2015 and the people who made it great
I’ve been sitting here trying to write proper year-end thoughts for CASH Music, mostly staring at a blank screen. It feels like I should be thinking in terms of numbers or bullet-point accomplishments but this has been a year full of people. So I’m going to talk about them instead. The people who work with me here at CASH, the contributors to this project, the artists we work with, our board, and the people and organizations who support us.
This is their story. This was their year.
Maggie Vail’s been my partner, co-conspirator, and friend since before CASH Music was a thing. It’s no surprise she’s been the architect of a renewed vision for the organization. Our vision for CASH involves balancing education and storytelling with the tech we build, making sure the artists who can benefit from what we make not only have tools but the knowledge to use it all.
Maggie spearheaded our work with Bikini Kill to build a better shopping cart. We released our store to beta for the reissue of their Revolution Girl Style Now EP and we’re close to a public release early in the new year. She’s also been leading our efforts to teach and tell stories on our website, building and planning a new editorial direction we’ll debut in 2016. There’s a hint of it now on our site, where we’ve invited artists and thinkers we love to talk about why music matters to them. Through their stories anyone can see that music matters to all of us.
Our Creative Director, Chris Leckie, put in the time making everyone’s words look beautiful. Featuring Henry Rollins, Astra Taylor, Mark Surman, John Roderick, Zola Jesus, Jenn Schiffer, The Haxan Cloak, Jamie Stewart, Dan Deacon, Beth Ditto, Jean Grae, Ted Leo, Dapwell, and so many more — Chris unified dozens of diverse voices into something with real perspective. From the way we talk about ourselves, to the way we show the platform, to the tools themselves; Chris has given us team colors to rally around.
We’ve grown a bit this year, too, adding Katy Goodman as a developer. Katy built and launched the first version of our open venue data project, was the point person in our work with an amazing team of students from Carnegie Mellon University’s capstone project, and she’s playing an increasing role in all of our development efforts.
Even when I think in numbers and bullets I think about people. This year we crossed 10,000 artist signups on the hosted version of our platform with over 350,000 people joining mailing lists or buying directly from an artist. Without Jeff Sheltren handling deploy and devops for us our servers would have melted ages ago. Every time I’m cc’d on a support email where Tracy Neale patiently guides a new platform user through an issue they’re having I remember the value of teaching and connecting with people. Without work from key contributors like Daniel Bogan and Tom Filepp all the commerce enhancements we’ll be launching soon would still be months away. And Claire Lobenfeld has lent her brain to shaping the editorial vision for a new cashmusic.org into the new year and beyond.
Everyone listed here is still just a start. We have generous funders and sponsors who continue to believe in us. We’re supported by an amazing board and a community of artists and volunteers who give us their time and effort to help make open tools for musicians a reality.
In 2016 our main focus is on that community; on adding more voices to this growing chorus. As we tell stories, teach, and build we’ll be focused on the people we do this for and with. We see CASH Music as a free and open resource for musicians. As a nonprofit there’s no ownership. In that sense it’s owned by everyone involved, each of us working towards a shared mission of artist empowerment.
Music is a vital piece of our world. When I say we’re building a better future for musicians the “we” means everyone: the staff, the board, the musicians we work with, everyone using our tools or reading our site, and anyone who’s willing to help. It includes you.
I suppose I’ve talked about everyone but me. For me, this year’s been an evolution. I’ve spent seven years working on CASH Music. I used to be responsible for all the jobs, and one at a time someone’s come along to shoulder part of the load. This year I looked up and realized that there’s a whole team of people in place. All those jobs are handled now. For a few minutes I wasn’t sure where I belonged until Maggie made it clear: I’d spent those years building tools, putting every emotion into making them work. Now all of that emotion and effort is focused on building an organization. My focus is moving from code to organizing, growing something that can keep us working towards our mission for a long time to come.
In short, 2015 has been the year we got ready. All of us, that big collective “we,” are primed for a new beginning in 2016. We’ll be expanding our website to bring new stories and outreach efforts, educating about the realities of the music industry right now. We’re working on final releases for our shopping cart, new tools, and better analytics. The pieces are all in place and we’re going to keep pushing for a world where musicians are empowered to support themselves and freed to focus on their art.
To everyone who’s been a part of CASH Music so far: thank you. You’ve made it possible for us to do this. Thank you for a wonderful year in 2015, and I can’t wait to see what we do together in the new year.
