Does the world really need another campaign?

Following on from this blog post, here are some reflections on my time running the fundraising campaign Dance How You Like.

Dance How You Like

Firstly, this is how the campaign turned out financially. Not bad but was it really worth all that effort to raise £438.83 for charity? Personally I made a small financial loss, having spent around £170 on promotional t-shirts, web hosting, diesel etc. I also logged 146 hours worked on this project. That’s a lot of my time and in addition I found it rather stressful / all-consuming at times.

BUT I do consider that it was broadly a success. I had braced myself for greater losses and I am sure Citizens UK will be grateful for the donation; and will do good things with the money. Also, the message was well received and is one I am proud to espouse. And, it took me WAYYYY outside of my comfort zone. This is something I strive to do from time to time. It’s impossible to predict exactly what will come of this but that’s the point. I have made some great new connections as a result of this and have learnt a lot about persistence. The fact it wasn’t about my work as such made me feel liberated to promote it properly and contact people without a sense of impostor syndrome…or the worry that every non-response was a negative response. My aim is to take this forward into all areas I work in.

I also learnt a lot about charity fundraising and the associated pitfalls. That will help in taking Dance How You Like forward, which is the plan. So far it has neither failed or flourished. It needs more time and commitment from me to see whether it really has the legs as an idea to raise significant funds for Citizens UK. As mentioned in my previous blog posts I don’t intend to keep running it if it becomes a vanity project and I must admit there have been many times during this that I have doubted whether the world needs another campaign / slogan but I am then often immediately buoyed again by people’s response to the aims of the campaign and even just the slogan itself. I think it deserves at least another round or two to see what becomes of it…

Why I have stopped making art, in order to raise money for charity

I am lucky. By most standards very lucky. I am a full-time musician and artist and as such am living the dream. Yes, it’s often poorly paid and involves far more sales and admin type tasks than anyone likes to admit but I know I lead a charmed life. To some extent I do so because I am scratching an itch. I live through doing this stuff and I find not doing so for a prolonged period causes me to get like a stop-valve needs releasing.

For a long time now there has been certain background tension though, which stems from a sense that I am not giving enough back. Art is good. It enriches lives. It is often also radical and challenging. But with the broad political trajectory of the past few years and in particular very recent events that just didn’t seem like enough any more. So, for a while I have stopped making art to run this campaign: www.dancehowyoulike.co.uk

antonio

If I am honest, I didn’t plan to stop making art entirely while this 21 day campaign is running but it has proved far more all-consuming than I had envisaged. So far, it’s also failing pretty miserably. At the time of writing this the campaign has sold a total of 23 t-shirts. I paid £120 to have 20 t-shirts printed for the promotional activities, including the video below. At present, the charity donation will be around £100. MEH! Must try harder. It could only take one celebrity endorsement or some good press and away we go…but I have also decided that this first iteration of this project and that Dance How You Like will continue beyond this first 21 day campaign. I’ve learnt a lot, including that charity work is fraught with challenges and that you have to work your ass off because people just aren’t going to get to hear about it otherwise.

I will never run a vanity project, so I will quit this if/when the time is right to do so…or if I decide upon other ways to help make a difference. Dance How You Like exists to raise awareness of tolerance and integration issues in the UK – as well as money for Citizens UK. That’s it.

If any of this is making you think you could help an inexperienced soul in this world of fundraising, or maybe you just want to let people know about it, here is information on how you can support the project / get in touch: dancehowyoulike.co.uk/support.html

Oh and here’s that video I mentioned earlier…ENJOY!

I wrote this blog post in part to give myself permission to continue with the project and still avoid making any art for a bit. This may last the full 21 days of the initial campaign but I do have a couple of time-critical projects I will probably do some work on in that time. We’ll see. That itch is certainly getting itchier by the day!

Tumblr blogs

I started a couple of Tumblr blogs:

What’s He Building In There? is a place to house updates on what I am up to that don’t really warrant a full blog post on here. Work in progress / experiments etc.

Sounds From Outside features weird and wonderful sounds and musical instruments. A means of driving and logging my research in this area.

Halldorophone

I hope you might consider “following” them…