Over the past year, IUMA has grown substaintally. Today, our site gets nearly a quarter of a million "hits" a day. What started as a two-person hobby has turned into a thriving organization with a large office, large staff and, hence, a large budget. While we wish we could continue as a completely volunteer effort, certain things have begun to reer their ugly heads; things like clothing, shelter and food.

Also, and more significantly, the cost-of-entry for on-line services such as ours is quite steep. Simply, running a major www server ain't cheap.

IUMA came to a crossroads very quickly: do we scale ourselves up to provide the capacity for continued growth and innovation, or do we miss opportunities and lose staff to other (paid) full-time jobs? Honestly, it was not an easy decision, but it was clear that we needed support to survive.

We examined a number of financing options. A few options were rejected out of hand. For instance, we are committed to have this service remain free for our users. We don't think limiting access to independent music by cost is a healthy direction to move in (i.e. it sucks). We also refused to increase the cost to artists for listing their work. Few, if any, independent bands are independently wealthy. In fact, we searched for an option that might subsidize the cost of listing bands, to further lift this burden to global exposure.

After looking at all the options, we decided to implement a Sponsorship Program. Our sponsors give us the resources to support our activities and we give them credit on a few of our pages. While we recognize that even this might be distasteful to some, the opportunities enabled by this small program clearly demonstrate its worth.

If you have any further questions about our Sponsorship Development Program, please contact grey@iuma.com

Check out some sponsorship information and e-mail the Director of our Sponsor Development Program Brant Smith .

Support the next generation of music distribution; support IUMA.