Presentation from Breakout Session: WBUR’s BizLab is an innovation lab identifying and testing new revenue streams for public media. With funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Knight Foundation, we collaborate with public radio stations across the country on testing new ways of raising funds. In this session, WAMU’s DCist team, Louisville Public Media’s do502.com events team, and WBUR’s podcast team will share their learnings from user-centered experiments designed to convert their largely passive communities into active donors. We will break down each experiment into the questions they were designed to answer, get the audience to guess the outcomes, and then provide a recipe for how to replicate the success at a variety of nonprofit news organizations

4. ● “Homepage of D.C.”
○ Zeitgeist-y
○ Knowledgeable friend
● All local all the time
○ ~12 posts a day
● News + Art+ Food + Curiosities

6. ● 2004: Launched
● March 2017: Gothamist purchased by DNAinfo
● November 2017: Shut down
● February 2018: Purchased by WAMU
○ May: Launched Kickstarter
● June 2018: Restarted publication
● January 2019: Began work on membership program

8. ● Digital local news landscape + pub media
○ Subscription, donation, membership
○ WAMU vs. DCist
● Elements
EVENTS EDITORIAL
COLLABORATION
MEMBERS ONLY
COMMUNICATION
SWAG

9. ● survey data
● in-person focus groups
● traffic analysis

10. ● Audience: 1,449 people
○ Kickstarter backers + online donors + survey respondents
● Timeline: May-August
● Approach: Three email campaigns over three months, testing
different conversion methods.

12. SUSTAINING vs.
ONE TIME +
SUSTAINING
Is there benefit to only accepting sustaining (monthly) gifts to
be considered a member, or are we limiting our fundraising
potential?

13. Pro Con
● Easier to only have one type of
donor
● Don’t need to worry about
renewals
● Feels more like a “membership”
● Can still take one-time donations
as non-members
● Missed revenue (?)
● It usually takes 2+ one time gifts
before people become sustainers
● Some people don’t want to be
sustainers
● Makes membership less
accessible

16. SUSTAINING vs.
ONE TIME +
SUSTAINING
Hypothesis: Maddie believes that accepting both one time and
sustaining gifts will have a significantly higher conversion rate.
Rachel believes that accepting sustaining only will only have a
slightly lower conversion rate, and the value of long-term
sustainers will outweigh the difference.

17. Gift Type Total Amount raised Average gift
Sustainers 116 $13,284.00 $114.52
One-Time 12 $817.00 $68.08

18. Email #1 Email #2 Email #3
Email A
Sustainin
g Only
Email B
One time +
Sustaining
Email A
Sustaining
Only
Email B
One time +
Sustaining
Email A
Sustaining
Only
Email B
One time +
Sustaining
One time
gifts
- 4 - 3 - 3
One-time $ - $258 - $204 - $290
Sustaining
gifts
38 36 17 10 5 8
Sustaining $ $4,236 $4,296 $2,268 $1,056 $480 $792
Sent to 700 711 655 667 624 637
Opens 62% (435) 65% (463) 51% (333) 55% (367) 32% (202) 32% (205)
Click through 18% 20% 8.2% 20% 3% 4%
Total Dollars
Raised
$4,236 $4,554 $2,268 $1,260 $480 $1,082

19. SUSTAINING vs.
ONE TIME +
SUSTAINING
EVENT INVITE
vs. GENERAL
PERKS
IMPACT OF
THANK YOU
GIFTS
Does offering DCist swag on the donation form lead to more
conversions or higher levels selected?
Hypothesis: Offering DCist swag at the $12/m and $25/m
levels will lead to greater conversions and higher levels
selected.
We’re interested to see at what percentage premiums are
selected, and if it is more or less than WAMU donors (35%)

20. SUSTAINING vs.
ONE TIME +
SUSTAINING
Does offering tickets to an exclusive event lead to
membership conversion?
Hypothesis: Yes.
EVENT INVITE
vs. GENERAL
PERKS
EVENT INVITE
vs. GENERAL
PERKS

21. Total audience (1449)
SUSTAINING vs.
ONE TIME +
SUSTAINING
SUSTAINING
ONLY
SWAG
REGULAR
APPEAL
NO SWAG
EVENTS APPEAL
- NEW MEMBERS
- NEW MEMBERS

23. ● Limiting our pool
● What we didn’t decide to test
○ membership experiences
○ social conversion tactics
● DCist vs. WAMU messaging

24. ● Rachel Sadon, editor in chief: rsadon@wamu.org
● Maddie Poore, membership manager: mpoore@wamu.org

25. SUSTAINING vs.
ONE TIME +
SUSTAINING
IMPACT OF
THANK YOU
GIFTS
EVENT INVITE
vs. GENERAL
PERKS