Three Things for January 20, 2022
This week: Trends Shaping Philanthropy in 2022. Plus, what's the role of the public radio Program Director in 2022? And UK Broadcasters sign the Climate Content Pledge, Where’s the U.S.?
THING ONE: What’s Ahead for Philanthropy in 2022
It’s still January, meaning we can still soak up some forecasts and predictions for the year ahead without getting too deep into the calendar.
For this thing, we’re going to look at what’s ahead for philanthropy, but if you want an interesting take on media and tech, there’s a lot of good stuff in this new Reuters Institute report about media and tech trends. One stat that crosses over into the world of public media worth paying attention to is that 47% of publishers “worry that subscription models may be pushing journalism towards super-serving richer and more educated audiences and leaving others behind.” This implies that paywalls will keep less affluent readers locked out of important journalism, opening the opportunity for paywall-free journalism (i.e., public media) to fill the gap left open by others.
It might make an excellent case for giving to public media, which takes us back to philanthropy.
In a recent post on the Giving USA website, Jessica Browning1 of the Winkler Group provided nine very thoughtful ideas that she expects to shape the philanthropic landscape in the year ahead.
Nonprofits ride the bull market. Based on predictions from major Wall Street firms, the stock market is expected to continue to climb in 2022 and, since giving highly corresponds to the stock market’s strength, Browning is suggesting a banner year for giving this year.
Endowments remain high priorities for donors. Browning notes that one result of the pandemic is that it’s given an increased sense of responsibility and sustainability to donors. If anything has happened over the past two years, it’s that philanthropists recognize the fragility of the organizations and institutions they support. With the increased awareness in the philanthropic community about the crisis in local news, this continued interest in giving to endowments might be very fruitful for nonprofit news organizations that talk to donors about ensuring a sustainable future for local news in their community.
More nonprofits will commit to campaigns in 2022. This was inevitable, given that so many organizations and institutions postponed campaigns over the past two years. Browning notes that her firm, the Winkler Group, in late 2020 proclaimed 2021 as Year of the Transformational Gift — and 2021 did not disappoint. “We saw more seven-figure gifts made to campaigns in 2021 than during any other year in the Winkler Group’s nearly 20-year history. Given the stock market’s expected growth and the trend towards ever-larger gifts, we expect 2022 to be another landmark year for campaign success.”
A shift to shorter strategic plans. If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s how essential it is for organizations to be agile. One result of this thinking is that many nonprofits adopt strategic plans with shorter timelines. Browing says that there are many benefits to adopting this idea since it “means more opportunities to engage key stakeholders in the plan’s drafting and execution. A shorter span also creates a sense of urgency—and increases the likelihood that the plan will be fully implemented.” For public media organizations, this might be worth additional consideration given how quickly technology and media consumption is changing in our sector.
Don’t expect Congress to pass significant tax legislation. Since this list is about philanthropy, Browning isn’t predicting Congress making any advances in passing permanent legislation to encourage philanthropy through tax breaks. For public media, it’s unlikely any additional funding beyond the annual CPB appropriation will happen this year, including the proposed $300 million infrastructure investment in public media and the Local Journalism Sustainability Act.
We do expect to see the continued erosion of mid-level giving that resulted from the 2017 American Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. By increasing the standard deduction from $6,500 to $12,000 for individual filers ($12,550 in 2021 after being indexed for inflation) and raising the limit on deductions from 50 percent to 60 percent of AGI, the monetary incentive for charitable gifts from all but the wealthiest Americans was eliminated.
The trend of fewer donors and larger gifts continues into 2022. We’re seeing this trend in public radio, and it’s also happening all across the nonprofit sector. Browning notes that this trend is nothing new as this kind of consolidation of giving has been trending in this direction since 2008. She adds that “as fundraising professionals, it’s important for us to make the case for philanthropic growth at all giving levels. The focus on donor retention should be intensified, so lower-level donors have an opportunity to mature into mid-level and then major gift donors. Above all, we must treat donors as investors and continue to demonstrate the impact they make through their charitable gifts.”
Corporate giving is growing more… “complicated.” We should be realistic and recognize that corporate philanthropy extends beyond altruism to goodwill, marketing, and overcoming negative publicity. With that said, Browning expects to see see more corporations align themselves with related organizations addressing diversity and social justice issues continue to grow in momentum. She also suggests that nonprofits build more strategic corporate partnerships by encouraging workplace volunteer programs. However, it’s always a good reminder that most giving in the United States will continue to be from individuals, so a fundraiser’s time will continue to be best spent building relationships with individual donors.
Source: Giving USA 2020 In 2022, there will be a heightened focus on performance ratios. We probably don’t spend enough time thinking about this area within our organizations. In November 2021, ProPublica investigated St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital uncovering a stunning story that only half of what St. Jude raised over the last five years went to research or patient care. Public media leaders and boards may want to keep a close eye on our fundraising and administrative expenses to ensure that we continue to be good stewards of the funds we raise to maintain our integrity.
Browning accurately states that “spending too little on staff and fundraising expenses can be as dangerous as spending too much. Cultivating and stewarding the donor relationships that result in sustainable funding takes resources; good nonprofit executives and fundraisers should be well compensated to retain top talent.”
And the popularity of Donor Advised Funds will continue to change the way we give and who receives our gifts. Last year, the Giving USA Foundation published a Special Report on Donor Advised Funds that analyzed $75 billion in grant dollars from DAFs made to more than 240,000 nonprofits over a recent five-year period. Among the findings was that education received most DAF grants (29%)—more than twice the percentage of total U.S. philanthropic giving to education. In addition, the arts received 9% of DAF giving compared to 4 percent of total giving in Giving USA. Browning suggests that as the percentage of total gifts made from DAFs increases, fundraisers from all sectors must recognize the change in giving patterns. For public media, we need to be prepared to respond to this transformation happening in giving.
With the pandemic still impacting most aspects of our lives, these predictions might be entirely off the mark depending on where COVID takes us in the coming months. But, the ideas provide good food for thought as we look ahead in our fundraising and organizational planning efforts for the year.
Of these nine predictions, which one resonates best with you and your organization?
THING TWO: Is the Job Title “Program Director” Still Relevant in 2022?
Job titles and responsibilities in public media and elsewhere are evolving in new and interesting ways. As a result, organizations seek to define roles better to meet the changing needs of serving audiences, generating revenue, managing finances, and meeting the everchanging needs of talent within the workplace.
Several years ago, Fast Company magazine had an ongoing feature under the headline “Job Titles of the Future.” These ranged from such titles as “Idea Ambassador,” “VP of Happiness,” “Chief Acceleration Officer,” “Director of Bringing in the Cool People,” and “Director of First Impressions.” Some of these are a little over the top, yet many helped define a company’s brand and the organizational culture that a business wished to convey internally and externally.
We’re beginning to see a progression of changing job titles and responsibilities in public radio with the collision of platforms, audience, and revenue resulting in a rethink about aligning our organizations.
One example of this is the role of Chief Audience Officer. Chicago Public Media just made a great hire in that role to lead the organization’s audience development efforts, build and implement a digital audience strategy, and lead the station’s growth marketing and brand-building initiatives.
It’s a big job that intersects across a broad scope of the organization with positions like the Director of Digital Product, the Director of Business Intelligence, the Director of Marketing, and the Managing Director of Programming & Audience all reporting to it.
Another job title that I like, and the responsibilities that go with it, is the Chief Revenue Officer. Twin Cities PBS recently filled this position that will lead the development and implementation of organizational strategies to support TPT’s revenue goals and growth.
I think there’s one job in public radio that may require reinvention. It’s not that it’s not necessary anymore. On the contrary, I think it’s more critical today than ever before. However, it’s a role that we need to redefine because of the changing roles of others around them. And that’s the position of Program Director.
In a recent conversation with a public radio leader in the content and programming area, a notion worth considering is that the public radio PD in 2022 is perhaps better defined in a Radio Product Manager or a Director of Radio Product. This may be particularly true at an organization where you might have a Chief Content Officer and the Chief Audience Officer. The PD sits somewhere in the middle between these two positions.
So what does that mean?
To help better define this role for public radio’s future, I came across a podcast (yes, this reinforces the belief that there is a podcast for everything) featuring Esha Shukla, Product Manager at WhatsApp.
In the podcast, Shukla shares her approach to five solid principles that work as a product manager. From her approach, we can see how this might fit the idea that the public radio Program Director in 2022 should be the Director of Radio Product.
Here are the principles:
Lead with goals, not constraints.
Invest time and understanding into how your product is built. That is the basic technical details.
Start with the problem, not the solution you or someone else wants.
Being opinionated and voicing it is a good thing.
Team morale is an important criterion to consider when weighing trade-offs.
These five principles (particularly number 4) seem to align well with what I’ve seen from the best radio Program Directors. Now I’m no great expert in the granular details of the product manager role, but let’s look at a sample shortlist of job responsibilities and how that aligns with what we’ve traditionally defined for a radio Program Director.
Define the product strategy and roadmap. Translation: Shape the radio/stream programming strategy and the stationality. This responsibility would also include a collaborative approach to work with the revenue and digital teams.
Deliver MRD2s and PRD3s with prioritized features and corresponding justification. Translation: Establish the target audience for the station, how it fits into the competitive environment, and define the unique value proposition of the station within the market. The technical expertise of a PD will also fall into this bullet. There are many more details within this responsibility that would apply to a PD as you dig deeper into the responsibilities.
Work with external third parties to assess partnerships and licensing opportunities. Translation: Work with NPR, PRX, APM, and other content distributors and partners.
Run beta and pilot programs with early-stage products and samples. Translation: This is where I would apply the audience research aspects of a PD.
Be an expert with respect to the competition.
Act as a leader within the company. This, and the bullet above, are, of course, no brainers.
The one huge thing missing from these bullets is the people management aspect of the job that is essential for a Program Director.
For many radio programmers, the people side of things may be one of the biggest challenges in the job, but it’s also the most important. The best PDs know how to coach, develop, and motivate talent. It’s an essential part of the job.
As other positions within the industry evolve, where do you see the public radio Program Director’s role headed in the future?
THING THREE: UK Broadcasters Sign Up for the Climate Content Pledge, Where’s the U.S.?
In the September 30, 2021 edition of Three Things, I shared a summary from a special report by McKinsey and Company that discussed five priorities for the “next normal” from a survey of global executives from last summer.
The top priority that came out of the survey was to Center Strategy on Sustainability based on three areas of focus to make sustainability an organization-wide issue:
Embed sustainability in the company’s strategy-setting process
Shape the portfolio to reflect an integrated strategy
Scale-up sustainable business practices through a full transformation
For a media organization, their content and engagement efforts should be at the forefront, and that’s precisely what several broadcasters in the UK did late last year by committing to use their content to help audiences understand what tackling climate change might mean for them, as well as inspire and inform sustainable choices.
The BBC and 11 other UK broadcasters and streamers have signed the Climate Content Pledge.
The group of a dozen committed to the following principles:
Reach more of their audiences with content that helps everyone understand and navigate the path to net zero, and inspires them to make greener choices
Develop processes that enable them to consider climate themes when commissioning, developing, and producing content
Ensure that the science informs their efforts
Recognize the importance of fair and balanced representations of visions for a sustainable future
Work together:
learning from and inspiring each other
sharing relevant industry and audience insights and developing relevant metrics
improving how they measure their impact
Communicate regularly with colleagues, partners, and audiences so that they can all play a part in meeting this shared challenge
In November, the CEOs of several of these organizations provided additional leadership by participating in a panel at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland.
The CEOs told industry executives that content must reflect the realities of climate change to remain relevant and to continue to appeal to audiences highlighting how broadcasters and filmmakers have a unique role in helping audiences understand the solutions to tackle climate change and the choices to consider on the path to Net Zero, adding that it is the industry’s responsibility to rise to that challenge.
Using this example of leadership, what would it take for public media’s leading organizations -both stations and networks - to step up and make a similar commitment?
The good news is that there seems to be some movement toward increasing coverage of climate change in the past year, according to recent data from the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO), an international, multi-university collaboration based at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The study found that climate change coverage reached an all-time high in October and November last year, coinciding with COP26.
The research also indicated that the language of climate change is also changing, with more intense words and phrases being used in the news to describe the phenomenon, such as “climate catastrophe” and “climate emergency,” according to data collected by MeCCO and language learning platform Babbel from 2006 to 2021.
In the press release announcing the UK broadcasters’ pledge, each company added that they would develop and publish their own “company-specific commitment” and hold themselves accountable for the progress they make against their plans, and challenge themselves and each other to do more.
Public media is uniquely positioned to lead other U.S. broadcasters in this commitment. This is something that we are already committing ourselves to do across the system. Still, it would be great to plant a flag in the ground publicly and challenge other news and media organizations to demonstrate their commitment to saving the planet.
That’s it for this edition of Three Things. Thanks for reading.
Jessica Browning is Principal and Executive Vice President of the Winkler Group, a national capital campaign and strategic planning firm headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina. A former member of the Giving USA Editorial Review Board, Jessica has a B.A. from Duke University and an M.B.A. and M.A. from the College of William & Mary.