Home Made Radio Fund Drive – September 13-20, 2024. For this fund drive, KKCR will highlight the amazing grass roots quality of what we do up here in the jungle. We’ve been content creators for 27 years! 97% of KKCR radio content is home made right here on Kaua’i, 24 hours a day! This is a bold statement and it’s totally true. And we’re going to take a week and celebrate that and ask our listeners – we are “listener supported” – to pitch in toward this work.

That being said, I’ve been thinking pretty hard about how fund drives work. I think they may be going the way of the dinosaurs and it’s nearly time to retire them in favor of new technology and new trends in giving. Typically we get on the radio and present a series of pitches to the listener who resonates with an idea or a gift on offer or the appeal of their favorite DJ who then calls in to make a donation. They call on the actual telephone and talk to an actual person and the deal goes down. Non-commercial stations have been performing this routine since the beginning of time and it’s been working. Remember the Jerry Lewis Tel-a-thons? I don’t know what they were raising money for but I recall seeing people in rows of desks, or sitting on platforms on TV (?) answering phones as people called in to pledge while Jerry Lewis and friends performed comedic antics on a studio stage. 

KKCR has done this for most of it’s existence and it’s worked. Fund drives have accounted for 40-50% of the Kekahu Foundation’s total operating budget and we make appeals varying in severity from keep the good times rollin’ to keep the lights on and the doors open. We’ve offered gifts and incentives to sweeten the deal. And it works. KKCR Tshirts are high fashion, just browse our merch store.

However, I think the modern donor wants different things and my only data is experience in soliciting for donations in the post-covid world and possibly Instagram scrolling. I think we want to know that our donations are going to benefit something worthwhile. Maybe our funds are limited and we still want to give. Maybe there are a hundred causes screaming for donations like open-mouthed baby birds. Or maybe it’s trending to trust our nonprofits in mission fulfillment and fiscal responsibility. For whatever reason, us moderns are responding less to antics and free gifts and more to transparency, honest missions and proven track records. It’s up to scrappy little non profits to respond to how givers want to give.

Case in point: our Equipment Silent Drive earlier this year was talked up by DJs, messaged in a PSA, and the only way to donate was via kkcr.org. In 3 days our listeners gave $10,000, and in a week netted $12,517. The online form presented options to donate to either antenna, a transmitter air conditioner, or a broadcast telephone, with prices and brands presented, and many donors chose their favorite piece of equipment, and dug deep. This is transparency at it’s finest.

Honestly, these were very sexy items to ask for, not like the every day needs of a radio station. My health insurance is only attractive to me and possibly my parents, but it’s still something we need for the station. The sticker shock on our annual electric budget is very unsexy and it’s still something we need for the station. 

For the Fall Home Made Radio Fund Drive, the recipe is transparency and honesty and an appeal to our good work in the hopes that you, the esteemed listener, the modern donor, will join us in our work to bring free speech, great music, community information and cultural content to Kaua’i and the whole wide world. Less hoopla, but all the heart. If you’re in it for the Tshirt, though, they’re super cool and I get you.