Few music awards are as multifaceted as those put on annually by the Madison Area Music Association. The nonprofit group not only nudges more than 300 little-known Dane County artists per year into the spotlight, but also has raised more than $30,000 since the awards’ inception in 2004 to put instruments and necessary funds into the hands of needy individuals and organizations.

“The [Madison Area Music Awards] have always been twofold; one (goal) is to recognize the musicians in town for the work that they do — I’ve always felt that Madison area musicians are somewhat undervalued and underexposed. … When you go to our website to vote there is more local music there in one place than anywhere,” Rick Tvedt, founder, de facto executive director and board treasurer of the MAMAs said. “Once we decided we wanted to do that we decided to go for a charity aspect, and that’s where the idea of helping kids with music programs came in.”

To the original organizers of the awards, who work on a completely volunteer basis, this particular charity focus was an immediate, clear choice for their association.

“The way the schools are going, there’s no end to what we can do to keep the music programs in the schools. We don’t want to see the early music programs being eliminated because the scientific data shows that kids who are involved in music have a different way of learning; they can assimilate math better, and it helps them in all kinds of academic ways,” Tvedt said. “It also helps give structure not just in thinking but personally in their lives. [It] gives them more self-esteem; life is more rewarding for them when they can create something musically.”

An advisory board made up of 20 to 30 individuals from the community with an expertise in music was implemented this year as a way to get professional input into the voting system without exposing the voting system to too much bias of opinion. The majority of decision-making, though, comes directly from online votes. There is a lot of work that sets the deluge of entries apart from what will eventually become the nominees, and then winners, of the awards.

“Bands that do well in the MAMAs are the bands that tend to work the hardest at what they do. Therefore, they have a bigger fan base; therefore, they are better at reaching out to their fan base and motivating them to do things like come to their shows, buy their music, vote for them in the MAMAs,” Tvedt said. “I don’t think it takes much of a mind to figure out that music is really artistic in its creations, but the commerce is all about popularity. … That’s how you keep it going.”

For those in Madison wanting to get involved, little commitment is necessary. Members of the Madison Area Music Association may listen and vote freely on the extensive list of musicians in each category on the MAMAs website. Membership costs $5 annually, and the proceeds of which all go to funding the association’s charity.

“Every group or person that we’ve helped has been so immensely grateful to us; that is really what drives us and keeps us going, those few and far between moments when we can actually make a difference for somebody,” Tvedt said. “I think the most touching one we had was [Tina] McKoewn, and she had gone through three bouts of chemotherapy for leukemia and had survived. After that she wanted to start playing music and her family was obviously probably so devastated with medical bills and whatnot. They came to us for a violin and we were able to help her out, and then we invited her onto the show, brought her up and presented her with her next size of violin. We surprised her with that, and it was really, really rewarding for us to be able to help a specific individual like that. Other groups (and) schools that are having trouble come to us, and we do whatever we can to help them out.”

Although there are a multitude of aspects that set the MAMAs apart from an average award show, the ceremony this year, which will be the seventh so far, will be a mere stone’s throw from red-carpet glamour. The Overture Center’s Community Arts Access Fund, a new program implemented to offer the building’s facilities to community groups, extended an invitation for the awards to be held in their grand Capitol Theater.

“We could never have afforded to come in here and do our show here, although this has always been the goal. … We’re going to have more entertainment this year,” Tvedt said. “We’ve always wanted the MAMAs to be more of a music conference, with the MAMAs being like the culmination. … We’ll have some conference stuff in the afternoon, then a VIP party, then the award show with a red carpet and everything. … It’s an extra bonus to make it special.

To learn more about the MAMAs, visit www.themamas.org.