A Critical Look at the KPFK Emergency Summer Fund Drive

by a KPFK Staff member Tuesday, Sep. 17, 2002 at 7:55 AM

A Critical Look at KPFK's summer Fund drive reveals that new programming raised half as many funds per hour as regular programming.

Let's try that again with better formatting...

A Critical Look at the KPFK Emergency Summer Fund Drive

Members of KPFK staff put together an analysis of the summer emergency fund drive that took place from 20th to 23rd August. The context of the fund drive was that Esther Manilla, KPFK staff member, coordinator of past two record-breaking fund drives, was put on a 2 week administrative leave days before the fund drive. Three people were brought in to coordinate the fund drive: Corey Dubin (current interim Program Director), Lynn Gehry, Fernando Velasquez. The importance of raising enough funds was emphasized in this emergency summer drive. With the exception of the drive time programming, most regular programming was pre-empted for new programming.

The purpose of the analysis is to learn constructive lessons for future fund drives because of KPFK and Pacifica’s financial fragility. Since the analysis was first presented at a staff meeting on August 28th, staff have not been allowed the opportunity to discuss results with the management. As a result, we are sharing them with the listening community.

The results of the analysis are as follows:

Total funds raised: $295,561

Funds raised during drive time (Democracy Now, Morning Show, Beneath the Surface, Daily Review): $154,179

Funds raised during non-drive time afternoons (10 am to 4 pm): $60,369

As mentioned above, most non-drive time programming was pre-empted for new programming. Hence, a break down of funds raised n these hours is instructive:

Between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm:

16 hours of new programming raised $29,609 (= $1850/hour)

8 hours of regular programming raised $30,760 (= $3845/hour).

Conclusion: new programming raised a little less than half the dollars per hour as regular programming.

Note: These numbers are based on an hour by hour log of funds raised during the fund drive available at KPFK. There may be slight numerical disparities due to record keeping errors. But we do not believe this significantly changes the results. Exact figures can be verified through KPFK Subscriptions Department.