Bill Scott
Frankie Morea – WPER Station Manager
I almost feel guilty for passing this along for free. I am joking of course. My goal is to see Christian radio do well in their fundraising.
I’ve been a part of over 600 fundraising events, the vast majority through Share Media Services. I’ve partnered with the PAR Network for the last 20 years. Recently at WPER with the famous Frankie Morea as station manager we had an amazing idea during the fundraiser. We hit the goal and moved on to their special project goal. WPER was beginning to raise money for their new building and studios. We had three hours and needed to raise over $100,000. That doesn’t happen with $10 and $20 a month gifts. I remembered looking at Frankie and saying, “Hey, if you have a new building, can you do the entry way in bricks?” Frankie said yes
Listener finding their brick on The Legacy Wall
and the rest is history. My idea was to have people give so they could have a brick with their name on it. We called this project “The Legacy Wall.”
I love a good fundraising campaign and this was hit. The Legacy Wall caught fire. We simply asked for $1,000 for a family to have a brick with their name on it. The phones were jammed with $1,000 givers. It was the craziest thing I have seen in a long time. Well over $100,000 came in during those three hours. Every six months for the next 18 months, a total of three fundraisers, we used three hours on the last morning to ask people to join us with a $1,000 gift to be apart of The Legacy Wall. WPER raised $367,000 with these bricks.
This last Monday WPER opened their doors for an
WPER new building and studios
open house. Over 500 people came by to see the new station, many wanted to see The Legacy wall. This is a real connection point with listeners who wanted to physically be involved with the new ministry center.
I asked WPER’s Frankie Morea how much this wall cost the radio station, “We have less than $10,000 in the wall.” What a huge return on the stations investment.
My encouragement to you, think about how your fundraising can connect with your listeners. You
Happy is behind the board. Brian Sanders to the left and Frankie Morea to the right.
might be surprised at the level your listeners will step up. It all about touching the heart, when that happens the wallets will open and listeners will invest in your ministry beyond your wildest dreams. You can see the picture of the new building that WPER just moved into. They went from a double wide trailer to over 5,000 square feet that is 100 percent state of the art. No doubt, God gets the glory.
