October 18th, 2012 
ACL Music Festival encompasses all things that make Austin what it is. Inside the city limits of Austin, you’ll find a city passionate about its environment, live music and caring for its people. So it’s no surprise that every year ACL Festival features certain organizations and causes that represent Austin at the annual three day music festival.
ACL Music Festival (Photo Credit: Amanda Ivarra)
ACL Cares is about supporting good causes and providing an opportunity for select national and local organizations to gain support from thousands of enthusiastic, like-minded individuals. This year, the festival featured the following organizations: Anthropos Arts, Austin Music People, Conscious Alliance, Green Mountain Energy, HAAM, HeadCount, Love Hope Strength, Rock the Vote, SIMS, Solar Community, The Nature Conservancy and Vote the Environment.
Austin takes pride in being named the “Live Music Capital of the World,” and the city has ACL Music Festival and SXSW to prove it. But, there are also organizations like Anthropos Arts that promote music education and organizations like Austin Music People, HAAM and SIMS that provide services to musicians. Just as Austinites enjoy the sound of live music, it’s important to keep the beat going by taking care of musicians and educating the youth of the community.
Esperanza Spalding and Anthropos Arts (Photo Credit: Amanda Ivarra)
For 14 years, Anthropos Arts has been promoting equal opportunity in music education by bringing Austin’s top professional musicians into low-income, Title I schools to offer free lessons, workshops, master classes and performance opportunities to at-risk middle and high school students. On Day 1 of the festival, Esperanza Spalding stopped by the Antrhopos Arts tent to sign autographs and pose for pictures with students.
Health Alliance for Musicians (HAAM)
The music industry is a vital contributor to the Austin economy—nearly $2 billion in economic activity, more than $38 million in local tax revenue each year. Yet, many musicians live below the poverty line. Many professional working musicians are self-employed and rarely have access to health insurance. Without insurance, they can’t afford preventive health care, including primary medical care, basic dental services and mental health counseling.
HAAM is a groundbreaking project that provides access to affordable health-care to Austin’s low-income, uninsured working musicians. Formed in 2005, HAAM has served over 2,700 musicians many of whom say HAAM has changed their lives and saved their careers.
Sadly, many hardworking musicians struggle financially and live without access to mental health care. Due to the unstable nature of the business, musicians face a unique set of stressors. Irregular hours, financial insecurity, hectic travel schedules and proximity to alcohol and drugs can eventually take a toll on musicians. This stress can lead to or intensify depression, anxiety, relationship issues, addictions and even suicidal ideation.
Since 1995, the SIMS Foundation has provided a range of mental health services for Austin musicians and their families.
ACL Music Festival (Photo Credit: Amanda Ivarra)
AMP is committed to making the economic development of the Austin live music industry a priority for political and civic leaders and to empowering and connecting Austin’s live music community members by providing powerful advocacy tools, participating in policy development and representing live music interests in public and private forums.
AMP advocates for Austin’s live music community members, from engineers and musicians to bookers and venues, and ensures the continued health of our industry as a key economic and cultural driver for the “Live Music Capital of the World.”
Love Hope Strength (LHS) is an international, music-centric cancer charity dedicated to saving lives, one concert at time. Through its “Get on the List” campaign, LHS encourages concert goers to also become bone marrow donors.
This year, ACL Festival partnered with Conscious Alliance to host the “Art that Feeds” food drive. Concert goers that donated 10 non-perishable food items received a free poster created by Anthem Branding. All food donations benefited the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas.
Austin may be known for its live music, but this city is also environmentally conscious. While the city may boast about the ACL Music Festival, it also values the land that plays host to the world famous festival and strives to keep it clean.
Green Mountain Energy (Photo Credit: Amanda Ivarra)
ACL Festival is committed to tracking and offsetting its carbon footprint, along with offering concert goers an easy way to offset their own emissions. When purchasing festival tickets online, concert goers were offered the chance to purchase certified carbon offsets from Green Mountain Energy Company. By adding the $3 Green Mountain Energy® Fan Tag, ticket holders were able to offset 220 pounds of CO2. That’s like not driving a car for 245 miles, recycling 550 aluminum cans or as much as 13 trees can absorb in one year!
During the festival, fans could stop by the Green Mountain Energy tent, make a $3 donation and receive an adorable, nature-inspired recyclable tote.
All carbon offsets purchased from this year’s festival will benefit the SouthTex Greenwoods Farm Landfill in Tyler.
The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to protect the lands and waters on which all life depends. Over 862,000 acres of land in the Austin area have been protected by The Nature Conservancy.
Solar Community is dedicated to making solar power easy and affordable for everyone. For this year’s festival, Solar Community provided an off-grid solar electric system that included a solar shade structure giving concert goers a place to cool off and charge their cell phones.
Austin is proud to be a leader in the music industry and environmental field, and it’s a city that invites the world to see the progress that it’s making. But, this progress wouldn’t have been possible if the voices of its people were not heard.
Vote the Environment (Photo Credit: Amanda Ivarra)
The Vote the Environment campaign seeks to connect peoples’ environmental passions with the power of their vote by encouraging people to register to vote, learn about candidates’ environmental records and vote for the world they want to live in.
HeadCount is a grassroots organization that uses the power of music to register voters and raise political consciousness. Since 2004, HeadCount has staged voter registration drives at over 2,000 concerts and signed up over 175,000 voters. It’s not about what party you support or where you land on an issue, it’s that you must speak to be heard!
Rock the Vote’s mission is to engage and build political power for young people in our country. Rock the Vote is dedicated to building the political power and clout of the millennial generation by registering and turning out young people, by forcing the candidates to campaign to them and by making politicians pay attention to youth and the issues they care about once in office.
