VALUES
Operating from your values does not mean that you need to become an expert in an area before you get started.
Before you learn more about any topic, it's helpful to know for yourself why you actually want to gain more insight about it. What is your personal connection to an issue, where is your stake in this work? Knowing your own values and how they are connected to your core will help you make decisions that feel fully reflective of you.
Equity
Equity is when every person has access to opportunities necessary to fulfill essential needs, advance their well-being, achieve their full potential and have self-determination to create, thrive and learn.
Equity is different from equality. Equality refers to everyone having the same thing, while equity is a more precise way to allocate resources and opportunities with a goal of moving each of us to an equal outcome. Put plainly, everyone doesn't need the same things to fulfill essential needs, advance their well-being, achieve their full potential and have self-determination. Equity requires working back from those as the goal while an equality framework might make the assumption that the pathway to those goals is the same and the necessary resources are also the same.
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Building and Managing Your Team With Intention
When you are in the position to build a professional team, there are power dynamics, working conditions and a collective well being to consider on top of the basic match-up of skills and chemistry. Instead of finding yourself paralyzed by all of these things at once, it is helpful to break them down, do your best, get better at asking for what you need and also apologizing. (This will help every aspect of your life, not just your music).
Start here (and click for a larger collection of links on this topic):
The Management Center is a resource specifically for nonprofit managers, but they have a lot of posts and articles that might translate. How to Manage When Things Are Not Okay (And Haven't Been For Centuries) is a good place to start, but we recommend navigating around their resources section.
Sustainability
As we think about our personal and professional impact on the environment, there are ways to lessen the impact of touring. Some things you've definitely thought about, and some of them might be a new take you haven't considered. There are also some resources that might help you fund some of the things that make green touring a little more expensive. Turns out we ALL want to cut down that footprint while financially making it at the same time.
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The EnviroTour Guide is a guide for artists and managers who want to implement sustainable production for their shows, and The EnviroRider is designed to help agents and production managers communicate with venues on sustainable action items.
Touring That Reflects Your Values
Since touring is one of your biggest opportunities to reach people (while building your own world one night at a time from town to town), just do what you can to make the most of it! It's important to not compete with yourself for the attention of fans, so try to be specific about the issues you want to focus on and tactics you employ. The truth is, there are a lot of us out here doing our part. Try not to imagine that you have to cover all the bases. Instead, choose a couple of things that feel right to do right now and get specific and creative about how they can integrate into your tour.
Also remember: it doesn't help anyone if the way you incorporate your values into the tour actually undermines your ability to sustain music the way you want to share it. It's a balance, sometimes a really soul sucking balance, but it's important to strike it in the healthiest ways that benefit you, your music and your message.
Start here (and click for a larger collection of links on this topic):
Organizations like Plus 1 can help implement strategies like adding $1 per ticket sold to benefit an organization you want to support. If adding a dollar to your ticket price does not make financial sense (like, if you are selling tickets for less than $25), consider adding a special merch item or dedicating proceeds from a song release to benefit an organization doing critical work.