Radio Works Best When Looking Ahead

 

Shut Up and Play the Hits!

If radio works best when looking forward, why do so many announcers insist on looking back?

I listened to a local radio anchor run headlong into a train wreck. Four breaks in a row with multiple mistakes. I've been there. I learned through experience, not to dwell on the mistakes. Things were coming at me too fast to dwell on the past. As soon as you stop, as soon as you hesitate, the more likely it is the whole thing will come crashing down. Listeners don't have a lot of tolerance for this.

After the shift, and before the next shift, is the time to focus and analyze what went wrong, and find solutions.

• Show prep is key to a successful shift.
• Good forward promotion (next ten to 20 minutes) encourages increased time spent listening.
• Dwelling on a mistake leads to the DJ's nightmare, a train wreck shift.
• Surprises are great on your birthday, but catch you unaware when live, on-air, leading to more mistakes.
• Talking up to a time post is the ultimate in the immediate future. Eliminate the upcuts!
• Long stop sets drive listeners away. Keep the back-sell short. Idle chatter turns listeners off.
• Only share your best stuff.
• Anchors and DJ's who look back, espousing the greatness of the story or music just aired, assume to much of the listener. The listener doesn't really want you to tell them what to think. They want to know what's coming up. All motion needs to be forward.

I found running a skimmer was a great tool for making adjustments. Most of the time I found I was just trying to do too much. Other times it's a lack of perpetration. I actually had a dream last night where I was fundraising on CPTV. It was for Sesame Street. We were discussing how to pitch it since it is no longer unique to Public TV. As was the case back then, I was called on to ask for funds two minutes before airtime. Dreams and the subconscious lead to some pretty strange things, but no stranger than reality.

Raising Money? Tell a Good Story

Relate by Telling Stories

So many fund raising appeals are based on need. No, not the need of those being served. The need of the non-profit. As a former boss said, you're leaving money on the table. It is, as if, your need will somehow translate into action. A list of your services hardly qualifies as reasons for giving. Think of it this way, if you were an unemployment service, is it more effective to say you have 500 clients, or tell the story of how you helped a particular client find meaningful work?

Instead tell stories that intrigue, inspire, motivate, rally, ignite advocacy, and secure donations.

The Network for Good has a nifty little page on their website, Top 3 Storytelling Essentials for Fundraising.

I've copied and pasted it for you here. (You can also go to the link I've provided.)

Once Upon a Time…

Whether you prefer to curl up with a good book or get lost in a film, the story is what captures our imagination. A good narrative brings people together and forms a common ground; it evokes emotion, sparks passion, and creates empathy.

For a nonprofit, a good story can:

• intrigue journalists
• inspire donors
• motivate staff and board
• rally supporters
• ignite advocacy
• secure corporate sponsorship

Stories are the basic building blocks for reaching our goals.

As fundraisers, you’re responsible for arousing sympathetic emotions and inspiring action. The most powerful way to do that is to tell a great story. But what makes your story great? What do you need to include?

The essential elements of any good story are the character, desire, and conflict. 

Character

Your protagonist is who your audience relates to. Personalize your organization and mission. Look at your data and find those case studies that can serve as representational stories for the work you do. People are twice as likely to give a charitable gift when presented with an emotion-inducing personal story that focuses exclusively on one character’s plight. 

Desire

We all want something. What is the desire within your character’s story? Is it a need to change their world, to obtain something, get rid of something, restore order, or escape a threat? Make sure their need is powerful and immediate.

Conflict

Conflict refers to the obstacles that arise and prevent the character from getting whatever she or he wants. Powerful stories about relatable people overcoming challenges inspire the reader (or listener) to help. Tap into those universal human emotions and your audience will engage with you.

Particularly when it comes to telling your nonprofit’s origin story—whether you’re discovering how to tell it for the first time, or simply want to refresh your approach—a powerful narrative is the foundation of successful fundraising.

The idea is to raise the passions of your potential donors. Try relating to them with success stories about the people you serve. Tug at the heartstrings. Inspire action.

Motivating Generosity

  

“Generosity: The habit of giving freely without expecting anything in return.” Anonymous

In public media, we always talk about generous support (Thank you for your generous support), but what motivates people to be generous? 

Reaching back to an article from 2016 published in Greater Good Magazine, I found motivators behind giving to help people who are suffering. The article by SHARON BEGLEY, "What Motivates You to Be Generous?" focused on a 2016 study on compassion meditation and generosity by researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder. 

Here are some of the key points highlighted by Begley

• In general, in compassion meditation, you focus on suffering individuals, then groups of suffering people, then all of suffering humanity. In each case, you express the wish that they be free from suffering. 
• Researchers found that greater distress predicted greater generosity. But so did these factors: thinking the person was blameless, believing a donation would actually help, and feeling warmth toward the sufferer. 
• Generosity does not seem to be an instinctive, default behavior. It is a learned behavior. 
• Generosity wanes if people perceive the world as full of threats and looming scarcity rather than of abundance and security—one of the individual traits most predictive of individual generosity.
• Perhaps the strongest message from the science of generosity is that the more adversity someone has experienced, the more compassion she feels and the more generous she’s likely to be. 

The application here is for the consequence of famine, fire and other catastrophes.  Then, what could be applied to public media fundraising? Nothing we do comes even close to the tragedies and suffering after an earthquake or hurricane.  

 

Try This

After convincing potential donors of  your unique value proposition:

• Convince them the donation will actually help.
• Appeal to their loyalty toward your institution and your content.
• Stay away from messages of doom and scarcity.

Notice the quote. There's nothing in there that implies the donor wants a coffee mug, tote bag or t-shirt.

(The tote bag and t-shirt, on the other hand, are great advertising, increasing awareness of your brand.)

Getting to the point

Encouraging Signs

About halfway through my local NPR station's fundraiser, they shifted message points. They started talking about local coverage. They've done this before, but this time the message was much more that lip service. The messages focused on the type of coverage and the quality of the coverage, and how that coverage gives the broader perspective of events globally. The message was more about the unique value proposition of what they offer rather than, "We have local news!" The message made the fundrive easier for me to listen to.

They still mention the premiums, but the point of the drive is so much more than sox and mugs and wreaths. For a long time, this station relied heavily on premiums, but you gotta ask yourself, is that really why people listen? IMHO...it's the wrong path. It was chosen long ago by Public Television. Public TV is at a point, now, where they cannot raise funds around regular programming. Their fundrives are about pitching a product.

There's a lot at stake.

I was reading an article by Jim Wallis, "THE TRUTH QUESTION: HOW TO SEEK TRUTH WHEN THE PRESIDENT NORMALIZES LIES." Wallis points out that the president has lied over 13,000 times in 1,000 days. That's over 13 lies a day. His tactic is a common tactic.

AUTOCRATS AND STRONGMEN ALL OVER THE WORLD ATTACK THE FREE PRESS AND THE IDEA OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH BECAUSE THEY WANT YOU ONLY TO BE ABLE TO LISTEN TO THEIR TRUTH. (Sojourners)

The free press still exists, but it is under constant attack. Even here, where a free press is supposed to be guaranteed by The Constitution. There is no guarantee that it will be there for us without vigilance and active support. 

BTW- That's a call to action.

Why People Give

Listening to my local public radio station make appeals for funding on-air leads me to question again: 

Why Do People Give?

The local talent is telling me all about mugs, t-shirts and socks. I can even get flowers to send to a loved one.

But...is that the reason I would want to give them money? No, not really. 

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I've become jaded because of my 31 years sitting in that chair trying to motivate people to make that phone call. 

I think it's all about the listener and why they come to the station for their news and information. The listener is first. I'm not sure public TV can raise money that way. Fundraising around regular programming is slow going. So they produce specials that have little to do with their mission. They focus on cassettes, DVD's and CD's. They help the presenter hawk his or her products. For the most part it doesn't work that way for public radio.

I went to an out side source to find out what motivates people to give. I went to the Network for Good. This is what they came up with.

1. Donors come to your nonprofit because they believe in your mission.
2. Donating to charity feels good.
3. For many donors, charitable giving is a family tradition.
4. Donating is an emotional act, and people connect more to personal stories than statistics or broad statements. 
5. Religion - Every major religion teaches good will, caring for others, and charitable giving.
6. The power of social media combined with the ease of online giving has contributed to the rise in popularity of peer-to-peer giving. The more people see their peers involved in a cause, the more likely they are to participate and donate. 
7. Tax benefits - Nonprofits are watching how the standard deduction increase and elimination of personal exemptions will affect charitable giving.

People stop giving when they stop believing in you.

I don't see thank you gifts or premiums anywhere in there. Why would you lead off your pitch with socks or a t-shirt?. For that matter, why would you lead off with a hand-ringing appeal about what you need?

It's not about you. It's about your audience. Change your perspective. It will change your approach.   

A little thought before opening the mic will go a long way. 

Public Radio Dreams

Unsettling Dreams

I've had a series of unsettling and recurring dreams about my radio experience. 

The first one was based on true events. They were in commercial radio. The dream would revolve around not being prepared for the next event. In most cases the first stop set and beyond. What would happen in my dream was at the end of a music set or news segment. Nothing was prepared to go beyond that point. No music was pulled. No stories were set up to run. None of the spots for the stop set were pulled. This actually happened at two of the stations I work for. On my first shift, I was shown the board, the log and left to my own devices. The first break was a nightmare. The result was a really unsettled air shift for at least the first hour as I struggled to get ahead of the breaks.

The solution, I learned, was having the previous shift pull at least an hour's worth of material for the next shift. In some cases more than that. A great idea! I implemented the policy as soon as I moved up the management ladder.  I also required talent to show up an hour before their shift. That policy generated a lot of resistance. There are many who don't want to put in the effort. I still dream about getting in front of the control board and nothing is ready to go.

Nobody's Calling

Dream number two deals with on-air fundraising. In that dream I've spent weeks preparing for the fundraiser, setting strategy, tactics, goals, produced content (on-air and off-air) and lined up talent. The drive begins and nobody calls. Again, the dream is based on experience. In those early days of fundraising the audience was fractured and disloyal. Because of that, there weren't many listeners who qualified as core listeners. as a result, the on-air requests for funding would become more desperate as it became clear the goals were not going to be met. Reasoning and rationality outside the dream state revealed two problems. The programming created barriers to listening and so did the fundraising. I knew this, but that didn't stop the dream from recurring. I stopped dreaming about this after I stopped participating in pledge drives.

It's Baaaack?  

Recently I've had this dream where audiences are falling away. Public radio is losing its audience. Stations are going dark. Millennials and Boomers are listening less and as a result are less willing to support the programming. The core is getting their information fix from other sources, and they expect it to be free. Social Media is fracturing the audience. Creative people become discouraged and move on. The content, for the most part, is still great, but nobody is listening. 

Good thing this is only a dream. Like in the first two dreams, this is still a fixable situation. Like before, collaborations, partnerships, and creative solutions will allow public radio and media to continue to serve its audience and the community.

Old Haunts

Checking out old haunts. WUMB was my radio home for an ever so brief moment. Looking at the website....

Nothing much has changed

Looking at the ratings...

Nov 2016    AQH   Share   Daily Cume   Weekly Cume    Cume Rtg      TSL

WUMBFtlr  800        0.2      15,500            49,200                1.1                 1:45

Nothing much has changed

As long as the University supports them they will keep hobbling along. If that support were to fall away, the end would be swift and painful. The audience is just too small to support the station. By comparison, WERS has four times the share and almost four times the cume rating.

There is a critical mass when it comes to fundraising for public radio. The size of the Core Audience is the determining factor and the amount of time they spend with the radio station. Audigraphics made it easy to measure the size of the core, how often they tuned in and the duration of each occasion. Benchmarks for the core were about ten occasions a week with each occasion lasting about an hour. With an Average Quarter Hour Audience of 800 in the Boston Market and the audience turning over 19 times a day (62 times a week) it does not appear that WUMB has the numbers to support itself.

I was hired in 2010 to help turn things around. I didn't get a chance and that was disappointing. The lack of change since then is equally disappointing.  

Using The Public Radio Business Model

After the Fact Funding

Actually, it's a business model that has been used by non-profits, including religious groups, for decades...even centuries.  Giving hinges on, "Does the content or the outcomes match the values and lifestyles of a targeted audience?" 

There used to be this public radio fund drive pitch that asked, what if other businesses came to you after you used their product and services and asked if you would be willing pay whatever you feel the service was worth. Our answer was that pitch would not work in the business world, but somehow it worked for public radio.  Here's that pitch put toward the greater good.

This Store Lets You Pay What You Can For Groceries That Would Otherwise Be Tossed

It’s saving perfectly good food from going to waste

The food and Agricultural organization of the United Nations estimates that 33% of food produced for human consumption in the world gets lost or wasted. That's about 1.3 billion tons a year. Per capita waste is at its worst in Europe and North America.

SAVE FOOD: Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction

Podcast Income

Can Podcasts be a source of income for public radio? From a station's perspective...Yes ...as long as expectations aren't too high.

There are three sources of income for public radio. Member Support - Underwriting - Grants. Listener support for podcasts has lagged. Is that changing?

The headline reads...WNYC boosts podcast income with text-to-donate efforts...which is a little misleading. Digging deeper into the article in Current you will find that the amounts are small ($10), and there's no way to mine the data for follow-up information.

Voluntary Support

Does this mean the experiment is a failure? No! It means there is the possibility stations could cover the cost of podcasts, and WNYC is continuing the experiment to find ways to continue the funding discussion with text-to-donate contributors. The willingness of podcast users to voluntarily contribute for the content they consume is a hopeful sign. Obviously, not everybody is willing to pay, but how is that different from the current membership model?

WNPR experimented with a text-to-donate fundrive in 2008. The sames issues arose. The donation amounts were small and the link between the donation and the donor was non-existent. WNPR's text to donate drive differed in that we used the airwaves to generate texts. The pitch breaks were short and the number of breaks were limited. We got about 100 texts and about $1,000.

Self Sustaining?

Given the huge demand for revenue to operate a public radio station, there was no follow-up on the project at WNPR. If the funding source is viewed as an additional revenue stream related to a separate platform, expectations might be more in line with reality. The other challenge is to convert the podcast cohort into public radio supporters. At least text to donate is a beginning. When combined with other sources like grants, advertising and pay walls, some podcasts could pay for themselves.

The Funding Trifecta

The renewal of grants depends on meeting stated expectations. The same could be said for advertising. As long as the podcast delivers an audience, the revenue will continue to come in. The public radio funding model has always been sustained by voluntary contributions. The most stable source of income for public broadcasters has always been its donors. If the other two sources lagged (grants and underwriting), contributions offered stability. The success of podcasts in public media will be measured by their appeal to the audience.

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.

It's All Local

I heard a public radio fundraiser talk about their investment in local programming and how most stations don't usually invest that much in resources. My thought...It only matters if the content matters.

A Personal Medium

More than once I've heard that radio is a personal medium. It's true. I choose to listen because the content matches my lifestyle and values.  The closer the content comes to this match, the more engaged I become. By extension, everything that comes out of speakers and headphones is local. And, this includes content on new platforms including social media.

Local or National?

It does not matter. As a listener the content and how the content is presented matters. So, when the person fundraising tells me that his or her NPR station invests a lot of time and resources on local content, I really don't care. He or she might care because he or she works there and has a lot invested in the success of the content. It's an inside argument that does not relate to my experience as a listener.

My Choice

As a listener, I decide what is important. It is my core values that are being served. And, if the content provided matches those values on a consistent basis, I am more likely to support the provider. It could be Morning Edition, On-Point, Colin McEnroe or Wait, Wait, it's all local to me.

Ebbing Loyalty

Straight to the Source

Earlier today, I wanted to listen in to the debate about Scott Walker's proposed cuts to the University of Wisconsin System. WBUR's On-Point put together a program about the cuts with several guests including:

• Karen Herzog, higher education reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (@herzogjs)
• Noel Radomski, director of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education. (@noelradomski)
• Christian Schneider, columnist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (@schneider_cm)
• John Sharpless, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives from Wisconsin’s Second Congressional District in 2000.

Convenient Listening

I used to work at WNPR in Connecticut. I still live in their listening area. You would think I have a certain amount of loyalty to the station. Despite my layoff from WNPR in 2009, I still help them raise money during pledge. I still listen while driving. But now, I hardly ever listen at home. Instead of listening to the feed from WNPR, I chose to listen to the feed from WBUR. I went directly to the source. 

Since I was unable to catch the program from the start (I listened on-line about half-way into the program), I will listen to the first half of the program later through the On-Point web page. It's a lot more convenient.

Loyalty

Does this mean I'm less loyal to WNPR?  It does! Here's how the Radio Research Consortium looks at Loyalty.

Loyalty is the total QHs of listening to your station expressed as a percentage of all QHs of listening to radio in your listeners’ diaries. It is a measure of how well (or how poorly) your programming elicits listening by your cume. Here is how to interpret this Loyalty rate: Of all the quarter-hours of listening to radio over the entire survey week by your 106,700 metro area cume persons, 37.1% of those QHs were spent with WRRCFM. The audience is 37.1% loyal to the station. What does the level of loyalty indicate? Low loyalty suggests you may be trying to serve too many constituencies. High loyalty, but low cume says you are superserving too small a target audience. High loyalty and high cume means you are doing a good job of bringing people in and keeping them involved with the station.

My loyalty may actually be the same. The percent of Quarter Hours devoted to WNPR might still be the same as before, but my listening to radio is less than it once was. The total number of Quarter Hours is a lot less than it was ten years ago. I still I listen to WNPR 50% of the time...that share of pie is still the same, but the pie is smaller.

Does this Matter?  

Loyalty is important when it comes to fundraising. So is the number of Occasions. My total listening time is down.  The more loyal I am as a listener to a public radio station...the more likely I am to contribute. My time spent listening matters to. As I spend less time listening...My willingness to contribute diminishes.        

AQH Persons

A way stations can determine if listeners are spending less time with their programming is to look at Time Spent Listening and the Average Quarter Hour Audience. For this example, I did for WNPR. In the past two years AQH is down 29% and TSL is down 19% in the Hartford Metro Area. The trend suggests it will be harder for WNPR to raise money from listeners. John Sutton from RadioSutton, a Public Media consultant, suggests that reductions in AQH require stations to use more leverage during fundraisers to meet their goals. For more information on the use of leverage, please read, "It’s Taking More Leverage to Generate Pledge Drive Contributions."

What's Next?

WNPR can help itself. It can make sure they are making the most of forward promotion opportunities. They can also carefully examine the appeal of its programming. They can look at which programming elements are drawing audience and which are not. WNPR can also realign resources to programming that defines their audience. They can then determine where changes are needed. They can also make sure they have a robust on-line and social media presence. I will need reasons to listen to their content on-line and on-demand. If they can do all that, they might be able to get me to spend more time listening to their content. By doing that, my time spent listening to their content will rise.

Radio Drives in Storms

Maybe it's me. Maybe it's the public radio audience. Whenever I fundraise during a storm, the response is very light.

In December we tried to raise money during an ice storm. This week we tried to raise money during a snowstorm. In both cases, response was light for Morning Edition. Morning Edition is usually a lucrative daypart, because the audience is at its peak.

What are the reasons?

I was a common denominators in both cases. Maybe it was me.

More likely (at least to me) the audience was elsewhere. We were on the air trying to raise funds around the measles outbreak, the fighting in Ukraine, and conversation about transportation woes in Connecticut. It could be a lifestyle or listener behavior issue. Listeners may have been:

• Watching TV coverage
• Figuring out what to do with their kids (schools were closed)
• Concentrating on driving (roads were treacherous)
• Clearing snow
• Chatting with friends on social media
• Sleeping in

It would be interesting to see what happens to the public radio audience on snow days. And, what happens to that audience as the day wears on. I've noticed response to pledge appeals increase later in the day. Morning drive seems to suffer the most.

How Not to Ask for Money

Getting People to Give - Why not just ask?

I'm constantly searching for ways to motivate people to give. It all started during a radio fund drive. It was one of my first. Nobody was calling. Of course, we reverted to threatening the audience. In radio they have the ultimate free will. I think we annoyed the audience by threatening to keep playing "Dukey Stick." They either hit the off button or went up the dial. We didn't know. We thought it was hilarious.

Big Mistake

We were supposed to be a jazz station. Why on earth would any Jazz Aficionado stick around to listen to any of that? And by playing it back to back to back to back drove the audience to zero within minutes.

We had a legitimate cause. We wanted funding for a public radio station that had a blend of News and Jazz. We were asking for money in entirely the wrong way. We were sending a message that we really didn't believe in our service.

There are at least nine ways not to ask for money according amnesty-volunteer.org. I think we violated four. We weren't really asking. At least, not about our service. We were totally outside our format and the audience we served. Begging, apologizing or demanding. Donors give because they believe in what you're doing. So, we should  have believed too. I still hear apologizing a lot. Making assumptions. We assumed the listener was on the same wave-length. We thought we were being funny and they would get the joke. In a way, the whole pitch was dishonest. We thought we were better off pitching something other than what we had to offer.  What we should have had the courage to do was talk about what we were and the unique qualities of our service.

What we were can been seen in this video. All we had to do was ask.

It's Not About the Mugs

Really!

I was listening to my local public radio station this morning as they kick off their fund drive. The announcer says, "I'm going to talk directly to the listeners now." He then went into a two minute pitch about coffee mugs.

Who, exactly, was he talking to before? 

Radio a personal medium. Listeners develop loyalties to radio stations based on the content and how well that content speaks to their personal values and fits in with their lifestyle. Radio stations that resonate with listeners become companions.

In the 60's Marshall McCluhan talked about radio,  “Radio affects most intimately, person-to-person, offering a world of unspoken communication between writer-speaker and the listener. That is the immediate aspect of radio. A private experience. The subliminal depths of radio are charged with the resonating echoes of tribal horns and antique drums. This is inherent in the very nature of this medium, with its power to turn the psyche and society into a single echo chamber.”(Understanding Media:The Extensions of Man,Marshall McLuhan)  

Telling Stories

And, that is why storytelling is so important. McCluhan points out in Understanding Media, If we sit and talk in a dark room, words suddenly acquire new meanings and different textures. They become richer, [...]. All those gestural qualities [...] come back in the dark, and on the radio. Given only the sound of a play, we have to fill in all of the senses, not just the sight of the action. So much do-it-yourself, or completion and “closure” of action, develops a kind of independent isolation in the young that makes them remote and inaccessible.” (264) 

The same holds true for Public Radio. The platforms are changing. Radio is no longer considered the disruptive media, Social Media is. Perhaps radio has lost some of its edge because of the homogenization of the medium by large corporations like iheartmedia. Through Social Media there are many more venues for the content. But, the core values...the reasons for listening and loyalty...are the same.  

The station I was listening to is an NPR news stations. According to PRPD's Core Values Project, "In news, we met listeners who are deeply engaged in contemporary public life and culture; whose vigilant curiosity about the world brings them to public radio for depth and context. They see the world as part of an interconnected web of causal relationships and want us to help them connect the dots by focusing on the "why", not just the "what" of issues and events. They believe in the power to find solutions for the problems of their community, their nation and their world."

Understand Your Audience

I used to be employed in Public Radio. I still have my PRPD 20th Anniversary mug. Inside the mug, toward the the rim, it says, "Think Audience." That maxim came out of the Radio Research Consortium (RRC) in the late 70's.  Tom Church, the founder of the RRC championed working with Arbitron data as a way to measure response to our programming. John Sutton puts it well. "Church didn't say "Think Share Points" or "Think Cume." His words were "Think Audience" and their purpose was to get public radio programmers to focus on how listeners respond to a station's programming."

There is so much information about what makes radio, and public radio appealing. There is so much that public radio is doing right by telling stories that put issues and ideas into context. There's nothing in there about mugs. So, why is that the fall-back position for fundraising?

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. 

Stories Can Move Us

Generosity      

I spend a lot of time working on fundraising these days. I used to be exclusively a content person in Public Broadcasting. That is, until I realized that compelling content can enable fundraising. Outcomes and good storytelling make it easier to ask for money. Those who give to non-profits care about where they're money is going. They want to know who is going to benefit from their contribution. Contributors want to feel good about their giving. This is a shift in thinking on the part of many fundraisers. 

I'm always searching for stories.

Compelling Content

I came across a compelling story at the Huffington Post by Alena Hall. She tells the story of two homeless dogs and the homeless man who was trying to care for them. The lives of the dogs changed dramatically when Robyn Arouty, a portrait photographer and animal rescuer based in Houston found them outside the train station there. Arouty, with the man's permission, took the dogs in. 

Community that Cares
The story of the dogs and the homeless man were shared PetCaring.com. They crowd source funding for stray dogs and cats. Within a week enough money was raised to get the dogs (Madonna and Anthony Ciccone) the care they needed. David, the homeless man, agreed to allow the dogs be put up for adoption. His act was selfless. So was Robyn's. I think they both ended up feeling better. They both made a difference.

To find out more and see some pictures...go to Homeless Man Who Couldn't Care For His Dogs Finds Perfect Animal Lover To Give Them Proper TLC

Now, if only David's outcome can be just as good... 

Why We Give - Listener Participation

Listen and Engage

Social Media marketers often talk and write about listening. TechTarget defines listening also known as social media monitoring, is the process of identifying and assessing what is being said about a company, individual, product or brand. Google Alerts and Hootsuite are two of the tools used. During the membership drive at WNPR we used a less sophisticated tool. We asked.

Telling Stories

An effective tool in fundraising for non-profits is storytelling. The stories are an effective tool in reaching potential donors. So, instead of focusing on the needs of the station, I asked how the station was fulfilling the needs of the listener. In essence, we were listening and then engaging by reading the comments of listeners. It seemed to work. This morning we went over goal again. We tried it last week and went over our goal by 25%. This week we had challenge funds to go with our pitching and exceeded out goal by 33%.

 A Two Way Street

So much of what we do in radio is one way. We provide the content. The listener listens. That's it. Asking for and using comments is a bit unusual. 

The comments were short and to the point. As listeners started to participate...more became involved.

Here are some of those comments. Many of them speak to the companionship of radio.

• WNPR is my connection to the world!
• I'm a third grade teacher. I get a lot of ideas about current events from your program and share them with my students.
• I like all the points of view.
• You keep me informed and help me to connect the dots.

• Thanks very much. You are a part of every morning and afternoon.
• I listen to NPR all the time and wanted to give back.
• I listen on the way to and from work. It gives me a half-hour a day to catch up on interesting topics. I love listening to you.
• I wanted to make sure I could help with the match. I listen every single day.
• I love NPR! I have been listening to it since moving to Connecticut in 2006.
• I've been listening for years. It keeps me company day and night.
• I see it as continuing education and life-long learning.

Most of these people have been listening for a long time. They tune-in several times a week and listen to several programs. The duration of each tune-in is around an hour. They're loyalty to the station is important. Their loyalty makes it more likely they will contribute.

Why We Give: Generosity and Public Radio

It's Not About the Mug

I sat in at my local public radio station this week asking for contributions. By public radio standards it was a huge success. During Morning Edition we went over goal by 25%. We didn't have a drawing. We didn't have a challenge grant. We had thank you gifts, and for many, that can become the main focus of their pitch. But that wasn't ours. We took it in a different direction.

Pledge Drift

There was a risk in doing it this way. Response has been good to the request for funds based on pledging tied to thank you gifts. At least the focus of the pledge is on something the listener might want. Selling logo'd items can generate a response. Selling books that are the subject of an interview can generate response too. I have several public radio mugs in my collection.  Still, thank you gifts don't get to the reason why people listen or give. Giving is tied to listening and loyalty. Once you've got them listening several times a week, you have a better chance the listener will become a supporter. 

 

Feeling Good

I applied articles I've been researching  on what works. Some of the answers can be found in previous blogs,Why We Give and Why We Give - It Makes us Feel Good.  People responded best when the request is taken to a personal level. When we shared experiences and stories from listeners, we got response. We told their stories.

 

Coming up with the stories was easy. I simply asked the listeners to give me a reason why they find WNPR to be so valuable. Why are they listening? Are there programs they find important? Is there a memorable moment they want to share to inspire others to give?  Most of the comments were a line or two. All of the stories were something the listener could relate to.

 

I still included the facts and figures and the thank you gifts, but the compelling stuff was in the listeners' responses. The focus was on the listener, not on WNPR’s needs. It was a success. We exceeded our goals that morning by 25%.

Caution - Contents are Hot

The key to this approach is the loyalty and the size of the P1 audience has towards the content. If a programming segment has high listener loyalty, the approach is likely to work. If the loyalty is lower, other factors like gifts need to be employed. When I worked in Milwaukee, we could not generate many calls of support during classical music unless there was a premium tied to the pitch. Perhaps the content was not all that compelling. Compelling and well-crafted content always makes the job of the fundraiser easier.

Public Radio Fundraising

Fundraising Off Message 
What would happen if a portion of the pitches focused on outcomes?

So much of what I'm hearing locally is all about premiums. There are long descriptions about mugs, holiday wreaths and CD's.  Are these things really the reason listeners tune-in to public radio?

Outcomes
Part of the pitch should be about outcomes. The outcomes should be from the listener's perspective instead of the station's internal focus. An internal focus might be something like, "With your contributions, we were able to hire two new reporters. We're hoping for more this year!" An example of a positive outcome from a listener's perspective might be testimonials about the value of reporting from a listener's perspective. "You're reporting on the plant closure in the Quiet Corner" gave me a greater understanding to the implications of long term unemployment on the economy. The stories in your series brought home the human toll of joblessness." Something like this takes preparation but, is effective in driving home the unique value proposition  of Public Radio's content.

Balance
It is not about what we need. It is not about the premiums. Premiums are inducements. The real reason people listen is the compelling content. If the content matches the lifestyle and values of a large enough portion of the audience on a consistent basis, listeners become contributors. There needs to be a balance in the message points. Talent needs to make sure there is a balance between the case and the close. Long pitches focusing on a mug or a bouquet of flowers as a premium might motivate some donations but, they are off point. They ignore the built-in advantage of listener loyalty to content that matters.