Hi, this is Taylor and today is two weeks from our last update! This will likely be a relatively boring post without the humor you might be expecting by now, but maybe it will provide the “stats for nerds”.
We have received a few questions regarding the structure and organization of Stanza, specifically related to our funding and contributions. While we don’t know exactly how Stanza Music will ultimately operate, we definitely intend to be completely transparent about the operations of Stanza Music Inc. In this blog post, I hope I can address the most frequently asked questions and provide some clarity about Stanza’s status, goals, and vision for the future.
Is Stanza Music a non-profit company?
Stanza Music Inc is not a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. After careful consideration, we decided to organize as a for-profit company for several practical reasons. The primary reason is that as a non-profit, we would be legally restricted from accepting shareholder investments and forming partnerships with other private companies that could offer valuable copyright administration and publishing services. We hope to host sheet music from many different publishers, so this seemed like a crucial aspect of our organization.
Is Stanza Music intended to be self-sustaining, running off unpaid labor and donations?
Our long-term vision for Stanza Music Inc is to create a self-sustaining platform that centralizes shape note music. While our current team members are not receiving monetary compensation, they are being granted a stake in the company. We believe this is a fair approach to dividing ownership among the individuals, teams, and businesses that contribute to building Stanza. In the future, we hope that the company becomes profitable and self-sustaining, at which point we pledge to pay back the contributions made by our donors.
How is my donation being used?
At the time of this writing, we have raised $46,501 from outside donations and we are definitely jumping up and down with excitement about your enthusiasm and support! Your donations are being allocated primarily to hiring external skilled professionals who can help us bring the Stanza app to life. While we are handling many aspects of the project, there are specific areas, such as programming and coding, that require additional expertise. By investing in a talented team, we hope that we can shortcut to an app that functions as designed and prevent as many future bugs as possible. The total cost of Stanza is not known at this point, but it is clear that what we have so far is part of a much larger cost.
Progress on the Stanza App
In the last few weeks, we’ve made significant progress on the Stanza app prototype, focusing on user interface and graphic design. This stage is crucial as it shapes the overall experience and feel of the app, ensuring it is both visually appealing and user-friendly. We are also working on creating a payment system to accurately record and calculate copyright royalties.
To our donors
Hundreds of kiln-fired glass coffee mugs with fancy logos on the side have shipped this week, and you should receive yours very soon!
We will update you again in two weeks!
If you have questions, concerns, or general inquiries you can contact us by going to https://stanzamusic.org/contact/ or messaging one of us listed on https://stanzamusic.org/about/. And, as always, our donations are still open at https://stanzamusic.org/donate/. Thank you for sticking with us on our journey so far!
Leave a Reply