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.)

Promiscuous Listening

It's happening. 

I'm no longer involved on a day to day basis.
When it comes to fundraising on Public Radio, I'm more like your typical listener. I tune away. If I can get the same content elsewhere without the funding pitch, I'll do it. The only time I didn't do that today was when there was content I knew I couldn't get anywhere else.

What's the Lesson?

It's the content. It's always been the content. To think otherwise is foolish. The listener/user comes to us for the content and their willingness to support us depends on the listener's relationship with the content. Consistently meet their expectations and you will have their loyalty. Fail to meet their expectations and risk losing them to somebody else. It's kinda' like relationships.

Cleaning Up Your Act

Blah - Blah - Blah

With federal grant money in danger of being pulled, what we do now matters more than ever. What you air and what you say matters...all of it. Building audience and loyalty will increase funding. To do that takes a shift in thinking. Change from inward focus to audience focus.

I worked at a couple of music stations in public radio system where the stop sets would often run in excess of five minutes. That ain't nothin' compared to commercial stations that may run 12 minutes of back-to-back to-back-spots. The local ESPN outlet has been known to run 33 minutes of spots and promos in an hour. And yet...the public radio stations mentioned could do a whole lot more to build audience if the announcers would just stop rambling. Nobody cares...except maybe your grandmother. It doesn't take much to cause tune-out.

I used to go to listen to folk singers in clubs. They all seemed to feel they had to spend five or ten minutes setting up the next tune. Not really. It was all so tedious. Then on one occasion, from the back of the room, "Shut-up and play the music!" Laughter rippled through the room, and for that night we heard a lot more music and a lot less talk. He didn't stop telling stories about the music. He just did a better job of editing. What he had to say gave context without drowning us in words.

Fred Jacobs has a blog about improving the commercials in the commercial experience, and at the beginning of the blog he writes about "the era of the PPM ratings methodology has taught programmers about the value of minute-by-minute programming. Meters can migrate on a dime, reacting to everything from a rambling DJ to poor encoding to a weak-testing song."

Public radio should have such an advantage for building audience. No commercials. Yet the numbers often lag. The numbers are important when it comes to listener and underwriting support.

So what are you doing to eliminate the tune out? It could start with "Shut up and play the music." Or...you could focus your breaks. Make them more appealing. Instead of stopping,..move forward. Inform and move on. Advance the story and give context without overwhelming us.

Why Do Commercials Have to Suck?

I Listen to Pledge

Maybe I should Stop

I admit it. I'm an armchair program director. Others who have held that position in the past admit to the same malaise. I listen and I can't help myself. Maybe it is because it seems like content directors (PD's) in the public radio system seem to want to keep learning the same lessons we (the old timers) did long ago.  There I was listening and analyzing the pitching and the content.

Three Minutes...Three Mistakes

Pledge has been raging on for over a week. Maybe I'm just cranky. Today I listened to the talent acknowledge a pledge from a regular guest on the show that was being pledged. She said the gauntlet was down for other guest talent of this show's regular segment to pledge. What's wrong with that? She just let the other 12,000 listeners off the hook. She pitched exclusively to a half-dozen people. Since radio is a companion...personal...the best pitch appeals to the individual, not to groups or to insiders.

Then I heard the other talent talk about what a commitment the station was making with three local productions daily. The station invests heavily in local production. That was it. Is the pitch self-evident? No! She needed to answer why. Why is it important to be local? What is the benefit to the listener? How is the station better serving the audience with local productions? I never found out. It is important to understand that local for the sake of being local is not important to the listener. It is the quality of the content and whether or not that content meets the listener's expectations.

Wasted Promotions

After the pledge break, the station promoted a one hour program airing on Sunday night. It was Monday afternoon. I can't for the life of me remember what was being promoted, but that is the point. The most effective promotional strategy is forward promotion/vertical promotion/horizontal promotion.  Forward promotion is for content coming up in the next 20 minutes. It encourages time spent listening. It should be been placed just before the break. Vertical promotion is something that is focused on content coming up later in the day. This was in midday so, perhaps, a promotion for All Things Considered would have been best. Horizontal promotion is for programming content in the same day-part in the next day. Vertical and horizontal promotions create more occasions. At the very least, promotions are most effective if they inform the listeners of something happening on the air within the next 24 to 36 hours.  The promotion aired by the station used a diagonal strategy...and this is considered the least effective of all the promotional strategies. This particular station does this a lot.

It's Radio - Not Rocket Science

I feel fortunate. I learned these strategies by listening to those already in the system. I participated with others in what it takes to gain and maintain and audience through PRPD ARA (Audience Resource Analysis), Walrus Research, RRC, Station Resource Group, and other people and organizations.  The information is out there. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Ask.

To Paraphrase, Old PD's never die, they keep looking for opportunities to increase occasions and duration. Even during pledge.

It's basic radio - Think Audience

News Coverage Declines

The idea of running a newspaper as a non-profit like public radio came up again. Mercury News Columnist Mike Cassidy included that idea in his latest column.

Over 20 years in public radio taught me that raising funds at a public radio station is not as easy as it sounds. Public radio's success or failure depends on its content.

Raising money for public radio goes something like this. The content creates the audience. If the content resonates with the values and beliefs of the audience they are more likely to support the content. If the audience perceives the content to be valuable and unique they are even more likely to support the content (programming).

The programming also has to attract a large enough core audience to sustain the programming. The idea is to create significant programming for a significant audience. In public radio, if the core audience tunes in about nine times a week and, they spend about ten hours a week listening to a station, they are the listeners most likely to become contributors. Very few web users spend that much time on any one site. The relationship that creates support is much more complex than this, but these are the basics.

The scary part of the demise of newspapers is who becomes the watchdog? Who will have the resources it takes to do investigative journalism?

Readers of Mike Cassidy's column had a lot of other ideas that followed a few themes.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_13432751