Things Radio Stations Can Do Tomorrow To Help Bring In More New Donors
In January, I had the privilege to moderate a conversation with some super smart public media colleagues discussing what I think is a serious challenge facing public radio.
According to data from CDP’s National Reference File, while radio stations are still growing revenue, they have accomplished it for the last twelve consecutive quarters without increasing the number of current donors in the file. Retention has been strong, but public radio is not bringing in enough new donors to outpace attrition.
The hour-long conversation presented by CDP focused on the challenge facing public radio, where many stations are seeing a significant year-over-year decline in donors.
The question we asked at the beginning of the conversation was this:
Does radio continue to get more money from fewer people, or do we change strategy and make a concerted effort to bring new donors into the system?
This slowdown in acquiring new donors has not yet resulted in a drop in overall revenue. Still, this continuing trend will ultimately challenge stations in keeping revenue growth going in the years ahead.
One of the panelists on the webinar, Melanie Coulson, the Executive Director for Member Station Services with Greater Public, explained that bringing new donors creates new contacts that expand the pipeline for mid-level and major gifts that can have implications for years to come for stations.
We also heard from Susannah Michaels, Off-Air Fundraising Manager with Wisconsin Public Radio, during the session, sharing her experience with canvassing as a tool to bring in new donors. Many public television stations have been using the technique for several years with great success. Still, WPR is the only radio organization I know of to add this to their toolbox of donor acquisition. Susannah shared the results of their efforts, which have brought excellent ROI.
Greg Petrowich, the President and CEO of WFYI Public Media in Indianapolis, added his thoughts to the conversation, bringing his perspective as a joint licensee. He shared some fascinating data tracking a six-year trend across his organization. As an organization, WFYI combines memberships across radio and television.
Greg reported new donors to WFYI from radio pledge have gone from 30% of the total new donors to the station in 2016 to 7% in 2019 to almost nonexistent during the last two (COVID) years.[i]
Meanwhile, new donors from TV Pledge went from 44% in 2016 to 18% in 2021.
What has saved WFYI has been PBS Passport. Greg shared on the webinar that new donors to WFYI went from 0% in 2016 (Passport wasn’t around then) to 45% of the station’s new member acquisition in 2021.
That’s huge. This shift is reflected in the overall trend across public media, as displayed by the image below from CDP.
You can see the entire video from the January 19th webinar with this link.
To close out the session, I asked each panelist to offer “three things that stations can do tomorrow to help bring in more new donors,” Everyone had great ideas.
If you don’t make it through the entire webinar (although you should watch it!), here are the recommendations from the panel:
Susannah Michaels from WPR:
1. If NPR gives you prospects, email them. Many of those prospects will make gifts.
2. Add something you’re not already doing. For WPR, that will be some digital ads and search engine optimization to get in front of more people.
3. Retention is another way of growing your member file. She’s looking to re-activate WPR’s new member email welcome series to renew more of this year’s new members next year.
Greg Petrowich from WFYI:
1. Focus on your brand or the experience you provide as much or more than your content and start building a long-term plan for aggressive co-branding in places where a potential audience exists.
2. Study young people. Conduct some focus groups and make sure all the decision-makers from your organization are present for the conversations. You may think you know what younger audiences want, but chances are you don’t. And even if you do, it’s probably already changed.
3. Dashboard your qualified data file growth and make it as important as the overall revenue total.
Stephanie Patterson, Chief Customer Officer with CDP:
1. Use your prospect files to test smaller first-time gift amounts. The key is getting them to make that initial donation, even if it’s a nominal one.
2. Adopt an “always on, always ready” membership approach. Donors give on their timeline — is your website set up to provide those paths to giving year-round?
3. “But we’ve always done it this way.” Remove those words from your vocabulary. Embrace change and encourage others to do the same.
Ken Siebert, General Manager, and Jill Hirshi, Development Director with Yellowstone Public Radio,[i] Billings, MT:
1. “Swing for the fences.” Find partnerships and collaborations, both locally and nationally, that can help your station grow without overtaxing a small staff.
2. Increase email communications and solicitations much more than you think you should. You may think you’ll offend a donor or prospect, but you probably won’t, and you’ll raise more money.
3. Be more aggressive in acquisition and renewals. Multiple efforts to bring in new donors and retain existing members bring great results for stations.
Melanie Coulson from Greater Public:
1. Add a clear call to action at the top of your donation page.
2. Do your own usability testing. For example, can you donate on your phone with one hand? Do you require unnecessary fields?
3. Make sure you’re using your confirmation page in an intentional way. Finally, map out your cultivation and email post-donation journey.
My thanks to the panel for the great conversation. Also, thanks to the folks at CDP for hosting the webinar and the more than 115 people for joining and adding great comments and questions to the conversation.
**This is adapted from a post in Tim Eby’s Three Things newsletter for public media leaders published on February 3, 2022.