Shorter Fund Drives Are Back

You just gotta work at it!

An article by Tyler Falk in Current...the newspaper for people in public media...highlights what some public media outlets are doing to cut down on the number of days spent on-air fundraising. It's the return of the shorter drive.

WBUR in Boston recently completed a drive where they raised over $1 million in 26.2 hours. The them for the drive was based around the Boston Marathon. The amount raised was over 100% more than previously raised in a day. They did it with a whole station effort with pre-drive promotion, They utilized digital platforms and  social media including updates with Facebook Live and on-air reports with Luke Burbank. There was even a pre-drive rally with the staff.

Occasionally, I work on fund raising and stewardship campaigns and at one of the seminars I attended last year at the Hartford Seminary on fundraising, Mike Piazza held up NPR stations as a shining example of how to do it. Your station can be, if you're willing to try things and innovate.

Resistance to Fund Raising

Innovation is becoming more important. John Sutton put it this way in the article, "Better listening data...has shown how much fund drives disrupt listenership; and fear that on-air campaigns will drive listeners to other audio content." Sutton said a couple dozen stations are experimenting with shorter fund drives. Sustaining members are one of the factors making this possible.

The pressure to make drive more efficient has been with us all along, and the concept of shorter drives has been with us almost as long. You can't use the same concepts over and over. They will lose effectiveness, but they can be part of a station's fundraising strategies. If you've done shorter drives in the past, pull the concept out of your toolbox, dust it off, update your ideas, and go for it.

The article goes into much more depth about shorter drives. I suggest you read it. You'll also find more example of what is working and who is working on these projects. If you're not sure, ask these people for help.