For roughly nineteen years, The Empire City Men’s Chorus has been committed to performing adventurous classical and contemporary works of the highest artistic merit. Additionally, the last two years, we presented music that served specific causes. In 2009, we unveiled a new 5 movement piece to promote dialogue about Marriage Equality. In 2010, we created and performed a new piece to promote the United Nations Secretary-General’s UNite campaign to end violence against women. After promoting meaningful advocacy campaigns, we considered the opinions of our audience, our core donors, and our singers and decided to pursue a program in true holiday style.

Our Artistic Director Christopher Clowdus designed a holiday program that combined the seasonal spirit with an interesting historical journey through the Renaissance pieces that went on to form the basis of our modern musical sensibilities. More than simply a set of holiday songs, we wanted to present a musical journey through the underpinning of our modern holiday favorites in a solemn and beautiful setting. We also thought it would be interesting and informative for our concertgoers and would stand out amidst other holiday programs – both choral and otherwise – generally offered in the New York City area.

The Empire City project caught our eye - both because of the musical talent and the worthy causes supported by their performances. Their crowdfunding journey has picked up a good deal traction, so I decided to catch up with Keith Soura - the Vice-President of the group.

What has your experience been as a crowdfunding pioneer in the world of choir music in New York - how are your supporters responding?

To be totally honest, our Board of Directors approached this concept with a bit of trepidation at first – and understandably. The traditional method of fundraising for the arts is a tried-and-true path of personal interaction and donor cultivation through private, exclusive events and subscription packages. I was insistent, however, that those methods of funding were fast becoming a secondary means of cultivation. Many people in our generation like to be immersed in the media of a project that they’re involved in…they want to have back-story and to know the people behind the vision. RocketHub facilitates this type of connection by allowing the streamlined delivery of project information, videos, audio, photographs, and text with an easy-to-use system that allows donors to tangibly see the impact that their donation – whether large or small – has upon any creative organization. Most importantly, it allows those same donors to share their cultural savvy and interests via all of the most important social networking tools of our time.

Once we decided to proceed with the project, the initial response was soft. We were not quite sure how to best publicize our fundraiser to our traditional donors. After some time, we realized that a campaign of constant personal contact combined with the intelligent use of social media outlets really created a “waterfall” of support for the project. The most important and amazing aspect of this method is that it allows everyone in our organization – regardless of their personal ability to contribute funds – to take ownership of the project by promoting through Facebook, etc. This has created a ton of excitement among our membership which is trickling down to their friends andbroadening our fan base.

It's obvious that you've learned a lot throughout this process. What do you have advice for Creatives looking to crowdfund a similar project?

Absolutely do it! The tools at RocketHub make it exceedingly easy to promote your project to friends. When combined with Facebook pages, Twitter, blogs, personal e-mails, letters, and phone calls…this platform is unbeatable. Now that we’ve gotten our feet wet, you can guarantee that we’ll be funding more of our projects and initiatives via this method!

Thank you Keith and Empire City for taking a chance on RocketHub and on crowdfunding. Congratulations on your success. Listen and Fuel, here.

-Vlad