Sabrina Gordon, Allen Arthur, Nancy Spiccia, and Nuria Saldanha use design thinking to come up with new ideas for public media membership

1. WBEZ

2. How do people listen to radio?
- Most told us they listen when
commuting or exercising
- Morning and evening
- Smartphones and web
- Podcasts Interviews: men and
women from 23 to 60

3. Why don’t people give money?
- Unaware that public
media needs money
- Idea that small
contributions don’t make a
difference
- Don't have money for big
donations

4. Why would people give money?
- Feeling of a personal impact on
success of the station
- Would do it if giving was made easy,
for example: send a text + autopayment
- Sense of duty
- Several people suggested small
periodic donations instead of big
amounts
- Specific, personal, unique inducements

5. Problem we focused on
- Given what we heard people don’t like (pledge drives, interruptions,
focus on major donors) and hearing what they prefer (smaller
donations, personal connection, ease, making a difference)…
- How can we encourage people to give smaller but more frequent
donations via a personal connection to specific programming?

6. Feedback
Small donations/ease
Scale problem – how to scale for thousands of listeners
- More focus on
sense of duty
- More personal

7. Five Dollar Fridays!
- Once a month, a particular show holds their Five Dollar Friday
- This campaign builds on the necessity of small donations, ease of donation, and building in
urgency in a fun way by tying it to a day of the week and offering unique, show-specific
rewards
- By texting “WBEZ5”, five dollars would be automatically donated to WBEZ, and the charge
would appear on the donor’s phone bill, so there’s tremendous ease and no need to enter a
credit card number etc.
- Via a social media campaign as well as on-air announcements, and push notifications, the
show invites listeners to be a WBEZ “co-producer” by supporting the featured show with the
$5 donation

8. By the numbers...
This American Life has 2.2 million listeners. If
even 1% of those listeners contributed on their
Five Dollar Friday, that would generate
$110,000 in a single day.

9. How to get the word out?
- WBEZ Facebook and Twitter
- Show Facebook and other social media
- Brief announcements on air during the week
- Announcements on podcasts of that show
- Push notifications on the app(s)

10. What do the listeners get?
- Everyone who texts is entered into a drawing for a show-specific prize –
a music mixtape made by the hosts, an outgoing voicemail message, or
a chance to participate in the show.
- While only a small number of people will win, everyone gets a text in
return specific to the show, and everyone gets their name published on
the show page of the website thanking them as that day’s “co-
producers” (rather than calling them “donors”)
- Sense of duty: by reminding people that the station needs small
donations to survive
- A sense of involvement in the sustaining of a particular show they
connect with
- An easy, text-based way to donate