You have a responsibility to make inclusion a daily thought,
so we can get rid of the word ‘inclusion’.
- Theodore Melfi

 
Theodore Melfi is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. As it turns out, we were born one day apart in late October (minus a few years). I have a post-it note on my computer screen that reads “radical inclusion includes you.” It’s just a thought I had that I wanted to be reminded of and Melfi’s quote illustrates why. I want to live in a world where we don’t need a word like inclusion. I want community radio to be the change. Every month we write about the wonderful work you all do. It’s all true and inspiring, but there are more rivers to cross if we want to rise above the undertow of preaching to the choir with our programming and becoming our own kind of elitists in the assumptions we make about who and what the communities we serve are.
 
Community radio is a chronicler of civic life, but we’re repeating a tired conversation. Polarization, alienation, and apathy often rule the roost. We have an opportunity to amplify other voices and not drown in the amplification of an elite narrative that increasingly does not reflect our changing demographics and our expanding consciousness as a species.
 
As this year begins to wind down, I am hoping for a new one that heralds a shift from all the chatter about diversity to a deep awareness about equity, justice, and dignity. Let’s shift our aspirational goals from mere sustainability to quantum leaps for human community and the total reinvention of our civic life.
 
Community radio is a portal to a world of understanding. Shifting our daily thoughts about what we are communicating has power.

Sally Kane, CEO
National Federation of Community Broadcasters
skane@nfcb.org

NFCB's 2020 webinar series

2020 is right around the corner and, with it, a new slate of NFCB training opportunities for community radio.
 
NFCB’s bimonthly webinars provide expertise, crucial training, and professional development opportunities for your station on a variety of content, revenue, engagement, and organizational capacity topics. 2020’s webinars promise to help stations amplify their efforts.
 
Our 2020 webinars will be:

Lauree McArdle, WERA

Lauree McArdle joined Arlington Independent Media (AIM) in August 2004. Her promotion to Director of Operations includes the primary functions of coordinating the scheduling of the facility and staff as well as overall operations. Lauree has also been a major driving force behind WERA 96.7 FM, Radio Arlington.
 
She graduated from Stockton University with a BA in Communications. Previous experience includes Montgomery Community Media, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and WLFR, the radio station of Stockton University.  Lauree spends as much time as possible supporting independent music through her weekly radio show, Spin Cycle, every Tuesday morning on WERA.
 
How did you get into community media?
 
It was my nearly insatiable lifelong love of music that brought me my first experience with community media. It was in the early 1990s at my college radio station at Stockton University in Pomona, NJ at WLFR-Lake Fred Radio 91.7 FM. It truly was like finding the “mother ship” of my people! I was a painfully shy introvert who “just wanted to work behind the scenes” until I was bursting to share all my favorite music!  A full power station in the pine barrens of southern New Jersey, WLFR was and still is a mostly freeform noncommercial radio station. I’m pleased to say WLFR is celebrating 35 years on air this year! I started as an intern DJ and eventually had my own radio show. I was then asked to be Business Manager and eventually became the General Manager. At the time, I was only the 3^rd female GM of the station. Since that time, I’ve worked with Montgomery Community Media before joining Arlington Independent Media (AIM) in 2004. I started at AIM as the Programming Coordinator, scheduling programs on our public access television station and worked my way up to Director of Operations. In late 2011, when I learned of the possibility of a new LPFM window opening up in urban areas, I immediately signed up on the Prometheus Radio Project email list to stay informed of what was happening. While there were certainly many highs and lows of the process, from early 2012 until WERA launched in December 2015, I was determined to find a way for LPFM to happen in Arlington.
 
What skills have been most helpful to you in your work at Arlington Independent Media?
 
I feel the managerial and people skills I learned between my time directing a rotating group of volunteers at WLFR and my time as a manager for a major retail café, music and bookstore are highly beneficial to my work. I learned how to adapt to a variety of personalities and match employees and volunteers to their skill assets in order to keep a harmonious workspace. I continue to utilize those skills every day! I believe my organizational management and communication skills truly play a large role as well. Volunteers and employees feel empowered and engaged when they have information and are part of the process. I’m skilled at being able to put myself in another’s perspective and utilize that as often as possible. I feel I’m especially talented at assessing a given situation by looking and listening before speaking.
 
 
What have you learned about yourself that you didn’t know before getting into community radio?
 
I’ve learned I’m much more of a people person than I realized! While it might appear that I’m quiet, I’m often absorbing the environment and being present in the moment. Before I joined WLFR, I never would have thought that I’d be leading meetings and running a radio station, let alone be on the air! The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that you can overcome many fears if you are truly passionate about something!

Year-end giving

Your community radio station has probably noticed that pledge drive and other kinds of fundraising are getting longer and more difficult. This challenge may be because individual donations nationwide are declining. For community radio, a shrinking base and increased competition for dollars has meant fundraising is a year-round exercise. At no time is fundraising a bigger priority than the end of the year.
 
For stations starting their fiscal years in the fall, year-end fundraising represents a time to boost your fortunes early into the financial cycle. The period starting at Giving Tuesday and continuing into 2020 is the biggest time all year, every year, for donations.
 
Still, no matter what time of the year, every station should stick to their best behavior in fundraising. These practices include offering multiple ways to give, offering insights on how donations are used, and following up with thank you letters/emails and updates throughout the year as a means of stewarding donors into future giving.
 
For organizations keeping score, though, Nonprofit Resource estimates nearly $400 million came into charities on Giving Tuesday 2018. The bulk of these contributions came via Facebook, up almost 200 percent from the previous year. The increased interest in giving back during the holiday season, amid a gloomy forecast for fundraising, means stations must be organized and active around end-of-year gifts.

• Whether it’s on the air or by mail, your station’s year-end messages must focus on your audience. Don’t present donation requests as what you do as an organization, but what your listener does when s/he contributes. What is the value of that investment to your mission? “Supporters like you brought award-winning news coverage to our area,” “without your help, our town would not have the cultural reputation it does,” and “your donation makes an impact here,” are just a few messages you could utilize to remind your audience of what they mean to you.
• How does your online donation form look on your phone? If you do not know, you should check. The number of people who give to a nonprofit via their mobile devices has grown in the last few years. And nothing is more frustrating than accessing a donation form that is not responsive. Zooming to type into undersized boxes and other headaches are a sure way to chase off well-meaning fans and miss donations. Add to the statistics of online giving that 40 percent of website traffic for nonprofits came from users viewing sites via phone, and it is clear your station’s mobile game needs to be on point.
• Speaking of digital campaigns, don’t forget to sharpen up your email visuals. Stations that rely on email to communicate with donors need to up their efforts to rise above the many year-end asks your listeners will receive. You’ll most worry about whether the email grabs your reader’s attention; how successfully the message keeps a reader from moving on; and the quality of the email to get you to donate. If you are out of ideas, there are many inspirations for look and feel of your year-end email campaign. Stations using photos with their campaigns should do so from the public domain and be sure to credit the artist if it is specified as a condition of use.
• If your station does minimal or no direct mail, your online ask is it as far as year-end fundraising goes. So, your website presentation has to look great and read exceptionally well to grab attention and dollars. More and more donors to nonprofits want to see how their money goes into service rather than operations costs. Sharing the story of a person impacted by a radio station training program, a musician whose career was shaped by a station, or a local issue changed by your station’s reporting are good examples of the effect you have.
• If your station does direct mail, being precise pays dividends. Your station should focus on the impact of a donor’s support. In addition, with merge mail functions, your letter can reference past gifts and your target donor’s interests. Personalized letters and those aimed at your major givers, lapsed members and even non-donor prospects are other ways to generate the funds your community media organization needs.