For station drives, discussing funding threat appears to boost giving

New York Public Radio didn’t shy away from discussing the political attacks on public media during its most recent on-air fund drive. It paid off in a big way.

The organization, which runs news station WNYC and classical WQXR, blew past its goals with the tagline “WNYC has never been more valuable. And it has never been more vulnerable,” according to CEO LaFontaine Oliver. WNYC raised about $2.31 million, nearly double its goal, while WQXR raised just under $500,000, exceeding its goal of $420,000.

The tagline spoke to “the tone and tenor of how we were approaching the … real threats coming out of Washington, not just around federal funding, but in other areas, including access for journalists” and the FCC, Oliver said. “So we decided that it was in our best interest to be transparent with our audience about that without sensationalizing it.”

As uncertainty about the fate of pubmedia funding looms, other stations are weighing whether approaches similar to NYPR’s could work for them as well. Becky Chinn, principal of fundraising consulting firm LKA Fundraising & Communications, said stations should make the decision that’s best for them.

But so far, at least anecdotally, stations that do discuss the threats during their fund drives are “doing better than stations who are not, relative to their own traditional performance,” Chinn said.

“There’s never a full-on apples-to-apples comparison you can do with an on-air drive, because external circumstances are always changing,” she said. “But … stations who are going out there and just putting that message out in whatever way feels appropriate for them … are tending to do better than the ones who are like, ‘We’re just not going to talk about it.’”

‘Be transparent’

Greater Public also advises stations to decide on a case-by-case basis about whether to mention funding threats, said Individual Giving Advisor Jay Clayton. 

“The situation and the funding is different for every station. … Every station’s funding picture, funding health might be different,” he said. “All of those kinds of things do and I think should go into any kind of decision [about] whether to talk about this right now or hold off.”

Some university stations might avoid the topic because their licensee has discouraged discussing federal funding threats. Other stations haven’t broached the subject because funding has remained intact so far, he said. 

“You want to be mindful that your integrity is on the table, and the trust that you develop and maintain with your listeners is on table,” Clayton said. “So it’s not that you can’t talk about something that hasn’t happened yet. It’s how you talk about it if you decide to go there.”

For stations that choose to discuss the funding threat during campaigns, Clayton suggests they “be transparent” and “not cry wolf.”

“We’re not asking listeners to replace funding that hasn’t disappeared, because we don’t ultimately know what’s going to happen,” he said.

He added that “there could be a small window in which listeners will really be focused on this. … We don’t honestly know how long listeners will focus on and respond to this, but the assumption is the window could be short. So I think that’s one consideration about addressing it sooner rather than later.” 

Stations that Clayton has talked with “have talked about federal funding specifically” and have exceeded last spring’s fund drives by margins ranging from 17% to 83%, he said.

Chinn said she sees a lot of opportunity for stations to focus on and make the case for listeners to become sustaining members. It’s also a good time to encourage current sustainers to increase their giving levels, she said.

“Getting your current sustainers to upgrade, which is a really tough thing to achieve — this is a great pivot point to be able to aim to do that,” she said. “… We’ve seen some good success at some stations who have really focused on that in their on-air fundraising.” 

Chinn said she also sees mid-level giving, which for a lot of stations starts at $1,200, as another area where stations could reap rewards. The funding threat is “a very natural moment” for stations to make a case for why public media is worthy of a larger gift from donors with means to give more, Chinn said. 

Stations should not overstate the threats and be sure to integrate messaging about why the station matters to the local community, Chinn said. In addition, people making on-air pitches should be “very scripted” when delivering the message related to funding threats. 

You don’t want “people on the air who are ad-libbing this type of message,” Chinn said.

Successful drives

For Little Rock Public Radio, addressing the possible cuts helped the station exceed its goal of $80,000, according to Grace Zafasi, director of development.  

Zafasi said she believes the funding threat motivated donors, who also shared concerns about federal agencies being closed and other uncertainty. “… They wanted to make certain that their source of information from NPR and Little Rock Public Radio was not going anywhere,” she said.

Zafasi suggests being “honest, but not pleading. People don’t want to hear someone in fear. They want to hear …confidence.”

The station stuck with facts, “telling people we’re at risk and not saying this will happen,” Zafasi said.

WNYC focused heavily on adding new sustainers and upgrading current sustainers to higher levels, Oliver said. The station set a goal of 5,000 sustaining members and ended the fund drive with more than 11,000, he said. 

When Oliver pitched with station talk host Brian Lehrer, Lehrer used the message that NYPR is “building a financial firewall.”

“I always talk to our staff about ‘Let’s control what we can control,’” Oliver said. “And part of that is, let’s build that financial firewall, let’s do what we can to speak directly with authenticity to listeners and members about the situation as we know it today.”

Oliver said he understands that some people might be worried about wearing out the message “that federal funding is in jeopardy.” But he takes a different approach.

“I don’t think anyone could look at this situation and not say, ‘Hey, this is a real threat,’” he said. “For us, being able to focus in on speaking authentically to our membership and listener base and in particular to ask them to join arms with us and become sustaining members as a way of fortifying our organization, the work that we do and how we’re able to show up for our community, was a powerful message that resonated, and the audience responded.”

In Idaho, Boise State Public Radio took a “middle-of-the-road approach” to discussing the funding threat during its spring drive, according to Kristin Jackson, director of development. 

During the drive, which ended Tuesday, “we talked about ‘15% of our budget comes from CPB, and while losing that would definitely hurt, with listener support we’ll still be here tomorrow,’” Jackson said. “We also talked a lot about [how] nearly 75% of our budget comes from listeners and local businesses. So we really tried to focus more on their impact on us versus the impact of federal funding going away.”

Jackson was “shocked” when the station went over its goal in both donations and donors, raising $195,989, more than its $152,800 goal, from 1,228 donors. The drive fell about $500 short of its record April 2020 fund drive, she said.  

The “vast majority” of donors who left a comment with their pledge mentioned funding threats or the current state of the country, Jackson said. 

“We had a lot more donations from rural parts of Idaho this time around than we normally do,” she said. “So that was a good indicator that people are concerned.”

Jackson advises that stations considering how to approach the funding threat during fund drives “don’t have to go all in on it. You don’t have to hit it every break. But talking about federal funding is important, and it shows them that we’re not burying our heads in the sand about it. We are actively preparing for if and when this comes down the line, and that’s what your audience wants to know, is that you’re prepared.”