Grant Request Hear Your Song, Inc.
Hermanowski Family Foundation Initial Request Form
Organization Name: Hear Your Song, Inc.
Legal Name (if Different):
Also Known As:
Mailing Address: 140 East 56th Street #11A
City: New York
State: NY
Postal Code: 10022
Main Phone: 646-584-0198
Main Fax:
Organization Website: www.hearyoursong.org
Employer ID Number: 85-3483842
Organization Tax Status: 501(c)(3)
Proposal Information
Today’s Date: March 29, 2024
Requested Amount: $10,000
Project Title: Collaborative Songwriting Program
Project Description:
Hear Your Song (HYS) empowers children and teens with serious illnesses and complex health needs to make their voices heard through collaborative songwriting. HYS provides power and choice—and a microphone—to young people with a wide range of diagnoses, both physical and mental health conditions, that so often deprive them of both power and choice in their day-to-day lives. At HYS, we believe that every young person deserves the chance to define themselves on their own terms.
HYS seeks funding to expand our national Collaborative Songwriting Program for youth living with serious illnesses and complex health needs. We deliver this program, free of charge for all youth and partner organizations, through both virtual and in-person songwriting sessions facilitated by community collaborations with children’s hospitals, camp programs, and other nonprofits.
The goal of all aspects of this program is to offer long-term empowering experiences to youth living with significant health conditions. Through trauma-informed, kid-driven songwriting sessions, youth participants write and produce their own songs about anything they want—from loving pasta to living with epilepsy—and to participate as much as they want in the process of turning their lyrics into fully-produced songs. All youth write their own lyrics and many record their own vocals, compose their own melodies, and produce their own beats and tracks. Others suggest ideas for musical style, melody, instrumentation, and tempo, which our volunteer composers and musicians then use to create a recording of the song that captures, as precisely as possible, what the child imagined.
The goal is for every youth songwriter to continue to engage in Hear Your Song’s ongoing programming and community, including Peer Songwriting Groups and live performances following the initial songwriting experience. Pivotal to our mission, HYS amplifies the songs that kids write to ensure that our youth songwriters’ voices are heard and celebrated.
Total Project Budget: $182,000
Other Funding
Sources For The Project (Committed & Potential): New York State Council on the Arts ($25,000 committed for 2025); potential recurring funds from The Rose Badgeley Charitable Trust ($25,000 for 2024), The Keith Haring Foundation ($20,000 for 2023), The Find Your Light Foundation ($10,000 in 2024), The Foundation to Decrease World Suck ($36,948 in 2023)
Project Duration: January — December 2025
Geographical Area Served: National (in-person focus on New York State, virtual throughout the US)
Age Group To Be Served: 6-18
Contact Information
Contact Prefix (Mr,Mrs etc.): Mr.
Contact First Name: Dan
Contact Last Name: Rubins
Contact Title: Executive Director and Co-Founder
Contact Phone: 646-584-0198
Contact Email: dan@hearyoursong.org