7,800+ Miles / 20+ States / 10 Special Radio and Podcast Episodes / Celebrating One SHERO

Help us take SHEROES On The Road

The SHEROES Radio syndicated show is heard on 21 radio affiliates every week nationwide (and still growing), and features 100% femme voices in song and conversation. Creator and host Carmel Holt produces weekly interviews with artists. Sessions are heard in long-form on the SHEROES Podcast.

Carmel shares the motivation behind this SHEROES journey

Since launching SHEROES, I have wanted to visit the public radio markets that have supported me, to engage with the local communities who support public radio. And when I learned that my favorite artist of all time, Joni Mitchell, was playing two nights at the Hollywood Bowl in October, I knew I wanted to be there, and a new dream was born.

Starting September 6th, SHEROES is proud to present The Road To Joni, a limited audio series and cross country road trip celebrating one singular SHERO: Joni Mitchell. This will be our first series interviewing artists of all genders. In 10 special radio and podcast episodes, we will honor one of the most impactful artists across all genders, genres, and generations. We’ll experience the groundswell of love that has surrounded her, both inside and outside the walls of her living room jam sessions that led to her miraculous recent renaissance and road to recovery after suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015. And we will dive deep into the music.

These episodes will be released weekly as I embark on my cross-country sojourn from New York to Los Angeles for the Joni Jam at the Hollywood Bowl, and then back again, visiting public radio stations who air SHEROES Radio and who will be airing The Road to Joni episodes each week. 

You are invited to support us and join us on this journey!

Getting Us On The Road – Here’s What We Need:

Here is a breakdown of our first phase of fundraising goals.

Our immediate needs are hard costs for PR/marketing, series production, and tour production:

• $10,000 for PR + marketing
• $25,000 for audio production (includes editing, mixing, mastering episodes)
• $10,000 for tour production (includes tour planning, production assistant)
• $5,000 for travel accommodations

Why Supporting SHEROES Is Important:

• Honoring and celebrating SHEROES while they are here to receive it.
• Inspiring younger generations to pursue their creative dreams (if you can’t see it, you can’t be it).
• Keeping a vibrant space on the airwaves available for women and nonbinary folx to share their experiences and insights.
• Building and unifying community coast-to-coast in a tumultuous election year. Music is our greatest connector!
• Connecting multigenerational voices who continue gain creative and emotional strength and inspiration from Joni Mitchell’s music.
• Being part of a moment that brings together public radio music stations to collaborate and amplifies their importance to the communities they serve and artists’ careers.

Who Is Driving?:

We are a small team of women, and up until a few months ago, a team of two: myself (creator, producer, booker, interviewer, host, distributor, etc etc), and my trusty right hand Kelly Drake who is the SHEROES engineer and producer. We now have two more amazing women who are basically unpaid executive producers of the upcoming SHEROES tour and The Road To Joni series: Stacy Conde, and Ariella Levitan. Plus another dear friend from the music biz, Julie Muncy, who has been consulting us. I am also mentoring an NYU Music Business School student, Keelan Castelein, who is interning and assisting.

How are we getting there?

There is an incredible amount of excitement for SHEROES Productions and the upcoming tour and series we are planning. The kindness and passion and support people have offered is astonishing. And yet, we are not yet funded. 

How are we doing it? Thus far, with a lot of elbow grease, and faith. Support from some of our radio partners. And loans from friends and family. And credit cards. 

The tour is happening thanks to in-kind promotional support of amazing brands like Rivian, who are providing us with an EV to drive. RØDE, who has given us all the recording gear we’ll need to capture our interviews. Plus a handful of hotel partners like The Graduate who are putting us up along the way.

We are already on our way. It is such an honor and a joy! AND. We are counting on you to chip in whatever you can.

Other Ways You Can Help

Times are tough, and we get it if you don’t have the means to contribute. But there are other ways you can help!

• Help us get the word out and make some noise about our campaign. You can use Indiegogo share tools, and/or share on social. 
• If you have any friends who you think might be interested in this and have the resources to donate, please share with them!
• Subscribe to the podcast now and help us build numbers.

SHEROES and The Road To Joni Limited Audio Series

The SHEROES Radio syndicated show is heard on 21 radio affiliates every week nationwide (and still growing), and features 100% femme voices in song and conversation. Creator and host Carmel Holt produces weekly interviews with artists. Sessions are heard in long-form on the SHEROES Podcast.

The Road To Joni
In SHEROES first all-genders series,  Holt will interview artists and some non-musicians about their own roads to Joni Mitchell on a road trip from New York to Los Angeles (and back again), landing at Joni Mitchell’s Joni Jam at the Hollywood Bowl on October 19 & 20, and visiting public radio stations that will air The Road To Joni each week. 

In order to do this, we are in need of funding. SHEROES is gradually becoming financially steady each year, but we still lack the necessary funding to be stable and sustainable. We are growing SHEROES to include our upcoming public radio tour, exciting new content which includes The Road To Joni series and continued activity in 2025: new shows, events, and mentorship of young SHEROES.

Carmel’s story:

My career in radio began in 1995 in a town famous for a festival that didn’t actually happen there which inspired a namesake song written by an artist who wasn’t there: Woodstock, NY. And like the legacy of the festival and the artist who wrote “Woodstock”, that radio job in that small town has led to much more than I dreamed possible.

Over the next two decades I worked my way up, and in 2013 landed my dream job as a radio DJ, interviewer and assistant music director at WFUV Public Radio in NYC. The next dream was to create a feminist space on the airwaves to amplify women’s voices, and devote my work to exploring women’s experiences of working in a still male-dominated industry. In 2019 I was offered the opportunity to develop my idea into a podcast thanks to SONOS. I left my dream job at WFUV to start SHEROES.

A year and a half later, November 2020, SHEROES Radio was born with 8 radio affiliates. Today, the SHEROES Radio hour is heard on 21 radio affiliates every week nationwide (and still growing), and features 100% femme voices in song and conversation. My weekly interviews with artists are heard in long-form on the SHEROES Podcast. I also produced a second SHEROES series for Sonos Radio called Mixtape Memoir, which ran for three seasons and was nominated in 2023 for a Webby Award for Best Music Podcast. 

I am both in service to, and proud of what I have built, creating much needed space for women’s voices, and a small but mighty independent radio and podcast production team that is 100% powered by women (rarer than you might think).

We are nearly four years into SHEROES. And now, another dream is coming true, and I am growing SHEROES again. And I need your help.