5959 Las Colinas Boulevard

Irving, Texas 75039-2298

phone 972.444.1000
www.exxonmobil.com

February 23, 2016

The Dallas Chamber of Commerce
500 N. Akard St #2600
Dallas, TX 75201
Dear Dallas Chamber of Commerce,
Although Dallas is a bustling city and life moves fast, there is a troubling dilemma that most of
its citizens often oversee, sex trafficking. Our plan will help raise awareness on sex trafficking,
while providing funds for the organization New Friends, New Life. Through sponsoring the
nonprofit organization, New Friends New Life, we are setting a platform by inspiring the Dallas
Community to combat sex trafficking. We will support New Friends, New Life by hosting a
music festival called Sounds of Empowerment.
Background and Goals
Holding ethics in high regard has always been in our mission statement, since we are based in
Irving, Texas, a suburban neighborhood in Dallas, we are constantly finding ways to improve our
local community and expand our companys influence. As a matter a fact, ExxonMobil has over
711,500 volunteer hours donated to more than 5,100 charity organizations (ExxonMobil, 2016)
through supporting New Friends, New Life. This year, we decided to focus on human rights and
specifically, sex trafficking.
Problem
Texas ranks number two when it comes to human trafficking in the US (Mervosh, 2014). With a
large influx of immigrants coming from mostly Central America, they are often the target of
human trafficking due to factors that impede on those immigrants ability to find a job such as,
language barriers and lack of skills (Center for Public Policy Studies, 2013). According to these
statistics, sex trafficking is a growing issue in Texas, but since Dallas is a large metropolitan
area, it will be an ideal spot for sex trafficking. Unfortunately, there are limited organizations

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Page 1

that raise awareness and provide support for such a large issue. Below are charts that display the
magnitude of sex trafficking and the various types of sex trafficking that occur in Dallas.
Figure 1

(Dallas Morning News, 2014)

As seen in Figure 1, sex trafficking is about 71% out of 5,213 reported cases in the Dallas area,
not included what is categorized as not specified. Although there are organizations such as
New Friends, New Life, they are not as well known as organizations such as St. Judes or the
Ronald McDonald House. Therefore with our help, New Friends, New Life would be able to
expand their influence and make a difference within the City of Dallas.

Figure 2

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February 23, 2016

Page 2

(Hotline Statistics, 2015)

As stated by the Trafficking Resource Center in Figure 2, the most prevalent type of human
trafficking is sex trafficking. In about 15% of the cases, victims of sex trafficking were sold into
commercial brothels in Dallas. Unfortunately, these are only the cases that have been reported.
There could be hundreds more that are still operating covertly.
Purpose
As stated before, we plan on supporting New Friends, New Life a nonprofit organization in
Dallas whose goal is to raise awareness of sex trafficking, encourage respect of individuals
human rights, and help the organization expand and build more locations in other areas. We plan
to raise money to support an awareness for the nonprofit company by establishing the Sounds of
Empowerment Music Festival. All profits will be given to the organization. Possible actions New
Friends, New Life can take with this donation are:
Support/establish a shelter for the victims to help them recover from physical, mental,
and sexual abuse.
Rescue and provide safety for victims.
Establish a rehabilitation center to overcome the trauma.
Support collaborative therapeutic care.
Offer additional services that will help victims recover from sex trafficking.
Proposed Plan
In order to conduct a smoothly operated music festival, we have researched the logistics,
advertising, and musicians that it takes to put on a successful festival. Based on our findings,
ExxonMobil proposes the following plan:
To operate a music festival, we need to have a venue that is properly equipped to handle a large
influx of people. Quiktrip Park in Grand Prairie (2013) is venue that can hold 6,000 people, an
accurate estimate for people attending Sounds of Empowerment. They have 4,000 pre-installed
seats and a lawn that can fit about 2,000 people. However, the seats are far from where we intend

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the stage to be, so if there are guests with disabilities, we can allocate a space closer to the stage.
The average rental fee for an area is around $20,000, but since we are teaming with a non-profit
organization, we can negotiate the price with management of the arena.
We plan on advertising via flyers, social media, and also on the radio. We aim to maximize
attendance, or break even in terms of costs if attendance is not what we anticipated it to be.
Although flyers are often thought to be a dated method of advertising, distributing them at
popular concert venues will get the information out directly to those who would likely attend
Sounds of Empowerment. Subsequently, a music festival, especially one this large in Dallas, will
attract attention from all parts of the city, not just in local music venues. For those who live
outside of the Dallas area, we can promote the event on our event webpage, company website,
and social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Additionally, to make sure
that we get as many people aware of our cause, we will have local bands who are performing for
the festival to go to popular local radio stations such as 106.1 KISS FM. Stations such as KISS
FM have events such as the Listeners Lounge, where artists come and perform live
(IHeartMedia, 2016). We can capitalize on this by having artists in our line up talk about the
event, cause, and other musicians playing with them.
With awareness maximized, we need musicians who are willing to adjust their prices to fit our
budget, but are also willing to relate to our cause. Primarily, our lineup will feature local bands
so that they are able to promote their music and raise local awareness to the cause. Additionally,
we have made plans in order to cater to an audience that listens to popular artists as well. We
have selected popular artists such as Demi Lovato and Kesha because they have been known to
support human rights and are especially against sex trafficking. With their influential presence,
our music festival has the potential to spread nationally to assure maximum attendance. We
selected our headlining artists based on their involvement in human rights movements, especially
if they are against sex trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Below is an ideal timetable that shows each step we will take and its duration.

Progress

Duration and Details

Approval from ExxonMobil CEO

February 25-End of February

1. Submit proposal to receive approval to

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initiate Sounds of Empowerment

2. Meet with New Friends, New Life to
further discuss collaboration
Gather funds from Sponsors

Month of March
1st week: Identify potential supporters
2nd week: Narrow sponsors that support our
cause
3rd week: Meet with sponsors to negotiate
funding
4th week: Allow time for sponsors to discuss
among themselves
5th week: Officially gain the support of
sponsors

Reserve Arena

Weeks of April 4-April 25 (3 weeks)

1. Go to QuikTrip Park to scout the area
2. Negotiate with management to
establish a quote
3. Allocate funds from sponsors

Gather Artists

Month of May - Week of June 6

1st week: Visit local venues to scout for local
bands
2nd and 3rd week: Interview local bands to
see if they want to support the cause.
4th week: New Friends, New Life will
approve the local bands
5th week: Begin process of acquiring our
headliners
6th week: Negotiate prices with headliners or
inquire if they could even donate their time*

Advertise and Promote the Event

Week of June 13- June 20

1. Create flyers and develop an easily
accessible and interactive website
2. Post advertisements around the city
and electronically

Announce the Sale of Tickets

Week of June 27- July 4

1. Allow tickets to be up for sale

Prepare Arena for Festival

June 30- July 3

1. Clean arena
2. Set up sound equipment
3. Allocate/designate space for crowd

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standing, food trucks, and bathrooms

4. Gather volunteers and give them a tour
of the arena as well as review their
duties
Concert

July 4
1. Assemble volunteers
2. Begin festival
3. Prepare concessions

Scheduling
Below is the ideal schedule of events on the day of the festival.
Time
3:00pm-5:00pm

Event
1. Gather volunteers
2. Set up food trucks

5:00pm

Doors open
Prioritize VIP ticket holders over
general admission

5:00pm-6:00pm

Guests can..
a.
b.
c.
d.

Eat at the food trucks

Find a spot to camp
Explore the area
Use the restrooms

6:00pm-7:30pm

Local Bands Play

2 bands play
45 minutes each

7:30pm-8:30pm

Headliner
Give speech about sex trafficking
Raise awareness for NFNL
Play set

8:30pm-10:00pm

Local Bands Play

2 bands play
45 minutes each
Talk about NFNL and raise awareness

10:00pm-11:00pm

Headliner
Give speech about sex trafficking
Raise awareness for NFNL
Play set

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11:00pm-12:00am

Program Coordinators
Concert wrap up
Thank guests for their patronage

12:00am-1:00am

Event is officially over

Clean Up Begins

Staffing
As you probably know, ExxonMobil is a recognized company all around the world. Foremost,
we are striving to take actions by improving the human rights in our society. We (Nadia, Kory,
Abishek, and Ruta), program directors of Marketing and Financing will have vital duties to
perform at the event, Sounds of Empowerment Music Festival. As previously mentioned, the
event will bring a few headliners (Kesha and Demi Lovato) and several local bands to support
NFNL. The singers are selected based on their interest and influence in the cause of human
rights. Our intentions are to bring out as many people as possible to our event. Individuals are
able to make connections by sharing a common purpose. They are also able to reflect through the
influence of music. Volunteers are guaranteed from both NFNL and ExxonMobil. Volunteers are
needed to help keep the event running smoothly and help direct people to their designated place.
There will be a sign up form provided for the local community and others to register. For
volunteers that do not belong to ExxonMobil or NFNL we will personally interview them,
conduct background checks, and require their attendance at orientation. During the orientation,
volunteers will be allocated based on their skills. For example, bilingual volunteers can assist
those who do not speak English. Police and security will be patrolling the event to make sure it's
a safe environment for the attendees. A sound technician is needed, so everything is up and
running according to plan. The staff component is important for the event to be successful.
Budget
We would like this festival to be as successful as possible, but we must take into account that we
are within a budget. Factors we must consider for our budget are cost of venue, sound
equipment, electric generators, an onsite technician, porta-potties, police detail, tables and tents,
permits, city inspectors, and insurance expenses. These are only a few of the costs that need to be
considered.

Our budget funds will be allocated accordingly:

QuikTrip Park in Grand Prairie. The cost associated with this venue is roughly around
$20,000, since our event will only be one day event.
The cost to rent sound equipment will be $6,000.

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If an electric generator is not included with the cost of the park, we will need to pay $900
to rent one.
Porta-potties cost $500 for three, so we need nine total for this event, so $1,500 in total
will be our required cost.
Since a police detail is needed, the cost to cover this will roughly be $900.
We will need an onsite technician, which costs $400 to hire.
Posters and banners will cost us no more than $1,200.
Event merchandise will roughly cost $500.
Tables and tents for merchandise will cost $600.
For backstage food, at most, $250 will be required.
We will need $500 for city inspectors to come out and check to see if everything is in
order before the event.
Permits are required for the event which will be $200 in total.
Insurance for the event will be $500 as well.
We will need at least $3,000 for marketing.
To book two headliners, we will need roughly $150,000. Demi Lovato will come perform
pro-bono, since she has done awareness events like this before. Kesha on the other hand
will cost $150,000.
In total the funds we will need for this event will be at least $186,350. The funding for this event
will be coming entirely from ExxonMobil because our company feels that this cause is
important. Also since this events primary function is to raise awareness we feel there is no
reason to take out a loan that require us to pay back when we can back the project ourselves. It is
our responsibility to help end sex trafficking in our community. Depending on negotiations and
the sponsors of our event we can lower our budgeting costs and spend less in total. Many of the
costs allocated are rough estimates. This is due to the fact that to determine the exact prices, we
are required to have a estimate when speaking with the vendors. The numbers written in our
budget statement come from the the article The first-ever JP Music Festival was held on August
20, 2011 (JP Music Festival, 2011). These numbers are relevant bases for our rough estimates
because costs for permits, city inspectors, police detail, and generator prices only change slightly
throughout the years. Even though technology improves regularly it is too costly to for us to keep
up with these advances because in the end there will be the same outcome.
Quiktrip Park holds 6,000 people at most and if we were to sell tickets at $50 each, we would
make $300,000 total with a profit of about $110,000. These estimates are excluding the profit we
would make from VIP packages, parking, concessions, and merchandise. We will be able to
make back our losses, while providing funds for the New Friends, New Life organization.
Providing money for New Friends, New Life is a secondary goal. All the money we make, after
breaking even of course, will be going to this organization to help fund their programs.

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February 23, 2016

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Authorization
We are convinced that if Sounds of Empowerment is well organized, this event will be able to
bring awareness toward the large problem that is happening before us, and also help those who
have been affected by sex trafficking. Also, this will help New Friends, New Life become a well
known nonprofit organization in Dallas. By doing this, New Friends, New Life will be able to
gain more supporters in their mission to end sex trafficking and help victims return to a normal
life in Dallas. With your support, we believe that it is time to end this terrible crime and make
help build a better environment for our future generations. We would greatly appreciate a
response by February 12 so that we know that we have your support as well as our CEOs
approval as well.
Sincerely,
Nadia Ahmed, Ruta Boghani, Kory Duong, Abishek Ramani

References
Center for Public Policy Studies. (2013, January). Texas Human Trafficking Fact Sheet.
Retrieved February 20, 2016, from
http://www.htcourts.org/wp-content/uploads/TX-HT-Fact-Sheet-2.13.13.pdf?Factsheet=
HT-TX
ExxonMobil Corporation. (2003-2016). Worldwide giving at ExxonMobil. Retrieved February
20, 2016, from http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/community/worldwide-giving

Dallas Chamber of Commerce

February 23, 2016

Page 9

Hotline Statistics. (2015, December 31). Retrieved April 3, 2016, from

https://traffickingresourcecenter.org/states
IHeartMedia, Inc. (2016). About 106.1 KISS FM Listener Lounge | Get Articles, Bio & Show
Info | 106.1 KISS FM. Retrieved February 20, 2016, from
http://www.1061kissfm.com/onair/1061-kiss-fm-listener-lounge-43200/
JP Music Festival was held on August 20, 2011. (2011, August 20). Retrieved February 20,
2016, from
http://www.jpmusicfestival.com/resources/15-steps-to-a-local-music-festival.pdf
Mervosh, S. (2014, January 27). Texas ranks No. 2 for human trafficking crime. Retrieved
February 20, 2016, from
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2014/01/texas-ranks-no-2-for-human-trafficking-crime.
html/
QuikTrip Park. (2013, November 26). Retrieved February 21, 2016, from
http://www.last.fm/venue/10247137 QuikTrip Park