Non-Profit Spotlight - Electronic Music Alliance

by Janine Jordan, Founder + Chair, Electronic Music Alliance

Electronic Music Alliance (EMA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and global membership alliance uniting forward-thinking leaders in electronic music culture.  Comprised of dance music fans, artists, and industry professionals, EMA prides itself on protecting people, the planet, and parties by organizing around the issues of health, safety, environmentalism, and giving back to our local communities through charitable works. EMA works to educate the community about these issues and creates programs that offer fun & effective solutions.  EMA leverages the unique and creative voices and actions of the electronic music community to create and cultivate positive social and environmental change within hearts, homes and dance floors across the globe.

Electronic Music Alliance was formed in 2009 as a side project of the nonprofit Green Wave (EMA’s logo was inspired by the 1970’s Ecology logo). Industry outreach began in 2010 with an initiatory fundraising event featuring music from Oscure, DJ Eva, DJ Jim Carson, Mike Teez, Static Revenger, DJ Rap, and EMA co-founder Ken Jordan from The Crystal Method. Toward the end of 2011, EMA expanded its board of directors and sent a representative, EMA co-founder Monica Salazar, to the Rave Act hearings in Sacramento.  By 2012 EMA had expanded is base to include over 100 founding members of the organization and broadened its mission to call attention to health and safety issues within our community. In 2015, after 6 weeks of running a subcommittee on the L.A. Electronic Music Task force (to represent the voice of electronic music culture), EMA proved integral to the victory in L.A. County to overturn the proposed moratorium against electronic music events.

EMA initiatives focus on patron health and safety and engaging members in environmental, social awareness, and  philanthropic activities through our Play it FWD and Massive Action programs.  Their artist-focused Play it FWD encourages our artist members to “play it forward” by donating their time, talents, or platform to EMA or partner organizations. EMA’s Massive Action program brings environmental and social education and action into the larger communities and works on both a local and industry levels. Local organizers often create a community service weekend where they conduct a collection drive (supplies, food, Ewaste) at a club, clean a beach, waterway, or park, or host some other community-awareness building or fundraising event.  Last Fall, EMA organized the electronic music industry EMA members around a “turn out the vote” campaign that we called “Turn Up The Vote”. EMA is also a proud member of the Event Safety Working Group, participating in various task groups to update the Event Safety Alliance’s Event Safety Guide.

For more information or to contact the Electronic Music Alliance, please visit

www.electronicmusicalliance.org

Sidebar - Key Players

EMA prides itself on the entire list of members. Key players on the board and some other active advisors and ambassadors include:

Disco Donnie and Liquid Todd of SiriusXM have been super supporter founding members.  On the board, EMA is fortunate to have a balance of representation within the industry with Evan Bailey who is the VP of Disco Donnie Presents (an SFX company) as well as Alyxzander Bear from Insomniac (a Live Nation company).  Janine Jordan is an EMA co-founder who spearheads programs for EMA, acts as the board chair and EMA’s Executive Director, and works closely with Jen Adams, another board member and officer. Jen has her own nonprofit LAHAF which offered services during the Haiti crisis.  Jen Adams is currently developing with another EMA partner, an event model that will bridge our community of electronic music to the larger surrounding communities and help aid in the homelessness crisis.  The board also includes, Kim Knight the CEO of BUDDY safety app for festivals, Deepti Datt who represents EMA India and involved EMA in a beautifully produced event in Goa called Vashundari in 2015, Julian Reyes the Executive Producer of Keyframe-Entertainment who has involved EMA in many interesting projects that have given us reach into different sub-demographics of festival culture including the documentary Electronic Awakening, Catherine Geanuracos the COO of CityGrows who back in 2012 ran a “Spin the Vote” campaign, Parag Bhandari CEO of UG Strategies who is currently working on Electronic Music Awards, DJ IdeaL (previous manager of Spin Nightclub in San Diego) who appeared on the San Diego local news speaking about the Ghostship tragedy, Phu Styles a Celebrity Stylist and Branding Consultant who attends events for EMA research, Syd Gris who is a known DJ in San Francisco, his company Opulent Productions, and his Burning Man Camp Opulent Temple, Raymond Stone CEO of RaveReady.com who implemented a strategy with suppliers to reduce packaging and has always been good about sharing health and safety information to RaveReady consumers via the RaveReady lifestyle blog, Graham Penniman, a freelance marketing and production manager who ran a company called Green Waves that brought silent discos and environmental activations to college campuses in Florida and ran an activation for EMA at Sunset Music Festival in Tampa in 2014, Joseph Carringer also known as Table Syndicate an artivist musician and didgeridoo sound healer, who previously founded New England Holistic Association, Kimberly Roussel of Kitchen 24 a restaurant and catering company and previous club owner in L.A. who has organized several fundraisers for EMA. Helpful advisors have been Allan Gelbard (previous band member of Mutator) and 1st amendment rights attorney, David Loomstein (aka DJ Loomer) of Cruz Coalition, Dr. Dina Perrone Criminal Justice professor at CSULB, Missi Wooldridge previously of DanceSafe, Stefanie Jones from DPA, and Joseph Petit now of Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership were of incredible help during the recent battle we had with Los Angeles to keep electronic music events in the county.  The Crystal Method have been pivotal for us in modeling the Play it FWD program as they have played many charity gigs over the years for organizations such as The Sea Shepherds, Global Green, Human Rights Campaign, to name a few. Ambassadors hard at work have been Justin Olsen from L.A. who is organizing the North Hollywood Art Walk, DJ Shar4 from New Hampshire who has organized several community service action days under our EMA Massive Action program as well as DJ Kimberly St. John from San Diego and now Denver who has been organizing quarterly collection drives. For safety specifically, we are fortunate to have good relations with DanceSafe founder Emanuel Sferios, Joseph Pred of Mutual Aid Response Services (MARS 911), Terry Gotham who helped co-author an event safety quick tip guide EMA published 3 years ago, and Amy Morrill who represents EMA at many underground events and festivals with her Safer Raving by Amy Raves harm reduction services.

The best way to get involved is to visit our website and send us an email.

www.electronicmusicalliance.org

Best Regards + Namaste,
janine jordan l EMA Founder + Chair

Electronic Music Alliance
www.ema-global.org ll @emaglobal
http://about.me/janinejordan
Skype: janinej.emaglobal