How To

Become A Host:

ANYONE can host a house concert. Our challenge is to enlist 100 hosts who will open up their homes for an evening of great music and rare community.

For fans, a house concert is an opportunity to showcase your favorite local musician while raising funds to fight hunger. For artists, it’s a chance to build a new audience or perform in a more intimate setting for loyal fans.

Pick A Location:

Not much is required. A house concert can take place in your living room, your backyard, at your local church or temple, at a community center in your neighborhood – anywhere in which you can provide a good audio/visual experience for your attendees. If you plan on holding your house concert outside, we suggest you rent or borrow a sound system so everyone can hear the music well.

Build a Guest List:

Invite your friends, family, fans and neighbors or open it up to your community or fans of the artist. This is about community—so bring together whomever you consider to be your “community” for a night of music and doing good.

Confirm Your Concert and Send Out Invites:

Once you’ve chosen a date and booked your talent, register your house concert via our registration page. Now it’s time to send out your invites via email, Facebook event page or an online invitation site (and make invitees commit!). Now that you’ve started inviting people, start planning the details!

Plan Your House Concert:

Set a fundraising goal. We’d love for every concert to raise $1,000, but any donation amount is appreciated! Put together a plan for the look and feel of your house concert. Here’s your opportunity to get creative. Decide where the audience will sit and where the performer will stand. Remember to allow space for instruments and equipment. If you are going to offer food and drink, plan your menu or ask attendees to bring their own food. You can enlist sponsors—ask your local wine store to donate a few bottles of wine or your local bakery to donate dessert in return for a plug. Don’t forget to talk to your artist and make sure their personal and professional needs are met for their performance. You want them to enjoy the experience as much as you and your attendees do.

Communication:

Communicate with your guests! Once your concert is confirmed, be sure to notify your guests with any updates, and send a few reminders about the location, date, time, etc. If you’re opening your concert up to the community, make sure you are advertising the show via social media, word of mouth and with the template we’ve created. Don’t be afraid to get creative! Our toolkit has all you need to create your own promo materials (flyers, posters, Facebook and social media graphics, etc.) or Homemade Jams swag (t-shirts, pins, totes – you name it!) If you can put a logo on it, you can create a lasting reminder of your awesome house concert.

Collect Donations:

We recommend that you set a minimum suggested donation amount for entry to your house concert.  You can designate part of that donation to the artist, or ask the artist to waive their fee so that more money can be donated to WhyHunger and our critical work (make sure to arrange these details ahead of time). Encourage the artist to sell CDs and merchandise so they can cover their basic costs.  Donations can be collected by accepting cash and/or checks at the door or using a third-party website such as brownpapertickets.com.

Submit Your Proceeds:

If you are collecting donations at the door, you can submit your proceeds online with a credit card. Or you can mail your donation(s) to:

WhyHunger Homemade Jams Campaign
505 Eighth Avenue, Suite 2100
New York, NY 10018

We would appreciate if you would please send donations via check or credit card, not cash. All checks should be payable to WhyHunger. Please reference the concert you attended in the check memo line.

Thank Your Attendees:

WhyHunger will thank all donors for whom we have contact information. We recommend that you send a personal thank-you note to all who supported your Homemade Jam and WhyHunger. It’s also good to reiterate why you decided to support WhyHunger and participate in the campaign to fight hunger and poverty.

Why:

Whether your concert raises $500 or $5,000, your donation supports WhyHunger’s critical work. Want to know how your donation makes a difference? Check out the work we are doing at whyhunger.org.

Report Back About Your Homemade Jam:

We’d love to share your Homemade Jams story with our supporters. Send us photos and a short blurb about your concert and we may feature you on our Facebook page and in our newsletter!