CAB Meeting Approved Minutes May 2020

Community Advisory Board Meeting Tuesday, May 12 12:00 – 1:30 PM Zoom Meeting during Quarantine 220 E. Parkcenter Blvd, Room 700, Boise ID 83702 Board Members in Attendance: Julie Adams DeFord Susan Bechdel Tyson Chaplin Shelley McEuen Chris Bragg Paul Ries Jeremy Woodson Laura Bond Tom Jans

Laurie Ahern Mark Wheeler Andy Huang Teresa Yragui Bob Otten Kendal Shaber Bill Vasconcellos David Lombardi Dennis Hall

Board Members Not in Attendance: Jen Martinez Leon Smith Staff in Attendance: Tom Michael, General Manager Bethany Taylor, Membership Larry Newton, Underwriting

Chelan Lippincott, Major Gifts Valerie Hadley, Office Manager

Kristin Jackson, Membership Paul Stribling, Programming

Call to Order: Laurie Ahern called the meeting to order at 12:05 pm.

Approval of the Previous Minutes: Review, discussion, and approval of CAB minutes from March 10, 2020 meeting (Laurie Ahern). Changes: Approved by Dennis with second by Julie.

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Committee Reports Executive Committee (David Lombardi): Met on April 27 to discuss upcoming issues. Zoom meeting and agenda for this meeting.

Governing Committee (David Lombardi): Wrote report about proposed amendment to bylaws for conflict of interest issues. Bylaw change will be out 14 days before next meeting for review and approval.

Nominating Committee (Teresa Yragui): Two meetings discussed about nominating members. A couple of people will be ending their terms, Paul Ries and David Lombardi. Need replacements for them and for student members. Will need to figure out a way to find potential candidates, since events won’t be happening like before. Also, the need to keep CAB members engaged.

Fundraising Committee (Kendal Shaber): Committee meetings.

Spoke about the one-day drive and incredible response from donors, more than $200k. Kendal recognized hard work on the fundraiser. Andy asked about the ratings during changing times. Paul S explained that next ratings book will be released late summer, following on the heels of a successful Fall book for the station.

Advocacy Committee (Julie Adams DeFord): Susan shared that several events have been cancelled and probably more in the future. Brainstorming on events, but also wait and see. Susan had a question about whether “Another Round” is happening. Bethany explained that live events won’t be happening, but she is working for online engagement; Susan requested to be informed so committee can help. Advocacy kit has talking points about benefits, swag, listener donors. Also, highlighted conflict of interest issues.

Paul R added that it would be good to list coverage areas in talking points and frequency numbers.

Bethany will add that to kit. Might add bookmarks or other give-away item. Laurie A explained that NPR used to have a state-by-state booklet with public radio frequencies. Bill V also suggested we considering adding the Sirius station information as well.

Programming Committee (Any Huang): Andy will be leaving most to Paul S and Tom, but the committee will reconvene around new initiatives.

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Station Report (Tom Michael) Seems like 2 months ago was a lifetime ago. Changes have been evident for managing and keeping in touch with other managers remotely. The pandemic cuts back on random touch points with other employees. The station decided to go all live-and -ocal when the Governor or Mayor or President held a press conference. Early decision to expand live local coverage. Also strategic and lucky that we had public affairs program (Idaho Matters) and that reporter Rachel Cohen was so close to Blaine County when it became a hot spot for COVID-19. It was important that we stepped into the role as a civic leader in this times. Regrets might be that we weren’t 100% all-in with digital platforms, for example, we didn’t have stand-alone app and we didn’t have a great handle on web-streaming analytics and not a lot of digital advertising, but we are currently working on those initiatices. Moved quickly to add staff, which was Troy Oppie as FT from PT with a university waiver. Also onboarded the new Business Manager. Congrats to News for receiving 4 awards for Regional Murrow: breaking news, sports, multi-media and podcast (Locked).

Kristin went over PPT with spring drive of $202,133 and 336 new member. Missed our projected number for amount of donors but was close. New Sustainers was 178. More one-time donation was the focus.

News beat out classical for gifts. Went over source and average gifts. Web gifts are going up and staying up. More than phone or email. Average was higher. Made change to give web address before # and web has gone up.

Laurie asked to clarify time frames: so it was a 10 day span but most new members came in the day of the drive, not before during pre-drive. Donations came from Boise area, Meridian, Ketchum, Sun Valley and then went down from there in terms of geography. Laurie appreciated how it was broken out by area. David asked about increase in Twin Falls, but Kristin said they haven’t seen it yet but hopefully soon due to one year of Rachel reporting from there.

Our station with Greater Public benchmarks is almost at the 90 th percentile, when rated against other stations.

Dennis said the one-day Drive was great and Kendal asked Chelan and Kristin why it was so successful.

Kristin said they changed their messaging and focused on “right now” didn’t do testimonials and didn’t do long breaks. News team really helped with making it easy to focus. Chelan said they made all new scripts and it became very reflective on the current moments and issues. Kendal mentioned how important it is to recognize the fundraisers at being very adept and agile at doing such a great job and executed it beautifully. Used triple match very strategically, noting 6-10 am there was $89K raised.

Dennis mentioned emotional level of morning pitching level was great. Tom thanked everyone and was so listeners were tuned in and helped us achieve our goal.

Larry Newton spoke about the challenges of underwriting during this pandemic. Contrasting with membership fundraising, UW is very hard hit and many vendors are closed, or events are cancelled.

Significant impact on UW. Down approximately 40% from last year in 4 th qtr of fiscal year. The year won’t be that much off, but it will be down a bit for year, and still hard to take hit. Focusing on what’s the right thing to do for UW vendor per UW. Cancelled a lot of scripts and changed schedules.

Transitioning at this point to what’s next? Sent out package to UW that might include a BOGO for UW to reach new people, or UW that have lapsed. We want to help with non-profits. Trying to figure out what real numbers will be for next year with realistic but challenging goals. Currently working on Sun Valley 3 CAB May 12, 2020

arts and crafts and we are currently working as if it is happening. Working on Fall events as well. Trying to focus on UW that can continue but trying to figure out where they are and when/if they’ll be coming back. Team is maintaining contacts and continuing with relationships. It’s great because they see the positives you did. While it’s stressful, they will remember it and it makes the future more important to be in front of everyone. Kendal asked if the fee schedule will be reduced and Larry said we probably will need to but BOGO will help as well. Commercial radio is very upfront about reducing prices but we try not to do that but we will exercise flexibility. Still working on background things to bring business back but it will be a slow process. Bill Vasconcellos complimented Larry on responsiveness and fine tuning ideas of underwriters.

Tom will conclude with station financial PPT. We have a new Sr. Business Manager who hasn’t been to the station much because of the quarantine. Percentages have been similar to last year. We will be limping across the finish line of FY20 with internal station efforts but FY21 might be rough. Examining national financials as to how other NPR stations are doing, he took a look at last recession and it helped to look at period 2007-2010 and university stations were least affected. Membership grew and helped offset that with major gifts during that recession. Expenses were cut but not in fundraising or content.

We’ve had changes like furloughs that effected most FT staff. Contracts aren’t being renewed. State funding is a concern, Football revenue might not be received and other sports. HR has been helpful to discuss questions and issues. Kendal asked if there are ideas on how station could be helpful to university at this time. Tom said we are working on our role as news leader and on digital growth.

Mark explained how the station reflects lifelong learning and encouraging community engagement.

We are going to be in financial limbo this year, but we don’t know how much yet. Extended studies will be expanding to meet university needs.

Tom noted that when Governor Little wanted to speak about the phases of reopening, he went to two outlets. AARP and IPTV. He also has been a somewhat regular guest at Idaho Matters. Paul R. Spoke about community engagement and underwriters and donors. He spoke about how economically this comes from BSPR. Teresa asked if everyone received survey for NPR to talk about listening habits during Covid-19.

Old Business / New Business / Good of the Order Teresa had been very impressed by stations remote capabilities and how well they’ve done and kept everything moving forward during this. Tom spoke about the technologies that we’ve been able to use and been able to do a great job of even using “telephone tape” The breaks might be challenging, with some disruptions, but it’s been minimized. Engineering has still been making trips and working on transmitter sites. Andy mentioned that WWDTM is struggling without its usual live audience.

New app will be coming up for a soft launch, hopefully by late May, but working on getting it going ASAP. Paul S spoke about how well Gemma did on America Amplified show. Wanted to get Amanda Peacher children’s montage shared with the group. We received a lot of great feedback. The show was very seamless. Kendal requested some talking points about how station is doing to go out to people

with questions. Suggested not going out on their own, but having some talking points to refer to when asked. Tom agrees, but would be happy to work with Kendal on that.

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Laurie explained that if there are any opportunities for CAB to let them know what they can do to be helpful to station. Laura just reminds friends to donate in order to help health of the station.

Larry also reminded that StoryCorps is working on pivoting to virtual recording experience with two speakers and StoryCorps facilitator. Working on that and continuing through May 29 th. Link on our website or at StoryCorps at Boise and Kristin will be sending out link in newsletter tomorrow. First time doing a virtual signature.

Laurie complimented the staff at being creative and done a good job. How important it has been and applaud the staff and leadership. CAB is available to help station and not going anywhere.

Ended meeting at 1:25 pm Reminder of remaining 2020 CAB meeting dates: May 12, Jul 14, Sep 8, Nov 10

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