Tag: pledge drive

Funding Experiments

I’m the President of the Board of Directors of Agape Broadcasting Foundation, Inc – which most people around here would know as KNON 89.3 FM – the Voice of the People. You can listen online at http://www.knon.org if you’re not in the DFW area. (You can also pledge online, and we’re in the middle of pledge drive. Yes, again.)

However, we’ve pretty much tapped out our core listener base, and we love them, and they are quite generous, but we need new pledgers. This is very difficult to accomplish – especially when there are two PBS stations down the dial with a lot more money to chase money.

It pains me that we have to have a budget to raise money. In the perfect world, people would simply fund us because they believe in the mission of the station (The mission of KNON is to be the Voice of The People in the Dallas area. We provide unique programming to reflect the diversity of the entire Metroplex community.), or they like one of our formats or DJs, or they’re just good people.

This is not a perfect world. 

So, this pledge drive, we’re trying two new ideas.

 

First, we need the de-icers on our tower replaced – when the tower froze last winter (yes, it gets cold in Dallas), we were off the air – our power was so limited, our transmission area was severely compromised. So, I’m running a campaign outside pledge drive to raise money for that specific project – http://www.gofundme.com/warm-tower – and we’re trying to see if people will actually donate just because it sounds like a good cause.

So far, almost all the donations have been from our volunteers. So, the concept of raising hundreds or thousands of dollars instantly may be overblown, or it may be people care about strangers who need a new kidney or a special night out but they don’t really care about a community radio station.

The irony of that campaign – which hit me after I created it – is that people outside Dallas who contribute could listen over the Internet and so they wouldn’t be impacted if the tower froze over. So it goes. Still, we’re a small operation, we’ll take anyone’s money.

The other new technology is Pledge By Text – since everyone has a cell phone these days (it seems), let them pledge with it.

Text “KNON” to 56512 from your mobile phone, and you’ll get a link back to let you pledge. Choose your favorite show, your favorite DJ or just send it to the general fund. 

We appreciate your support!

Pledge Drive

Community is an interesting thing.
In Dallas, it has its own radio station.
KNON 89.3 – the Voice of the People.
Visit www.knon.org and listen online.
Better yet, pledge online.

I volunteer there.
Actually, its worse.
I am the President of the Board.

Can you imagine?
I’m supposed to be the voice of reason.
This will not end well.

People confuse us with commercial radio.
We’re not.
We can’t run commercials.
This is bad from a money perspective,
But good from a we-play-what-the-hell-we-want perspective.

They play Top 40.
We play bottom billion.
One of my DJs said that.
I love that statement.

KNON is the station where we play really good songs,
And SoundHound says “I have no idea what that song is.”
Bottom billion, baby.

People confuse “community” with “public”.
Public radio is NPR and PBS.
They have something we would like.
Money.

PBS is partially government-funded. So is NPR.
Your tax dollars at work.
So, you’re taxed for it and then you’re asked to donate.
Wow.

We’re not government-funded.
We’re community-funded.
That’s you.
Your tax dollars are further up the dial.
You’re not listening to them.

They have pledge drives.
You get gifts.
We have pledge drives.
You get KNON swag.

If you see anyone with a KNON shirt,
They’ve given us a donation.
It’s the only way to get one.
So, thank them for their donation.

Their pledge drive is very official.
It may be a call center somewhere.
Not that there’s anything wrong with call centers.

Our pledge drive is a volunteer
Who is telling the DJ to “shut up”
So she can hear the pledger on the phone.
She and the DJ are in the same room.

I was trying to spell my last name.
On the phone with a volunteer.
And I finally just said,
“Tell Dave it’s President Kevin. He’ll know the rest.”
That’s community radio.
Try that with any other radio station.

Best KNON pledge drive line ever:
“If you get a busy signal, you called the wrong damn number, because nobody’s calling.”
I heard that yesterday.
I have never been so proud of my DJs.

On PBS, you pledge to feel superior to your neighbors.
On KNON, you pledge to get the DJ to stop singing REM in the style of Bon Jovi.
I had to do that this morning.

Which sounds like more fun?
Which sounds more like you?

Spring Pledge Drive is almost over.
Pledge online. Now.