Community choirs, theater companies, town bands, dance groups, art studios, museums, libraries and history societies already have the people who love what they do. Those people are already in the seats and through the door. A private request asks them directly for the one bill in front of you, by name and by number.
A community chorus has forty singers, a director, and an accompanist paid by the rehearsal. In January the hall it has rehearsed in for nine years raised its rent. The season's hall rent and the accompanist now come to $3,000, due before the spring concert.
The spring concert is in April. It sells about 120 fifteen-dollar tickets and grosses $1,800, and the hall and the printed programs come out of that.
Look at who is in those 120 seats. Most of them are the singers' own parents, spouses, children and neighbors, the people who come to every concert because someone they love is on the risers.
Those are the same people who would cover a named $3,000 bill directly, in an afternoon, if somebody asked them for it.
So the concert is the reason the group exists, and it is worth every rehearsal. It is also a season of work that clears part of the bill. A request lets the concert be the concert, and lets the people in the seats cover the hall.
| What the group keeps | 100% of every contribution. |
| When it arrives | Once your bank is connected, each contribution reaches it in 2-3 business days. |
| How you send it | By text or email, to the people you choose, with photos and a video if you want them to see the situation rather than just read about it. You decide who to send it to. It's never listed on A Better Gift, and it stays out of search results unless you choose to share it publicly. |
$3,000 is thirty contributions of a hundred dollars.
Forty singers, and every one of them has a few people who already bought a ticket last spring. Thirty is fewer than the front rows.
Nothing to create a request. Nothing to send it. Your group receives the entire amount of every contribution.
One named thing, for a group whose audience already knows it. What that looks like across the arts:
Community choirs and choruses. A set of risers, the season's rehearsal hall, the accompanist, the music for a new concert, the trip to the state festival.
Community and town bands. Percussion the whole band shares, a trailer to carry it to the summer concerts in the park, a season of the shell or the hall.
Theater companies. A lighting rig, the set for the spring show, the rights to stage it.
Dance groups. Flooring for the studio, costumes for the recital, the stage for the showcase.
Art studios and guilds. A kiln, a press, the rent on a shared studio.
Museums and libraries. Archival boxes and a dehumidifier for the collection, new furniture for the reading room bought by the library's friends group.
History groups. Archival storage for a historical society, digitizing a photo collection, paint for the old schoolhouse.
The scale this is built for: a singer's parents covering a share of the hall, a neighbor covering the music. Thirty people, and the chorus has a place to rehearse.
Keep every one of them. They put your group in front of people, and several of them are why it exists.
A request is for the bill that lands between them, with a date attached.
