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Broadcaster Discussion Group

Theme 5.1 – Financial Resources for Rural Radio in Africa

January 10, 2005

By H. Hambly Odame, UoG, 2005

If possible, print this email and keep it in a file as Session 1 of your Dgroup#5 Learning Material.

1. Introduction from the Dgroup Facilitator

Welcome! I am Helen Hambly Odame, a professor in Rural Extension Studies at the University of Guelph in Canada. I am a Farm Radio International Board Member and since 1986 I have often helped the Network as a writer and reviewer of radio scripts. I have conducted training in the area of fundraising for African and Canadian organizations for the past 7 years. I draw on my past experience as a donor with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). I have also helped agencies like CTA (the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU) to set up special competitive funds like GENARDIS to sponsor work on information and communication for rural development.

It is my pleasure for the next 2 weeks to invite you to enter a "virtual classroom" for rural radio broadcasters in Africa.

Our focus is the topic of "Fundraising for Rural Radio in Africa". I am going to use the principles of "experiential learning" to organize these sessions. If you are not familiar with this teaching technique, we have posted a brief paper that explains what it is on the Farm Radio International website (adapted from ISNAR, 2002). However, I will now start this "class" by summarizing what "experiential learning" involves:

  1. Helping a Learner Share Their Own Experience and Learn from Others' Experiences: The experience stage is structured to enable learners to "do" something. "Doing" includes a range of activities for the on-line environment, such as listening to a lecture, participating in a case study or completing an exercise.
  2. Helping Learners to Process New Information: In this stage, learners reflect on the activity undertaken during the experience stage. They share their reactions in a structured way with other members of the group. They discuss their reactions to the activities in which they have engaged. The teacher (which we refer to as the facilitator) helps the learners to think critically about their experience and move toward conclusions.
  3. Helping Learners to Generalize: In the generalization stage, the learners form conclusions and generalizations that might be derived from, or stimulated by, the first two phases. The facilitator must help the learners think critically to draw conclusions that might apply generally or theoretically to "real life." This stage is best symbolized by the following questions: "What did you learn from all this?" and "What more general meaning does this have for you?"
  4. Helping the Learners Apply What they have Learned: After learners have formed some generalizations, the facilitator must guide the learners into the application stage. Learners can begin to incorporate what they have learned into their lives by developing plans for more effective behavior in the future. Learners can form plans for action, comment on each other's action plans and identify additional learning needs. The facilitator assists during this process by providing feedback and helping learners to be as specific as possible.

Session 1 : Financial Resources for Rural Radio in Africa

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this lesson you should be able to:

  1. Identify types of resources in any kind of rural radio station
  2. Identify the role of donors for supporting new projects
  3. Discuss fundraising techniques

FACILITATOR:

Think about the kinds of things you use to operate a radio station in rural Africa. These are called resources and they can be broken down further as:

  1. Human Resources
    - staff, paid or unpaid (volunteers)
  2. Physical Resources
    - premises, material and equipment
  3. Information Resources
    - stored information, even in staff member's brains!
  4. Financial Resources
    - cash flow or the money on hand, savings in a bank account or committed funds set aside to pay regular operating costs (e.g. electricity bills)

Financial resources may be needed in order to obtain human, physical and information resources. Some resources appear to be "free" or "gifts" but they may end up costing the station some money.

LEARNER:

Think about your radio station. Can you think of examples of all these different kind of resources? What resources seem to be "free" but in fact can end up costing your station money? Write down these examples on a piece of paper so you don't forget them. We will come back to this point again.

FACILITATOR:

Where do financial resources come from in a rural radio station? Here are some of my observations:

  1. Organize a fundraising activity through appeals to radio listeners - this is often called a "listener campaign"
  2. Subscriber fees / membership in a "fan club" for the radio station
  3. Sell radio announcements or seek sponsors for radio programs
  4. Charge government or non-governmental organizations minimum fees for promoting their activities / events
  5. Organize promotions and local shows
  6. Write proposals to donors for special one-time funding

LEARNER:

Think about your radio station. Are there sources that you have that are not on this list? Write them down. Be prepared to share these ideas with other learners at the end of this lesson.

FACILITATOR:

Here are three cases of what some radio stations in Africa do to generate new resources.

  1. MegaFM / Radio Freedom, Gulu, Uganda

    Many northern Ugandans from the Gulu area live abroad in countries like the USA and England. MegaFM has proposed the idea of selling "postcards" to these people from the local area who want to send messages to their families in Gulu and support the community radio station. These "friends of Radio Freedom Gulu" in the USA or England buy postcards at a set price, write their ostcards and send them into MegaFM where the messages are read on the air. Local listeners of MegaFM hear news from friends and relatives living far away and the station gains from the sponsorship.

  2. Garden City Radio, Kumasi, Ghana

    Garden City broadcasts mainly in the city of Kumasi where there are many youth without jobs and access to credit to start their own small businesses. Some years ago, in partnership with the Ghana Cooperative Credit Union which encourages savings and loans, Garden City Radio started a "fan club credit program" which encourages young people to save even small amounts of money and qualify for loans. The station has benefited by getting youth involved in fundraising campaigns and some of the youth also volunteer at the station.

  3. "Women's Radio" in Chad

    A radio station in southern Chad partnered with a national women's magazine. The magazine editor proposed that together they organize a contest to raise awareness about the importance of women's health and nutrition including HIV/AIDS. Their idea was to produce several stories/scripts on women's health. The stories were printed in the magazine and scripts broadcast on the radio in local language. At the end of each program there was an announcement for a contest that would seek out the best traditional and nutritional food recipe from the region. The magazine contacted sponsors from the food industry and they provided financial support to programs featured in the magazine and radio broadcasts and prizes for the winners of the contest.

LEARNER:

Which of these cases do you like best? Why? Are there similar ideas that you have tried? Write these ideas down. Be prepared to share these ideas with other learners at the end of this lesson.

FACILITATOR:

We are now going to think a little more about WHO gives money to rural radio stations. These individuals are usually organizations and they are known as "donors". Here are some examples of different kinds of donors:

Not every rural radio station receives funds from the sources mentioned above. For instance some community radio stations have set a strict policy not to take money from the government and certain private sector businesses. Many rural radio stations do seek funding from international donor agencies and non-governmental organizations.

Why might a rural radio station seek donor funding?

Usually it is the second point above that motivates rural radio stations to seek donor funding. The station has many ideas on special programs they would like to develop but no funds to do so.

In order to appeal to a donor, you need to do two things:

Here are some examples of the areas that international donors and non-governmental organizations are often interested in supporting work at the community level.

In funding rural radio stations, what are the interests of community level donors:

FINAL EXERCISE

(tp process and generalize)

Think about your radio station. Reflect on the information provided in this session by the facilitator.

Please send your answers to the 4 questions below to the discussion group farmradio@dgroups.org

  1. List the five main costs in your radio station.
  2. List the five main sources of funding in your radio station.
  3. Have you ever raised funds from donors? (yes / no )
  4. If yes, can you briefly share your experience and explain why it was a positive or negative experience? If no, what has prevented you from raising funds from donors?

Thanks for your participation in this session! Everyone in the Dgroup is looking forward to hearing about your experiences in fundraising.

In the next learning session we will focus on the topic of How to Write a Concept Note (a brief written proposal that explains your special project and includes a budget) and you will receive both successful and unsuccessful examples of concept notes.