We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeff Campbell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jeff thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

Yes, we support children and teenagers who lack a music instrument to participate in a school or after school music program. Hungry for Music also supports youth social workers & school counselors that have clients who would benefit from our outreach.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Even though I am not a musician, music has had a profound impact on my life. Realizing the power of music and having a direct understanding of music’s healing qualities inspired me to start Hungry for Music.

Hungry for Music began as a homeless benefit concert with entertainment by local street musicians in 1992.

In 1994, Hungry for Music became a 501(c)(3) music charity with the goal of supporting music education.

We are entering our 30th year of outreach in 2024. In our history, Hungry for Music has donated over 22,000 instruments to all 50 states and 33 countries.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I believe that Hungry for Music is still going today because I never gave up. I owe that perseverance to my mom and the fact that whenever I was ready to give up, something always happened to inspire me again. This occurred many times through the years, but there is one story that stands out.

I remember being extremely burned out with the work load and having some real money challenges because we lost a stream of income. I was really done and wanted to give up.

Before I made a definitive decision, I received an email from a former instrument recipient who was now a young lady.

Hungry for Music had gifted Nora with a violin when she was 12 years old. We would send violins to violin teachers in Arizona who would take them to an orphanage in Magdalena, Mexico.
Nora lived at the orphanage and the violin was her way out of poverty.

When I received the email from Nora, she was now 22 and attending college. She was also the youngest and only female in a local mariachi band. But what really hit me is that she returned to the orphanage to give lessons.
Hungry for Music sent her violins for her students and I kept going. How could I not?

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

At the very beginning, I sold my old Honda to pay all the start up fees.

The marketing idea that really gave us a boost and ended up opening many doors for Hungry for Music were themed CD compilation releases.

In the early days, like many non-profits, it was a challenge for us to get off the ground. Being new with no track record made fundraising extremely difficult. Receiving rejection letters from foundations and corporations was so demoralizing.

One of the first mistakes I made as a non-profit leader was making our initial board of directors too large. Big mistake.
It takes one bad one. After three meetings, several other board members came to me and said that guy is trying to sabotage you.
It was obvious. It was the first time that it occurred to me that stores that bought and sold music instruments were not necessarily supportive because they saw us taking potential instruments that could buy low and sell high,

Anyway, I presented the board with the CD compilation idea. A baseball themed CD, released on the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. I had a few supporters on the board, but most thought I had lost my mind. I began to wonder myself, but my intuition has never insisted quite like this.
“You must do this.”

So I did, without the board. I had to create a smaller one that supported these marching orders I received.

My intuition was not wrong. Hungry for Music released 11 volumes of “Diamond Cuts: A compilation of baseball songs”

The compilation attracted many prominent artists from the rock and folk world, including Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, who all licensed songs. Pianist George Winston loved the idea so much, he contributed to every volume and also performed several benefits for Hungry for Music.

Negro League great and star of Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary, Buck O’Neil was the spokesperson and gave us a shout out on Tom Snyder’s Late Show. The New York Times wrote an article that caught the eye of NPR’s Morning Edition host , Bob Edwards, who featured the compilation several times on his show. I will always listen to my intuition.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hungryformusic.org
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/HungryForMusic