Major Breakthrough?

For years public radio has considered listeners who give $1,000 or more annually as major donors. A lot of people at this year's Public Radio Development and Marketing Conference are talking about how that sells public radio short. There seems to be movement to start thinking of these folks as important annual donors. That's going to make room for more productive approaches to getting real major donors -- those who make five, six and seven figure gifts. That's a good thing for public radio.

A Big Membership Goal for Public Radio

This hasn't received a lot of press yet (can we still say "press?") but it is worth getting on your radar.

DEI, the organization for public radio fundraising professionals, is working on an industry-wide initiative to increase the total number of public radio donors to 3 million per year. by 2011.

The project is called M3M -- for Membership 3 Million -- and its goal is to add about a half million donors to the membership roles of public radio stations. There's already been some good collaboration on a national level and I think stations will benefit from lots of new resources designed to renew current givers, recover lapsed donors, and acquire new donors.

There's a short item about this on page A4 of the May 14, 2007 print edition of Current. I'll have more on it here in a few days.

There will also be more at this year's Public Radio Development and Marketing Conference, which makes it a must-attend meeting for any station concerned about growing its membership base during these changing times. That would be... every station.