Twinkle Japan Update

Last year, after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, we began selling downloads of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (in English, Japanese, and English with an adult singer) to raise money to contribute to relief and rebuilding. Proceeds of these sales go to Save The Children – Japan to help fund immediate relief efforts and provide more long-term resources and services, like child-friendly play spaces, mobile libraries, school supplies, and community grants.

We’d like to let you know how our fund-raising went so you can be aware of where every penny went. 

In April 2011, we made an initial donation of ¥500,000 (approximately $6,100) to Save The Children – Japan that was independent of our fund-raising efforts.

From March 2011, here is how download sales have gone:
Special $5.00 3-song + wallpaper and lyrics sheet package sold directly through our website:
124 units. Revenue earned: $620

Unfortunately, due to some copyright difficulties with the Japanese version of Twinkle Twinkle, we needed to halt those sales (everything was worked out), but sales of the songs continued all year through iTunes and Amazon.

iTunes (reporting up to the end of January 2012):
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: 522 downloads, 40 streams.  Revenue earned: $424.01
Kira Kira Boshi: 150 downloads, 10 streams.  Revenue earned: $123.49
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Adult Vocals: 89 downloads, 3 streams. Revenue earned: $74.59

Amazon.com (reporting up to the end of January 2012):
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: 181 downloads.  Revenue earned: $130.37
Kira Kira Boshi: 11 downloads.  Revenue earned: $7.89
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Adult Vocals: 7 downloads. Revenue earned: $5.36

Spotify (reporting up to the end of January 2012):
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: 57 streams.  Revenue earned: $0.16
Kira Kira Boshi: 64 streams.  Revenue earned: $0.31
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Adult Vocals: 19 streams. Revenue earned: $0.08

Total earned to date: $1,386.26 (approximately ¥115,000)

We added a bit more and, in February 2012, donated ¥200,000 (approximately $2,450) to Save The Children – Japan for a total of ¥700,000 (approximately $8,500) for the year.  Funds raised from the sales of downloads of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star will continue to be donated and we will do our best to make additional contributions. Your support of Twinkle Japan is very much appreciated.

This sign says, "Thank you, Save The Children."

We encourage you to stay up to date and involved. Save The Children – Japan is doing a great job serving the Tohoku region.  Last week we attended an annual report on progress being made and were particularly impressed with the child-safe play zones. There are currently still 337,819 people living in temporary housing. In those situations, space is limited and there is very often little space for children to meet and play. We believe strongly that play is the work of children, and it’s extremely important for kids to have safe places to play.

Thank you very much for your help!