Cantabile Choral Guild and You

Just like a for-profit business, Cantabile must bring in enough income to cover all of our expenses. So where does the money come from? About half of it comes directly from our basic operations when Cantabile Youth Singers pay their tuition or members of Cantabile Chorale pay their dues and when our audiences buy tickets. And the rest comes from a myriad of sources.

Cantabile Choral Guild is fortunate to be a member of the Foothill College Performing Arts Alliance. This means that we can enroll the Chorale singers and the older Youth Singers, sixth graders on up, as students at Foothill College, and Cantabile receives a stipend from the college for each student.

We also make some money selling things like T-shirts, sweatshirts, and CDs. Sometimes we simply break even on these sales, and sometimes it is all net income because a donor underwrote the initial purchase. Our esteemed founding president, Fred Terman, did this for us not long ago, supplying us with T-shirts and sweatshirts to sell. Similarly, this year we received foundation funding to produce the Chorale's first professional CD, and when sales of that CD begin shortly, the revenue will be all profit.

Donations in one form or another account for roughly 40% of our income. Increasingly it is gifts from individuals like you that we rely upon. Thank you, all of you who understand our need for your financial support and have come through for us so generously in our fundraising campaigns.

A difficult economy has severely restricted the amounts that foundations and corporations give to nonprofits. We still make efforts, of course, to identify new sources of funding and to build relationships for the future when grant money will flow more freely again. The corporate donations we receive these days are primarily tied to individual donations through the matching gift programs that many Bay Area companies have for their employees. We are always grateful when our donors can ask their employers for a second gift to Cantabile.

Individuals and companies also give us non-monetary gifts known as gifts in kind, big things like a desk or free printing and all sorts of littler things. If you are kind enough to gift us, I am sure we can find a use for your gift in kind.

Cantabile is a member of the eScrip program. This means that whenever participating Cantabile supporters shop at certain stores, we automatically receive a percentage of the amount they spend. How wonderfully simple and easy! The eScrip program brings in money for our programs, and it costs you nothing at all to take part. It only takes a couple of minutes to sign up at www.escrip.com and designate Cantabile as the organization you want to support.

Fundraising events are another important source of donations. You can get all the details about this year's drawing elsewhere in this issue. Exciting events and fantastic prizes add an element of fun to the serious business of raising money.

Another way in which we make sure our income covers our expenses is by keeping a close eye on those expenses and practicing good old-fashioned frugality. The great strides we have taken to streamline operations and reduce overhead costs has meant more resources available for our fundamental business of enriching peoples' lives through music.

Thank you for all you have done to keep us financially stable, and please continue to do what you can to support us and help us grow. Come to our concerts. Sing in our choirs. Volunteer your time. Make donations. What Cantabile Choral Guild will give you and the whole community in return is music for life.