February CDP Index: Year begins with boost to membership revenue
The CDP Public Media Index is reporting a strong start to 2025. The Membership Revenue Index shows a year-over-year increase of 5% for the three-month period ending Jan. 31 compared to the same three months in 2024.
In both years, these months would include Giving Tuesday and end-of-calendar-year giving, traditionally peak revenue periods. This year we also had a presidential election season and a new administration, which could be driving increased news tune-in. Radio had a 5.1% increase in revenue in this period, and TV/Joint had a 4.2% increase in revenue. All organization segments by size experienced increases in revenue at or above 4%, with the largest (40,000-plus active donors) with revenue growth of 5.7%.
Turning to new donors, the New Donor Index had the most surprising results this period. Radio had a remarkable 15.3% increase in new donors compared to the same period in 2024. Over two-thirds of all participating Radio organizations had at least some increase in new donors during this time. In a more detailed analysis, we found all three organization groups by size for Radio showed positive results, with the strongest performance among larger organizations (40,000 or more donors).
TV/Joint licensees, on the other hand, had a decline in new donors of 5.1%. TV/Joint licensees have been experiencing new donor declines since the second quarter of 2024, with Passport as the suspected primary factor. Data from the Passport Users Index reflects a very modest decline of 0.2% in the most recent report. However, this index has been showing a slowdown in growth rates for most of the last 12 months.
Though diversification of donor acquisition channels is a concern, new Passport-acquired donors continue to be a very large share of all new TV/Joint donors at over 40% and are the likely driver for the ongoing growth in the Sustainer Index. In the most recent three-month period, sustainers increased by 2.8% due to a 3.9% increase for TV/Joint licensees. Radio sustainer counts have been declining for the last year, with a 1.4% decline in the most recent period.
A brighter spot for both TV/Joint and Radio continues to be the High-dollar Gifts Index. Overall, gifts of $500 or more increased by 6% in the three-month comparison period. Both TV/Joint and Radio experienced similar results. TV/Joint had gains of 6.2%, and Radio saw a healthy 7.4% increase. Gains in the three-month comparison were experienced at the median for organizations of all sizes, with those with less than 15,000 active donors increasing the number of high-dollar gifts by 9.2%. Both medium and large organizations had growth exceeding 5%.
We are just one month into the new year, so we do advise readers to temper early optimism with a healthy dose of caution. How much fundraising growth is driven now by increased broadcast audiences, increased consumption of digital content, or current events is a matter for further discussion. What we do hope is that all public media organizations are presenting a strong and frequent case for giving during this time of increased engagement with an informed audience.
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.
