A working instrument in a closet is the most valuable thing most households can give a music program, because a school band's waiting list is usually a list of children who could not rent a horn. A few national programs collect instruments and place them, school programs take them directly, and one foundation that appears on every list online does not actually accept instruments at all. This page sorts it out.
Hungry for Music collects and distributes instruments to children who want to learn and to teachers with students who do. It accepts brass, woodwinds, strings, electric keyboards, drums and other percussion, and amps and accessories, in working or repairable condition. The process starts with a short form on its site; within a day or two it responds with a drop-off location near you, arranges a volunteer pickup, or asks you to ship the instrument, in which case you can either donate the shipping cost as a deductible gift or be reimbursed for it. It is based in the Washington, D.C. area with office hours Monday through Friday, Eastern time.
The most direct route is the music teacher at a nearby school, especially a Title I school where families cannot rent. Band directors keep instruments for students who could not otherwise play, and a donated clarinet, trumpet, violin, or flute goes into a child's hands within the semester. Call the school and ask for the band or orchestra director rather than the office; they know exactly what they need and whether they can accept the instrument directly or through the district. Regional programs built on this model, such as Bringing Music to Life in Colorado and Instruments in the Attic in Virginia, collect and refurbish instruments specifically for underfunded school programs.
Nonprofit community music schools, youth orchestras, and El Sistema-style programs lend instruments to students for free and constantly need more. University music departments often run instrument donation programs for outreach, the George Mason University academy among them. These programs can usually receive an instrument in any condition and have repair relationships, and they issue receipts. Search your city plus "youth orchestra" or "community music school" and ask for the instrument library.
The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation appears on nearly every list of places to donate instruments, and it is not one. It provides instruments to underfunded school music programs through grants, funded by cash donations. Its donation page covers online gifts, checks, monthly giving, and donor-advised funds; it has no program for accepting used instruments from the public. If you want your instrument to reach a school through a national program, use Hungry for Music or a regional collector. If you want to support the foundation, it wants money, and it turns that money into new instruments for schools.
Many independent music stores run or host instrument drives, often in partnership with a local school district or radio station, and some repair shops will refurbish a donated instrument at cost for a school. The WQXR instrument drive in New York and store programs like the LINKS program are examples of the model. A drive is the best route for an instrument that needs work, because repair is built into the process. Ask the nearest music store when its next drive is; most run one a year.
Goodwill and the Salvation Army take instruments and sell them, which works for a student guitar or a keyboard and poorly for a saxophone, which will be priced by someone who cannot test it and bought by someone who cannot repair it. Anything with pads, valves, or a bow belongs with a music program. Pianos are a category of their own: see where to donate a piano.
Last updated September 2026. Errors: [email protected]
School music programs own a fleet of instruments and lend them to students who cannot rent, and that fleet is the limit on how many children can join. Every donated instrument that a director can put in playing condition adds a chair. Because the instrument stays with the program rather than one student, it serves a new child every year or two for as long as it holds together, which makes a decent used clarinet one of the highest-return donations a household can make.
Most instruments that have sat in a closet need pads, corks, a valve job, or new strings before a student can use them, and that work costs money that programs do not have. Donating through a drive or a program with a repair partner solves this; donating a non-playing instrument directly to a school can hand them a bill. If you can afford to have the instrument serviced before you give it, you have roughly doubled the gift.