General Manager's Report 2009-06-09

2009: RISING TO THE CHALLENGE

SUMMARY

Finances: Income down 11%. Expenses down 26%

Fundraising: Tell A Friend Campaign starts Monday

Personnel: New recommendations on proposed Bylaws revision.

Programming: Sound Living pilot a success.

FINANCES

At the end of May, our income is down 11% with respect to our budget (an improvement over April). Our expenses are way down, thanks to some serious cost cutting.

FUNDRAISING

Summer Fundraising
In order to address the income shortfall in the summer, we are planning on having a special 1-week on-air fundraising campaign that will take a different approach than the usual pledge drive. The summer campaign is called the Tell-A-Friend campaign, and has three areas of focus: short-term fundraising, mid-term promotions, long-term membership development. The week of June 14th-20th, we will ask listeners to call or pledge online to get KSER merchandise (custom T-shirts, Hats, etc.) at special summer discount prices. We’ll offer various incentives for purchasing more than one item. The message will be “ Help promote KSER by wearing a T-shirt or hat and proudly displaying your support for KSER whenever you’re out in public this year. Buy 2 and we’ll mail one to a friend.”

The short-term goal is $6k-$8k in donations. Medium term, the campaign will begin promoting KSER out in the community. Long-term, we will be gaining new members and new member prospects. More details to follow as we set-up this campaign in the next 4 weeks.

Boeing Grant application
I have been working on a major grant application to the Boeing Co. in support of a new afternoon public affairs program called Sound Living, airing from 3-4pm on Fridays, starting June 5th. The program will be the first local news call-in program specifically targeted to listeners in Snohomish and Island counties. A brief project description is attached below, and I will share the detailed grant proposal with interested Board members at the meeting Tuesday, May 12th.

The total cost of the program will be around $80k per year, with $39k coming from Boeing each year for two years. The remainder of the cost will be covered by KSER, mostly in-kind. We will, however, need to raise additional funds to support the program (approx. $6k per year).

Our plan is to use as our Voice of the Community Award fundraiser to launch a short campaign for matching funds from the community (underwriting and donations). We believe focusing the Voice of Community Award on an exciting new program will generate interest and enthusiasm from local donors and business sponsors.

There is still much work to do on this campaign, but our preliminary work suggests this can be a very successful fundraising strategy.

PERSONNEL

Volunteer Appreciation Party
As mentioned before, the Volunteer Appreciation Party is scheduled for Saturday, May 30th from 4:30-6:30pm. The dinner is potluck and we’d like to recognize the many years of service by our volunteers. I would very much appreciate Board presence at this event, as it will be a great way for Board members to meet a large number of our volunteers, and vice versa.

PROGRAMMING
As mentioned above, this June we launch a special pilot of a new local call-in program in the 3:00-4:00pm timeslot to be called Sound Living. Below is the brief summary I prepared for our letter of inquiry to Boeing. Our plan is to pilot the program in June and July, and if we receive the Boeing grant, work towards weekly broadcast in the first 6 months, then slowly expand to multiple days per week over the next 18 months.