Impact Screening & Fundraiser: R.A.W. Tuba

A long time client of ours, the Santa Fe Youth Symphony Association (SFYSA), had a unique struggle as the COVID pandemic spread across the world. As a resource for musical education, social distancing meant having to change not only the way they brought students together to create music, but also how they shared that music with the community, and even how they did fundraising.

After a collaboration was established between SFYSA and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (SFCMF), these organizations came to us with an idea for a virtual event that would way to reach the community and live up to the excitement of annual benefit concerts held in previous years. The event would be a virtual screening of the film R.A.W. Tuba: From Sandtown to Symphony.

The documentary spotlights the life of Dr. Richard Antoine White, local principal tubist, professor, and the first African American to earn a doctor of music degree in tuba performance. Tracing his life from his childhood, experiencing poverty and intermittent homelessness, to his ultimate musical accomplishments as a tubist, the film is an invitation to follow Dr. Richard White's inspiring journey. 
Click to watch the trailer.

​The goal of this project was to share Dr. White's story with the local community and especially young students and musicians in the making who could benefit from this beautiful reminder of the limitless possibilities in store for them. 

​As this project was coming to life, our work was cut out for us.​

Dr. Richard Antoine White had recently released the best-seller I'm Possible, a memoir sharing more details of his life, some of which did not make it into the film. He was also invited to talk about his book on The Daily Show With Trevor Noah. ​

We had to find the perfect online solution for this online event.
​
There were many "boxes to check":

• The movie was to be shared widely and this meant there was a need for massive communication.
• ​While the movie screening would be free, this was also a fundraising effort, and donations would have to be tracked.
  
• There were two versions of the film, one for the general audience, and the PG version for the younger audience. We needed a way to ensure we share the suitable version accordingly.
  
• When considering the experience, we wanted to make sure the movie would be watched fully and nobody would miss the cutoff to watch the film.
  

After looking for different options, Mari ended up collaborating with Ryan Turner of Amplifi Strategy Digital Consulting, to build a site for the event. Ryan, a Top-Level Expert in the marketing platform Kartra™, helped Mari better understand this platform and its tools, which allowed us to manage the website, event promotion, donations, and screening, all in one place.

Concretely, this work meant designing a new site with the visual and functional elements required to share information about the event, collect participant information, enable donations, video sharing, and open a new line of communication. Below are some screenshots of the website created. ​

On the RawTubaSantaFe.com site, viewers were asked register to watch both the film and an additional LIVE conversation with Dr. Richard White. After registering through the site, participants received emails containing links that allowed them to view both videos.

We were able to reach thousands of teachers and students not just in New Mexico but across the US and raise funds for two great organizations. ​

The R.A.W. Tuba film is incredibly valuable in it's ability to show how music can impact one's life and how it can create a mindset of success. At Mango Moon, we care about causes and we care about building up voices that need to be heard. We are always looking to make an impact with our work, and this project is an excellent example of the work that makes us want to "go to work" every day.