An incredible donation from The National

If you checked out our special raffle and auction for Make Tiny Changes Month 2024, you might well have noticed something very special indeed. Amongst some incredible prizes and donations – from a signed Idles guitar to a song-writing masterclass with Frightened Rabbit’s Billy Kennedy – was our star item: two personal notebooks from Matt Berninger, frontman of one of our very favourite bands, The National.

The band were good friends with Scott and Frightened Rabbit and have been a huge supporter of Tiny Changes since our launch back in 2019, including joining us at Connect Festival in 2022 for a very special intimate acoustic performance that will live long in the memory for all of us who were there to see it.

They supported us again this summer when Matt kindly donated the two unique and personal lyric books, used during the writing of the band’s Cherry Tree EP (2004) and Alligator LP (2005). Alligator was a big breakthrough moment for the band, getting rave reviews across the world and setting them up for all the success that would follow in the following two decades.

These books were Matt’s first proper lyric journals and contain lyrics, song structures, drawings, design ideas and much more. They’d never been seen by the public before, let alone been offered up for sale, so it was a unique chance to own a very special piece of music history.

That being said, nothing could have prepared us for what happened across June. After a initial flurry of bids that saw the item’s price reach over £10,000, things seemed to have settled down a little before a bidding war – all taking place in the final few minutes of the auction while the band headlined Glastonbury’s Other Stage – saw the price rise and rise, finally selling for a truly amazing £40,000, taking our MTCM total to over £65,000 raised across June.

We were also lucky enough to say thank you to Matt and the band before their wonderful show at Edinburgh Castle a couple of weeks ago. The band were on amazing form and even gave Scott, Frightened Rabbit, and Tiny Changes a huge shout-out before they played one of their most-loved songs, Mr November, which was released on the aforementioned Alligator album. It was a very touching moment, on a very special night, and we can’t thank them enough for all they’ve done – and continue to do – for us.

Another huge thank you to The National, their team, and everybody who helped us raise money throughout Make Tiny Changes Month. The impact this will have on our work and young people across Scotland is huge. 

Together, we’ll make tiny changes to Earth – and this whole story was a lovely reminder of how true that is.