System/Policy
The Future of Media Leadership: A Storify
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Follow the conversation around the next generation of public media leaders with Current’s Storify of the June 14 forum.
People
DEI group unites public media’s young professionals
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A group of young public media professionals who began meeting informally last year to network and share ideas has moved to step up its profile.
Development
Hawaii Public Radio overcomes challenges to win prize for outstanding fundraising
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DEI gives its Benchmarks Award each year to a consistently top-performing station in terms of net revenue per hour of listening. While the median station raises .95 cents in underwriting revenue per listener-hour, HPR last year sold 2.25 cents per listener-hour — all handled by HPR’s single underwriting salesperson. In presenting the award, Robin Turnau, president and c.e.o. of Vermont Public Radio and DEI treasurer, cited HPR’s peculiar challenges. “Their location is one of the top vacation destinations in the world. They deal daily with the challenges of serving a transient population, while raising funds from a permanent listenership where the local median income is only modest, while the cost of living is extraordinarily high,” said Turnau, noting that HPR’s net-revenue-per-listener-hour stat put it in the top 10 percent of DEI surveys for both membership and mid-level giving.
Development
NPR seeks deal to offer CRM to more stations
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NPR Digital Services is negotiating with an unidentified vendor to provide cloud-computing products to member stations, potentially transforming the ways they manage their membership programs and relationships with audiences. Bob Kempf, chief of the Boston-based NPR unit, would not identify the vendor, but acknowledges that NPR has been in close negotiations with roundCorner, a three-year-old company that specializes in designing customer relationship management (CRM) systems for nonprofit organizations. He aims to have a master services agreement with a third-party vendor in place by the end of the year, and launch a pilot program with as many as 10 stations in early 2013. NPR’s goal, he says, is to offer all member stations the opportunity to buy a license to a cloud-based, customizable CRM product later next year. “We are not building a single platform in the sky for stations to sign on to,” Kempf says.
People
Stanton joins KPCC, MPR vet honored by governor, Alaska pubradio icon retires, and more…
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A former top editor of the Los Angeles Times, Russ Stanton, has joined APM’s Los Angeles station
KPCC in Pasadena, Calif., announced a major hire last week: Former Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton has joined the station as its new v.p. of content. Stanton’s arrival “is part of an aggressive effort by the nonprofit news organization to become the preeminent regional source for both broadcast and online news — with deeper, more enterprising and investigative coverage,” KPCC declared on its website. Stanton had left the newspaper last month in what was announced as a “mutual decision” with Times President Kathy Thomson. In his four years at the helm, the Times won three Pulitzer Prizes, including a prestigious Public Service award. At KPCC, Stanton will be responsible for the station’s broadcast, website and live events coverage; one of his first duties will be to select an executive editor to supervise daily radio and digital news operations.
Development
PBS to produce sessions on TV fundraising at PMDMC
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Next year’s Public Media Development and Marketing Conference, the annual event organized by pubradio’s Development Exchange Inc., will include a new track for pubTV professionals, produced by PBS. The conference runs July 12-14 in Seattle. The track will focus on pledge practices, fundraising and community engagement around children’s programming, and television-specific research. DEI and PBS announced the collaboration in a statement Dec. 6.
People
DEI Benchmarks Award, 2011
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New Hampshire Public Radio was cited for outstanding performance in fundraising. NHPR, based in Concord, ranks among the most efficient public radio outlets in converting listeners into givers, and it raises more net underwriting revenue per listener-hour than peer stations, according to DEI’s Benchmarks analysis, which evaluates fundraising performance across the public radio system. The New Hampshire network’s achievements in major-gift fundraising are especially impressive, according to Joan Kobayashi, g.m. of KMFA in Austin, Texas, who announced the award this summer during DEI’s Public Media Development and Marketing Conference in Pittsburgh. NHPR’s program for soliciting donations of $1,000 and higher has increased its revenues 60 percent over the past five years. The gains are especially notable because New Hampshire ranks near the bottom of all 50 states in charitable giving, she said.
Development
After scandal, fundraisers debate ethics
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Having witnessed the damaging one-round knockout of NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller in March, public radio’s development pros are working to adapt the lessons they’ve learned about ethics and prudence into a set of best-practices guidelines for use throughout the field. But they’re already tiptoeing around a clear discrepancy between the major ethical code of professional fundraisers and a common practice in public broadcasting — paid commissions on underwriting sales. DEI, the national agency for pubradio fundraising that convenes its annual Public Media Development and Marketing Conference in Pittsburgh later this week, has assembled a group to draft ethical standards for fundraising in nonprofit public media. DEI is leading the re-evaluation as part of its CPB-backed Leadership for Philanthropy project, which aims to help stations improve their major-gift fundraising. The main starting point for DEI’s advisory council is the Code of Ethical Principles and Standards of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which prohibits commission-based compensation for nonprofit fundraisers.
Development
DEI recommendations for mailing list guidelines
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After stations’ list practices exploded as a political issue, an organization of public radio fundraisers, the Development Exchange, issued this advice written by the associate director of its Center for Membership Support. Comments
The value of members acquired by mail cannot be disputed. Members acquired by mail have better first-year and multi-year renewal rates than those members acquired by on-air or telemarketing. DEI continues to strongly recommend that stations develop and maintain aggressive direct mail donor acquisition campaigns as part of a balanced fundraising strategy. Despite the recent controversy surrounding list trades, do not stop trading your list.