City Music Foundation’s Christmas Challenge

November 21, 2022

Fundraising

One donation, twice the impact!

City Music Foundation is participating in the Big Give’s Christmas Challenge between Tuesday 29th November and Tuesday 6th December. If you donate to City Music Foundation via the Big Give between these dates, your donation will benefit from the Big Give’s match funding.

The Big Give runs the UK biggest match funding campaign, the Christmas Challenge. For seven days, it offers supporters of participating charities the opportunity to have their donation doubled. Founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Alec Reed CBE, the Christmas Challenge has raised millions of pounds for thousands of charity projects since it first launched on the Big Give in 2008.

Why We Need YOUR Support

Artists have emerged into a new musical landscape bustling with activity, filled with innovation and opportunity, yet more difficult to navigate and succeed in than ever before. Many outstanding performers do not really know how the music industry works, how to be noticed, nor how to deal with the financial side of being a one person business, nor contracts, PR or social media. There is a long list of non-musical skills they need to master to be able to earn a living from performing.

We take selected exceptional musicians on our two-year Artist Programme and provide tailored support in the business of music. We offer each musician or ensemble a business mentor, coaching, and a workshop series including accounting, legal issues, working with agents, and critics, and more. We also fund the building of new websites, photographs and videos, and help with biography writing, event organising etc. This runs alongside our agency and management side which secures professional work and performances promoted and curated by CMF in our own concert series at Barts Heritage, St Martin in the Fields and the Wallace Collection.

What We Will Fund

Our innovative Artist Development Programme costs a considerable amount of money to run. We rely on charitable donations from individual donors and support from trusts and foundations to continue offering high-quality support to all our Artists. Funds from the Christmas Challenge will be used towards the external (non-staff) costs of the following key areas of work:

£4,600: Mentoring – A mentoring programme for 4 new ensembles at (six sessions each @ £200 per session).

£5,400: Mentoring – A mentoring programme for six new individual artists (six sessions each @ £150 per session).

£12,000: Workshops – Six workshops with external leaders, venues, catering.

£5,000: Websites – Design and build for five new artists.

£3,000: Photos – A professional photoshoot with a leading photographer for all new artists.

£10,000: Video – One high-quality performance video for each new artist.

What Our Artists Say

“The Conservatoire taught me to make music, CMF is teaching me to make a living.”

“Having such knowledge and support around will be really valuable to building a sustainable and varied career.”

“CMF provides its artists with many opportunities to learn important and lasting skills that will benefit them throughout their career. I am lucky to be able to make connections with current and past CMF artists which I hope will lead to fruitful collaborations in years to come.”

“I am looking forward to developing into a more professional, creative and individual musician through the CMF programme. It’s fantastic to be part of such a supportive and welcoming family of talented musicians.”