Interview: It’s Bigger Than’s Dan Cole and Lisa Swarna Khanna on Dance Music and Charity

Dance music charity events are a staple in the UK, but when ex-patriates Dan Cole and Lisa Swarna Khanna moved to Germany, they found that the scene was far different. In 2012, they addressed what they saw as a void in the underground electronic scene when they founded It’s Bigger Than, an initiative focused on helping victims of crisis around the world.

Can you briefly describe the origins of the organization?

Dan Cole:

It’s not specifically an organization, it’s technically an initiative. What we do is promote what it is, the message that we’re trying to get across and then encourage people to get actively involved, create a community, and donate to our chosen charity. As such, no money passes through our hands. When we throw events, no one gets paid and all door money goes to our present charity, which is Mercy Corps.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

We originally came up with the idea two years ago when we were having an email exchange about current events. The Guardian released this spread about the crisis in Syria.

Dan Cole

I was disappointed in myself for not being aware of the scale of the humanitarian crisis that was happening.

How did you choose this charity?

Lisa Swarna Khanna

Originally we worked with Save the Children, because they were the ones that were concentrating solely on the children. When we met to discuss the idea, we thought, “OK, maybe we should put some of our experience to good use, and give other people the platform to do something that doesn’t necessarily mean going completely out of their way.”

Dan Cole

We both have experience in the UK prior to this in throwing fund-raising charity events.

It seems like there’s a bigger culture of this sort of dance music charity event in the UK than in Germany.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

That’s what we felt. We didn’t know if that was just being outsiders in Berlin. I think when you start concentrating on something quite focused, you suddenly become aware of all the other things going on around the same topic. I think it was a pleasant surprise when we suddenly realized that there were a lot of other underground initiatives going on.

Is there much with dance music specifically, though?

Lisa Swarna Khanna

There are labels that release charity records.

Dan Cole

And there was a very good event promoting homosexual rights in Russia. But we thought there could be more.

How did you come up with the name?

Lisa Swarna Khanna

While we were talking about the Syrian crisis, we realized that some of the refugee camps were bigger than the neighborhood we were living in, Kreuzberg. We were saying, “It’s bigger than this, and it’s bigger than that.” And it was not long after that we said, “That sounds like it should be the name.”

Dan Cole

I think when we initially started, we wanted to be an all-encompassing flexible project that could take on more initiatives as we grew. I think that at the time we expected that this humanitarian crisis in Syria wasn’t going to last or to become as big as it has.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

And it’s still going. The news is consistently getting worse.

Dan Cole

Which is why we’re still focusing on this one particular crisis. I still think it’s classified as the worst humanitarian crisis, in terms of people, that has happened in our lifetime.

How do you deal with a crisis like this, where it’s been going on for quite a while. At a certain point, attention is on it. But there is a natural situation where attention eases off of it as well.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

Disaster fatigue. That’s something we knew when we were getting into it. I don’t think there’s been a year of my life where there hasn’t been some major crisis in the world. And we knew Syria wasn’t sexy or interesting. And it’s easier to be sympathetic toward a natural disaster than it is toward a civil war, because people don’t feel qualified when it comes to political situations.

Dan Cole

But we don’t tend to talk about the political issues. We only focus on the humanitarian issues, like “Who are the people that are affected?” and “What is their living situation?” Politically, the situation in Syria is a muddled one, to say the least.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

We’re not qualified to talk about it.

Why is it important in your mind to not “go there,” in what you’re doing?

Dan Cole

You need an experienced voice to curate a balanced discussion. And, to us, the humanitarian problem is a more important aspect than the political one.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

Yeah, we’re human beings. So we can relate to other human beings, but we can’t necessarily relate to the politics. We’re just not in that position, we come from the music industry. In putting on the events, the idea was about finding a way that you people approach charities as something...

Dan Cole

We had to do something that’s a little bit cooler, that’s going to speak to a mid-20s kind of demographic. You’re not going to talk to every generation by selling cakes and old woolen jumpers.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

Although, we have attempted that. We also have collected clothes and shipped them to certain camps.

Dan Cole

Yeah, we were doing day and night events, so we’d kick off about 12:00, have these cake and secondhand clothes sales in the morning...

Lisa Swarna Khanna

It was much cooler in my head.

Dan Cole

In the end we realized that no one was coming to the kind of Granddad, day activities, and so we just said, “OK, we’ll just do a party.” It was just as efficient and the message came across much better.

I listened to a radio feature about It’s Bigger Than..., and it was interesting to hear that some people go to these parties aware of the charity intent of the night, while others were just there for the party.

Dan Cole

And that’s fine. Coming from the UK, and the social charity culture, you run the risk of being labeled as a do-gooder if you’re forcing a message down people’s throat. Sometimes you just have to give the option that the message is there, and you can learn more if you want. But people are sometimes turned off if you do the hard sell on them. And so it’s just about creating that...

Lisa Swarna Khanna

Platform. If you wanted to be a part of this, you could be a part of it, with very little expense in your part. It’s a ten euro suggested donation at the door, and that goes straight to Mercy Corps to the refugee camps. One of the things I’ve found really interesting is that we put a jar at the front of the club, giving people the opportunity to put something extra in if they want. We have always done quite successfully with all the extras. And that, I found, is the point to have a conversation to explain what this is.

In that same interview, Deepchild said he’d been doing some similar events in Australia for many years. He basically questioned, “Is this the right place for charity? Do people get enough knowledge of what this is for? Is the dance floor and charity something that can actually even work together?”

Dan Cole

I think it’s a very valid point. I can’t really question that. To take the old cliché, charity starts at home, and some people’s home is on the dance floor. If you can generate interest and money for a good cause, through something that people do naturally, should you not just do it, and then ask “why?” later.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

We thought if we both felt that this was something that we should do, there might be other people that also felt like this was something that should be done. It’s really easy to go, “Oh well, there’s no charity, therefore I don’t need to give anything. It’s too hard for me to do.” What we’re doing is putting a platform out there, and if people want to partake in it, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s also fine. It’s better to have the option than not.

Have you gotten any feedback from people saying they want you to be more in-your-face about the charitable aspect? Or less?

Dan Cole

No one’s really commented that they want more or less information, hard-sell, less-sell. It’s just mostly positive affirmation. Specifically from the artists. I remember Steffi thanked us afterwards.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

I think it was Wojciech from Catz ‘N Dogz who said that his mom would have been really angry if he hadn’t done it. [laughs]

How much research did you do into the charity before you picked one to work with?

Lisa Swarna Khanna

I spent weeks checking out charities. Seeing the percentage of how much the charity gets, and how much goes to the final destination. Truthfully, there’s a lot of money that goes into administration. But we went with Save the Children in the beginning because they were relatively unknown in Germany. We thought it was important to focus on the child aspect of the crisis, because it was more neutral.

Dan Cole

And then we started to work with Mercy Corps, whose aim is how to get people back on their feet, how to house them, how they can get jobs. More of a long-term solution.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

We’re not going to hold ourselves to one particular charity. I think we’ll have a discussion every time. “Do we stick with these people? Do we have someone else that maybe we can work with?”

Is this something you would want to do on a larger scale?

Lisa Swarna Khanna

I think that is something we both thought about in the beginning, that we want to create something that could sustainably grow.

Dan Cole

There were some bureaucratic hurdles one might expect in Germany, to be able to expand beyond the definition of an initiative. And it’s important that we’re extremely transparent. Every time that we do an event, we send the money off to the charity, and we have them send us a certificate or receipt as it were, and we post it online.

Lisa Swarna Khanna

In my mind I would like for other cities to be doing it. London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, wherever. To be putting on events that would create awareness around these crises.

Dan Cole

We’ve had that conversation. We’re just waiting for it to materialize. But, if you think to the future, I’m always thinking to the immediacy of needs. I can’t think beyond tomorrow, to be honest. It’s about raising money now. We’ve raised ten grand in two years, which I think is a valid effort. If we keep doing that and expanding on it, I think it’s a great thing.

This feature is part of a week of articles guest curated by 3024 label boss Martyn.

“Besides making and playing music, I have always been interested in politics and international affairs. When moving to Washington DC I started studying political science here as a way to take a step back from music once every while and focus on the “other half of my brain.” Over the last few years I also learned to put more energy in giving back to people rather than just taking. So instead of just playing gigs and getting paid, I look for opportunities to inspire people, by helping them out behind the scenes, doing lectures such as for RBMA or raising money for charity.

I found out about It’s Bigger Than through Steffi and Virginia, who played at their event. I’m slightly skeptical about how to engage “party” with “awareness” – as that seems to contradict each other more often than not, but I think It’s Bigger Than is trying to marry the two in a healthy and cool way without it coming across as something forced.”

To check out more of the features that Martyn picked out, check out his guest curator hub page.