Donate to the New Orleans Visiting Artist Fund

Berklee has created the New Orleans Visiting Artist Fund to bring the finest Crescent City musicians, displaced by Hurricane Katrina, to Boston to share their music and life experience with Berklee and the greater Boston community. The fund will create a year-long music history lesson, while helping some musical masters, to whom we all owe a great deal. Berklee has begun the fund with the help of a generous silent partner, and it is already growing quickly through private contributions. This is your opportunity to directly support musicians from the cradle of American music.

The Recording Academy, the nonprofit organization that is the voice of thousands of music makers nationwide, along with its MusiCares Foundation, which provides a safety net of critical services for music people in crisis, is committing an initial donation of $1 million for music people affected by Hurricane Katrina.

This fund was established by Preservation Hall to provide musicians with financial support during this tragic time. One hundred percent of the money raised through this fund will go directly to New Orleans musicians.

Until the recent devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the Tipitina's Foundation had devoted its efforts to uplifting the New Orleans music community through its Music Co-op Office, Instruments A-Comin' benefit concerts, and the Tipitina's Internship Program. That mission has changed, as they now fight to save and rebuild that very community. They are currently finding musicians housing, gigs and instruments, while raising funds through donations and nationwide benefit concerts.

The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation supports music education and its many benefits through the donation of new and refurbished musical instruments to underserved school and community music programs and individual students nationwide. In response to Katrina, the foundation (in partnership with NAMM) is putting instruments back into the hands of children from the affected areas—and the surrounding states that are absorbing displaced students.

Mercy Corps exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities. Mercy Corps pursues its mission through emergency relief services, sustainable economic development, and civil society initiatives. Mercy Corps is distributing emergency items to people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, as well as coordinating with government and social service agencies to start addressing the longer term needs of the hundreds of thousands of people directly affected by the hurricane.

An great place to make a donation to overall relief efforts.