Lingering uncertainty over COVID-19, a roller coaster economy, continued social unrest and a heated presidential election season has left many wondering what the rest of 2020 holds in store.

But through it all, public media stations continue to fulfill their public service missions in new and innovative ways, keeping audiences informed, engaged, and connected to their communities at a time when connection, of any sort, has become a precious commodity.

And to support these efforts, station fundraising programs must persist, reminding donors and prospects of the value of local public media, especially now.

Since the beginning of March, CDP has been tracking the fundraising performance of its closest station partners to monitor the impact of COVID-19 and subsequent events on station support. This cohort represent nearly 700,000 donor accounts across a mix of television, radio and joint licensee stations of all sizes.

In mid-March, these stations saw year-over-year cumulative membership level revenues decline significantly as the realities of the global pandemic took hold. In the stations we monitored, year-over-year revenue declines from gifts <$1000 peaked at nearly 10% in mid-April before a strong finish to the month signaled a turnaround that continues to the time of this writing. In fact, as of July 7, membership level revenues since March 1 for these stations are actually UP 7.1% year-over year, representing an increase of nearly $2 million.

These increases appear to be coming from both the acquisition of new supporters as well as additional support from existing donors. In fact, gains in Passport-acquired donors, additional gift mail and online donations along with successful on-air campaigns for public television stations have led the pack in not only closing the revenue gap, but putting those stations with July 1 fiscal years on strong financial footing heading into what promises to be an equally, if not a more, turbulent fiscal year.

But with all of this momentum in membership fundraising, major gifts programs across the system are struggling. For the stations we’re monitoring, major gifts revenue saw the same mid-March declines that membership revenues did, but instead of slowing and reversing back into positive territory, those year-over-year decreases have actually accelerated in the area of major gifts.

Since March 1, the monitored stations have seen a 9% decrease in year-over-year major gifts revenue. While it may be easy to ascribe the declines to uncertainty during the early stages of COVID-19 and the upheaval in the stock market, consider this: since May 1, a time when the Dow Jones had clawed back 5,000 points in what would turn out to be the best quarter in the 30 years, major gifts fundraising was off nearly 13% from last year’s revenue.

So what’s going on?

At a time when audiences continue to depend on local public media stations for vital, fact-based journalism, major gifts fundraising should be matching, if not exceeding, the pace of success now happening in membership fundraising. Stations that find themselves in a similar situation as those mentioned above should be taking a hard look internally to make sure they’re staffed appropriately and more importantly, that that their major gifts fundraising strategy has evolved with the state of affairs in the world. Were major gifts staff reassigned, furloughed, or laid off when the world hit the pause button and financial strain hit stations? If so, are they back in the major gifts seat(s)? Was the major gifts fundraising strategy changed in light of the pandemic? Were solicitations put on hold out of consideration for donors or concern over appearing insensitive? If so, have your solicitations resumed?

There are strong indications that this pandemic and the economic upheaval it has caused are far from over. Factor in ballooning deficits at the state and federal level and it appears there is another shoe that is yet to drop. Stations should be fundraising aggressively while the good will, inclination and financial means are still there so you can be as prepared as possible to navigate the potentially choppy waters ahead.

Membership Fundraising is Up, So Why is Major Gifts Fundraising Struggling?