added a lot of little touches responding to feedback. (Form validation for input, loading indicators, lots of bug fixes, etc.)

There's a lot more we'll be putting in before this goes live. Things like activity feeds, better views for section pages, easier element creation and template editing, etc. This is just the start!

Let us know what you think.

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Something awesome happened

We’ve got some big news.

That’s usually how acquisition talk starts. And that seems like the theme of the week. But not here. If anything all of the acquisitions and changes to the landscape in music and tech have reminded us why — now more than ever — an open, nonprofit, and artist driven solution is needed for the sake of music.

Open source means control for musicians. Nonprofit means we can’t be acquired by a company that could compromise our mission of sustainability for artists. The combination means we can do some amazing things.

And thanks to the Shuttleworth Foundation we know we’ll be doing those things for the conceivable future.

I’ve been awarded a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship to push CASH Music forward like never before. Until now we’ve moved more slowly than I’d like, operating as a two-person organization never more than five or six weeks from our last paycheck. We’ve had to be nimble, cut corners, and all too often push features to the side to ensure the organization would survive.

The fellowship means we’re planning a full year’s roadmap, starting now and running through March of 2015. It means Maggie and I know we have paychecks coming. It means that we’ll soon be able to bring on some help and build faster and better than ever before. It means 2014 is going to be a big year.

We’re still dealing with a budget smaller than the smallest startup, but we have a budget. For the first time, really. You’ll still see us fundraising, but now the idea is to grow, not just to fight to keep the lights on. We still need your help, but right now we’re in a better position to fight for you than we have ever been.

It’s my name on the fellowship but I can say with no humility that it would never have happened without my partner Maggie Vail, our board, and all of the amazing people who’ve helped us by giving time or money. Thank you one and all for your help and your belief.

The one individual thing I will accept is responsibility. It’s time for us to change the music industry for the better, and the buck stops with me. I want to hear your ideas and your criticisms. Because we can make this great. The Internet has been trending towards closed silos of tech and data. It’s broken. Together we can fix it and make it work for musicians.

We’ll be sharing more plans soon. Let’s change the world together. Starting now.

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What is CASH Music and why is it important?

I work a lot. I’ve always worked a lot. I’ve worked at least a 40 hour work week since I was 19 years old. I think it’s safe to say that in the last two and half years since I started working at CASH Music I work at least 20 hours more per week than I did at Kill Rock Stars. The good thing is I like to work, especially when it’s something I truly believe in.

As a result of all this working I’ve become a bit of a social recluse. Lately when I do get out I’m often asked what exactly CASH Music is and what it is that we’re trying to do. Sometimes there’s a twinge of “what do you mean you don’t know what I’m spending all my time doing?!” and then I remember this is a massive, ambitious, and multi-faceted effort that we’re in the middle of building. It’s not just a simple product that’s easily explained, this is a life’s work in progress. It is really important and if executed the way that we envision we believe will ensure a healthy option for all musicians moving forward. This means everything to me.

My partner, Jesse von Doom, and I have a vision and a very solid plan towards a sustainable future for the organization. That said, right now we need help getting there. We are currently raising funds via a Kickstarter campaign for a series of summits in 2014.

Because I sadly can’t speak with everyone on the phone or in person I’ve broken down the important parts of who we are and what we’re doing into ten simple points:

What is CASH Music?

1) CASH Music is a nonprofit organization. We are a tiny staff of just two people. Our board is made up of 16 people. Since we are a nonprofit none of us can own CASH Music. This is important.

2) Our mission is to help empower artists for a more sustainable future in this digital age. We believe that an important part of helping artists includes helping artist friendly labels, managers, publicists, etc.

3) We build digital tools. Jesse has spent the last six years building a massive platform, project by project, directly with artists and labels. The platform can be downloaded and used on your own site or you can use our hosted version, currently in beta. Right now the platform can do things like digital sales, download codes, email list management, email collection, etc. Later we will be adding features like a full shopping cart, a subscription service, and much much more. All of our tools are open source. This is also important.

4) Our tools are, and always will be, free to use. We are unwavering on this stance. We believe giving artists access to basic online tools is an important part of sustainability.

5) We believe artists should own their own data. All information collected by our platform can be exported at any time.

6) Because we are a nonprofit we cannot be bought or sold. We also cannot take investment. Since we build all of our tools using an open source license this means that even if CASH as an org for some reason dissolved, the code would still exist and live on. Both of these things are very, very important to us and we think very, very important to the future of music online.

7) Education is also a key component of our mission. It’s vital that artists have free access to information and resources that will help them manage and navigate their careers in an ever changing landscape. Education, both online and in person, will be a big part of 2014 for us.

8) We think musician’s perspectives are often missing in the current discussions about the future of music. We believe their voices are necessary to the conversation. We’ve launched a series of summits designed to make sure they are heard.

9) The CASH Music Summits bring artists and technologists together. The conversations started in these events will influence our educational goals, our platform, and hopefully many other projects. We want to foster a new form of collaboration that can lead to new understanding of the intersection of technology and music, leaving real change in its wake.

10) We think that music is one of the most important parts of being alive. We want to help the people that make it survive.

We need your help to make this happen. If you believe that what we are working on is important please consider donating to our Kickstarter campaign, spreading the word, or getting involved. We have seven days left to raise over $15,000 dollars. That’s a lot of money in a very short time. I know we can do but we can’t do it alone.

THANK YOU!

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This is my life's work. I want you to have it.

Yesterday someone told me my passion doesn't translate to video. They're right. I look into a camera and explain, where face to face I can't help but dream out loud and argue for the things that matter to me.

In Los Angeles last weekend I got up on stage to say thank you to everyone who came out to the small summit event we threw. I had just seen six people I admire kick ideas around, and was following directly on a moving conversation between a mentor and a hero. The emotion of the day was huge. The support from people on stage and off was amazing. There was the pressure of fundraising and the feeling that this could be an ending but knowing instead that it's a new beginning.

I stood there trying to find the right words. It felt like minutes but after a few seconds I heard my self say "Thank you. CASH Music — the summits, the code, all of it — this has become my life's work and I want you to have it all."

It was the most sincere and spontaneous thing I've ever said on stage. I couldn't really finish, but I wanted to explain. We've built CASH as a nonprofit and with open code on purpose. The idea from the start was to build up community, build for that community, and just be a part of something bigger. Seeing that come to life was a lot to weigh.

I try to say thank you to musicians when they create art that touches my life. Those musicians are the reason I push on when things are hard, scary, or downright overwhelming. Starting a nonprofit is hard. Starting a nonprofit without an endowment or even a savings account is maybe crazy. But the whole time I think about how hard musicians work to create the music that reaches so many of us. I think about Jamie Stewart, Erin McKeown, Ted Leo, Kristin Hersh, and so many more. I've said thank you to some of them, but CASH Music is how I try to give back when I can't say more.

Last year I got to meet Ian MacKaye and talk about his work, the work we're doing, and the world at large. The whole time I wanted to tell him what his music had meant to me but I just couldn't. Maggie introduced us. We all sat and drank tea. It was nice. He drove us back to the train station and I said thank you. Not for the ride, but for everything. He just didn't know it.

So when I think about how my passion doesn't come out on video I think of that day.

I think about how, as CASH Music, Maggie and I are constantly fighting for our lives, for the privilege to do this work. We risk too much for little personal upside. Sometimes I look at my kids and think about the life I could give them if I'd just fucking get a job at a tech company already, wishing I could turn away from this fight.

But finding a real and sustainable future for music is too important to me. The arts as a whole and music as my own passion are just too important. I look at my kids and think of a world where music is only as creative as commerce allows and I can't idly let that happen.

These summits we're trying to do in 2014 are the way forward for CASH Music. They are how we connect to musicians and technologists. They are how we build community. They are how we build educational materials and new tools for artists to use. The summits are how we make sure that we wear our passions on our sleeves and never leave off a thank you or come across flat.

Raising money for these summits is us fighting to keep moving forward.

Please support us.

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Can't come to one of the summits? There are plenty of reasons to back the Kickstarter.

At a quick glance the summits we're organizing look like conferences. That's understandable as we're talking about events with speakers and topics and all the rest. But the reality is they're a vehicle for our mission — a way for us to advance our goal of empowering musicians in a direct and real-world way.

We're fundraising to make the summits happen but the idea isn't to become a destination event where people talk their bosses into buying tickets or where the new startup pays for a seat on a panel to promote the company line. What we're creating is a new forum where musicians, technologists, and industry people can find common ground and discuss new ideas. We're building an event aimed at teaching and learning, with inspiration driving the whole thing. The VIP access available to Kickstarter backers will be something special, but we're making sure the benefits of the summits are available to everyone.

I'm writing this to explore the format a little, and show you why supporting these events will benefit you even if you can't be there in person. Making the summits happen will quite literally bring CASH Music to a new level, and we're thinking about community on a global, online scale.

So you can't make it to Chicago, New York, Seattle, or Atlanta. Why should you care about the summits?

Live streams We'll be live streaming all of the on-stage conversations — this means anyone can tune in and see Harper Reed, former Obama For America CTO, talking streaming and open-source with Galaxie 500's Damon Krukowski, whose essays on the topic sparked so much debate. You can see the Anil Dash, one of the best minds thinking culture and Internet, talking to Dapwell from Das Racist about their rise, pop music, and more. All of the amazing conversations we've confirmed so far, and all the others we're still working on, will be streamed for the world to see.

Video and editorials We're taping the on-stage conversations, but we'll also be interviewing participants, following up with speakers, and learning what matters most to the artists and technologists who attend. From there we'll be able to work on educational material to put online — video interviews, setting up editorials, and other online-only resources that will be so valuable to our community. All Creative Commons licensed and open to the whole world.

Workshop days There are lots of hack days, and they're fantastic, but we want to create something a little different. A day where developers and artists can come together and build towards specific goals, hack on new ideas or existing projects, and even learn directly from experts. Our idea is to focus less on competition and more on collaboration. We're inviting experts to attend, giving small informal talks and opening up for office hours. Imagine a room with designers, UX specialists, web developers, IP lawyers, PRO representatives, and label production staff all in one place helping guide the efforts. The workshops will be open to the public and we'll all roll up our sleeves and build something special together.

These summits are so much more than conferences. They're a chance to meet and brainstorm with fascinating people. They're a collaborative effort to generate online resources for artists. They're a space for building, learning, and working towards goals. In a nutshell, the 2014 CASH Music summits are our mission come alive. Please support us.

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A CDN for cashmusic.js

Holy moly things are crazy. We've been pushing out all sorts of news about our Kickstarter, and this weekend's LA Summit, but there's still work that needs to get done.

I'll post a whole lot more about this later, but we just pushed up a version of our cashmusic.js library that works cross-domain. And thanks to Rackspace generously donating a Could Files account we're able to host it for you on a CDN so a single line of JavaScript let's you turn movie links into lightboxes, make simple music players, or go nuts like in the demos.

So you want to get fancy with a YouTube video? Just include a link to it: CASH Music overview.

Music player? Just some very basic HTML give you this:

Throwing Muses - sunray venus

Learn More with docs and demos on the cashmusic.js page.

Here's the CDN code you need to get started. Just copy and paste it into the source of any page — no download needed:

Or for you fancy types, an SSL version:

We're still testing and we'll keep working on cashmusic.js, but this is a huge step forward. The effort to spend real time on our front-end / player stuff was supported by The Shuttleworth Foundation who gave us a flash grant that allowed me to spend three weeks heads-down this summer. At a two-person nonprofit that's an amazing stretch of focus, and we've been steadily hammering away since, moving towards integrating this seamlessly with the platform and unlocking a bunch of new functionality that's been sitting below the surface for a while.

If you get a chance to play with it we'd love to see what you come up with. It's a work in progress and we can use all the feedback you've got!

So much more coming soon...

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Help us make more summits happen

Yesterday we announced the launch of a new Kickstarter to fund a series of summits in 2014, bringing musicians and technologists together.

The idea behind the summits when we had the first ones in Portland was to get musicians, technologists, and music industry types all in a room to talk candidly about the challenges facing artists. We wanted those conversations to be inspired, so we found speakers. We wanted those conversations to drive new ideas so we did follow-up surveys and invited participants to submit their thoughts.

The summits were designed to be a chance to learn — for participants, for us, and (through online content) a wider audience online.

Both Portland dates were amazing, and we got so much out of them. Going with smaller, private conversations led to insights and a candid tone we had never heard at other events. It was immediately obvious that we need to do more of these, we need to bring the output online through writing and even video of the speaker portions, and we need to get as many people involved as possible. It was inspiring, and we saw our mission come alive in a real and tangible way. Musicians, industry, and tech all sitting and talking, finding common ground, and brainstorming truly new ideas.

The next summit is November 16 in Los Angeles. If you're in town we want to see you there, so sign up for an invite — you'll see conversations between amazing people like Allison Wolfe, Mike Watt, Pascal Finette, Tara Tiger Brown, and Tatiana Simonian. We'll live stream the on-stage parts and do our best to bring the conversations online through recaps and write-ups.

Our long-term goal is to make the summits the real-world heart of our efforts, expanding them to include a workshop day of platform hacking and building sites for artists. We want to bring smart musicians and technologists together four times a year, hearing their ideas and sharing ours. We want to build a community that brings in all sides of our complex mission and creates new ideas, new code, and new learning for everyone. This is why we're raising money right now.

I can't stress how important this is for us. Fundraising for a nonprofit our size is hard, especially when we're building new code and programming events. All help is appreciated, and we're going to be announcing exciting details about each event, the digital comp, and more. You can make this happen for us, and together we can make real change.

Please support the Kickstarter and spread the word.

And If you're in LA, sign up for more information about the Nov 16 summit.

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Los Angeles hack/build/make THIS WEEKEND

So this weekend is the first ever hack/build/make day for CASH. We're doing it on Saturday in Los Angeles, and you should be there. It'll be a good time, it's the first of many, so come help us shape the future of these things.

I wanted to talk format a little, so here goes.

Our friends at Webo Lab are hosting the event. They're an amazing creative shop in Venice, and it means so much that they're opening their doors for us. I'll be there on the early side, 10AM, and we'll start off informal with Q&A time for anyone that shows in the morning. Closer to noon I'll present a more technical look at the CASH Music platform and our front-end library cashmusic.js.

But the real focus for the day will be on seeing what people can build on a single page with the tools in hand. (Ours or any others.) Bring your own art and music, and if that's not your cup of tea we'll have some rad things on hand to play with. Relapse Records gave us a bundle of images and art to go along with a Red Fang track, Secretly Canadian handed over a pile of Cayucas assets, and Mom+Pop Music is working on a bundle too. You'll have access to art in formats you won't find in a Google image search.

We'll build a Github page for the event where everyone's welcome to show off their work. The labels and bands involved are keeping an eye on it it so anything rad might get a little spotlight placed on it. Next week we'll do a recap and highlight the best of the day.

If you're coming to do some beautiful front-end work, to fix some bugs, or just to learn a little more we'll make sure you have a good time. And New West Records is buying food for everyone, so come grab a bite, get social, and let's make some amazing things together.

Details: 10AM until later @ Wemo Lab: 550 Rose Ave in Venice, CA

Thanks Thank you to Wemo for the space, the labels lending us music and art, and Mandrill for their ongoing commitment and sponsorship. We couldn't do this stuff without you guys!

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Trigger animation/CSS effects by timecode with cashmusic.js

A while back we introduced cashmusic.js, a small JavaScript library that handles CASH element embeds, video lightboxes, and audio players. We built it so all these things would be available and easily customized without complex JavaScript.

It debuted with a custom page-player demo featuring Throwing Muses, but in advance of our hack/build/make day in LA we wanted to show off the next level of customization possible. So we've posted a new demo featuring the song 'Lite Years' by Not the 1s.

The Not the 1s demo features changing background images, CSS effects, and tween and GIF animations, all triggered to specific time-codes in the song.

All of this happens without a single line of JavaScript beyond the initial cashmusic.js include. Every page element that changes is given a class and contains a JSON-encoded list of CSS elements to change at specific times or events, like 'play' or 'pause.'

Go ahead and view the source of the demo — there are a whole lot of changes throughout the song, but the change definitions are pretty easily understood once you know what you're looking for.

Here's some simplified code showing how it works:

For a front-end developer this means complex customization in a hurry and we hope to see a lot of new ideas come out of the hack/build/make day on October 12. You can read more and download the library on the cashmusic.js page.

And check out more from Not the 1s!

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Los Angeles, here we come.

Our Portland summit dates are past us now, and it was so much fun we thought we'd do a few more events this year.

On October 12th we'll be putting on a hack/build/make day in LA. We'll be announcing more details soon, but you can expect an overview of the code we've built, a few specific challenges, and all the opportunity you could want to get your hands dirty. If you want to come and help build an open future for music just sign up here.

We'll also be doing an LA summit this fall. We're not ready to confirm the date just yet but think November. We learned a lot from the Portland dates and we're excited to put on an event in Los Angeles.

We've got a fun few months coming up. Hope you can be a part of them.

[cashmusic]

Thoughts on fundraising and the other boring parts of building a nonprofit

I started writing this for my personal blog. The one that no one reads or knows about, where it feels safe. Maggie talked me into putting it here instead. Which is less safe, but since this is really about what it feels to try to keep CASH Music standing...well...here goes:

When we talk about CASH Music we talk a lot about what we're trying to do, and less about the day to day of what we do and who we are. I guess in a lot of ways it's nicer to write phrases like "sustainability for musicians" than "here's why this is really hard."

A little background for the uninitiated: CASH Music is a small nonprofit in Portland, OR. We work with musicians to find career sustainability through education and free, open-source tools to help things like selling, promoting, and distributing music. Open-source means we build all of our code in the public eye, and we shape it by building real projects for working musicians — we believe strongly that musicians and artists need technology they can own and rely on without cuts taken out, new fees, or new closed networks built on their backs.

But there I go talking mission over details again.

I mean it when I say we're a small nonprofit. We're two people. Maggie Vail and I are the only full-time staff, with Tracy Soo-Ming helping on a very part-time basis. We have an amazing board, occasional volunteer help, a growing membership of hundreds of musicians, plus a few thousand beta testers.

For all those people, the day-to-day stuff all comes down to Maggie and myself. We’ve learned to compartmentalize and embrace a fragmented and occasionally jagged line forward. In the last year we’ve managed to launch the beta of our hosted service, add new platform features like mass mailing and multiple currencies, redesign the admin app, build membership and community, and put on the first of what will hopefully be many in-person summits anchoring our evolving educational efforts.

Those are the public-facing things. To get them done we need to navigate the administrative pitfalls of a growing nonprofit. There are everyday things like tech support, bug fixes, planning and messaging, etc. We were denied our 501(c)(3) application. Rather than walk away we chose to get ready to apply again, which involved moving the nonprofit itself from Rhode Island to Oregon, reworking mission and organizational structures, and sorting our now-changed tax status and responsibilities for the past five years.

All that stuff is fine. The thing that really wears on us is fundraising.

Money and I have never really gotten along. It's not that we don't like each other — I feel an appreciation for the things it can do and it's an inanimate object so I doubt it feels much at all for me. But there’s something about fundraising for a young nonprofit that absolutely crushes your soul and makes you wonder if you can go on. In one part, it’s the fact that in our world we’re often six to eight weeks away from our final paychecks — needing to figure out next steps or walk away. That weight takes a toll.

But I think it’s actually something in the scale versus the pace of the organization that really makes me lose sleep. The first few years no one got paid. I lived off side jobs and built it up with all the rest of my time. Kristin and others we worked with would kick in and keep servers on. It was terrible, but when things are terrible and small it’s easy to maintain. “How are things?” “Terrible.” “Oh right. Well then, carry on!”

As CASH has grown so have our administrative efforts and the need for fundraising. It was around two years ago that this dream job became a full-time job, and even with modest salaries there’s an ever-present shadow of new fundraising efforts over everything we do.

(Disclosure: my take-home pay every month is around $3800. People ask, and I assume others wonder. Both Maggie and I have turned down offers for a lot more but it’s hard to walk away from a dream job. also we don’t own CASH Music. Nonprofits basically own themselves, so we’re employees. There’s no “yay we got acquired” or other startup-style payday in our future. We like it that way.)

The part about no one owning CASH is significant to this particular narrative. With no ownership, no one can invest in or buy a stake in the organization. So in fundraising we can’t raise investment, we can’t offer a tax write-off, many grants are closed to us, and we have to stick closely to 501(c)(3) rules in order to re-apply. We need to find people who genuinely care about our mission of artist sustainability and figure out ways to bring them value.

Our first real break came a couple years back when MailChimp sponsored our efforts to integrate with their service. They did so in a way that allowed us to move forward, with no strings attached and no exclusivity. We could model the platform as planned, allowing other services to integrate on even footing. That relationship has grown to include their Mandrill mass mailing product, and they’ve graciously sponsored our platform and summit events. That set a precedent and we’ve since gotten similar no-strings support from Mozilla and Google — furthering open development and outreach to artists as well as sponsorship of the platform and summits.

We’re working on other sponsorship-style fundraising efforts, but they’re generally long engagements and they take a lot of work. So we’ll be doing a public fundraiser before the year is out, maybe another Kickstarter, and we’re working on offering some kind of voluntary membership program. (We won’t ever gate off functionality in the platform, even hosted, so it’ll be something modest with a bundle of value-add offerings like a AAA membership for working musicians.) Basically there’s a plan and we’re piecing it all together slowly.

I’m writing all this for a couple reasons. First to get it out of my head. You can imagine the obsessive buildup as you work your dream job, trying to bring a long-term change that’s needed, knowing that it could end any moment. I’ve been across the country visiting family this week, working slowly towards new element structures in the platform. The work is sorely needed, and all the while there’s been summit planning and fundraising forcing their way into my head — in between bringing our girls to meet new cousins or see the ocean that used to be our back yard.

The other reason I’m writing is to open up our process. Some folks ask why certain features aren’t ready, or why our roadmap moves around so much. The answer is triage. We’re constantly finding the most important thing and addressing it. One day it’s a summit, the next it’s bug fixes or UI changes, the next features, but all too often it’s fundraising.

I realize that CASH, as an organization, is in the midst of growing pains. We’re closer than ever to lifting the “beta” tag from the hosted version of the platform and updating installers for a huge leap forward of the downloaded version. When we can we’ll hire a fundraiser, I’ll play more of a management role, and we’ll push forward on education with Maggie helming the summits and our online curriculum. It’s exciting, and there are changes on the horizon, but for now I just want to get the platform polished and out of beta. So if you’re sitting on an end-of year marketing budget and want to do some good in the world please reach out. I’m always available, my number is [phone], and I’ll talk about any idea that pushes fundraising and administration out of my head in favor of building.

So there’s my long catharsis about fundraising and growing a nonprofit from the ground up. It was helpful to type even if it’s a bit of a boring read. I hope it shed some light on things for anyone who might be interested. Next week we do our second summit date and immediately following we’ll have more code sprints, more announcements, and more features rolling out.

Now I’m hopping on a plane back home to Portland with a clear head, ready to raise less corn and more hell. There are exciting times ahead.

[cashmusic]

Attention US artists: important health insurance survey

Artists: do you have health insurance? If not, why not? Nonprofit artist groups, FMC, AHIRC, and Fractured Atlas, are conducting an online survey from July 17 – Aug 31 to assess how many US-based artists have health insurance on the eve of the Affordable Care Act.

Click here to participate in this survey: http://www.research.net/s/artistsandhealthinsurance

Your answers are anonymous and confidential, and the survey should take about 10 minutes to complete. We urge you to participate so we can really understand the health insurance needs and priorities of the artist community.

[cashmusic]

August 1st Summit

We are delighted to say the first CASH Music Summit day on August 1st was a success! We are writing up our report right now and will be posting it later this week.

As we mentioned before, the format of these events is a total experiment and we knew it would only be as good as the folks who showed up to take part. We were floored by the amazing people that came and all of the general positivity in the room. Much is made about the frustration surrounding the intersection of music and tech so it was inspiring to be reminded of the excitement and possibility around it too.

Thank you to our amazing speakers: Jean Cook, Rebecca Gates, Maura Johnston, and Selena Deckelmann.

Thank you to the sponsors that made it all possible: Mozilla, MailChimp, Google, Car2Go, Marmoset Music, Wemo Lab, Deschutes Beer, Sizzle Pie, and Pickathon.

Stay tuned for more online.

[cashmusic]

Healthier streams: Nigel Godrich, Thom Yorke, and Spotify

Over the weekend Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich (of Atoms For Peace) each wrote a series of tweets about pulling their music from Spotify. You should read them all. Their main reason wasn't their own financial well-being, but that of younger artists trying to find a place as working musicians. They argue that the current system rewards larger acts and corporate shareholders, but doesn't pay emerging acts.

They're not wrong.

Slings and arrows came out on both sides of what is becoming a pretty tired argument. There are absolutists on each side. Streaming is terrible or streaming is the future. It's time we start looking for the path forward that works for all of us, and stop arguing from standpoints that leave no room for movement.

Godrich and Yorke not only have the right to pull out from these services, they're also right that streaming hurts emerging musicians. That argument is weakly countered with arguments about exposure, total pay-outs by streaming companies, or the idea that there's no better rate to be found, so fuck it, we're tossing our hands up and giving up.

There's the good argument that musicians' income doesn't hinge on sales anymore. And that's true, except when it's not. For many musicians outside the mainstream or in the earlier stages of their careers, selling matters. Music and merch sales mean everything when your life is lived in a cramped van or when you're trying to convince someone your work is worthy of their time. The bottom line is that sales matter, and in a stream-only world there's nothing to help get new artists off the ground.

I'd argue that exposure and discovery aren't worth a thing if you're not driving the attention back to a place where the artist can take advantage of it. My hope is that services like Spotify begin to look at artists as partners, realizing the long-term health of each is now tied together. With no new music, Spotify dies. With no mass audience, we set an all-too-low ceiling for working musicians.

People like to say the rate is as good as it's going to get. That may be true, but it doesn't mean we should stop looking for other ideas. In an ideal scenario, Spotify et al would give artists the ability to add and control buy buttons, letting them sell records and merch directly from within the system. Control is an important part. The artist needs to be able to control where those buttons lead, driving traffic to the thing that saves their lives — be it vinyl, shirts, tickets, or even just simple email signups.

This should be controlled at the service level, not through a central clearinghouse. Introducing another gate at which 15-20% can be levied against the artist in transaction isn't the answer. Limiting access to customers of one direct sales or ticketing platform isn't the answer. Working with musicians to create a controlled environment where the most dedicated fans can directly support them — in the way the artist sees fit — is the most healthy thing that can be done. Suddenly all the arguments about discovery and exposure carry weight, and you've created an ecosystem where real growth can happen.

And if you think Godrich and Yorke pulling their music was a statement, imagine how much more impact it would have if they were returning to Spotify because their issues were addressed.

[cashmusic]

New admin interface

This weekend we pushed a pretty major update to the hosted beta. We've been listening to feedback and with that in mind reworked the user interface from the ground up.

In addition to the new look and feel (more dogs!) you'll find a reorganized workflow with your elements front and center on the main page. It's a work in progress, but we're making the main page the center of the experience, with elements, publishing, embeds, and an activity feed right there.

The main navigation is now anchored to the top of the page, and you'll find icons throughout the interface as visual clues. Confirmation and error messages more obvious, and there are other small tweaks.

This is just the start. We've set the foundation for a bunch of enhancements that we'll be rolling out alongside new features. More soon!

Log in or sign up now to check it out.