Backyard Party / Year Two
Together, we built a community.
With your help, we can give it a home.
ALL-AGES SHOWS, CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS, CREATIVE OPPORTUNITIES
We have a lease for our new home in-hand - now we need your help to get the keys!
The Year Two Fund will help us open the doors, keep them open, and build what comes next.
Beyond The Backyard
Backyard Party began with a bunch of teenagers from Altadena looking for a place to play after losing their homes and backyards in the Eaton Fire. We built them a stage and their friends came to watch. Then kids from other schools started showing up asking if they could play, too.
Photographers started documenting the shows. Young volunteers learned how to run the door, the lights, and the sound. Social media and national press found us. Parents walked in, looked around, felt safe dropping their kids off, and the rest is history.
In our first year, Backyard Party has grown far beyond the temporary space where we began. Fans and bands come from all across Southern California to be part of the scene. But the need is larger than any one neighborhood, venue, or city. Our Year Two goal of building a permanent home in LA gives us the chance to prove a sustainable model that could eventually be duplicated in other cities across the country.
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Why It Matters
There are established programs and funding for sports, academics, classical and marching band, STEM, and dance. Far less exists for young people drawn to punk, indie, ska, rock, photography, zine making, and the culture surrounding live music. And there are a LOT of these kids - often overlooked, underrepresented, and underserved. Those kids come to Backyard Party.
For our younger fans, parents often check the place out when dropping off at a BYP show for the first time. They meet the team, get the vibe, give the kid a $20 and take off.
After their first visit, most become regulars. Parents know the environment is safe, supervised, and run by adults who take the responsibility seriously. Some of them even stick around for the show!
BYP has become a place where parents and kids sometimes discover that they have more in common than either expected. Bonding experiences are known to happen.
We hosted a show in our backyard, and it unlocked a whole new level of community for me. Opening our space and becoming part of creating that experience for other people was pretty magical, and, I have to say, it escalated my coolness considerably among my own teenagers.
— Kristy Orzewalla
Teenagers get independence, live music, and a genuine social life. Parents get a few hours of peace and quiet (or date night!). Win/win.
For less than the price of a movie ticket, you can go wild and spend the whole night around live music, friends, and community.
Let's Make a Scene
It Starts with a show
Live music is just the entry point.
Bands And Friendships
Musicians meet people from other schools, neighborhoods, and cities. They form bands, grow their audiences, and build creative networks.
Real World Work Experience
Volunteers work the door, manage guest lists, sell concessions, help with load-in, photograph performances, write reviews, promote shows, and learn how live events operate.
Creative Skills And Portfolios
Photography, design, writing, live sound, lighting, promotion, and production can grow from an interest into a portfolio, an internship, a paid assignment, or a career path.
More Music
Bands learn to set up efficiently, work with a professional sound system, perform for real audiences, promote their shows, and develop followings.
We received an email from a kid asking if he could take some photos of live music. Less than a year later, his photos have been published in national magazines in print and online, he’s been hired to shoot shows and events for others, and has become a staple of BYP.
For many, the real need isn’t just another organized activity. It's having somewhere they feel accepted, useful, and understood.
Our shows get kids out of the house, off their screens, and into a room where people know their name. They make friends, find their voices, and come right back the next week.
That sense of belonging provides a healthy alternative to isolation and helps build confidence, identity, and purpose. It is one of the most important things that Backyard Party can provide.
They Dream It.
We Defend It.
Young people create the culture. We provide and protect the conditions that allow that culture to exist.
We handle the insurance, contracts, scheduling, safety, finances and other boring stuff that they can't reasonably be expected to manage themselves.
BYP feels like a real independent show because it is one. Behind the scenes, it is also legal, professionally produced, and run seriously. They steer the boat - we keep it afloat.
Co-Founders
Sandra Denver
Former bar manager at The Echo and LAUSD teacher with an M.Ed. in Special Education. Sandra handles Backyard Party's booking and scheduling, acting as the bridge between families, artists, volunteers, and the community.
Matt Chait
Multi-platinum selling musician, creative director, and startup founder with 20+ years of experience in the music and entertainment industry. Matt handles the audio/visual, web and graphic design, social media.
Together, they bring direct experience in education, venue operations, live production, community and brand building.
Year Two - What's Next
A Permanent Home for Backyard Party
For the past year, we've built, torn down, and rebuilt Backyard Party nearly every weekend in borrowed venues, backyards, and anywhere else we could make a show work. It's fun, but not sustainable. We're at a point where we need a permanent home to continue the work we've started and to build a model for the future.
A permanent venue location for BYP means MORE shows, workshops, opportunities for smaller and younger bands, volunteer training, consistent and predictable access for families, and far less time and money spent moving equipment and reinventing week after week.
Most importantly, it allows us to choose programming based on what matters most to the community rather than requiring every show to generate enough money to keep BYP alive.
The Financial Reality
These amounts do not include insurance, legal, licenses and permits, filings, staffing, bookkeeping, or upfront buildout expenses.
Our small team of volunteers contributes at least 60 hours every week building the project. That commitment and sweat equity proved the model, but it is not a sustainable operating plan for a non-profit organization.
What We Need - The Year Two Fund
$50,000 Opens the doors. Let's start there
The Year Two Fund will cover our transition into a permanent space and give Backyard Party stability to plan beyond the next show. Our total ask is broken in three phases:
Open The Doors
$50,000A/C purchase and installation, stage construction, buildout, A/V equipment, and the initial lease costs and deposits.
Donate →Keep Them Open
$100,000Rent, insurance, utilities, artist and instructor payments, equipment maintenance, continuing Summer School and BYP Ticket Fund programs, and general operating expenses.
Build What Comes Next
$100,000Operating reserves, structured youth training, paid staff, expanded programming, youth work opportunities, and the ability to support events that matter even when they are not profitable.
Affordable ticket sales will continue covering a meaningful share of show costs, while grants, sponsorships, donations, and community partnerships cover what ticket revenue alone can't.
The scale of Backyard Party gives every contribution unusual leverage.
Let's be real: at most large organizations, a $50,000 donation can disappear into a multimillion-dollar operating budget with little visible effect. At BYP, it would cover nearly an entire year of rent. It can keep tickets affordable, pay artists and instructors, give young people their first paid creative opportunities, and allow us to put a brilliant band with 40 fans on stage because they deserve to be heard.
We’re small enough that the connection between a gift and its impact is immediate, direct, and visible. Your contribution doesn’t become another rounding error or fancy dinner meeting for a faceless NGO.
What Your Donation Can Do
Support can take the form of donations, family foundation grants, corporate or music industry partnerships, stage or program sponsorship, BYP Ticket Fund underwriting, Summer School support, equipment, building materials, or professional services.
We built the platform. They built the community. You can help build the organization behind it.
An investment now can protect what's grown so rapidly over the last year, give the community a permanent home, and make sure Backyard Party is here for the future.
For major gifts, family foundation grants, corporate partnerships, naming opportunities, program sponsorships, or equipment donations, contact hello@backyardpartyLA.com.
Backyard Party is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation and is fiscally sponsored by Creative Visions, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Eligible charitable contributions made through Creative Visions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.