Welcome to the “Go Beyond Fundraising” podcast brought to you by Allegiance Group + Pursuant. We are a passionate team of strategists, practitioners and technologists who believe in the power of nonprofits to create positive change.  

In each episode, we host insightful conversations, practical tips and inspiring stories from experts on our team and change makers around the globe. Together, let’s explore how to go beyond traditional fundraising and unlock the full potential of your mission.  

Host: Welcome back to another episode of the “Go Beyond Fundraising” podcast. Today, I’m chatting once again with Debbie Merlino, AGP’s Executive Vice President of Client Relationships.  

Hey Debbie, welcome back to the Go Beyond Fundraising podcast.

Debbie Merlino: Hey Leah, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here today.  

Host: I’m excited. The last time you and I sat down to have a podcast conversation, we were talking about arts and culture organizations, membership organizations, and some of the unique challenges to fundraising with those types of nonprofits. And we’re having a revisit of that conversation today in a slightly different but related sector, which is public media and public broadcasting.  

Anyone who is listening today and has paid attention to the news probably knows public media has been in the headlines quite a bit lately. There’s been federal funding cuts, and they’re leaving a lot of public media stations asking, what’s next? So could you set the stage for us with what’s happened and how these cuts are starting to have effects?

Debbie Merlino: Sure. So, the cuts are extremely deep. For many stations, their budgets are being affected. Between 8 and 20 percent of revenues that they were expecting are being clawed back. This was money that Congress had previously approved for FY’26 and FY’27 that was then part of what’s been called the rescission package. And so that money was clawed back. Not only is that hard, but it’s also difficult for stations to manage because this was money that had already been baked into their FY‘26 and FY‘27 plans because, again, the money had been previously approved by Congress.  

When we look at the landscape, I think everybody agrees that it’s the smaller and rural stations that will be the hardest hit television stations, as well as joint licensees who will have an extra burden to bear, although there is plenty of pain to go around. Some states took those impending federal changes as an invitation to also pull back state funding as well. In some states like Florida, not only are they dealing with federal funding going away, but state funding as well at the same time. So, it’s sort of a double whammy for some stations.  

Host: So, what’s the general mood you’re hearing from station leaders that you speak with?

Debbie Merlino: Yeah, so I would say the one thing that’s common at every station is that there has been an outpouring of support from donors in a way that I think stations have never seen before. So that’s the positive thing – that individual donors are really stepping up. Those that have never made large gifts are making some of the largest gifts that they’ve ever made. Also, sustainers who traditionally sort of set their giving level and make regular recurring gifts at a certain level every month. It’s very difficult to get those folks to make either additional gifts or to increase their level of giving, and many are still trying to crack that code, but because of the current situation, many of those sustainers on their own are responding to the current need.  

Host: That’s great to hear that stations are seeing that immediate support, and it’s something that we definitely see in other nonprofits, as well. Anytime some crisis happens, you do see that outpouring of support. Something we also know, though, is a lot of times, beyond those amazing sustainers that have decided to increase that monthly recurring gift, crisis giving often sees a spike and then is followed by a fall off. And we’ve seen that with food banks. We see that a lot of times with any organization that is oriented around crisis response.  

So have you been having any conversations with station leaders about like, what to do with that sudden outpouring of support, but then also how to plan more for several months out from now, and maybe some of that urgency has cooled?

Debbie Merlino: That’s such a timely question. I actually just hung up the phone with a station in Florida, and we were talking about this very thing. They did talk about, you know, the influx of donor support that I just alluded to but were also saying that while that is extremely encouraging, they’re hearing from donors that we’re here to help you in this unique time. And I think what stations need to start doing right now is to start messaging that this is not a unique time.  

Nobody thinks that this money is coming back. The rescission package affected funding both in FY ’26, which is the year that the stations are just leaning into, and FY ’27, but CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) is shuttering – so this is not something that we just need you to help us get over the hump. And I think that message is something that stations have not been communicating yet to donors, and they need a plan to start to get that message out there. I think it’s an important balancing act that they need to strike because they want to be thankful — they are thankful of all the support that’s coming in now – but they also need to set the stage and educate their viewers and listeners that this is not a short-term crisis that they need their help to overcome. It’s not a hurdle – it’s their new reality.  

Host: Do you think stations are having consistent responses to the funding cuts, or is it very based on who you talk to?  

Debbie Merlino: That’s a great question, and I think it’s actually very different station to station. There are some stations that are really leaning in – and leaned in early with emergency appeal type communications. And then there are others, which could be state licensees. Sometimes it’s also university licensees that are more reticent to lean into that message because the university itself is afraid of being targeted for funding cuts.  

So, I would say there is a vast difference in how stations have responded, and that sort of is exactly what we’re about. Anytime we’re working with a station, whether it’s in the normal course of business or in this new reality, we always start by understanding each station’s unique situation and what their culture and their messaging is. There are a number of things that stations have in common, but oftentimes their response or their messaging needs to be tailored.  

We think about our approach as proven solutions that are customized for each individual station, and that allows us to follow the station’s lead and lean in with a more urgent message. If that’s the culture that they have, and if sort of the handcuffs are off, then we’ll go big with them on that. And so, we just talk about the need to support the station at this time or at this unique time.  

Host: Yeah, I definitely want to project forward into the near future a little bit to discuss some of those “medium-term” ways that public media stations can set themselves up for this new normal. But in the short term, what are some things that they should be doing or thinking about in terms of replacing staff that they may have to face layoffs for in order to shore up their budgets or other uncomfortable decisions that they may have to make, and then how they can weather them?  

Debbie Merlino: Sure, so you’re right. I mean, I read frequently about staffing cuts and layoffs at stations all the time, which is just an unfortunate reality. Stations who utilize the Allegiance CRM may not be aware of is that we do offer what we call staff augmentation services where we can be hands on keyboard and do anything from the gift processing to the monthly administration processes in the CRM, pulling files for email and mail campaigns – all of those things.  

We call it staff augmentation because we really do see ourselves in these circumstances as an extension of the team. And one of the things I think that makes this service unique and useful for stations, especially at this time, is that it’s very easy for us to ramp those services up or down. This doesn’t have to be a super long-term commitment that a station makes. It can be we have some staff augmentation clients, where we have been hands on keyboard for years, but there have been other circumstances where we’ve filled that need for a month when someone was on extended leave. And so that’s something that people might want to talk to us about and take advantage of, especially in this type of flux.  

Host: Another thing that occurs to me about just the timing of these cuts is that it comes right on the heels of year-end giving season. What does that typical year-end giving donation drive look like for public media stations, and what are some of the ways that the recent news might be squeezing them, especially in their current calendar.  

Debbie Merlino: So many public media stations, especially if they’re TV stations or joint licensees, starting right from October through the end of December is a big time for them. Not only do they have their TV station, their on-air drive, but there’s Giving Tuesday, which oftentimes is a stewardship message around that, and then a big, pretty intensive email campaign or digital campaign.  

I think it’s important that if folks aren’t doing enough stewardship leading up to Giving Tuesday and their November, December on-air campaigns, that they need to think about stewardship, especially in this time because already they’ve gotten a lot of new, first-time donors who have responded to the call. And for what we know with other organizations, it’s likely that those earlier, brand-new donors will give again during calendar year end. But we can’t treat any of our donors, especially not these brand-new donors, like ATMs, right? So, we want to make sure that we take this opportunity, this window, to thank them from everything that they’ve done so far.  

And this is where I think it’s a great lead into what I was talking earlier about talking about that this is not a short-term need, right? The need is real, but it’s going to be for calendar 2026, and beyond. And I think that’s an opportunity for stations to sort of frame the new reality conversation is around calendar year end.  

Host: Let’s go there next looking more of that medium term, that new normal that we’ve been talking about, what should public media stations be preparing themselves for in the year ahead?  

Debbie Merlino: Yeah, I think of a couple of different things. Number one, I think that if stations are not really leaning into digital acquisition that this is the time 100% for that to happen. I mentioned earlier that CPB is going to be shuttering. The majority of the staff will be gone by September 30, and then there’ll be a small skeleton staff through January. I’m anticipating that those milestones might be times when the general media will be talking about this story again. So, I think of like September 30 as an opportunity for stations to be out there with more messaging, and January 30, which is a time that they’re not usually leaning into fundraising, but that might be something for them to consider, a new time for them to be talking about the situation, so that folks aren’t just hearing it from them, but they’re hearing from it and the broader media landscape as well.  

In addition to that, I talked a little bit about digital acquisition beyond utilizing the Google grant. So, paid media, I think, is something that is not enough, perhaps ironically, not enough public media stations are taking advantage of that. It really is an opportunity now more than ever for the marketing departments and the development departments to be working hand-in-glove with those digital advertising efforts. 

I also think that there are many stations who historically have done well with what I think of as the traditional public media fundraising schedule around their drive dates. And the majority of our stations are fundraising that way, and they are doing great. It continues to work, but this is the time to consider adding to that schedule and thinking about an “always on” approach to fundraising – that’s digital, that’s direct mail as well. We have about 20 stations or so that take advantage of our print and newsletter for public media donors, and stations who take advantage of that communication generate more revenue overall than stations that don’t.  

And so, it’s a nice piece that sort of, I think, bridges the divide between stewardship and a very light fundraising touch. It comes out six times a year, and I continue to be both surprised and thankful for the major donors that give through that communication vehicle. I think that that is a way for stations that are thinking about starting to move to an “always on” fundraising approach. That’s a nice first step, because it is a softer time. We’ve had more interest in the public media newsletter in the last three months than any time that I remember in my 18 years.  

Host: Here going back to the donor side of things, where do you see opportunities to increase donor value, like rethinking ask amounts, segmenting sustainer upgrades or strengthening the level programs?  

Debbie Merlino: I would say that at the lower end of the of the giving ladder, we see that public media donors – new donors – tend to make larger gifts than in other verticals. However, once you get beyond that initial gift, if you think about mid-level donors and public media, and even what we refer to as major donor giving at most public media stations, it’s very modest. At many stations, major donor giving starts at $1,200, which for most other types of organizations that would be considered mid-level.  

I think oftentimes we are too hesitant or too shy when those donors are giving larger gifts to other organizations that they care about just as much. We have tools and programs available to our clients, like GivingDNA, to help them identify which donors are most likely to upgrade. We also have launched a Mid-Level Accelerator program, which is where I think there’s a ton of opportunity for public media especially. I’ve been looking at the Essential Dashboard for a number of stations recently – this is a value add in the Allegiant CRM the Essential Dashboard. And I’ve been doing a lot of one-on-one consultation with stations and see that a majority of donors and revenue is at the $100 to $250 level, cumulatively – not individual gifts – but donors at that level. That is really, I think, the biggest opportunity to move those folks up the giving ladder, and our Mid-Level Accelerator can really help with that.  

We can also help stations identify if this is the right time to reevaluate destination points for their giving society. I think oftentimes those giving levels have been set a long time ago – sometimes more than a decade ago even – and they are just round numbers that feel good, but we can bring a more strategic approach to what those destination points should be based on data. We  can also use the GivingDNA tool to segment out the subscribers – the people that are giving monthly but just because they want their passport – we refer to those folks as subscribers. We can segment out subscribers from sustainer – those that are truly giving monthly philanthropic gifts – then identify the folks that are most likely to upgrade their sustaining support, whether that be increasing their monthly donation from $15 to $20 or $25 a month or making an additional gift, which is another way that is equally valuable for sustainers to upgrade. 

Host: Beyond surviving the cuts and stabilizing. What does long term resilience look like for public media fundraising? 

Debbie Merlino: I think stations that survive in the future, or really thrive in the future, I should say, are those that bring a number one all on, all the time approach to fundraising. But not only that, it has to happen in conjunction with stewardship. I think often, especially in a crisis like this, it’s those non-revenue generating activities that often end up on the cutting block first, and so things like new donor acquisition, stewardship – those things right now are likely being looked at to be cut – I think that is a mistake. I understand that mentality, but I think it’s dangerous to do that, and I think that’s why it’s so imperative that development, the general manager and finance or the CFO should be working in partnership.  

If I sort of think ahead, and I would say those stations that will thrive through this will have a new, always-on approach to fundraising. They will have consistent stewardship efforts through this, and a strengthened relationship between the general manager, development, and finance because this is the time when those three areas need to be working together so that there’s an understanding about new donors. It’s a net loss right out of the gate, but that most times in public media, new donor acquisition, those donors end up paying for themselves, even within year one. And it’s those types of back and forth communications that are essential at this time. It can’t be the old way of managing where a budget is sent up for approval, things are Xed out and sent back down. I think that’s a dangerous approach at any time, but right now, that partnership is more needed than ever before.  

Host: Totally. We talk about this a lot with many nonprofits that we work with of all kinds in all different sectors because the donor’s experience with your organization is not siloed. Whoever it is that’s speaking with them or is making decisions related to their experience with your organization is unified. And if things behind the scenes are siloed, it’s going to lead to that a sub-optimal experience. Data in isolation doesn’t tell a story. But if you’re able to bring someone in from the marketing communication side – if you’re able to bring all of those groups together into a room – you’re able to look at the trend lines and see how you know, even looking at an example of like if you were to pull a cross section of your donor base, you’d be able to see, oh, this person came in at this time, and then over the last two years, they’ve been able to give this much. 

 And if we only looked at what it cost to acquire them and compared it to their first donation, it would look like we lost money. But if you look at it more holistically and let the data actually tell a story, you would make different decisions.  

Debbie Merlino: That’s exactly right. And so, I’ve been talking to a lot of stations and having them examine what are their second-year retention rates, right? And we’re seeing that in public media, the second-year retention rate for a healthy station is 55% or more, which is a great foundation and a good number to have at the ready if you’re a development person when you’re talking to the CFO or somebody in finance. I think it’s understanding your metrics, and as you said, turning those metrics into a story and helping the finance team understand what the goal is. Also, working together on projections on both the cost and the revenue side of the equation. I was talking to a Midwest station, and they were telling me that they have never had visibility into their expense budget.  

And so, one of the things that they were bringing up is they were saying that right now, when there’s an influx of gifts, they have people who are processing those gifts that are working overtime to do that, and so this influx of revenue is great. They didn’t have an awareness of how over time to process those gifts were affecting the budget. That’s why I think those three sort of parts of the stool – the GM, development ,and finance – need to be working together to be talking about revenue year to date as well as projections, and put the expense against it, and be checking in every month.  

You sort of talk about how it can’t just be looking at the numbers. I want folks to know that they do have a real awareness that eight to 20% of your budget – that’s a real number, and you have to make at a lot of stations really difficult cuts, right? We were talking about there’s news of staffing cutbacks at stations like every week. I feel like I’m reading about more and more of those. So, I don’t say this flippantly, but this is the reason why people should be getting together, and it can’t just be cutting back on non-revenue generating activities.  

There needs to be that story through the numbers about how we are going to grow through this time.  

Host: If you could give station leaders one piece of advice as they face this moment, what would it be?  

Debbie Merlino: It really is about that huddling up. I feel like I sound a bit like a broken record, but it really is making if you already don’t have a strong relationship – if you’re a development person and already don’t have a strong relationship with finance – now is the time to forge that relationship. And I would say if there are any finance or CFO people listening to this podcast that are like I don’t understand any of that development stuff, that’s just not my jam. I am a spreadsheet person. That’s great. We need spreadsheet people, CFOs and those in finance to make themselves a little vulnerable and say to your counterpart and develop it like I don’t really understand some of these things. Like why it is so important that you spend this money on new donors where it is a loss at the beginning, explain why that makes sense to me.  

Give them the opportunity to prove that out to you – both in story and also in numbers — with things like second- year retention rates and sort of showing if this is how many people we’re going to carry forward, and this is the average revenue per donor are going to bring to the organization in year two. There is math that you can do and make that finance person comfortable. And I would say that if anybody finds themselves in that situation, whether you’re a development person, GM, a finance person, and you’re just not sure how to tell that story, that’s what we’re here for, especially if you utilize the Allegiant CRM. We have access to your Essential Dashboard. We can help you write the story. We can also sit with everybody and upper management together, if you would like, and walk through that as a group.  

These are the types of partnerships that we try to forge with our client partners. We think that’s what we’re here to do is sort of bring people together and help them achieve their best. Many times in public media, the new donor will pay for themselves in the first year. That’s very unusual in nonprofit fundraising that they pay for themselves in the first year. But it’s because of that higher entry point. There just needs to be that education around don’t freak out at the campaign, at the original campaign that you’re acquiring them. You can’t just look at like the red parentheses on a spreadsheet and cut that stuff out. I’ve also talked to stations where they’ve been told, Well, you just need to get your current donors to give more. That’s true. But that can’t be the only approach because you’ll get to a point where those donors are tapped out.  

One of the things I look at with stations – when I look at their essential dashboard – is we can see their number of multi-year donors. So those are the people that have given for three years in a row or more. And one of the things I’ve already seen before these cuts is that there’s a growing reliance on those multiyear donors, right? There’s fewer new, there’s fewer lapsed recaptured. There’s more and more of those I’ve given to you for at least three years in a row. That’s great. They’re the foundation of your program, but at some point, they’re going to cry uncle, like you can’t get blood from a stone at some point despite how much they’re stepping up. So that’s another KPI, I think, that stations can point to their finance people to help tell that story that you talked about.  

Host: Yeah. I mean, in the case of any other business, you would never say, oh, you can’t spend any marketing on ads in the newspaper, or you can’t spend any money on a billboard. You would never say that to any business, but yet we sometimes get into these sorts of roundabout conversations at nonprofits  

Debbie Merlino: Yeah, I think that’s a good point.  

Host: You were sharing with me, Debbie. about how a lot of times because the different departments within a station are siloed somebody who works in development or someone who works in education may not actually know what it costs to produce a unit of content. Helping to paint that picture for donors of this is exactly how far your dollar goes, I think, is really important to that building block of trust that has to be built in order to continue earning someone’s care and attention.  

Debbie Merlino: I think it’s really ironic because public media is all about stories and storytelling. That is the mission of public media. Whether it’s a story that brings you out of your daily life when you’re watching Masterpiece, or whether it’s a Rick Steves special where you’re dreaming about going somewhere, or reminiscing about a trip that you took in the past, or whether it’s a story about what’s happening in your local community with local reporters or something that is celebrating what’s unique about your state or your community.  

What I find ironic is that while public media is full of such great storytellers, and that is the content that people are consuming all the time, we are not so great at telling the stories about how we are making impacts in our own communities. That’s where I think the change needs to happen. That’s a reason why I think we can bring together the story of the impact that we make in our local communities with the story of the numbers in the need, which is why I keep harping on development people to reach out to their peers and finance because while the education department can tell you what they’re doing – it’s the finance department that can tell you how much it costs to fuel that part of your mission. So, I would just really recommend that public media development folks like do what public media does best tell your story.  

Host: Debbie, I love where we ended up today. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of go beyond fundraising. We hope these conversations have equipped you with the tools and inspiration to take your fundraising, marketing and advocacy efforts to the next level.

If you are ready to transform your nonprofit’s growth and impact, visit teamallegiance.com to get in touch with the experienced team at allegiance group and pursuant, we are here to help you make a lasting difference. Until next time, keep up the phenomenal work you do every day. Together, we can create a brighter future.