I’ve noticed a pattern in Friday Feedback lately, and perhaps you have too. Either lots of complaints (like two weeks ago), lots of praise (likelast week), or else zero, zip, nada. This is one of those weeks, which is great, because it gives me a chance to tell you about some very exciting developments at WHQR, which we are announcing (or at least previewing) today.
The biggest is the announcement, made last night, of the station’s most transformative capital campaign ever: emPowering Our Future. More on that in a moment. But first:
We are making good progress on a situation which you have heard discussed here. We are nearing the end of work on a power increase for Classical HQR. Because of FCC restrictions and a crowded radio spectrum, Classical HQR will not have as strong a signal as 91.3, HR News. But many listeners will hear improvements, both very soon and, we hope, a little farther down the road. We’ll have more on this soon.
What enables us to move forward on projects like this? It’s you, the listener-members to WHQR. You have shown time and again that you want the kind of public service programming only WHQR can provide, and we are determined to live up to that trust.
We’ve all heard of vicious cycles, where one bad thing leads to another. Well, public radio gives us a chance for the opposite – a virtuous cycle, where each new achievement leads to the next. Public service begets public support; public support begets public service; and the cycle continues.
In less than two weeks we will begin our spring member drive. Once again we will be highlighting the work of area non-profits in our Partnership Challenge. We also hope to catch some of the enthusiasm we saw in our Stealth Drive last summer, where we never had to go on the air at all with the drive, thanks to early and strong support.
With your help, we can end this Spring’s drive early, so please pledge by mail or online, or contact us about making an all-important challenge pledge. If enough people do, we’ll hit the goal and end the drive early.
That same generosity brings me back to what I referred to earlier, our emPowering Our Future campaign. Last night the Board of WHQR made the official announcement that we are now in the public phase of this transformative campaign. In 2012, after a year of study, the Board approved a far-reaching Strategic Plan with the goals of
- expanding our service
- equipping us for the digital era
- increasing our local service, and
- stabilizing our finances to make such service permanent
To make these goals possible, the Board approved a capital campaign, emPowering Our Future, with a goal of 1.5 milion dollars. That’s by far the largest in our history. In the quiet phase of the campaign we have raised 75 percent of that goal, or $1,149,000, from just over 100 donors.
Now we are going to be calling on all of our listeners to help us raise the final $351 thousand dollars toward that goal. This will be an “above and beyond” effort, in addition to your annual support. You’ll be able to spread your gift out over as much as 5 years; you’ll be able to make a gift of cash, appreciated stock, and in many other ways.
You’ll be hearing more about this campaign as we move forward. Just remember that virtuous cycle. We are committed to work in partnership with you, our valued and generous listener-members, to emPower Our Future – together.
[Note: the audio for this story will be available later on Friday, March 4th]
We'd love to hear from you on Friday Feedback. You can send an email message to feedback-at-whqr-dot-org, or you can leave a call at 910-292-9477. And thanks for your Feedback.