FAQs
What is Public Media Giving Days (PMGD)?
A two-day, digital-first event held in early May. The combined idea for participating local public media organizations is to both raise funds and generate attention and excitement about your station’s role in the communities it serves. As well as stimulating additional gifts and new contributing members, the intent is to spark and expand a widespread public dialogue about the positive impact of public media overall among the people who use and value it.
How can I participate in Public Media Giving Days if I work for a station?
Public media’s value and the extent to which donors and fans appreciate it is too expansive to be held to a single day! On both Thursday, May 1st and Friday, May 2nd ask folks to donate to your station and suggest they encourage others to do so, too. Again, please utilize our assets, but get creative in how you frame the PMGD experience. Emphasize connections between your station and the local community in an effort to convert potential donors to new, excited donors. Ask current members and sustainers to consider celebrating PMGD by giving above and beyond.
Paired with encouragement for people to give, ask as many people as you can to express their positive opinions about public media. Post to social; email your list; chat on air. Suggest people explain what inspires them about public media and why they to donate to your station. Encourage the folks you speak with to speak with more people.
What's most important is not how you decide to get involved in Public Media Giving Days; it's that you do get involved.
I work at a station but don’t have authority to opt in. What can I communicate to my leadership team?
If your leadership team is unaware of Public Media Giving Days, ask them to check out this website or reach out to their contacts at CDP, APT, Greater Public, NPR or PBS for additional information. It’s a good idea for PMGD to be on your station’s radar should any of your donors engage with the broader national promotions and proactively reach out to your station.
You may also want to bring this to your leadership team’s attention: Stations participating in PMGD’s first two years achieved measurable success!
The rotating stats you’ve seen on top of the homepage bear repeating here:
100+ participating stations
7,300 donors
$1.3M raised since inception
9.3% average increase in digital revenue
CDP sourced this topline data by both surveying last year’s participating stations and using our ongoing ROAR (Revenue Opportunity and Action Report) capabilities The average revenue increase figure of 5.9% comes directly from a year-over-year comparison of MSB-partner stations’ May revenues.
Our station didn’t participate in PMGD these past two years. Does that give us a disadvantage in diving in this year?
Absolutely not. The more the merrier, in this third year and in the future. One of the ways event-centric fundraising initiatives like PMGD gains momentum is through increased involvement over time. If your station participates for the first time this year, you’ll benefit from PMGD success at your station as well as help make it more successful nationwide.