Exploring Life & Business with Mike Meyer of Band of Angels

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Meyer.

Hi Mike, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I have been in the family music business for 30 years of our 56-year history. We cater to school music programs and help students get musical instruments so they can participate. For many years we saw a group of students who wanted to be in the programs but lacked the financial means to be able to obtain an instrument. Roughly 12 years ago I was approached by Fox 4 TV in KC about starting a community program having to do with the arts.

My idea was fairly simple. Fox 4 has a large viewing audience and can make a plea to the community to have them bring in any unused instruments they may have in the house. Meyer Music (my family’s business) has all of the infrastructure and back ends to fix and distribute these instruments to students in financial need.

Fox loved the idea and now just over 12 years into this we have given away almost 3000 instruments to students, school, and partner programs.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
We have certainly had our challenges. First off, it became far more successful far faster than any of us thought it would. While success is great when you grow quickly it stresses your resources and organization. Trying to build out infrastructure and create a self-sustaining organization was tough early on. Thankfully, we had the strength of one of KC’s most recognized media brands in Fox 4 along with a 45-year-old (at that time) business. Using sound business strategies we did our best to grow slowly and as controlled as possible.

Staffing a nonprofit is also much different than a typical for-profit business. Turnover in nonprofits is much higher and more frequent, especially for a startup or newer organization. Finding the right team members and slowing weening off of the Meyer Music staff was definitely a challenge. But, we didn’t expect overnight success and have worked hard to find the right people to put on the team.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Band of Angels?
In 2010, I co-founded the charity Band of Angels with Fox 4 TV & Meyer Music in Kansas City. Band of Angels is a 501c3 charity that collects used music instruments from donors and makes them available to kids in financial need so they can participate in school band and orchestra.

Additionally, Band of Angels provides scholarships for students to perform and attend summer music camp. More information about Band of Angels can be found at www.bandofangels.org

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Our community is amazing. We have been shocked at the outpouring of support for this charity cause and it has really shown us how much our community values music and art.

One big challenge with KC is that it is spread out over a large area so engaging the entire community has been a challenge vs getting a lot of support from one area of the city, but we continue to grow and engage further from our headquarters.

Contact Info:

• Website: bandofangels.org
• Instagram: @bandofangels
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bandofangelskc
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvwtBP2NhMlHn7bsfb4Fh2A/videos