Station Resource Group

Strengthen member institutions:strengthening program services for member institutions comprises audience services, digital transformation, journalism, and improving organizational cultures. In 2023, srg helped stations form strategies to accelerate the transformation from legacy broadcast stations to becoming multi-platform/multi-product community digital media institutions. Srg also focused on strategies for improving organizational cultures to help member institutions be more reflective of the communities they serve. Srg compiled local audience research into a meta-analysis of national audience trends and produced two significant reports on the opportunities to increase services to our communities while also identifying knowledge gaps that will require future research. Srg continued to map public media's strength in local journalism and how its members might improve their performance in this area. Throughout 2023, srg also focused on how local music stations might also improve services to their communities. Finally, srg launched a significant overhaul of the services on its websites.

Convene a compelling strategic planning retreat:srg's annual retreat creates a critical opportunity for public media's most forward-looking and progressive leaders to come together in an environment that is simultaneously supportive and challenging to address the most important opportunities and challenges facing our communities. In 2023, srg convened its largest every strategic planning retreat in nashville, Tennessee, and focused on strategies for making the transition from legacy broadcast stations to digital multi-platform community media institutions; presentations on the audience research meta-analyses srg had conducted; strategies for building more inclusive and effective organizational cultures; strategies and tactics for strengthening the quality of local public service journalism and arts programming; and strategies and tactics for members to increase the amount of major philanthropic funding they receive to support these initiatives.

Increase philanthropic support for member institutions:increasing philanthropic support for member institutions comprises srg working closely with its members to identify opportunities for major gifts (i.e., greater that $10,000) that will support ongoing activities or new initiatives at the local stations. Srg works with its members to create compelling cases for such philanthropic support and to secure major gifts that ensure a margin of excellence in their public service. In 2023, srg added this program to its core services for its members and increased the amount of work it is doing with the consultant margaret hunt--one of the premier fundraisers in all of public media--to provide strategic and tactical advice in identifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding major gifts for its members.

Srg's advocating for its members' interests includes srg working with members to identify their shared interests, and then advocating for those interests so that members can fulfill their potential. Srg's member institutions have common interests across a range of operational, regulatory, and legislative concerns. In 2023, srg continued to monitor and advocate for members' interests regarding legislation, regulation, and their relations with relevant networks, vendors, and funders by organizing and coordinating collaborative efforts that achieve impacts beyond the capability of any single institution. More specifically, in 2023, srg devoted significantly more time to advocating for its members' interests where the distribution of funds from the corporation for public broadcasting is concerned and with respect to npr's forays into direct audience fundraising.