TuneCore is giving independent artists an added reason to put part of their streaming income toward environmental work. The distributor announced during Climate Week NYC that it will match artist donations made through its Give Nature a Split initiative through the end of 2026.
Launched on Earth Day with EarthPercent and the Sounds Right initiative, the program lets TuneCore artists assign a percentage of a track’s streaming royalties to the Sounds Right Fund. That money supports Indigenous and community-led projects protecting and restoring threatened ecosystems. TuneCore says its new match will double participating artists’ contributions during the matching period.
For artists, the mechanism is a familiar one: a royalty split.
In TuneCore’s campaign instructions, an artist can select a new or previously released song they own, add EarthPercent through TuneCore Splits, and choose the percentage to donate. They can later change or remove the split. TuneCore says the arrangement applies to streaming royalties and does not affect licensing requests for the song.
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The fund currently supports 11 projects in the Amazon and Congo basins and the Colombian Tropical Andes, according to TuneCore. EarthPercent, the environmental nonprofit co-founded by Brian Eno, is the lead music partner of Sounds Right, an initiative developed by the Museum for the United Nations – UN Live.
For an independent artist already using TuneCore, the appeal is the ability to make a recurring contribution from a release without organizing a separate fundraiser. The company’s decision to match that contribution through December gives a small royalty allocation more reach — and puts some of the cost of the initiative on the distributor, too.
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