SongwritingWith: Inc.

Our goal is that, through creative self-expression and positive connections, participants will release pain, reduce stress, increase well-being, build hope, and return home supported by their songs and their new SongwritingWith:Soldiers community.

In 2012, SW:S began with one veterans retreat in Texas. Since then, we've held more than 45 retreats and workshops in 7 states, and expanded our program to include military families, military couples, female veterans, and student veterans. We hope to bring the SongwritingWith:Soldiers program to veterans and their families in every state across the nation. Too often, military men and women carry their stories alone. Through collaborative songwriting, stories are shared, released, and transformed into something beautiful.

Key Activities 2022
Key Activities
3 - SW:S Retreats (TX, TN, NY)
2 - SW:S WWP Retreats
4 - SW:S PATHH Retreats (TOF and EODWF)
101 - Warrior PATHH (12-BCVA, 12-BCAZ, 10-BCMobile, 11-CSG, 12-GAF, 11-TMF, 12-BRB, 9-SDI, 12-NWP/PTSDF)

10th Anniversary
10th Anniversary Concert with Live Streaming in Luckenbach (Nov. 11, 2022)
Intimate series friend/fundraising 10th Anniversary concerts with board and major donors (i.e. Nashville, New York, Boston)
Release and share 10th anniversary #CONNECTIONS commemorative music/book
Release produced music and podcasts on streaming platforms for outreach

Serve Existing Demand:
Deliver SW:S modules to Warrior PATHH
Deliver SW:S retreats with open recruitment
Deliver SW:S retreats in partnership with venue, veteran and corporate organizations
Continue to deliver online programs and identify at least one corporate partner
Align with partners on diversity and inclusion metrics/policy
Improve and better understand existing programs.
continue to align our evaluation metrics with partners
further document and share our own evaluation results

Grow Through Partnerships:
Identify, qualify and conduct outreach to explore and develop strategic partnerships to leverage our music, program and other assets
Impact research to improve and better understand existing programs.
conduct research/evaluation with partner organization

Infrastructure:
Design one SW:S retreat for training and improving program systems and delivery
Expand and train roster of songwriters and program facilitators/content experts
Add songwriters and facilitators in key geographic regions
Continue to develop business rules, performance metrics (internal and external), policies and procedures that allow for a consistent, successful and sustainable operation

We continued our strategic focus on ensuring long-term financial and program sustainability, while gaining important growth and recognition of our signature programs for veterans, active duty service members and their families.

As SW:S moves towards our 10th anniversary in 2022, we remain committed to strengthening the organization and furthering the mission-driven purpose established by our founders.

To achieve this goal, our initiatives embrace three requirements: Solidify. Amplify. Sustain. With this strategic emphasis in place we successfully accomplished the following key objectives:

o Focus on Existing Demand—continuing to service existing military-focused demand (veteran, active military, and families)
o Grow Through Partnership—Leveraging evidence-based programing through strategic partnerships that explore both ingredient and stand-alone approaches
o Build Infrastructure—Invest in strengthening infrastructure to ensure that we are building a sustainable, scalable, self-supporting nonprofit able to carry our mission into the future

SongwritingWith:Soldiers continues to connect with funders and partners who strongly believe in our mission and wish to support us.

Examples include two "in progress" partnerships with corporate sponsors, a new board member who is spearheading the first SW:S research project, a renowned documentary filmmaker who is filming SW:S retreats for a feature-length project, invitations to present our unique program to audiences at universities, conferences, corporate gatherings, and private parties.

Like many nonprofits, we continue to rely on individual donors to keep our program free to veterans and their families. At the same time, the high level respect for our young organization assures us that we will continue to meet and exceed our goals.

In 2021 SW:S safely and successfully transitioned back to serving our community in-person, fortifying our mission to transform lives by using collaborative songwriting to expand creativity, connections, and strengths. In the midst of uncertainty we're proud that ONE HUNDRED FIFTY EIGHT new songs were written!

This year reminded us again of the importance of creativity in fostering connections, building community and growing friendships along the way.

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary in 2022 our work deepens as we continue to build a sustainable, scalable, self-supporting nonprofit able to carry our mission into the future.

PROGRAM - 2021
8 SW:S in person retreats serving 52 veterans and their families
93 SW:S collaborative songwriting sessions in person for Warrior PATHH in 7 different locations serving 560+ veterans
Partnered with Wounded Warrior Project for three retreats in Tennessee
Two retreats lead by new Lead Facilitators, increasing the facilitation team to four
Creative Community Courses (CCC): 20+ courses and interactive interviews engaging past participants, many featuring SW:S veterans
Added online group follow up sessions to all after retreat engagement giving us powerful resources that will continue to benefit and help deliver our mission

MUSIC
158 new songs written
Produced a demo recording of five PATHH songs in partnership with Boulder Crest
Trained 3 new songwriters for our PATHH programs
Trained and added new songwriter Danny Myrick to our music team
5,492 complete listens on Bandcamp
Trained new Lead and PATHH writers for both in-person and online sessions
In collaboration with the team at Luckenbach, presented a“Stories and Songs” concert that reached 150 audience members in person and booked Veterans Day, November 11 concert date for 2022
PBS concert special Songwriting With Soldiers available for free streaming during National Military Family Appreciation Month in November

ORGANIZATION
Reached over $1M in revenue
Hired a full-time Program and Event Manager
Added Board Member - Brian Magerkurth, US Army Lieutenant Colonel (Retired)
Trained and transitioned to Alchemy Artist Services managing social media efforts
Created and distributed second SW:S compilation book “Connections” for public distribution and donor recognition
Created new brochures and collateral and distributed to our community to highlight our campaign theme of #CONNECTIONS for 2021