Interview mit Linda Fahey vom 30. April 2008
Programming & Marketing Director von FolkAlley.com
Die Fragen stellte Ehrenfried Conta Gromberg
Zur Größe von FolkAlley.com
Da Non Profit Onlinesender in Deutschland noch nicht so bekannt sind, wurde zunächst eine Frage zur Größe von FolkAlley.com gestellt.
How big is the staff of Folk Alley?
Our Folk Alley staff includes two full time staff – Chris Boros, our director of operations and production and me. I’m the programming & marketing director. Everyone else is part time.
Much of our staff is shared with our „mother ship“ WKSU 89.7 FM – including hosts Jim Blum and Jeff St. Clair; our web team Chuck Poulton, Scott Sharp, and a rotating student intern web designer; Ann VerWiebe writes copy for our newsletter and for the website; Joe Gunderman helps with various productions issues.
Our membership team included Joyce Adams and Sue Underwood. They process all the pledges and send out the „thank you gifts“ and generally keep track of payment issues and renewals. We have a number of freelance staff as well – our hosts Elena See, Barb Heller and Gene Shay work at other radio stations in other states, but also add their shifts to Folk Alley; Craig Adams records and produces our in-studio interviews and the Live from Folk Alley concerts.
Anmerkung: WKSU ist ein Radiosender der Kent State University. Folk Alley ist ein Untersender.
Zum Fundraising von FolkAlley.com
Who is responsible for fundraising by FolkAlley.com?
I’m generally responsible for the fundraising, but it’s really a group effort. I do the master plan for the campaigns, but it’s a coordinated effort between our membership office, Chris Boros and the DJs, and our web team. We’re a pretty good team.
How long have you planned the spring campaign?
3 months before / 6 months before / 12 months before?
We’re always in planning mode…so it’s hard to say. We have developed – through trial and error with past drives – a model that seems to be working, but we’re always learning something new with each drive and discovering things that perhaps we should add, or change, or things that didn’t work… the model continues to evolve. For the Fall Campaign we may consider adding a new strategy or two.
How important is the spring campaign for your annual fund? Is it a regular campaign every year? Are there other campaigns in the year?
The Spring Campaign is about 38% of our total annual budget. We have a Spring Campaign every April, as well as a Fall Campaign in September and a Holiday Drive in December. Those are the 3 campaigns, though we always remind listeners in the stream, website and newsletter that they can support this service anytime.
So we get approximately 13-15% of our revenue from listeners becoming members between the campaigns.
Are all donations online donations, or do you also send normal postal mailings to your listeners?
We do this strictly online. We do not send out any regular mailings through the postal service.
Is there anything else you think is important to know about the campaign? Or a short message you want to give german fundraisers (lots of them don´t believe in online fundraising…)?
I think it’s important that people realize that what we’re doing with Folk Alley has never been done before…it’s risky because it’s new and there aren’t many examples for people to look at as examples of success. But, I feel that we have come a long way in developing a model that is working for us and that listeners respond too.
One of the key things is that (we feel) we are putting out a unique and quality product that listeners value. That’s the most important thing. And, since we are strictly an online radio station, it only makes sense that we would fundraise online. That’s where are our listeners are – and donating is one click away. The key is making donating EASY for them.
The other important thing to me especially is customer service. I feel it’s very important to be responsive to listeners‘ questions and problems, and to help them as quickly as possible – especially since this sort of thing is so new. We want to make sure our listeners are comfortable with it, and that they know real people are on the other end who care about their experience.
Thank you for the interview.
