U2 gave music charity €5 million
Howard Lake | 23 January 2013 | News
U2 gave the €5 million profit from their concerts in 2009 to a music charity, their manager has told the Irish Times.
U2 manager Paul McGuinness said profits from their three Croke Park concerts in Dublin in 2009 were donated to Music Generation, a charity that provides funding for music education in Ireland.
Mr McGuinness said it had been the band’s practice “going way, way back” to give the profits away but it “was discreetly done in the past.”
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Support for Music Generation came after the Irish government said it could not afford to fund the project. The band provided €5 million with an extra €2 million coming from The Ireland Funds, including a $1 million donation (€760,000) from Bank of America.
The Government will co-fund Music Generation from 2014 with a view to taking over the funding of the project in 2016. The Irish Times said 5,000 children have benefited from Music Generation either through structured lessons or through the buying of instruments.
U2 guitarist the Edge said they supported the project because they had been helped by music education during their school days.
www.irishtimes.com
Photo: TexKap on Flickr.com
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.