Pledge Drives

Since Self Help Radio, the live version, left the Lexington airwaves in 2016, far fewer people have listened to the show.  Since Self Help Radio, the prerecorded version on the air, left the Lexington airwaves earlier this year, the number of people who listen regularly to the show has dwindled to single digits.  I am not saying this because I care too much - or to whine - as Self Help Radio has been ignored & forgotten before (I did the show in West Virginia for fuck's sake!) - but I note it because it means that not many people find their way to this blog.  Here, for example, despite linking some of these pages on the show's Facebook page & its Twitter page, is the number of folks, according to Blogger, who saw the past five entries:

That means less than thirty people have visited the blog in the past week, & some of the visits might be from folks who come more than once.

Again, this is not an invitation to today's pity party.  I do all those alone, I don't want to share my whiskey.  No, I wanted to throw a question out to people who are involved at college, public, or community radio stations & have to do pledge drives like I have to do a pledge drive at KNON, where I do a show called the Tuesday Morning Blend.  Unlike WRFL, which was funded by student fees, KNON gets most of its operating budget from four pledge drives a year.  & if you've ever listened, you'll know: I am terrible at these.

& a thing I'd love to do is talk to people from different stations - preferably people I've never met - about their experience with pledge drives.  I had to do them at KOOP in the early 2000s, & early on discovered I had no skill with them.  Yes, I sat with other folks at the station & listened to people from successful non-commercial stations & took notes about best practices for raising money on-air - & still I got no better at it.

Before the last pledge drive in August, I read many web pages about raising funds on public & community radio stations.  I tried to tailor my pitches to strategic subjects - & I raised less money during that pledge drive than the two before.

The dilemma is this: since no one reads this blog, because no one listens to Self Help Radio, I doubt I'd get any response from anyone about their experiences with pledge drives.  But I'll go ahead & ask because I had a fucking brutal experience this morning.  I talked what felt like an hour (it wasn't) & I got one call.  One. Fucking. Call.  & maybe no one's listening.  & maybe they don't feel like supporting the show I do because they don't like it.  & maybe only a small fraction of people who listen to noncommercial radio stations actually donate to them.  & feel free to add all the other excuses that I've read & that I try to tell myself to keep my already fragile self-esteem from breaking into pieces.

Because ultimately I don't think it's fair to the station that I get to play on the radio every week & I give so little back.  The listeners don't want to support the show, obviously.  I told the Station Manager last week that if he knew he could get someone to do the Tuesday Morning Blend who could raise more money, I would gladly give the show up to her or him.  That was no lie.  I feel so shitty that I can't raise the two grand that is my required goal every pledge drive.  Most of the time I can't even raise half of that.

Anyway, enough of my out loud self-loathing, I'll just ask: if you're involved in noncommercial radio & somehow you have stumbled onto this obscure blog post for a podcast almost no one listens to, & you have experience with pledge drives you'd like to share, send me an email at gary@selfhelpradio.net & let me know what your thoughts are, how you've done, what you've learned, best practices, worst practices, stuff like that, & whether you'd be willing to chat about it.

Because before I give up or am forced out, I'd love to learn more.  I think it might be something one could get better at.  I just simply don't know how to go about it.  & the process, over time, is so damaging to me that I don't know if I want to do it for very much longer.