General Manager Report, June 2011 Randy Peterson
Financial reports are provided separately for your review. In general, May was a strong month for us, and year-to-date we are ahead of budget in most areas (and overall).
Part of this strength continues to be the sustaining membership program which results in a constant sort of income for the station, most notable in historic “down” months like May and June. In fact, as I write this on June 15th, we have already received more membership revenue in the first 15 days of this month than we did in the entire month last year. Sustaining memberships are providing both stability and the opportunity for growth.
Another aspect of our growth in membership has been our participation in the acquisition mailing co-op with DEI. To date we have added 81 new members who donated a total of $2985 (average gift: $36.85). I had hoped to use this mailing to secure 100 new members and $4000; as they continue to trickle in it looks good that we’ll hit the members goal but fall a little short of the dollar goal.
Thank you for the opportunity to attend the National Federation of Community Broadcasters conference in California in June. I was able to both brush up on previous knowledge and learn new things. Workshops I attended include:
- – Pledge: 7 or 17 New Ideas in 75 Minutes
- – Legal Update on Underwriting Issues
- – The Gold Mine In Your Database
- – Using Mobile To Serve The Community
- – How Music-Dominant Stations Become Significant Cultural/Community Institutions
- – Grant Proposals Step By Step
- – Tools For Managing Volunteers
- – The Philanthropist Next Door
Also while at the NFCB conference, Mary Beth, Amanda and I met with an engineer who was able to shed some light (though not much hope) on our frequency problem, both in terms of getting reception to the northwest and improving our signal strength.
Speaking of training, Amanda and I will be attending the statewide conference for the Association of Fundraising Professionals on July 21st and 22nd, fortunately in Tucson meaning no hotels, no flights and no meals! Workshops I will attend include Painless Planned Giving, Are You Boring Your Donors?, The Devil Is In The Details: Your Development Plan, Strategic Prospect Research: Two Paths To Opening Doors With Donors, and Love The One You’re With: Successful Stewardship Models.
In the interest of enhancing our connection to our supporters (and offering another method to attract new listeners and supporters) we plan to reintroduce a KXCI print newsletter beginning around September 1st as a quarterly publication.
In general, summer is much quieter for community events and allows us to make more progress on our long-term projects. I have made solid progress on my summer project of enhancing the KXCI membership database, discovering ways to be able to both record and report more and new data without having to drop money (my research showed costs between $5,000 and $20,000) on a new system.
I would like to welcome newly elected KXCI board members John Barrett, Becky Birk and volunteer representative Ernesto Portillo Jr. to our team, while also congratulating Michael Wyman on his reelection. I would also like to thank departing board members Susan Banes, Vance Sanders and Anne Shivers for their tremendous contributions to our success.
Finally, the station and I have been chosen as one of the 10 finalists in the Goodman’s Good Guy. While it is an honor to just be nominated, we do intend to win first place, which includes a free workspace makeover for my office. Online voting starts Monday and runs through July 15th; you will receive frequent reminders about how you can help us win this contest.