A Breakthrough Year: We Make Noise's 2024–2025 Impact

For We Make Noise, gender equity in music means real creators getting real opportunities, and this past year, those opportunities multiplied across continents, communities, and careers. We are thrilled to share our 2024-2025 impact report, which captures a transformative period of growth, partnership, and tangible professional outcomes for gender-expansive creators worldwide.

A Global Community in Motion

Our community has expanded to 22 active chapters spanning 30+ cities,  24+ countries, and five continents. Including over 400 WMN Hub members, that is more than 2,500 creators connected through our mission to advance women, non-binary, and LGBTQ+ artists in music and technology.

With 61% of our members identifying as LGBTQ+ and 70% identifying as people of color, we’re centering voices that have been historically excluded from music industry opportunities. We are not just building a community, we are building the future of music itself. These are the voices and perspectives that will shape the next generation of sound.

Collaboration to Credits: WMN Sessions

WMN Sessions are 2-3 day songwriting and music production camps where 20-40 women and gender-expansive writers and producers collaborate with a selected featured artist. These creative and inclusive spaces have supported 236 creators across Colorado, Boston, NYC, Indiana, Phoenix, and Madrid from 2024-2025. The results speak for themselves: 71 professional recording credits and 22 songs released or on their way to release.

Not only are they creative experiences, but career accelerators that remove financial barriers and provide wraparound support, ensuring that their talent - not access to resources - determines who gets to create at the highest level.

Education and Support for Creators

Through the WMN Hub, our members accessed advanced learning workshops and certifications from industry leaders, including Roland Cloud, iZotope, Native Instruments, Ableton, and Splice. Every skill learned translates directly to professional opportunities.

Our sample pack program continues to be a key financial accelerator for creators, generating over $85,000 in shared revenue for 38 producers and sound designers globally. We’ve partnered with Splice and Bandlab to ensure creators get paid for their contributions to the music ecosystem. This year, one of our Splice packs hit #12 on the charts and was used by Alissia, Grammy-nominated Producer of the Year 2024.

Expanding Worldwide

We significantly grew our footprint in some of the world’s fastest-growing music markets. Highlights include WMN Sessions Madrid (powered by partnerships with Amazon Music Spain, She Sounds in Affiliation with Warner Music Spain, She Is The Music, and Promusicae), and our role as official gender-equity partner at BIME, a leading industry event spanning Latin America and Europe.

Our Turkey chapter’s Bu Festival Bizm drew 7,000 attendees, while We Make Noise Fest in Boston featured 36 performers and reached thousands more. Local energy, global impact: that’s the We Make Noise model.

Releases that Matter

The We Make Noise Label released Let Me Be Water by Madame Gandhi this year, a project featuring 40+ creator credits from our community. The album partnered with Earth Percent to credit “NATURE” as an artist on one of its tracks, a powerful statement about music’s role in environmental consciousness. Every release from our label amplifies work generated inside WMN programs, creating a direct pipeline from education to industry recognition.

Building the Infrastructure

Access to tools paves the way to opportunity. This year, we worked with 46 corporate and foundation partners to distribute 450+ units of professional audio gear, supported 31 Title I schools through our partnership with Save The Music, and created pathways that lead directly to employment and credits across the industry.

We Make Noise Impact: The Work Continues

“Our work is about shifting access, shifting opportunity, and shifting culture,” says WMN Founder and Executive Director Erin Barra-Jean. "Every data point reflects a real person whose creative future has changed because this community exists."

Knowing that every session, workshop, and stage represents an artist’s breakthrough moment is what keeps us going. The music industry has never been more competitive, but it is also more possible than ever to build a career outside of traditional gatekeeping structures. We want to make sure that women and gender-expansive creators have everything they need to seize that possibility.

Want to dive deeper into the numbers and stories behind this year? Check out the full Impact Report at www.we-make-noise.org/impact.

Here's to the creators shaping the future of sound, and to an even bigger 2026.

Written by Iniobong Obong