Memorial Donations That Bring Live Music to Patients
Give in someone's name, in place of flowers. Your gift helps send a professional musician to play live for patients in hospice, hospital and memory care.
Give in Their NameLive music for patients
A memorial gift helps send a professional musician to play live for patients in a hospice, hospital, memory care community or VA facility.
A place on our Honor Roll
If you'd like, they join our Honor Roll, or even get a page of their own on this site, where their story gets told.
Friends can add to the gift
Anyone who knew them can give toward the same tribute, wherever they live.
Your person doesn't need to have played for a living, or to have ever heard of us. Loving music is enough.
Four ways to remember someone who loved music
Every level is counted in Musical Visits, because that's what your gift helps pay for. $300 helps send one musician to play for a room full of patients. We pay every musician, and patients and their families never pay a thing.
In Memory
Give on our donation page with "In memory of" and their name in the PayPal note. PayPal can't fill it in for you, so the name has to come from you.
Encore
Your gift helps fund a Musical Visit for patients, and they join our Honor Roll: their name, a photo and a few lines about their life in music.
Standing Ovation
Helps fund three Musical Visits for patients, plus a place on our Honor Roll and a page of their own on our site, like the ones for Kevin G. Weber and Cynthia.
A Visit Every Year
Your monthly gift adds up to $300 a year, enough to help fund one more Musical Visit for patients every year. On our donation page, check "Make this a monthly donation" and put their name in the note.
Friends and family can give together toward any level. Every gift with the name in the note counts.
Give in Their NameYou don't have to give it all yourself
Most memorial gifts are small, and they come from a lot of people. That's fine. Friends and family can give together toward an Encore or a Standing Ovation.
Put one line in the obituary or on the memorial page, and link it to our donation page. Every gift with his name in the note counts toward the total. Once it reaches $300, he joins the Honor Roll. If it reaches $900, he gets the Standing Ovation and a page of his own.
How to start an Encore or a Standing Ovation
Give, or ask people to give
Use the donation page, with the person's name in the PayPal note.
Email us
Send hello@harmonyandhealing.org the person's name and how you knew them. If you're not family, tell us who is.
Tell us about them
The instrument they played, the songs they loved, a couple of memories and a few photos. Rough notes are fine. We do the writing.
Read it before anyone else does
We send the family the Honor Roll listing or the page first. Nothing goes up until they're happy with it.
Remembered with music
The people on our Honor Roll loved music, and their families and friends gave in their memory.
What we ask of the family, and what we promise
We ask for the family's OK
We need the family's OK, in writing, to use the person's name, story and photos. An email is plenty.
The patients stay private
Our photos from any visit show the musician only. We never show a patient's face, and we never name a patient, in a photo, a caption or a story. The person being honored is named because their family asked us to. The patients listening aren't.
How do you word a memorial donation?
Keep it plain. A line or two is plenty, even when you knew the person for fifty years. Use the name the family used. If she was "Peg" to everyone, write Peg.
- PayPal note or online form"In memory of" and the full name.
- Toward an Encore"Encore for" and the name, so we count it toward the tribute.
- Check memo line"In memory of" and the name, or "IMO" and the name when space is tight.
- Sympathy card"I've made a gift to Harmony & Healing in your mom's memory. She loved to sing, and this felt right."
- Obituary, if you're the family"In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Harmony & Healing, www.harmonyandhealing.org."
- Still living?Write "In honor of" instead. It works the same way.
How much should a memorial gift be?
There's no right amount, and nobody checks. Start with what you'd have spent on flowers. A $50 gift still arrives with a name on it, and the name is the part families hold onto. If you'd like your gift to cover a whole Encore on its own, that's $300.
Is a memorial donation tax deductible?
Usually, yes. When it goes to a qualified 501(c)(3), a memorial gift is a charitable contribution like any other. Ours is Harmony & Healing, EIN 83-3162389. Two rules in IRS Publication 526 trip people up.
First, money given straight to a family isn't deductible. That includes a crowdfunding page for funeral costs, because the IRS doesn't allow deductions for contributions to specific individuals. Give it anyway if the family needs it. Gifts toward an Encore are different: they go to Harmony & Healing, not to a person.
Second, any single gift of $250 or more needs a written acknowledgment from the charity before you deduct it. Ask us for one. If you mail a check near the end of the year, the IRS counts it as given on the date you mail it. Ask your tax preparer about the rest.
Prefer to mail a check?
Send it to Harmony & Healing, 11040 Bollinger Canyon Road, Suite E-938, San Ramon, CA 94582, with the person's name on the memo line. Then email hello@harmonyandhealing.org so we know who it's for. Our Candid profile has our filings if you'd like to look us up first.
For a gift that lasts longer, a bequest or an IRA gift can carry the person's name forward. Our page on major gifts and planned giving lays out the options, and our guide to planned giving goes deeper.
Flowers last about a week.
A song for a room full of people who needed it that day stays with everyone who heard it.