Fund-Raising Fatigue Drove Environmentalist Into Business

Michael Martin cares deeply about the environment, but he never cared much for the fund raising required to keep a conservation group afloat.

For eight years, Mr. Martin ran Concerts for the Environment, a Minneapolis non-profit group that organized free concerts nationwide. The concerts featured popular folk musicians and rock-and-roll bands, and they had volunteers fanning out into audiences to pass out literature about environmental issues and how people could get involved.

Although the charity had many successes — such as arranging for prominent musicians like Robert Cray and the group 10,000 Maniacs to perform free and producing the 25th anniversary Earth Day concert in Washington, D.C. — Mr. Martin says that he struggled financially “the whole way.”

A key problem: His group, which had an annual budget of about $1.5-million, could not attract significant foundation dollars since its mission — to raise awareness about the environment through concerts — was so narrow. That did not match most foundations’ guidelines for grants. ”We fell into a foundation vortex,” he says.

Even worse, musicians’ managers grew tired of the charity’s repeated calls to encourage performers to donate their time, he says.

“The music community is a money-driven business,” says Mr. Martin. “We became a pest to them. Whenever we called, it was for something — to donate their services, something. We were constantly in a position of need.”

A former investment banker, Mr. Martin decided to close the doors of his charity and instead start a business that would enable him to pay musicians — and put him in a position of “power” rather than “need.”

The business, MusicMatters, has been operating in Minneapolis for slightly over a year. It does the same work that the charity did except that it also organizes concerts for companies who often pay tens of thousands of dollars for popular musicians to entertain their employees and customers. For Mr. Martin’s environmental mission, MusicMatters arranges environmental concerts on a pro bono basis.

Mr. Martin says a major drawback is having to put so much of his time into arranging the corporate concerts, which usually do not help to advance his environmental goal. “The passion isn’t there,” he says.

However, the business is proving to be far more successful than his traditional charity fund raising. “I made more in the first two months than I raised in the last year with Concerts for the Environment,” he says.

Once he has logged solid profits, he hopes to spend more of his time organizing concerts for the environment — “where my heart is,” he says — and doing other projects to help environmental groups.

So far, he has donated his own time to help a group of environmentalists arrange a cross-country tour in what they call the “Veggie Van,” a vehicle that operates on oil used to cook french fries.

“Now, I have power and can turn it into something good,” he says. “The reality is the non-profits are always looking for help. There is much more need than there is support.”

To be back on the side that has money and can be supportive, he says, is “amazing.”