How Community Broadcasting Is Funded – a Useful Resource for Community Broadcasters
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How community broadcasting is funded – a useful resource for community broadcasters Janey Gordon Abstract This article is intended as a resource for community broadcasters and researchers. It draws on interviews and discussion with community broadcasters and activists to identify practical examples of funding methods. The seven common methods of funding a community station are detailed. These are: support from the station's own community; patronage from a larger organisation; commercial advertising and sponsorship; competitive grants; service contracts; support by NGOs; support by governmental agencies. The article points to resources where the reader can discover more fully how each funding method is used, and concludes that a prudent station may use several methods to help ensure economic sustainability. This article details how broadcast community radio and television is currently being funded, with a stress on community radio, since, although many community television stations exist, they are less commonplace than community radio stations. Arguably, for exactly the reason under discussion, it is simply more expensive to run a community TV station. The article is intended as a resource and will be most useful for those endeavoring to keep their own community station financially stable and those researching community broadcasting sustainability. The methods of funding described may be considered more applicable in some situations or countries than in others. However each method will have some resonance with any community station and may prompt a rethinking of where funds might be sought by the community broadcaster. Organising the cash to run the project is a duty for anyone seeking to lead a community media operation. It has been observed that financial matters are regarded somewhere between a responsibility, an inconvenience or a millstone to be dealt with by community station managers. But it has also been found that matters of economics have not always been fully considered before the licence application is made, the technical kit garnered or volunteers start broadcasting. Community broadcasters may lament their lack of funding and their monetary problems but some may not fully understand or engage with the financial processes necessary to run the budget for a small station. Can they persuade their community to support them? If their own community is not affluent, where will funds come from? The not-for-profit egis that many stations adopt, or is a part of their licence, may become a defence for the deficiency in funds. Some stations may question if they should be “profitable”? And if they can raise funds, how “profitable” should they be? In addition to finding resources, a further economic consideration is financial management. How will the station set itself up as an organisation to ensure financial stability along with suitable ethical behaviour? Should they be a trust, a charity, a company? Who are the officers? What is their commitment? The financial banner that the station decides to operate under may help or hinder the acquisition of financial support, but it is not in itself funding. 3CMedia 30 The evidence for this article follows interviews and discussion with community broadcasters during visits to stations and in forums with community media activists, where capital and sustainable finance is frequently discussed. Practical examples of funding methods from community stations in several different countries are detailed with links to websites wherever possible. This piece is more discursive than the usual academic article and is endeavoring to be genuinely helpful to community broadcasters. If as you read it you have further experiences and ideas for the economic stability and sustainability of community broadcasting please get in touch. Funding methods There are seven common methods of funding a community radio or television station (see Gordon, 2015). These are: · support from the station's own community; · patronage from a larger organisation; · commercial advertising and sponsorship; · competitive grants; · service contracts; · support by NGOs; · support by governmental agencies. These funding possibilities are not mutually exclusive and a prudent station may use several methods to help ensure sustainability. A funding method or event may also seem to fall into more than one of these areas or straddle two methods. Successful stations consider whose pocket the money is actually coming out of, since all funding sources are ultimately finite, in particular from the individuals who form the community the station is serving. The key point about these methods is that they are each distinct pots of money. The way stations increase financial provision is to look for inventive ways to provide services that people or organisations with money will wish to purchase or buy into in some way. A further point that savvy stations consider is to what extent the station serves its community audience of, hopefully, several thousand and to what extent it serves its, maybe a hundred, volunteers? Funding resources may be available to support broadcasting activities for each group, so stations find that it is worth being clear as to the focus of the station and the fundraising. Each of the funding methods is discussed and its possibilities explored with examples from community stations. Support from the station's own community Running a community station needs the support from the station's own community, whether by taking part as a volunteer, listening or viewing the output as a member of the audience or by donating funds or in kind support to the station. This is essential; how else can a community broadcaster know that it is in fact running a station which anyone in the community is in the slightest bit interested in? There are well-established methods of gaining funds from the audience of a community station, including membership fees, fundraising activities and in-kind support such as gifts to the station and know-how freely given. Professional expertise, not least accountancy and financial advice, is of particular value, along with engineering and technical skills, fundraising and commercial sales of advertising and sponsorship. Issue 8 (May) 2016 Gordon 3CMedia 31 Along with their commercial and Public Service Broadcaster counterparts, community broadcasters sell merchandising to their supporters, for example a T-shirt or coffee mug. Selling other products, such as CDs of music played on the station, may be a way of raising revenue, which goes outside the immediate community geographically (see Cross Rhythms http://direct.crossrhythms.co.uk/). Other resourceful stations run a commercial activity alongside their broadcasting operation and which also draws in members of their community. For example • A cafe at the front of the station may prove valuable as a means of support and to encourage participation (see South Holland Radio http://www.shradio.co.uk/?page_id=9699). • Register the station with a fundraising website, where a supporter can make a small contribution to the station each time they shop online (see Seahaven FM http://www.seahavenfm.com/easyfundraising.php ). • Sell Bingo cards to the audience and play Bingo on air (see Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations cactus.independentmedia.ca). • Use crowd funding for startup capital. Sheffield Live TV gained its startup funds using a crowd funding initiative, in which supporters bought shares in the company (See SLTV http://web.sheffieldlive.org/home/shares/). All these methods require the community that the station serves to have disposable funds to be able to do this. If they do not, the station needs to look to other areas or other local communities not directly being served by the station who may be able to provide funds either tacitly or upfront. For example, a station serving a particular new migrant group may feel that these people do not have sufficient disposable income to support the station, but that the wider local community might be willing to buy drinks in a community cafe or take part in a raffle and so help to fund the station. Patronage from a larger organisation The patron of a community broadcaster will typically be a larger organisation in terms of affluence, influence, expertise, or premises who can support the community broadcasting organisation. The broadcaster will benefit directly from their support, for example in gaining premises shared with the patron. They may also gain the cost of utilities such as electricity, key staff and support staff. The support from the patron organisation in terms of their influence and actual protection may be also be valuable (Brooten, 2012). Examples of patrons include educational establishments, universities being some of the oldest community broadcasting patrons. The University of Adelaide has been the patron of Radio Adelaide since 1972 (see https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/), but more recently schools and many smaller educational organisations have hosted community stations. Saint FM is based at St Peter's Secondary School (see http://www.saintfm.co.uk/). Community broadcasters hosted by educational establishments will often be able to call on the students as volunteers. Indeed, the patron may see the benefits to their students as paramount to their patronage. However, the relationship between the patron and the station needs to be clear. Is the station's main activity providing work experience or similar for the student broadcasters or is it providing broadcast content for the local community? Well-established university-based stations have occasionally found that their long-term volunteers and content has grown more mature over time and outgrown the youthful student body, a situation that may not be favoured by the university itself. Other common patrons include community centres, communication centres, libraries and religious organisations. It is also possible for commercial centres such as a shopping Issue 8 (May) 2016 Gordon 3CMedia 32 mall or a commercial company to host a community broadcaster on its premises. All of these organisations are likely to expect some kind of favourable terms on air.