From the SRG Archives

In the late 1990s SRG launched four projects to accelerate stations’ financial growth. Each was supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Future Fund and investments by participating SRG member stations.

Leaders Partnership
In 1996 SRG and six members with outstanding records in local development launched a collaboration aimed at fund raising "breakthroughs." The theory was that our best performers in recent years would be a rich source of ideas about next steps to move our field forward and skilled "testers" of how those ideas work in practice.

The partners decided to focus on major gifts from individual supporters. Working together, we retained a major gifts consulting firm, Results Group International, and designed and implemented a year-long work plan.

After one year, the stations increased their major gifts ($1,000+) by 62%, bringing $371,000 in new funding to public radio.
Learn more about The Leaders Partnership.

Brilliant on the Basics: Listener Support
Contributions from individual listeners arrive a few dollars at a time. But together, these contributions are the largest source of unrestricted funds for most SRG members. If we can boost, even just a little, the amount of the average gift, the renewal rate, or the number of additional gifts, these differences will translate as major gains when they are multiplied across the tens of thousands of such transactions per year.

Brilliant on the Basics was a collaboration of seventeen SRG members aimed at discovering and implementing the very best practices in the art and science of listener support. The project tapped leading fund raisers from within and outside public radio for analysis of membership programs and databases, performance benchmarking, research, and reviews of our current operating techniques.
Learn more about Brilliant on the Basics.

Major Gifts Initiative
Building on the success of the Leaders Partnership, SRG developed a one-year curriculum to start or strengthen major gifts programs at additional member stations. Twelve stations started the Major Gifts Initiative in 1998 and a second group completed the program the following year.
Learn more about the Major Gifts Initiative.

Foundation Project
The Foundation Project explored SRG members’ experiences with foundation funding and looked to projects and strategies that might make stronger case to the nation’s foundation community. We especially focused on collaborative projects.
Learn more about the Foundation Project.