I know that I am not alone when it comes to supporting this station. Far from it -- I keep running into good people who ask what they can do to help WAMC above and beyond contributing to the fund drives or the locked box. The answer is that there are many things that you can do.
For one thing, you can volunteer during the fund drives or at other times. Also, many people are associated with family, private or corporate foundations. We are actually seeing an increase in the number of people whose fund drive contributions come via one of these foundations. If there is any way that you can think of to help us make a proposal to such a foundation, I am going to ask that you call our fabulous Jessica Denue at 800-323-9262, ext. 209. She can help facilitate your generosity. I don’t have to tell you that this fragile experiment called WAMC is only here because we, as a community, have willed it so. This miraculous station is arguably the best in the country, despite the fact that so many folks live in our big cities and the potential for fund raising is much greater for the big city stations than for WAMC. Oh, I’m not crying. We are doing incredibly well because of you. I just suspect that many people have not yet concentrated on the foundations that they know of. So, if you can think of it, it would be great to have you give Jessica a call. When you are listening to programming like a debate between John Faso and Antonio Delgado, candidates for New York’s 19th Congressional District, I urge you to consider how much work and people power that takes. Likewise, a debate between District candidates in Berkshire County. Ian Pickus and his hard working staff have spent many, many hours in preparation for these events.
While we’re on the subject of fund raising, there is the matter of our wonderful underwriting program. The WAMC heroes behind the scenes are now responsible for bringing in as much money as we raise in the fund drives. Think about it – that keeps the fund drives shorter than ever. You may ask how you can help. Let me give you the name of another WAMC heroine, Melissa Kees. While still quite young when compared to me, she has proven herself and her wonderful team to be the best in the country. Anyone who listens to WAMC can hear the remarkable list of underwriters who want to support the station’s mission and get their message out. We are so grateful. But here’s where YOU come in. If you hear an underwriter on the station, it would be great if you could let them know how much you appreciate their support. Or, if you don’t hear them, you might suggest that publicly supporting WAMC would bring much appreciation from their potential customers.
Don’t forget the Roundtable and the Roundtable Panel. With more money, we can go on more road trips and broadcast from your home town. That will take more engineering staff and equipment and fuel to get there.
I often get up in the middle of the night and worry about things that could happen and, inevitably, do happen. We once had a tower fall down and had to replace it fast. So some emergency funding is a must. Generators fail. Lightning strikes. The WAMC ancient car fleet fails. In addition to back-up generators at all our sites, we should really have a full back-up broadcast facility which could replicate our main studio so that in the event of an emergency, we could continue to transmit.
So I hope you’ll see what you can do to help keep it all going. You are such a huge part of what we do.