By 
It must’ve been an exciting 47 minutes at Kansas Public Radio this morning.
This was their first ever “Power Breakfast” – the goal was to do an entire day’s worth of fund-raising in 90 minutes.
KPR had a pool of about $13,200 in matching funds (donated by enthusiastic listeners). Over the past week or so, KPR has announced on the air and in newspapers that Friday morning donations would be matched dollar-for-dollar.
Turns out they didn’t need the entire 90 minutes. In 47 minutes, they were over $14,000.
J. Schafer, Darrell Brogdon and Rachel Hunter were at the microphones shortly before 6:30 a.m. and barely had time to warm up their voices before the pledges topped $13,200.
Because they met their goal in 47 minutes, they quit pitching, quit asking for money.
But the phones kept ringing.
What KPR staff was hoping for this morning was $13,200 in pledges.
What they got was $27,713 in pledges. Add in the $13,200 in matching funds and they came up with $40,913.
BIG DAY! And an incredible start to the fund drive.
It all sounds easy – bringing in $41,000 in a morning. But there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes. The KPR Development team has been working hard on this for months. They’ve been busy lining things out and contacting regular listeners who donated the matching funds.
It’s exciting, I think, because with the roaring success of today, maybe more listeners will participate in the matching funds part and maybe more listeners will call in pledges for the rest of this fund drive and in future drives.
The thing is, a big chunk of KPR’s operating expenses comes from listeners. Some listener-members move away (and, believe it or not, some die) which means new members have to join to ensure that the radio station is able to offer the fine programming that it presently does (did I mention STATION OF THE YEAR?)
Anyway, if you’re a listener, please do your part. Call in a pledge. This was a blast-off beginning to their fund drive, but it’s just Day One.
I don’t know what KPR’s ultimate goal for their Fall Fanfare is but they may be looking at something like $200,000 more. When they meet their goal (whatever it is), they stop asking for money, just like they stopped today when their goal was met.
You can still call in today. 888-577-5268. And all weekend and into next week. Or you can pledge online.