Whether the Bananarama or Taylor Swift song comes to mind, either way, if you found yourself humming “Cruel Summer” this year, you weren’t alone. The June through August 2024 period was, at best, sluggish for station fundraising across several key performance indicators compared to the same period in 2023.
The Membership Revenue Index for the three-month period ending August 30 showed a 2.4% decrease in revenue compared to the same three-month period in 2023 — a disappointing departure from at least flat revenue results for most of calendar year 2024. In a rare turn of events, TV/Joint licensees saw a drop in membership revenue of 3.6%, while Radio had a more modest decline of 0.7%. Revenue declines exceeded 3% for organizations with fewer than 40,000 donors. Stations above 40,000 donors had a smaller decline of 1.6%.
The High-Dollar Gifts Index saw a decline for the second report period in a row, dropping 2.9%. We remain hopeful that this is just an anomaly of timing. Both TV/Joint and Radio-only organizations experienced a decline in high-dollar gift counts, with declines exceeding 5% for Radio. High-dollar gifts are defined in the index as gifts of $500 or more. At that level, pledge declines could be a factor.
Pledge is certainly a factor in the New Donor Index, which declined 20.6% overall. The decline for Radio was 16.1% for this three-month period compared to the same period in the prior year. TV/Joint licensees experienced steeper declines of 21.2%, with double-digit declines across organizations of all sizes.
CDP will release our Fiscal Year 2024 State of Fundraising report for public media organizations in a few weeks, wherein we take a deeper look at new donors. We found that even in the face of declining audiences and high inflation, many organizations experienced new donor growth in FY2024. A careful review of 35 organizations experiencing greater than 5% growth in new donors revealed some interesting findings.
For the 10 public radio organizations with strong new donor growth, pledge was the primary driver. Pledge-acquired donors still represent more than half of all new donors to public radio. Public radio is crying out for more acquisition channel diversity.
For TV/Joint licensees, many of the 25 top performers had strong growth in both digital acquisition and direct mail. Some also had growth in pledge and Passport, and the top performer launched canvassing this year. Beyond the common growth factors of digital and direct mail, note that these organizations had another commonality: channel diversity.
A positive trend that continues among new donors is a growing share making sustaining gifts, with Radio surpassing 30% for the first time since the pandemic. However, the overall number of sustaining donors for Radio decreased 1.5%, largely due to significant drops in the total number of new donors. The overall Sustainer Index showed a 3.8% growth rate this period due to TV/Joint licensees. At these stations, Passport continues to drive new sustainers and conversion of current and former donors to sustainer giving. The Passport Users Index settled at 3.5% growth this period.
A difficult start to the new fiscal year, to be sure, but we wanted to leave you with some signs of a cure for your summertime blues. The Radio Research Consortium released July listening reports that showed marked increases in listening during the last week of the July survey. For television, the PBS fall and 2025 season could find new Passport donors, with the third installment of Wolf Hall arriving, Miss Austen debuting and a slate of Masterpiece and other PBS favorites returning.
Making strong fundraising efforts during periods of increased audience can ease short-term budget challenges, but continued investment in longer-term growth and stability strategies, including digital engagement and major giving, remain key to the success of the system long into the future.
This monthly report on the fundraising performance of public media stations is provided through an editorial collaboration between Current and Contributor Development Partnership (CDP). The collaboration draws from CDP’s National Reference File, which collects monthly membership and revenue data from more than 170 public media stations. (Read more about the methodology.)
Deb Ashmore joined CDP as Analytics Strategist in September 2023. With more than 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector and public media fundraising, she is passionate about working to help clients understand their fundraising data to inform strategies for long-term file health and growth. Her previous public media experience includes 10 years as director of individual giving for WXPN in Philadelphia.