WVXU kicks off a it's fall fund drive Thursday with a $50,000 matching grant, while WGUC listeners’ generosity earlier this month has shortened the on-air appeal on the sister classical music station until Tuesday.
Thursday morning WVXU will announce the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation matching grant. Listeners will be asked to thank the Haile Foundation for its support with #ThanksHaile on Twitter, says Sherri Mancini, Cincinnati Public Radio vice president for development.
Some of the fall funds will pay for a new WVXU transmitter to be installed next month, she says.
Unlike recent years, separate campaigns are underway for WVXU and WGUC.
Why? To test a “silent” Crescendo Campaign. Mancini calls it a “non-fund drive.”
“We promised listeners we’d eliminate the fund drive if we could raise the $125,000 we would normally raise before Sept. 17th, the official start date,” Mancini says.
“We have only around $29,000 to raise, so we’ve already cut the first five days of the WGUC fund drive. Our hope is we can wrap it up with only two hours of on-air fundraising on ‘Two Hour Tuesday’ (8-10 a.m. on Sept. 22).
“We’ve had so many listeners tell us they like this new approach,” she says. One member praised the new approach by saying, “This fund-raiser is a gentle caress of the ears rather than the typical ear twisting of past campaigns,” she says.
As I’ve said for many years, long before I joined the WVXU team: Public broadcasting is a valuable, unique community service. If you’re tired of hearing the appeal for funds, then make a donation so the campaign can end sooner than later.