The Member Services Bureau, or MSB, is a centralized service designed to help your station drive more net revenue through economies of scale. And we do it all while keeping donor relationships at the heart of our work. We allow you to do the same by freeing your station from the need to focus on day-to-day retention and growth in membership- and mid-level donors' revenue, opening you up to focus on the high-touch activities that most need your attention, such as development strategy, community engagement, local programming and major donor development. 

We recognize joining such a program is by no means an insignificant decision. As such, we’ve compiled some data below to help you better understand our goals and what we have achieved. 

Grow Total Membership Revenue

In Fiscal Year 2023, the average MSB station increased membership revenue 3.6%, raising just over $156 million compared with an average decrease of 0.1% among non-MSB stations found in the National Reference File. The National Reference File, or NRF, is a comprehensive database of donors and giving representing over 200 public media radio, TV and joint stations from across the United States. Here it offers a benchmark against which to compare our MSB stations. This is the third consecutive year  MSB has exceeded that benchmark. 

Boost Major Donor Fundraising

One of the tenets of the MSB value proposition is that, once in the Bureau, station staff are allowed the bandwidth to focus on high-touch fundraising.  There is no greater example of this than major donor fundraising.  During a three-year period when increased competition to attract major donors has intensified, MSB stations have outperformed the benchmark every year. Additionally, average annual giving among major donors increased from $2,660 in FY2021 to $2,935 in FY2023, a 10.3% increase that outpaced the national benchmark where average annual giving increased 3.3% ($2,671 in FY2021 to $2,758 in FY2023).

LEVERAGE ON-DEMAND/PASSPORT FUNDRAISING

Among 63 stations in the NRF group, Passport revenue accounted for 4.5% of total revenue compared to 9.9% for the MSB stations in our cohort. Passport revenue at the NRF stations showed an average 4.3% increase in FY2023 vs FY2022 while stations in the MSB cohort reported a much more robust increase of 30.4% on average. MSB stations increased the number of members who stream by 22.2% in FY2023 compared to a 15.4% average growth among the NRF stations. 

INCREASE SUSTAINING MEMBERS 

MSB has consistently outperformed the NRF cohort in increasing both the number of sustaining members and the overall revenue from sustainers. Our cohort of stations has outperformed the benchmark for sustaining member and sustainer revenue growth in each of the past five fiscal years. Much of this growth has been fueled by the MSB’s relentless efforts to bring new members in as sustainers and convert existing one-time donors to sustainers. Today, the average percent of MSB station membership revenue coming from sustainers is at a record level of 37.1% compared to 26.8% just five years ago. 

OPTIMIZE WEB FUNDRAISING (WEB, WEB PLEDGE, PASSPORT) 

For MSB stations, digital fundraising is an area of distinction. In each of the last four fiscal years, MSB stations have consistently raised more membership revenue via esols and the web. Nearly 15% of membership revenue (gifts under $1,000) arrives either through response to an esol or directly from the web.  Additionally, revenue retention from first year web-acquired donors has grown to an average 84% across MSB stations compared to 78.2% among stations in the NRF.