Public Media Fundraising Model

Significant Programs for a Significant Audience

(How a development function should be built and how integrated communication is necessary to support that function.)

Development, marketing and communications are co-dependent. My qualifications and skills in these areas are based a significant experience in public media. Through research of the intended audience, fundraising-awareness programming strategies were developed that were focused on building the following:

·         Regular, frequent, loyal donors;

·         A strong perception of personal value;

·         And an understanding of the importance of giving.

I believe the concepts (and lessons) learned in these projects are applicable to most community service-based development functions. I have a belief that community service begets community support.

Of course great content, by itself, doesn‘t raise a dime and there is no meter running that automatically brings in revenue without these factors:

·         Reliability and trust of the offered service;

·         The contributor understands his or her personal importance;

·         A connection with the contributor’s personal values

It is only when these essential factors are combined with a disciplined, coordinated development program that users become givers and the virtuous cycle of public service generating public support to fuel still more service—begins to engage.

Content and giving are interlaced. Good marketing efforts are wasted if the content provided by a service does not match the values and lifestyle of the intended audience.

Giving is dependent on the following:

―If a person:

• Has an awareness of the service;
• Uses the service;
• Finds the service to be valuable;
• Believes he or she needs to do his or her share;
• Has money to give and…
• Four of the five factors are driven by the services own performance. (Audience 98)

In public radio we confirmed that:

• Public radio givers can be predicted primarily from patterns of listening.
• Reliance may be measured by purely behavioral variables like loyalty to a service and becoming a core user.
• Personal importance is an internal realization.
• Individuals who not only listen but also sense that public radio has become important in their lives are more likely to become givers.
• Education adds predictive power to our model. Half of public radio givers have earned an advanced degree, an indicator of their socially responsible values and upscale lifestyles.
• Belief that public radio depends on listener support adds some predictive power to our model, but the strong predictors are behavioral reliance upon public radio along with a sense of personal importance. (Public Radio Tracking Study, Turning Listeners into Givers)

These studies highlight how quality fundraising success is really about building a relationship with the intended audience.