I love Kindermusik!

Kindermusik International: the Company Behind your Educator
Posted by Kindermusik International

These days consumers give serious pause when considering the company behind their favorite brands. With recession, product recalls, harmful ingredients, investment scams, CEOs going to jail, and so on. Whew! It's enough to make us think twice about with whom we exchange our hard earned dollars for products and services.

Making the choice to entrust our children to others is among the most important work we do as parents. As a Kindermusik parent, you rely on both the Kindermusik licensed educator and Kindermusik International, the publishing and training company behind your teacher.

Kindermusik teachers are experts in early childhood music, trained to follow a proven, research-based curriculum, and a delight for your children to be around. I have trusted these teachers with my own children and I delight in the fabulous work they do for our communities. If you go to Kindermusik, you know them well.

But Kindermusik International (KI), the company that stands behind them, is perhaps less visible to you. We are North Carolina based and 100% owned by our twenty-seven employees. We have no investors to satisfy. No dream of going public. Our dreams get fulfilled every day: doing our life's best work in service of the extraordinary music educators who teach and delight you and your child.

Before KI, many of us worked in taller buildings, wore suits and ties or dresses (as 19 of us are women), and were taught to obsess about profits. KI is our second career - the one where we work together to "do good" rather than simply to "do well." Many of us, myself included, have been on this musical mission for fifteen years or more, an uncommon allegiance in today's transient workforce. We are bound together by doing the hardest and most meaningful work of our lives.

I refer to KI as a sustainable social enterprise, not a company. Above all, we seek to do no harm: that is, always putting the needs and safety of families. This is why we invest relentlessly in product safety testing. Next, we focus our efforts on supporting our educators, for making a livelihood as a music teacher is not for the faint of heart. Finally, we aim to honor our communities: our environment through sustainable products and packaging; our world of less fortunate children through our outreach and scholarship programs.

Our goal is simple: make this world a more musical place for children - today and for generations to come.  -Michael Dougherty, CEO of Kindermusik International