October 21, 1999 | Read Time: 2 minutes
With the help of the Internet — and some snazzy prizes — WAMU, a Washington public-radio station, had its most successful fund-raising campaign ever.
During a one-week membership drive this month, the station raised $1,147,690. Of that total, $367,000 came in through WAMU’s Web site.
The station runs two one-week fund-raising campaigns each year, one in March and one in October. This year’s spring campaign was the first time pledges could be made on line, and during that drive, 79 people donated $5,270 through the site.
For two weeks before the fall campaign, the station promoted “CyberMonday,” a day on which the station would forgo the on-air pitches that usually take time away from the station’s programming and instead encourage listeners to make their pledges on line. More than 3,480 listeners answered the appeal and donated $227,000 through the Web site. In comparison, the station raised $76,000 on the Monday of last year’s fall membership campaign.
“We expected to get a lot of Internet pledges, but we were just blown away by how many we got,” says Donna Clark, WAMU’s director of public information. Indeed, the experiment was such a success that the station decided to hold a CyberWednesday as well, during which 1,153 listeners contributed $77,000 on line.
Ms. Clark and officials at National Public Radio, also in Washington, caution that not all of the station’s success could be attributed to its emphasis on Internet giving. Donors who gave on line during CyberMonday were entered in a drawing for an iBook laptop computer, and everyone who made a pledge during the fund-raising drive was eligible to win a new Volvo — giveaways that also may have led to the fund-raising increases.
They also pointed out the high number of people in the Washington area with access to the Internet. “It’s really going to change the way public radio stations run their drives,” says Ms. Clark, “at least in markets that are really wired.”
To get there: Go to http://www.wamu.org.
