Music programs, cause-related concerts and individual artists are providing direct service in communities everyday. What’s needed is more connectivity, resource development and collaboration. PeaceLabs could provide an online meeting place for these people while highlighting their most innovative and effective programs. The PeaceLabs Music network would be a learning community for artists as well as music-loving entrepreneurs, investors and consumers who want to leverage the power of music for a better world.

Despite broad use of web-based communication technologies, the best way to build relationships remains in the real world. Like AmeriCorps, Social Venture Network and the Social Enterprise Alliance have done in their respective fields, PeaceLabs can help build community awareness and momentum through a national gathering. A specific event for music-based, community service leaders would be a natural and valuable extension of the online network. The gathering would be part conference and part festival with presentations, discussion panels and lots of live music.

With support from foundations, individuals and corporations, PeaceLabs can provide a big boost to the innovative leaders and musicians behind today’s best community service music initiatives. Much like grants made by Ashoka and Echoing Green for social entrepreneurs, PeaceLabs Fellowships would be highly selective and sought-after opportunities that offer not only financial support, but also increased visibility, technical assistance and networking opportunities.

One way to promote our vision is to recognize those public figures who most embody it. Modeled on the Grammy’s “lifetime achievement” awards, the PeaceLabs Music Pioneer awards would honor well-known artists who represent the best of our collective values. Sting, Sheryl Crow, Peter Gabriel, Ani DeFranco, Mos Def, Dave Matthews and many others have made lasting contributions with their music and stardom. These “Pioneers” deserve recognition not only for their artistry but their compassionate civic leadership. There could also be “impact awards” in specific issue areas like environmental justice, nonviolence, cultural understanding, etc.

Large non-profit organizations often pay pricey consultants and PR teams to promote their messages, increase their membership and raise money. Why not use the power of live music to reach people the way that Bob Geldof, Bono, Al Gore, Rock-the-Vote and other innovative cause-related campaigns have done so successfully? PeaceLabs could partner with NGO’s and corporate sponsors to launch a series of grassroots, live music, advocacy tours. A recent example of just such a campaign was last summer’s “RED/Hotel Cafe Tour” which sent talented, emerging singer-songwriters on the road to raise awareness of extreme poverty in the developing world.

In a similar vein, what if our most promising music artists had the opportunity to sign a record deal not only with Warner Brothers but with Save the Children? New technologies that lower the cost of recording and distributing music can put anyone with a brand, a constituency and adequate financial resources in the record business. Of course, you also need great artists, songs and production capacity. PeaceLabs can help identify, develop and record artists on behalf of NGO’s and corporate retail sponsors who may want to co-brand cause-related music products at their point of purchase and/or online.

As the field of resources and expertise in high-quality, music-driven community service programs expands, we should pilot a new Music National Service program. This “musical Peace Corps” would engage musicians directly with those in need over a 1-2 year commitment period. In exchange for their service, “MusiCorps” members might receive a modest living stipend, health care and limited support for their music.

Corps members would serve in schools, rehab centers, homes for foster kids and folks with disabilities -- any “social benefit venue” where music can make a positive difference. Members could also perform and volunteer at nonprofit fundraisers and larger events that offer concert-goers free tickets in exchange for “service hours.” MusiCorps might develop service placements on it’s own, or partner with existing organizations -- like City Year, Teach for America, VH1’s “Save the Music” and Bread and Roses -- that could place musicians in direct service opportunities immediately.

In Canada, Cuba and several European countries, home-grown musicians are a source of civic pride and supported with public grants. In the 1930’s, FDR launched the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and later the Works Progress Administration (WPA) which employed artists, writers and musicians to nourish our nation’s creative and cultural roots. As a DC-based AmeriCorps program officer in the 1990’s, I recall funding a “writer’s corps,” but never an initiative that leveraged musicians specifically.

PeaceLabs MusiCorps would tie together the best elements of the CCC, WPA and AmeriCorps by putting our most talented and committed singer-songwriters and musicians to work for their art and their communities. Many of our emerging musical artists would jump at the opportunity to get beyond Myspace and American Idol in order to lend their gifts to something larger than themselves.