Recently announcing Justin Bieber as their Global Ambassador, Pencils of Promise (POP) has been actively supported by countless names in the music industry. Pertaining to the electronic community, Justin Blau (3LAU) has been one of the strongest advocates for the charitable organization that builds schools in underdeveloped parts of the world. Justin was one of POP’s earliest supporters after learning about the organization in 2012. Since then he’s collectively raised over $100,000 and has visited a school in Guatemala that was built by his donations.
With the release of his newest non-profit label, Blume, Justin has furthered his commitment to POP and their goals. All proceeds generated by the label and its releases will be donated directly to POP. His first release, “Is It Love”, came nearly three weeks ago and has already generated tons of support and thousands of dollars for POP. RaverRafting had the opportunity to chat with Justin about Blume and all of his work with POP.
It’s not just donating a sum of money, it’s about getting fans involved in the process and that’s never really happened before. – Justin Blau
Tell us a little bit about Blume
Justin: I’ve always had the idea of doing a non-profit label and Blume has been two years in the making. We wanted to create a platform where every song I released, fans who supported the track would also be giving back. That’s where the inspiration came from and we’ve only started with one record. The whole idea of Blume is to keep releasing lots of records and money will be raised for Pencils of Promise in return.
Is Blume partnered with POP?
Justin: Technically yes, the first goal for Blume is to raise $100,000 for POP. We’ve already raised $100,000 in the past two years and we wanted to double our commitment moving into 2016. All of that being said, in the future I think Blume will work with lots of different philanthropies. Working with POP has been a huge passion of mine, I love the work that Adam (Founder) has done, I love everything the organization has stood for. It was the very obvious first choice for the first philanthropy to work with.
What was your main reason for getting involved with organizations like POP?
Justin: I think it’s always been a factor in my life, even in high school I did a lot of work philanthropy work. I started in micro finance and we created non interest bearing loans to entrepenrurs in developing countries and were running a portfolio of close to $100,000 by the time I graduated high school just in non interest loans. After that I did some work in clean water in college, so I’ve always been involved. What struck me so strongly with POP was how transparent the organization was.
Justin: A lot of philanthropies will go into a foreign environment and do what they think is right. POP will go in and higher local labor and everything is completely localized, I was very inspired by that when I started to learn about what POP was doing. When I decided to raise money for our first school, I knew where every single dollar was going and I knew every single dollar would have an impact. Some charities you never have any idea where the money is going, so that’s why I wanted to get more involved with POP specifically.
What are your on going plans with POP? Do you have any goals currently set?
Justin: The reason I chose to partner POP is because my previous experience with them has always been incredible. The founder is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, he’s super inspiring in supporting his work and the POP’s team work. POP gave me such a life changing experience when I went down to Guatemala. The main goal is not just getting fans involved and spreading the music, but actually getting fans involved in the practice of what POP is actually doing, real world, real time. That’s why I really want to bring fans down the next visit, wherever that may be. There’s so many opportunities for fans to get involved in very direct ways that POP has always supported. That’s why I chose POP as they are just so flexible.
You started with POP in 2013 and visited a school in Guatemala built by your donations, what was that like for you?
Justin: That’s exactly it, that’s what is so incredible. Everything is tangible, so many people never get to feel the result of their work. When I went down to Guatemala, it sounds cliche but it was incredibly life changing. I got to see a perspective on life that I would have never seen otherwise. I got to see the reaction of all of these families when they came to the realization that their children would live better lives and it was a really incredible, super touching experience that I want my fans to experience as well. That’s why when we reach our goal I really look forward to bringing some fans with me who would like to join, wherever those schools are built.
I’ve read the Blume is the only non-profit label out there, is that accurate?
Justin: Yeah, it’s really interesting. First off, Blume is not a full non profit. The reason it’s not a 501C3 is because there are other parties that may or may not profit off of Blume activities. It’s just a legal thing, but basically Blume itself does not make any money. It’s not for profit in the sense that the label doesn’t profit, but we can’t necessarily file for the specific non-profit category because other people make fees off of us encouraging fans to buy songs or stream songs. I don’t make any money, Blume doesn’t make any money, but it’s the first not for profit label at least to my knowledge. Billboard came out with an article on Blume two or three weeks ago and no one came out saying “you’re wrong”, so we did a lot of research to try and find one and we couldn’t find one.
Justin: The reason it doesn’t exist is because legally it’s very difficult to call a label a non profit. I think that might be why they don’t exist, but I have a lot of legal things that we’re working on so we can get some of these intermiedatries to wave their fees, that’s not going to happen anytime soon though. As the label grows and as we reach more goals and raise more money I think we can get iTunes and Spotify to wave their middleman fees which would enable us to file for a proper nonprofit label. It’s super legal and confusing, but yes to answer your question, it is the first of its kind.
Do you think more producers and djs should try and follow your lead with what your doing and try to get more involved with organizations like POP?
Justin: 100%. It was a big challenge to start this label, there’s definitely a lot of challenges when you try to start something like this from the ground up. I think now that it’s all established, the reaction of the public has been so incredible. More and more DJS have been hitting me up asking how they can get involved with the label. That’s the most exciting part to me, we’re really setting a precedent for other artists to use music as a tool to give back. I think this is a really unique opportunity because we’re uniting fans around music to give back. It’s not just donating a sum of money, it’s about getting fans involved in the process and that’s never really happened before.
I know the goal was to raise $100,000, was there a time table on when that goal was supposed to be reached?
Justin: Yeah, it was by the end of 2016, but I didn’t expect it to move this quickly to be completely honest. Also, we have so much more content to be released. We have this song, but I probably have four more to be released by the end of the year. I have some other people’s songs to be released by the end of the year, I also just played a show at Facebook HQ in San Francisco. I did it for free and in return they’re making a $20,000 donation to the campaign and doing free advertising for Blume on Facebook. We’re getting support from really big people and companies like Facebook who love the idea and love the concept. A lot of artists have donated a portion of their ticket sales to charity, but when it’s a song especially a song that means something to the artists, I think the fans have a lot more motivation to share what’s going on. Sharing the project, sharing the song, and if every fan is sharing the song and streaming it, we’re raising tons of money.
Other artists that are signed to Blume, the money made from the music they release on the label will be donated to POP as well?
Justin: Right, so basically the way it works, Blume doesn’t really have a true business head yet because it doesn’t even really matter. Any of the money that comes through Cobalt (our label service company) at the end of every cycle, I will look at the number and donate it out of my pocket. The money will eventually come back to me, so that’s not really important right now. We’re going to be super transparent with the fans about that, showing them progress reports so everyone can see where the money is going. If another artist wanted to release music on the label, I’d say yes and then every single dollar from iTunes and Spotify streams would be donated. Every million streams on Spotify equates to about $5,000. It doesn’t seem that great but it’s actually incredible because when you’re an artist its less than $2,000. But because I am the label, I keep a lot more. All of that money then goes to charity. So by having my own label, I can donate much more.
Justin: If a song is a hit, it will sell a lot of copies on iTunes, but most people aren’t really buying music anymore on iTunes unless it’s a huge song. So we’re really pushing Spotify streams and we’ve been working very closely with Spotify on how we can rock these streaming numbers. We’re almost at one and a half million, so with a hundred million streams that’s over $50,000 raised. The more songs that do that, the more money that is raised. I don’t want to stop at $100,000, I personally want to raise a million dollars. That’s my ultimate goal, but I want to be cautious about setting the goal to high, so we started with $100,000. So far, I think we’re already at $40,000 combined with all the other things we’re doing. I’m going to make that donation to the progress page soon, but I have to wait 60 days since the release of the song. Whenever that is, we’ll do a post about it and fans will go crazy to see we raised that much money so fast.
Will you still be releasing music on other labels, or will Blume be your go to from now on?
Justin: My dream is for a major label to get involved with Blume later down the road. A major label is inevitably going to want to make money in some shape or form. If they spend the marketing dollars, so let’s say they want to get involved with “Is It Love” because they think it’s a huge song. I’d say ok and explain this is what you have to spend to market it, and then give them their small piece. I’d still be donating the percentages I get, but if the major label wants to make a little money and they say they want to spend $200,000 marketing a song, to me it’s better to do that and more money is raised for charity even though they’re making money off of it. So my dream is for a major label to get involved, to be making a small amount of money, but to be putting up all the marketing dollars so the label can grow in a completely different way.
Is Blume more than just a precedent for other artists? Could it also be an incentive for them to release music on your label knowing it will go to charity?
Justin: Yeah exactly, it’s also great for other artists because your song will reach more people. If you just put out another dance song right now, you have to bank on it being a hit for it to reach a lot of people. The problem in music right now is these major labels have a lot of marketing dollars. They spend a lot of money on making bad music big. That’s the point of Blume, that’s why its called Blume. It’s an opportunity for up and comers to reach a lot of people with their music. I’m very critical about it, so we’ll probably only do 12 releases a year, I don’t want to make this a churning machine of crappy songs. I want all of the music to come out on the label to be top notch stuff that I’m personally attached to.
Justin: A lot of the time these small artists have no weight with these big labels and get no marketing dollars to push their music. The cool thing about Blume is I pay for everything out of pocket. So any marketing expenses that we incur to push the music, we’re not making that money back from the streams. I’m not recouping any of those costs, every single streaming dollar goes is contributed to the donation page. Any small artist has the unique opportunity to market their music in a different way when they sign to the label. Yeah, they won’t make money on it, but they wouldn’t be making money anyway. Small artists don’t have the resources to get their music out there unless they’re signed to a major label.
Are you trying to get everyone involved if possible, in order to market it better?
Justin: Right, so it’s symbiotic, the more marketing power that can go into this project, the more money that can go to charity. The ethics of it are very interesting, is it ok to get someone involved who is making money on something that is all for philanthropy? The truth is, I’m donating all of my money, every dollar I make as an artist and as a label are going to charity. With anything, there are administration costs and marketing costs. When someone wants to get involved in a good way to support the idea, I think the result can be incredible. Like I said, I want to raise a million dollars, I don’t want to raise a hundred thousand dollars, but one hundred thousand dollars is really great for a school.
You’d almost wonder if a bigger label getting involved is a good or bad thing, are they in it for the right reasons?
Justin: Exactly and that’s why we’re not anywhere near that yet. I’m not even really thinking about that yet, it’s my goal that a major label would believe in a song and take the littlest percent and give us thousands of dollars in marketing money. I think that’s my biggest goal, because that’s the ultimate kind of symbiosis that could exist between a philanthropic label and a major label. I just don’t know what the fans would think of that, I would honestly probably ask them before I made any decisions. At the end of the day, it’s more about what they want than what I want.
Is a Blume show possibly in the works?
Justin: 100%, definitely. We’re already working on that. It’s not just about the label, my goal for Blume is for it to be a community of people who want to use music to give back. I think it’s existed in some way shape or form. There have been some people who have done it, like Red. Red was like, let’s get a bunch of artists on a compilation and sell it for charity. I want Blume to be hitting it from every angle, it’s raising money for music. We also sell bracelets and merchandise, and our bracelet sales have sky rocketed since we started the campaign. One person bought 192 bracelets which is anywhere between $2000-$3000 dollars. We just want to hit it from every angle, it’s not just about the music. It’s really about getting a community of people involved in spreading the word. Music is a unique venue and channel for doing that, as opposed to just asking people to buy my music or buy my bracelets.
Do you think it’s eventually possible to reach a million dollars?
Justin: I definitely think it’s possible, the more we raise, the more leverage I have in going to all the middlemen and telling them I want better rates. It’s all a positive feedback cycle. My goal is if anyone of the songs on the label is a hit, it’s going to change everything. So I just need to focus on putting up good music.
Connect with 3LAU:
https://www.facebook.com/DJ3LAU
https://twitter.com/3LAU
https://soundcloud.com/3lau
https://www.instagram.com/3lau
http://www.3lau.com
Connect with Pencils of Promise:
https://www.facebook.com/pencilsofpromise
https://twitter.com/PencilsOfPromise
https://www.instagram.com/pencilsofpromise
https://pencilsofpromise.org
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