MusiCares established The Day That Music Cares as a global day of service to encourage music industry professionals to volunteer in their communities for any cause they care about. Volunteering is good for mental, physical, and emotional health, and MusiCares wanted to promote these benefits to the music community – especially in these times of rising loneliness and social isolation.
After recruiting 2,500 pledges in 2024, MusicCares set out to make The Day That Music Cares 2025 their biggest year yet — encouraging individuals to pledge, companies to mobilize their employees, and music artists to mobilize their fan bases.
The Day That Music Cares took a “hopeful no matter what” tone that amplified the value of service and advocated for more volunteerism in the world. We centered community, unexpected connections, and the benefits of volunteering — especially during times like these, when we feel more disconnected than ever.
We announced the campaign on social media with a community-forward launch video, and encouraged users to pledge at TheDayThatMusicCares.com. Other social media assets included testimonials from prior years’ participants, promos from artists like Yoshiki and LeCrae, and various carousels that promoted different volunteer opportunities.
MusiCares made it easy for pledges to find volunteer opportunities by including a directory of nonprofits to choose from. After signing up, pledges received a social media toolkit that included suggested email scripts to request the day off from work, printable posters they can hang in their workplace, and templates to create user-generated content.
This year’s campaign faced several challenges. The launch was delayed due to the LA wildfires — which prompted MusiCares to temporarily shift focus to urgent wildfire relief efforts. At the same time, their team was also in the midst of planning a high-profile fundraising gala, which limited their availability and required us to move key pieces forward independently and with minimal client input. Despite these hurdles, we were able to deliver strong results by securing donated out-of-home placements in both New York and Los Angeles through our partners at PJX Media. This included freeway billboards, taxi toppers, and a prominent video billboard in the heart of Times Square — a major visibility win that we helped broker and execute at no cost to the client.
This was the most successful year yet for The Day That Music Cares. Over 2,600 volunteers made a difference at more than 100 nonprofits in 50 cities — including an international presence in Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This surpassed the previous year by 100 volunteers, despite having one fewer week to run the campaign. We also saw a 650% increase in social media engagement.
There were over 13 cause areas represented, with food insecurity (16%) children & youth (16%), and seniors & elderly (14%) being the three most popular. Other causes represented include: arts and education, disaster relief, environment, animals, women's services/support, unhoused population, health/medical relief, mental health, LGBTQ+ causes, differently-abled populations, and veterans/military families.
Our volunteers had so many positive things to say about the event:
“My fellow children's recording artists and I made 500 mesh produce bags and had a wonderful time doing it together! The Los Angeles Food Bank goes through 3,000 of these bags A DAY! We were glad to have contributed to achieving the daily goal.”
"It was amazing. Packed meals for delivery to people with disabilities and illness. It felt good, and I will be back every week to do it again."
"I wrote a letter to a senior who had recently lost their husband. We shared a lot of common interests and I appreciated being able to connect even though we have such different lives!"
Our campaign wrap video includes more volunteer stories!
