Currently, Voca-Radio Project is a sole-proprietorship of the founder and project manager, Jared Hyde (aka SumGuy), the author of this document. This was not done out of choice but necessity to begin. Like many in the community, I have limited financial and time resources. Ideally, I would set this project up as a nonprofit organization, but the amount of time and resources to do such would greatly decrease the chances of ever getting the project off the ground. And so, in this state of sole proprietorship, I can form a volunteer team, purchase certain subscriptions, and begin streaming certain music. I do not wish to be the sole owner of such a community-centric endeavor though, not to mention the financial and legal risks of being a sole proprietorship, so at our earliest possible convenience, we will register as an LLC with a nonprofit business model. Doing so will allow us to acquire essential music licenses and have greater access to funding.

Our short-term financial goals will be to have Voca-Radio Project LLC formed, purchase important licenses and equipment, and begin making commission requests. In addition to our public fundraising efforts, we will be looking towards influencers who are known fans and philanthropists who support artistic projects to receive additional funding while maintaining our creative freedoms. Any donations or revenue made will be documented publicly, though in cases a donor wishes to remain anonymous, only the dollar amount will be stated publicly to respect their privacy.

If we can prove successful and launch the stream with budget overhead, we will look at hiring people to ensure the project is maintained and run effectively without the worry of essential volunteers leaving. Among the first employees would be me, followed by skilled people who can assist in important financial and legal aspects of this trade, and a dedicated content curator. That said, we only wish to formally move people from volunteer to employee once we can also look at paying regular volunteers for their work, something typically not offered to volunteer roles elsewhere. Our last stated financial-goal is to create a community fund for unlicensed submissions, as these artists rarely have opportunities to collect royalties, and while registering with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) would allow them to, it is not always an option, and may yield low margins given how few people currently share indie vocal synth music in a legally legitimate way.

These later financial goals may be far more difficult to achieve than the short-term ones stated, but given the size of the community and its maintained popularity, we believe it’s possible. Given the right selection of music and monetization methods and the growing number of longtime fans that too would like to see something like this succeed, it seems more likely than ever for this type of large-scale project to become successful. Even if it cannot become what we hope it to be, I’m committed to making it whatever it can be, even if it means being a volunteer project for the next few years.

Given the statement that we wish to incorporate as an LLC and employee people including myself (the founder), reasonable questions may be raised about this being a commercial or nonprofit venture. I’d like to address them here. First, very few nonprofits can run on volunteers alone. It’s next to impossible to run an organization that requires full-time commitment without employees, and as we want this to be a long-term fixture that helps others in the community grow professionally as artists or otherwise, it will need employees to reach that aspiration. As for whether this is a commercial or non-commercial venture, because this will be streamed on YouTube where ad-revenue is present and it will require money to operate, it is inherently a commercial venture. Nonprofits are rarely non-commercial and this is no different.

Given this level of transparency, I hope you will continue supporting our project and watch us grow beyond anyone’s expectations.

-Jared Hyde/SumGuy (Project Manager)

Financial Goals and Transparency