Cheer the Phone Volunteer

More than 100 public radio stations will be conducting on-air fund drives in the next week or so. Most of those stations will have phone volunteers taking contributions from listeners. Some stations will have just a few listeners answering phones. Some will have 30 or 40.

At the busiest times, up to 1,000 volunteers might be taking a pledge. At an average gift of $100, they will help public radio stations raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in just 5 or 10 minutes. This will happen again and again throughout the week.

We always talk about the importance of listener support and how it is the foundation public radio's service to this nation. That foundation was built and is maintained by thousands of phone volunteers, many of whom graciously show up at 6 on a weekday morning and then come back to cover a 4-hour shift on the weekend.

It's a workforce public radio could not afford if it had to pay for it, especially in the early years.

Please take the opportunity to thank some phone volunteers this week. If not for them, public radio would not be nearly as good as it is today... and it might not even exist at all.