An Impactful Legacy
A conversation with Executive Director, Henry Donahue
When the strategic social impact agency he was running (Purpose) was in the process of being acquired by a larger firm, Henry Donahue was looking for his next step. Chris McCarthy, who had moved up from MTV2 and was just taking over at VH1 and leading their social impact strategy (he is now CEO of Paramount), had been thinking of reviving VH1’s Save The Music Foundation. After asking for Donahue’s thoughts on a strategy (the two met during the course of Donahue’s work at Pur pose), he returned to ask if Donahue would be interested in taking the helm. “It combines my music and impact,” shares Donahue. “I [had] something to bring to the table. I joined Paramount almost nine years ago to run [the foundation].” Having worked at big media companies focusing on social impact, navigating the indie rock scene with his label, and playing in various bands, Donahue added a unique combination of interests and 20+ years of experience.
Mission: To help students, schools, and communities reach their full potential through the power of making music. Of his work with Save The Music, Donahue says that the most impactful part of his role is “interacting with the students. I’ve been all over the United States this year, from the Bronx to Miami, from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, Detroit, the Mississippi Delta, and Columbus, Ohio. I just wrapped up our 19th and 20th communities this week. No matter what is happening in the community, the world, or even in the school, the students in the music room are always excited to be there. The teachers are wonderful. Not only have they committed to teaching, but they’re teaching music and the students. People who don’t interact with young people on a regular basis have a weird idea about what young people are like. Aren’t they always on their phone? I hear they’re so depressed? In the music room, you don’t experience that.
“It’s less [about] the wow, transformative story,” shares Donahue. “We have a lot of students who went on to become music teachers who went back to their neighborhood, community, and school. It’s about every school I go to, all those little moments.” On a recent visit to an English Learners School in Ohio, with mostly immigrant and new arrival students (speaking 20 different languages), students received a violin to play, take home, and practice with for the first time, and all the students wrote personal thank you notes. Donahue described a visit with a dynamic teacher who made it feel like being at a Leonard Bernstein Young People’s Concert. “It’s so well-organized and he was so invested in teaching strings. These were beginners, and they were so excited to perform.” A fifth grader named Winter, poised and excited to be there, has become a school ambassador. Says Donahue, “She wants to play the violin in middle school and has become a real leader. Winter hadn’t been coming to school and was on a bad path, but the music program completely changed her trajectory and relationship with school.” Another impactful moment was with a youngster who was restless all class in a packed room. Says Donahue, “As he was putting away his violin, he looked at me unsolicited and said, ‘This is my favorite class.’” It’s about impact.
In addition to working with over 100 new schools nationwide every year, and hosting musical community gatherings, Save The Music also has long-term relationships with local music groups that do training for the teachers. “We’re able to invest in the ecosystem, growing and supporting it in a way that has much more systemic impact than just the ‘wow model,’” emphasizes Donahue. “We do some events. If you’ve ever been to a Nashville event [“Hometown to Hometown”], it still seems like a small town. They’re very warm, friendly, and community-based. We honor an artist, an executive, and usually also a songwriter,” he says. “The whole idea came from songwriters, and we raised enough at that event to do an incremental grant. Nashville is one of these places where we also give a grant back to the artist’s hometown.”
The foundation also works with prominent artists directly, although they are careful about the students and their experience. Says Donahue, “We have a culture code internally, and the number one thing is ‘students first.’ We never want to do an event where the students are essentially background actors for a content creation moment. We always want to make sure that this is a great experience for them.” It’s essentially a type of mentorship model. “Becky G is an amazing example,” says Donahue. “We honored her at an L.A. event two years ago. She was able to visit a middle school in her hometown of Inglewood, which is part of our Southern California project, and it was very lowkey, answering questions from the students. She brought a group of those students to perform with her at the Oscars [and] is continuing to work with us” (portions of Becky G’s current tour go to the foundation to help sustain the program). “We don’t want it just to be a one-and-done situation. We want to build the artists and work with the idea that this is about your community, long-term impact, and longer-term partnerships.” Offering intimate Q&A’s for students to interact with and get inspiration from artists, Save The Music also works with teams behind the scenes to give students more insight into all of the possible pathways within the music business. “I grew up in and around D.C. so I came in during the DC hardcore, punk rock thing where it was [about] starting your label [and] getting in the band,” says Donahue.
25 years after its inception, Save The Music has raised almost $80 million for music programs within schools across the United States. With a current focus on New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, and Ohio, they are looking to expand elsewhere, especially in Baltimore, Memphis, and Oakland. “We have a lot of communities where we have great relationships, great local partners, and a vision for how this could scale,” says Donahue. “Most schools do have music. There are about 8,000 schools out there that don’t, serving about 4 million mostly black, Latino, or rural students. We are currently doing about 100-150 new school programs a year. If we could get north of 200 schools a year, we’ve doubled our size in the last five years, [and] if we could double again in the next five years, then we’re in range of solving this problem. By getting to our vision, of every student and every school, we’d be able to make music part of their education. This is a solvable problem in our lifetime.”
Find out more at: savethemusic.org
