Friday Poll: What Special Ad Plans Do You Offer to Non-Profits?

    • 993 posts
    February 15, 2018 11:49 PM PST

    Rightly or wrongly, non-profit organizations are usually assumed to have less money available to invest in advertising than for-profit enterprises.

    Does your station offer special matching, grants, or other programs to assist non-profits in getting the word out about their activities and role in the community?

    Look forward to hearing about what you do for the non-profits in your market.

    • 2 posts
    February 16, 2018 7:09 AM PST

    In that most non-profit (501 c 3) organizations attempt to get airtime for free, determine first IF the organization has an advertising budget.

    Don't allow them spend dollars in other media and expect radio to run PSAs.  If they purchase advertising, we provide a half price or 2 for 1 deal for spot

    announcements and Entertainment Calendar listings.  Select Sponsorships such as PBP sports are excluded.

    • 9 posts
    February 16, 2018 8:51 AM PST

    We do buy 1 get 1 free for non-profits. 

    • 993 posts
    February 16, 2018 8:57 AM PST

    "What is your advertising budget for this?" 

    If they're spending money on, say, newspaper advertising because they know that Smudgy doesn't give away space, why would any station feel compelled to give away a free schedule? As Steve points out, his station has a generous discount or bonus plan to make their money go further.

    In our case, we offer a baseline match of one free spot for every two paid spots, but at times a more generous match is provided.

    We also air a daily Community Calendar, in which upcoming events are listed. It may be only a few seconds of exposure per event, depending on demand, but it's also totally free.

    Note: no station is obligated to give away commercials to fulfill its FCC requirements.

    Our local newspaper prints full pages and special sections of non-profit advertising EVERY WEEK, listing at the bottom all the businesses that pay fifty bucks a month or whatever to show their support; and there may be fifty to a hundred businesses participating in this support. Why can't radio do this?

    If the work of the non-profit is important to the community, there's nothing wrong with soliciting support from local businesses -- especially those that don't normally advertise because they have nothing to sell in the local market. These businesses want to be seen as good citizens and community supporters, and often respond to invitations to provide financial support for a non-profit advertising campaign, tagged "...this message provided in the community interest by __________________."

     

     


    This post was edited by Rod Schwartz at February 16, 2018 8:59 AM PST
    • 14 posts
    February 16, 2018 10:49 AM PST

    I offer a standard discounted NFP spot rate 6a-10p.  But still some NFP manage to sneak in the back door and get themselves on-air for free interviews etc.  This makes things a little more complicated because then some pay and some don't have to.  Stressful.  

    • 1373 posts
    February 16, 2018 11:26 AM PST

    From Lisa Kirkman: "We offer a 100% match for bona fide non-profits. A few have snuck through as friends of a rep who turned out to not be 501(c)3 but it's pretty rare. I saw a note above about someone who makes sure the non-profit isn't spending budget elsewhere and that didn't occur to me I guess because we're a small, close-knit market. We make that offer readily available. We run Community Buzz liners on press releases even if they don't buy from us. We also host a big health event and frequently have to go find sponsors for our non-profit buddies to attend. Somewhere along the line, that discount extended to the state agencies, and I'm winding that down over time."

    • 1373 posts
    February 16, 2018 11:33 AM PST

    From Robert L. Hunnicutt III on the RSC Facebook page: We give a good price and match their buy 1 for 1.

    • 84 posts
    February 17, 2018 12:17 PM PST

    We do a 100% match for non-profits for whatever they buy. We love to help!!

    We just started a LOCAL HERO campaign, where a BUSINESS buys ads for their company and we run a 25% bonus schedule for their favorite non-profit (sponsored by their business) and it's a way for them to sound like a HERO.

    I'm Mike Jones from Jones Dental, but I'm not here to talk about teeth today. I'd like to invite you to join me at the Optimist Charity Auction next Saturday. This is an organization I've been a part of for a decade. It's a great way to help the community we live in and we're always looking for new members. Join me next Saturday to help raise money for a good cause. If you'd like to know more, you can even reach out to me at Jones Dental and I'd love to have you join me as a guest for our regular weekly Optimist meeting sometime. We're at 5th & Main in downtown Springfield.

    The idea here is to allow the client tell the story of THEIR favorite non-profit. They're buying ads.... why not give them some extra ROS ads to help the charity they like. It may even attract some NEW clients to your station.

  • February 22, 2018 7:20 AM PST

    We have a dream grant program but many non-profits won't do the paperwork. We have been talking about creating a more structured plan for non-profits with guidelines like if the posters, banners, and ads have been printed/run we can't do a complete sponsorship trade. If other media has been used and they have no results and they are coming to radio to "fix it" then we will do a 1:3 run ratio with sponsorship credit. Being in a small rural market community involvement is critical.