Since 1999 Stichting Promotie Japanse Popcultuur (The J-POP Foundation) has been organising the yearly Japanese animation and popular culture festival aptly named: Anime. Even though most of us started out as fans of Japanese Animation (Anime) or Japanese Comics (Manga), all of us have become fans of Japanese popular culture in general, including Japanese movies, games, food, fashion, toys, (pop) music and electronics. Some of us are even in love with Japanese trains! This is why the goal of The J-POP Foundation is to promote Japanese popular culture in the broadest sense of the word.
Currently, we are organising the Anime festivals and we also offer nonprofit holiday packages to Japan (since 2003 through our subsidiary Shiranai Travel). Since early 2007 we have broadened our horizons to include presentations and workshops on Japanese popular culture, doing business in and with Japanese, offering tailor made nonprofit business travel solutions to Japan in conjuncture with one of our workshops (in close cooperation with Japan Airlines). We also offer our expertise to Japan related cultural events in the Netherlands and provide translations and contacts, when we are able to, to promote our cause.
The foundation is run by five main (core) staff members:
- Niels (Chairman, public relations, industry relations)
- Matijs (Secretary, online ticket booth, festival desk, dealer and doujin circle relations)
- Kaj (Treasurer, hotel liaison, crew liaison, AV technology)
- Robert (festival manga, printed matters, communications)
- Ramon (webmaster, festival security, communications advisor)
The core staff is supported by a (sub) staff comprised of the following members:
- Frank (master of festival events, video program assist)
- Jeroen (cosplay competition master)
- Kai, Uwe & Max (AV tech elite)
- Jelle & George (masters of planning and crew affairs)
- Jasper (video program assist, game room assist)
- Baris (game room master)
- Henri (game room assist)
- Royi (festival security - master of stewards)
The (sub) staff is supported by a group of senior 'gophers' and of course the gophers themselves.
The J-POP Foundation is a nonprofit organisation. All our income is used to finance the festivals we organise and promote small events. All staff members are unpaid volunteers and work for the foundation in their free time. The J-POP Foundation does not have any offices and operates from the residences of its members. We are flattered that some people DO think we are professionals as this means we are doing a proper job. However, we really are doing this in our spare time on a nonprofit basis! A professional organisation that concerns itself with this type of content is not feasible in the immediate future, unless it is supported by the Dutch or Japanese government. This is mostly due to Japanese animation and culture still being a very tiny niche in the Dutch market.