A month or two ago, I thought that I would investigate the idea of becoming a member of 1% For the Planet.  I think they have a cool thing going on.

So I sent them an email and got a reply back with details on how to join.  Apparently, the minimum membership fee is $200 per year.  This is for companies with annual revenues of $0-$200 000.

I thought that $200 was quite steep, so I expressed this and asked if there was another, less expensive, bracket for individuals.  I never heard anything back…  That’s a shame because I would have joined had there been a more reasonable membership fee.  I think these folks could perhaps make their movement much bigger by offering memberships for individuals.

It’s all good though because later I thought that 1% is chinsy anyways.  I decided that I will be giving 5% of my EP, album and live performance profits to environmental non-profit groups.  For 2009, I will be giving this 5% to Ecojustice.

Last week I began taking an entrepreneurship course at EMBERS in the downtown eastside of Vanouver.  My goal with taking this course is to improve my business skills so I can make a full time living with my music and audio skills.  So far, I am very impressed by the course.  EMBERS is a non-profit and they offer 60 hours of instruction over 10 weeks for a meager $250.  It’s a fantastic value!

My first homework assignment was to create a vision of my business.  This is what I came up with, using Google image search and Photoshop Elements.  I had a lot of fun doing this and it’s helping me stay focused on my goals and on what I want to have be at the root of my work with sound.

I won’t bore you and go into too much detail about what the piece above represents, but basically my involvement with sound is a spiritual practise for me and I want to be able to give back to other people and to the environment both with my time and with some of the money I make.  I do this through producing and releasing my own tracks, through DJing with Ableton Live, through film scoring and through teaching others these things as well.