General Manager's Report 2009-11-10

2009: RISING TO THE CHALLENGE SUMMARY

Finances: 2010 budget preview

Personnel: Sound Living Job Openings

Fundraising: Membership Drive, Tower Income, Amy Goodman event

Finances

2010 Budget Preview
As 2009 comes to a close, it’s time to look ahead. I’ve mapped out several scenarios, but will focus here on my proposed budget as it currently stands.

The takeaways are:
We need to increase total earned income by 10% in 2010 in order to break-even. Holding income at 2009 levels would leave us roughly $45,000 in the hole.
We’ve experience some big declines, most notably in Tower income (10%), Events (5%), but chiefly because our State funding has dried up.
In 2009 we received almost $65,000 in State funds, the remainder of our one-time $334,000 grant from 2007. Without it, the investments in staff hours, programming, and other new spending (website, music royalties, increased healthcare cost, etc.) are now impacting our operating budget.

The process from this point is to review my budget over the next 3 weeks with John Thielke and the staff, with the goal of presenting a draft to the Executive Committee by December 7th.

Personnel

Applications Posted for Sound Living Staff
We’ve begun the hiring process for the two new part-time positions associated with Sound Living funded by the Boeing grant.

Online Mobilizer & Membership Assistant
Associate Producer Sound Living

The Online Mobilizer & Membership Assistant works with KSER staff to develop and implement online audience and community-building activities, including volunteer and donor cultivation, online, on-air, and other fundraising efforts.

The Associate Producer for Sound Living works closely with the News Director to develop show topics and guests that will meet the needs of a diverse range of listeners, bring together voices from the margins and from the halls of power, and explore the breadth and depth of the region’s political, ethnic, cultural, environmental, and social dimensions.

Both positions have been posted on a several email lists and on the KSER website.The positions are fully funded by the Boeing grant and over the next 2 years should have no net impact on payroll.

Fundraising

Fall Membership Drive
We fell about $13,000 short of our $50,000 goal for the Fall drive. Since the official end of our Oct. 10th we’ve kept a consistent but gentle reminder on-air and nearly made up the deficit, bringing in about $300/day. We are currently just about on-budget for membership income this year, with roughly $14,000 more to raise by the end of the year. We expect to meet that goal with a couple more mailings and an end-of-the-year appeal.

Overall, the sound of the drive was good, and the average dollar value of donations was on par with last year, but we had far fewer donors this year (around 300 this Fall vs over 400 in the Fall of 2008).

Tower Income
In an unexpected development, the biggest client on our tower approached us last month to renegotiate their lease. The net annual impact of this rent adjustment is a 10% decline in tower income and a 2.3% decline in total income in 2010. 

Amy Goodman Fundraiser
Saturday, November 28th, 9:00am - 11:00am
As we go to press on this little missive, the final details of a surprise visit by Amy Goodman are just being ironed out. The Democracy Now fairy godmother is alighting in our county for a joint benefit with KSVR.

She will speak at the Everett PUD auditorium the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving. Tickets are $40 and available on the KSER website.

We are also trying to arrange a special private “Coffee & Q/A with Amy” for earlier that morning. Tickets to that would be somewhere around $120, with all proceeds to benefit KSER & KSVR.

More details to follow as the fairy dust settles.