Help Us Improve the KBCS Website!

A group of students from the University of Washington is partnering with us to work on redesigning the KBCS website to make it more user-friendly and accessible.  Please take a few minutes to complete this brief survey.

KBCS blossoms additional programs!

Spring brings with it fresh beginnings, and KBCS is thrilled to introducing a few new series of educational and cultural programs chosen to inform, educate, and offer a more structured forum for a debate of the prominent issues and topics of the day. 

Series One: began a few weeks ago adding programs to the 12 noon to 1pm schedule:

Mondays – Philosophy Talk, a program that challenges listeners to identify and question their assumptions and to think about things in new ways. 

Tuesday – The Commonwealth Club of California. For over 90 years, one of the largest and oldest public affairs forums in America, presenting distinguished speakers sharing their experiences and ideas in a nonpartisan forum that strives to bring more balanced viewpoints and a serious commitment to “stick to the facts.” 

Wednesday – The City Arts & Lectures Series, features leading figures in the world of arts and ideas in literature, criticism, science, and the performing arts. 

Thursday – Open to Debate, seeks to restore balance to the public square through expert moderation, good-faith arguments, and reasoned analysis on topics of science, technology, politics, culture, and global affairs. 

Fridays – rounds off the week with Travel with Rick Steves.  A cultural program hosted by Pacific Northwest’s Rick Steves, featuring great conversations with special guests and travel experts. 

Series Two: this week KBCS set 7am programs with a repositioning and reinvigorating these programs: 

Monday – Alternative Radio – established in 1986, this award-winning weekly one-hour public affairs program provides information, analyses, and views that are frequently ignored or distorted in corporate media. Hosted by David Barsamian.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday – Hard Knock Radio – a drive-time Hip-Hop talk show produced in the Bay Area hosted by Davey D and Anita Johnson.

Friday – Yes! presents: Rising Up with Sonali – a weekly program, broadcasting an antidote to the doom and gloom of mainstream news, lifting up solutions that bring us closer to economic, racial, gender, and environmental justice.  Hosted by Sonali Kolhatkar.

 

Series Three: NEXT WEEK April 22nd – KBCS updates and introduces new programs for 5am and 4am!

Check this blog next week for the update! 

Thanks again for all of your support and involvement bringing KBCS into our world, sharing these programs and so much more with others in our community.   You can make a financial contribution at our DONATE page!  Thank you again for 50 years of listener supported community radio.

 

Questions and comments please send an email to: listenercomment@kbcs.fm 

Thank you again and take care.

Sincerely,  Gregory D’Elia – KBCS Operations & Traffic Manager and Assistant Program Director

Message From the GM – April 2024

Embracing Sustainability: A Necessity in Managing Successful Noncommercial Educational Radio

Dana Lee Buckingham, General Manager KBCS Radio

Dear KBCS Listeners and Listener Supporters,

As I mentioned in my newsletter last month, the ability to adapt and embrace change is not just beneficial—it is essential for nonprofit radio stations like KBCS. The need to embrace change is also true when it comes to sustainability. Having worked for both commercial and noncommercial radio stations for many years, along with my work as a corporate operations specialist for a Fortune 500 company, I am very cognizant of the need to be adaptable, innovative, and resilient to change in a competitive and ever evolving marketplace. And that holds true regardless of whether the business model is a commercial or noncommercial business.

As the General Manager of a large market noncommercial educational radio station, the relentless pursuit of funding is always a top priority for me and crucial to our station’s long-term survivability. Traditional nonprofit radio fundraising initiatives are based primarily on free-will donations from our listeners, grant funding, and business underwriting. Donations from our listeners and supporters are by far the largest source of operating funds for KBCS. However, among the many challenges our donors face today, inflation, high gas prices, and high-interest rates all place an added burden on our traditional station fundraising. A large segment of our core KBCS audience is represented by the working class and retirees who live on a fixed income and many of them are especially impacted by the uncertain economy and a polarized political divide.

Pursuing new fundraising and revenue stream initiatives is often frustrating with our limited resources and our complicated reporting and budgeting infrastructure. However, it is essential that we continue to manage all our operations for continuous improvement to better serve our listeners, and the college, and to further our commitment to greater diversity and a relentless pursuit of excellence in all that we do. That is why new sustainability initiatives are so important to our success. What follows are updates on our current and planned sustainability goals and initiatives at KBCS that I want to share with you.

Launch new broadcast revenue streams aimed at serving a different audience demographic than our flagship KBCS-FM-HD1: Our new World News Radio KBCS HD2 on-air broadcast and online stream features the worlds most trusted news source, the award-winning BBC World Service, in a live satellite feed from London as the base programming. This all news and public affairs stream also features programs of independent broadcast journalism from respected news sources from across the country and around the world. During the weekday evenings listeners can sit back, relax, and enjoy the nations and the world’s leading symphony and chamber music ensembles weekly broadcast series. Our World News Radio KBCS program stream also features the acclaimed LA Theater Works on Sunday evenings, a program featuring contemporary stage and screen actors performing impactful radio dramas including new radio plays as well as new versions of the old-time classics in radio drama and new original radio drama adaptations of great literature. This program is designed to reach a completely different audience base of potential new donors to KBCS. Recently our World News Radio KBCS HD2 broadcast stream launched a new website featuring a live program stream online at www.worldnewsradiokbcs.com.

• We are also making plans to launch another alternative revenue stream that we are calling Bulldog Radio KBCS HD3. This broadcast stream will seek partnerships on campus that focus exclusively on Bellevue College events and may include live campus-based debates, a visiting speakers’ series, special guest lecturers on campus, live broadcasts of college athletics and other college related events and community outreach initiatives.

These new broadcast streams will require targeted and unique fundraising initiatives and marketing campaigns with separate donation pages, unique branding and logo designs and focused donor premiums and merchandise offerings.

Digital Fundraising Opportunities: We must explore new ways of capitalizing on digital fundraising technology through peer-to-peer fundraising, new online donation platforms, and expanded social media fundraising opportunities. We will be hiring a new full-time “Director of Broadcast Automation and Digital Media Technology” who will provide leadership and technical expertise in expanding our digital fundraising footprint and more fully integrating our station automation to achieve greater operating efficiencies resulting in significant cost savings.

Major Gifts ad Planned Giving Initiatives:  We will be exploring new and proven strategies for securing major gifts and planned giving commitments from individual donors through donor prospecting, cultivation mixers, and a legacy giving program through our existing KBCS Future Fund Endowment

Financial Sustainability: In addition to adopting a new budgeting process, our efforts will be directed at better cash flow forecasting through an expanded emphasis on our monthly sustainer giving program.

Corporate Partnerships: Many corporations are open to corporate partnerships with strategic nonprofit partners. These partnerships can lead to mutually beneficial relationships and related marketing opportunities.

Increased Marketing Initiatives: Effective Marketing strategies are critical to the success of nonprofits like KBCS. These marketing strategies help identify potential new supporters and the great programming offerings that KBCS has to offer. People cannot support our cause if they do not know that we exist. An effective marketing strategy includes increased awareness, clear objectives, a comprehensive content strategy including social media, digital advertising, blog posts, as well as videos, compelling infographics, and more structured, personalized, relatable, and focused email campaigns.

Sustainability initiatives for nonprofits like KBCS, are essential for our future growth and development. For over fifty years, KBCS has served Bellevue College and our community with an eclectic mix of programming that informs, educates, and entertains. As a large market college radio station with a community radio programming format, we provide the rare opportunity for local citizens and not just professional broadcasters to produce and host their own radio programs across the greater Puget Sound.

This is true democracy in action and is only possible when we all work together despite our individual differences to order to achieve a greater good. KBCS is a shared cultural tradition here in the Pacific Northwest that features diverse programming serving a very culturally diverse audience. We see our mission as celebrating our differences. The more we all know about the station, the stronger our village becomes. Please join with me and the many thousands of listeners that support KBCS with a regular monthly sustaining donation to the station. You can set up your monthly donation online anytime at kbcs.fm.

Again, thank you for your moral and financial support for Community Radio KBCS. Help us spread the word and feel free to reach out to me with any comments, concerns, or questions that you may have at dana@kbcs.fm.

 

Dana Lee Buckingham

KBCS General Manager and Executive News Producer of World News Radio KBCS HD2

Message from the GM – March 2024

Dear KBCS Listeners and Listener Supporters

In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, the ability to adapt and embrace change is not just beneficial—it is essential. As we navigate through these dynamic and tumultuous times, it is crucial to recognize that change is not merely a disruption but rather seizing an opportunity for sustained growth and innovation.

Here are a few reasons why embracing change is necessary in the workplace:

1. Stay Competitive and True to our Mission: Nonprofit, educational radio stations are evolving, driven, in large part, by rapid technological advancements and changing times. College radio stations like KBCS must be willing to adapt to new strategies and best practices made possible by advanced technology to further our educational commitment and stay true to our college’s community outreach mission.
2. Foster Innovation: Change encourages creativity and innovation. By embracing innovative ideas and novel approaches to broadcasting, we create an environment where innovation can thrive while increasing our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by building the opportunity for a remote workplace infrastructure with fewer physical barriers to participation.
3. Enhance Sustainability: Change is inevitable, and radio stations like KBCS that can adapt quickly are better equipped to weather challenges and uncertainties. By fostering a pro-growth and innovative culture that embraces change, we cultivate resilience and agility, enabling us to overcome obstacles and emerge stronger than before.
4. Cultivate Learning and Development: Embracing change requires continuous learning and development. It encourages our staff, students, and community volunteers to acquire new skills, expand their knowledge base, and embrace lifelong learning. This not only benefits individuals but also strengthens the organization as a whole.
5. Increase our Operating Efficiencies: Staying abreast of new advances in automation and other time-saving broadcast software and hardware allows us to do more with less while providing a greater work-life balance for our small paid professional staff. Increased efficiencies mean that we can spend more time instructing and training more students and community volunteers. As we embark on the next phase of this critical journey of growth and transformation, our goal is to embrace change as an opportunity to innovate, evolve, and provide a model of greater inclusion. Let us embrace change not as a challenge, but as a catalyst for progress and expanding our educational outreach to our listeners and supporters across the greater Puget Sound and online everywhere.

Remember, technological change is not something to fear—it is something to embrace.

Best regards,

Dana Lee Buckingham
KBCS General Manager and Executive News Producer of World News Radio KBCS HD2
Heard online at www.worldnewsradiokbcs.com

Interfaith Environmental Advocacy

The Women’s Liberation Movement in Seattle

The Seattle area has a particularly distinctive feminist history. Dr. Barbara Winslow, Professor emerita at Brooklyn College, Founder of the Shirley Chisholm Project and author of Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change came out with the book Revolutionary Feminists: The Women’s Liberation Movement in Seattle last year. She describes why Seattle’s feminist activism is unique and highlights some key moments, including a story Fannie Lou Hamer shared in Seattle about her own experience with reproductive rights.

Producer: Yuko Kodama

Photo: Portion of book cover – Revolutionary Feminists: The Women’s Liberation Movement in Seattle

Vashon Green School

Here’s a highlight of Vashon Green School, a K-5 school, founded by educator, activist, photojournalist and farmer, Dana Schuerholz on Vashon Island’s seedbees farm.  

Producer: Yuko Kodama

Photos: Yuko Kodama

 

Astra – A Tree Facing Removal by Development

Gratitude Gatherings are held for trees facing removal in the face of new housing.  They’ve been an event in Seattle neighborhoods since Luma, a Western Red Cedar, was first honored and ultimately protected in the summer of 2023.

A gathering was held recently for another Cedar, named Astra, whose fate still hangs in the balance. Tree advocates want to see decisions about trees on residential properties taken out of the hands of the Department of Construction and Inspection and moved into a new city Department of Climate and the Environment.

Producer: Martha Baskin with help from Daniel Guenther at Jackstraw Productions

Photos: Martha Baskin 

11th Annual Farmworkers Tribunal

Community to Community Development and Familias Unidas por la Justicia organized 120 farmworkers to speak at the 11th annual Farmworkers Tribunal in Olympia on January 23rd. In this event, farmworkers shared their personal work experiences with legislators and their staff. Listen in on an excerpt from the Farmworker Tribunal and about some of the bills many farmworkers in these organizations supported.

For more from the Farmworkers Tribunal and to listen to other topics concerning farmworkers in Washington state, you can check out the podcast and radio show, Community Voz on KMRE.

Producer: Yuko Kodama (Special thanks to Sofia Garcia, Elias Lopez and Liz Darrow for permission to broadcast excerpts of the Farmworkers Tribunal) 

Photo: Community to Community Development

 

Poor People’s Campaign – Washington State

Reverend Dr. Kelle Brown, Senior Pastor of Seattle Plymouth United Church of Christ and faith tri-chair of the Washington Poor People’s Campaign discusses the history and spirit of the Poor People’s Campaign with KBCS’s Yuko Kodama.

The Washington State Poor People’s Campaign March to Stay Alive will be Saturday, March 2, 2024 at the State Capitol in Olympia at noon.  They recommend an RSVP and to view their Covenant of Nonviolence.