Band Shirt Day 2025 Fund from MerchFriends.org

MerchFriends has launched the fourth annual Band Shirt Day (#BandShirtDay) on Friday September 19th, 2025. A celebration of the iconic “band tee” and a global fundraising initiative, uniting artists, fans and the music industry at large. Event partners include Hello Merch, Bandsintown, and WASTOIDS.

Some previous Band Shirt Day participants: AJJ, Angel Olsen, Best Coast, Billy Strings, Black Pumas, Blondie, Buck Cherry, Bush, Tetras, Dispatch, Emo Nite, Equal Vision Records, Flipper, Indigo De Souza, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Mac DeMarco, Matt Nathanson, Monophonics, OFF!, Parquet Courts, Portugal The Man, Roar, Sleater-Kinney, Sonic Youth, SPELLLING, THE BOBBY LEES, The Brothers Comatose, The Format, The Maine, The Tragically Hip, Third Eye Blind, Toadies, Tori Amos, Triple Crown Records, Urge Overkill, Yo La Tengo, Wilco, and more joining forces to raise funds on behalf of their selected organization.

Band Shirt Day brings artists together to sell merchandise on their official sales channels and donate proceeds to charitable organizations of their choice. Similar to Record Store Day or AUS Music T-Shirt Day in Australia, Band Shirt Day invites artists to create and sell unique, limited edition merch items while encouraging them to use their platform to create change.

This year’s Band Shirt Day fund recipients include:

ACLU [www.aclu.org]

The American Civil Liberties Union is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States".

Ally Coalition [www.theallycoalition.org]

TAC provides critical support for grassroots non-profit organizations dedicated to bettering the lives of LGBTQ+ youth.

Animal Legal Defense Fund [www.aldf.org]

The Animal Legal Defense Fund files high-impact lawsuits to protect animals from harm, provides free legal assistance and training to prosecutors in their fight against animal cruelty, supports animal protection legislation, and provides resources and opportunities to law students and professionals to advance the field of animal law.

MerchFriends [www.merchfriends.org]

MerchFriends introduced Band Shirt Day in 2022, creating an annual celebration of the band tee, a merch staple since the 1950s. The day gives artists, labels, and merchandisers a chance to show their love for band shirts while raising money for charities of their choice. MerchFriends is a 501(c)(6) organization, and contributions support its yearly operations, ensuring the continuation of the Band Shirt Day initiative.

Project Hope [www.projecthope.org]

For more than 60 years, Project HOPE has transformed the health and well-being of people and communities around the world. We work on the front lines of the world’s health challenges, partnering hand-in-hand with communities, health care workers and public health systems to ensure sustainable change.