WCPE News

Dear Friends —

WCPE needs your help to make our Spring Fundraiser shorter, as pleasant as possible, and as effective as possible to encourage our newest listeners to become our Newest Donors!

Our spring and fall fundraisers are the main times a year when we make a concerted effort to move our newest listeners to do their share to help to cover WCPE's operating expenses. WCPE's Spring 2013 Fundraiser will begin very soon; we don't have time to spare.

Our Silent Pledge Drive is held through the mail and over the Internet prior to the on-air fundraiser. Before we came up with the idea of a Silent Pledge Drive, we often had drives that were far too long and wandered. So the very successful "advance low-key" or "silent mail-in" period before each drive now lets us greatly shorten the duration of the talk part of the drive -- giving you more music and fewer days of actual pledge drive.

Now, let me Thank YOU! for Your Past Support!

I cannot convey this fact enough: Your ongoing prior support has kept us on 24 hours a day through thick and thin. Without you, we would NEVER have made it anywhere near 33 years in public radio broadcasting! Think of all of the classical music stations that used to be. Think of how many have drifted away from classical and diluted their programming. WCPE has remained true!

We have not even had to consider such because you and enough other listeners have supported us faithfully year after year. Your yearly help has kept us above that "critical mass" -- the crucial number of listener-Supporters that let us remain a pure classical music station -- like the critical number of watertight compartments that assures a ship won't flounder. Your ongoing support year after year, your "standard" gift that maybe you doubted made that much difference -- that dependable gift has been the reason that we have been dependable over time.

We did not change over time because your support did not change over time. Please remember this; if there is nothing else you gain from this letter, know that your faithfulness to Great Classical Music has been the greatest factor permitting us to maintain our steadfast faithfulness to Great Classical Music 24 hours a day.

Going forward, here is our Fundraising Plan for 2013:

The grand plan is to maximize our fundraising through the mail and over the Internet to minimize the number of over-the-air pledge drive days. There are four targets for the year: one for spring, summer, winter, and fall -- but the summer and winter targets are "silent" targets -- with no.pre-planned fund drives. We hope to totally rely on mailouts for their success. This cuts the fundraisers and the talk time in half, scheduling them only in the spring and fall.

So each season has its own separate fundraising target, and the four add up to our needs for the year. This Spring our target is $600,000 -- and trust me when I say it is going to be exceedingly difficult to reach -- but it is what we need. I hope and pray that the "silent" idea will work; that you will help. Please make your advance pledges before the drive starts. This lets us move substantially toward our goal without much talk. Let the "talk" be done through the written word -- this letter.

Considering this, we're in a fundraiser right now, and yet you hear our regular Great Classical Music when you listen. Instead of extra fundraising days, it's a letter. Everyone is wonderful about participating and supporting WCPE this way.

Thanks to economies of scale, these letters amount to a couple of pennies on the dollar of our fundraising expenses, and for those pennies, these letters bring in almost half of the spring and fall drive gifts! So they effectively cut our fundraising on-air time in half!

Your gift in advance of the start of the fundraiser will also let us devote our attention to our newer listeners. Remember, we need a fund drive now because we can't mail to those new listeners; we don't yet know who they are!

We need to ask "gave long ago Donors" to become active Members again.

You may remember when, to the chagrin of classical music listeners, one of the North Carolina public stations announced the total deletion of classical music. A while later, another NC station dropped classical from daytime, saying they were "strengthening" their programs. Before that, too many thought it wasn't necessary for them to support the classical programming which they enjoyed on those stations; I suppose they never dreamed of a day that classical music wouldn't be there whenever they tuned in. Well, it happened. Many WCPE listeners made their first gift to WCPE back then because they realized that it was up to them to guarantee that the same thing wouldn't happen here. Most all renewed their support the next year; but after a couple of years, they got a false sense of security. They let their support lapse and drift away. Today, we need these friends back.

You probably know somebody like this; they supported us -- then they stopped.

We've got to remind these folks of the frailty of stations that devote 100% of their broadcast day to Great Classical Music. The drift away from the good music we love that you hear on WCPE and TheClassicalStation.org is a general trend across the Nation. I've had managers from other public radio stations ask me how we do it. I tell them our Donors remember they must support what they value; now this grows more serious daily. It is because, recently, some are forgetting; the number of our inactive Members is growing and that is a terrifying trend to me that we cannot allow to continue -- We MUST get these past Donors to renew their dedication to WCPE again!

This is why it's important for you to maintain your steadfast support WCPE wherever you live and however you listen. The nationwide trend is clearly away from classical music in state- and university-owned public radio stations. And the same is true for commercial classical stations for sure, as anyone in Washington DC and some other big cities will tell you! And if you listen to TheClassicalStation.org on the net because you've lost your local station, you know this is true.. TheClassicalStation.org and WCPE is are independent community radio stations -- answering to you directly. Consider the solidarity of our devotion to Great Classical Music, 24 hours a day. Consider even more the fact that when you and other listeners just like you reliably continue with your help, we can maintain our momentum and reliably broadcast this great music, and only this great music.

Our growing number of local and National listeners supporting our services, along with the increasing donations from others across the Nation who have lost their local classical music station, and along with you and your donation, are combining to give us a good and stable financial base. Taken together, because you and our other listeners stand by us, our continuous Great Classical Music will be here for you despite the ongoing increases in our broadcast expenses. Our sole purpose is to give you Great Classical Music and to fill the classical music void being left by other stations here and across the nation. This brings us new listeners and new Supporters and gives us stability because of the Unity of Classical Music Lovers across the Nation.

This is why I'm asking You for Your Tangible Show of Support today.

Today, it's probably time to make your first pledge of 2013. I encourage you to play your part for the Great Classical Music that you enjoy on WCPE and TheClassicalStation.org. Whether you listen nearby or thousands of miles from us, your personal pledge will ensure that classical music is always here for you, when you desire, through WCPE's many ways of listening. So how does this Silent Pledge Drive tie in with newer two and three year listeners and the upcoming over the air Spring Pledge Drive?

The "Giving Gap"

You know you must support what you value. But many of our newer listeners don't -- yet. The realization that you have to support what you value hasn't dawned on our newer listeners just yet -- but it's coming time. If you remember from the Member Report that I wrote a while back, I said that we found there is that two year "giving gap" for our listeners. We found that two years is the average time it takes from starting to listen to WCPE to starting to support WCPE. This spring, it's time for many of our listeners to make the jump over the "giving gap" and to become Members of WCPE. If we can show new listeners we have the support of longer-time listeners, it gives them the encouragement to make their first gift just as you once did.

That's why Your Personal Silent Pledge is so Important:

The fundraiser is our chance to get that important message in front of these new listeners in the most effective way possible -- by showing them that other listeners, you and others just like you, know TheClassicalStation.org and WCPE depend 100% on their support. Your gift today to WCPE will help us show these new listeners that there is something special about WCPE that merits their gift, too. Your advance support of the station will help us make a powerful statement during the fundraiser that no words of mine can match! I hope you are willing to help in our Silent Pledge Drive and reaffirm your support of WCPE to show that our Great Classical Music is important to YOU! Having your Membership renewal is the best way for us to prove to these new listeners that supporting WCPE is supporting something of lasting value. Your gift is the catalyst. When new listeners know you've known WCPE for years and remain a Supporter, they gain the confidence to become a Supporter, too. You and your gift show them the importance of sharing in the responsibility of covering the cost of bringing this Great Classical Music to them. That's what your Silent Pledge does for us! That's why you hear so many listeners' challenges to match their gifts. Your early pledge really will help us raise the funds and gain new Donors to help us broadcast Great Classical Music 24 hours a day!

If We Have Your Advance Support —

We don't have to take time over the air to ask for your help; We can concentrate on educating our new listeners about WCPE; and, We can challenge them to support WCPE just as you have. This is the core purpose of the drive -- getting new listeners to become new Members. You can make your personal challenge to new listeners. We call it an Angel Challenge because you're doing something very important for WCPE. And I can tell you that challenges are the most powerful fundraiser tool that you can give us! Your challenge helps convince new listeners to become new Donors, and your gift is more than doubled in total when all is said and done. A growing family of Members helps ensure that WCPE will always be around when you want to listen to us -- whether you live near the Triangle and listen on 89.7 FM, on your local cable system, through your home satellite dish, on an FM station that rebroadcasts us, or on the Internet.

Spring is Around the Corner!

We are well into a new year; the gifts that were made in October, November, and December are working for us now, covering the expenses WCPE is paying today. Those gifts have become the broadcasts of the Great Classical Music you're listening to already. Let us now look toward tomorrow and consider what WCPE needs to maintain our Service to You in 2013. Think about how much you rely upon TheClassicalStation.org and WCPE for Great Classical Music. Then take a moment right now to go on the web or mail in your Silent Pledge! Thank you for keeping the music playing!

Sincerely,
Deborah S. Proctor
General Manager

PS: You can mail your Silent Pledge in the envelope, or pledge at TheClassicalStation.org. Your announcer is here 24 hours a day, so if you have any questions at all, you can phone us at (800) 556-5178, and they can answer your question (or even take your advance pledge). Your Silent Pledge counts towards a Thank You Gift; you can choose some of those right now, or you can wait and call during the fundraiser -- it's up to you.

Thank you so very much for all you do for WCPE!

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