MISSION: Sounding Off UK (SO) - is a not-for-profit collective founded by Kendal Eaton. It takes the form of an independent publisher, media and record label, producing books, music and media projects FREE AT THE POINT OF USE, that are created by, or seek to involve or benefit, people with experience of poverty, debilitating illness, or mental health issues, or those who support or expound understanding of them, or redress social prejudice and stigma. These are the only criteria by which projects are considered. It is a closed community group that can facilitate independent cooperative enterprises or private projects.
It aims to eventually become an Incorporated Charitable Organization that can seek funding / contributions to fulfill services offered to third-party applicants who meet its criteria, or can use revenue from any commercial projects to support such, if necessary. For this purpose SO already has prospective trustees with broad experience in the creative industries.
PRACTICES: Its aim is to provide a community service to facilitate productive creative enterprises that would otherwise be commercially unviable. Its work is sympathetic to illness and operates a NO PRESSURE POLICY towards ALL contributors both financial and creative. We do what we can when we can, or secure help to achieve our aims. What becomes of individual projects is contingent on those who are active contributors, not SO as a whole. SO acts as a publicist only through its artist profiles, website links to their individual marketing and third-party physical and electronic distribution (currently Amazon, Gumroad & CDBaby). It does not act to represent artists. Most publicity for such products remains the responsibility of the artists involved, unless SO are sponsoring a project and seek marketing services. The idea is to involve the talents of such people and volunteers in the creative or administrative process, for them to benefit from a contract or royalties from any produced product.
FUNDING: All income created by those products are managed by SO, unless as a percentage from privately marketed products under contract. Income made from such products reimburses SO for its overheads; all further net income is divided towards the creative contributors to any project, pro-rata. In this way SO can provide its services FREE OF CHARGE UP-FRONT to its clients/contributors, seek funding or take on self-funded projects. In deference to trustees, SO will avoid operating in debt. Any project not funded to completion will await such funding in ‘development’.
SO respects artists’ copyright and intellectual rights under contract, offering as much autonomy as possible. This allows for flexible and personalized arrangements conducive to the recipient's circumstances. In this way it can accept contributions from benefactors, volunteers and participants either through ‘in-kind’ donated time, work, services, assets, or through monetary contributions. Once SO has recouped its outlay, artists can apply to be independent of SO, if they so wish. This may incur a charge as much of SO’s input will likely form part of the financial package of a product. As an organisation SO will adhere to strict transparency in communications and any finances and other contributions and report such internally and for all legal requirements.
Whether services result in a marketable product or not, SO will endeavor to provide a therapeutic and positive experience to all its volunteers and creative contributors impartially. We hope this will expand to similar franchises abroad to help alleviate suffering in some way. Sounding Off UK will take every initiative to establish its credentials as a non-binary, non-discriminatory organisation, while accommodating the diverse and sometimes challenging perspectives of all individuals involved.