March 2021
March 18th 2021, San Francisco
Agenda
Opening Items
Review Agenda & Vote
Vote to approve previous minutes
Discussion Topics
Committee Updates
Review Last Month’s Action Items
Tinitivity Brainstorming v2 [All]
Complete Amanda’s 2020 performance review [Caryn]
Scavenger Hunt: Sponsorships, Etc.
Donation matching
Redacted Session
Strategic Planning
Closing Items
Open for public comment
Any other business?
Minutes
Scribe: Ben Ward
Present:
Erika Delgado, Events Director
Amanda Guest, Chair, Executive Director
Caryn Kesler, Creative Director
Jenn Lemon, Treasurer
Ben Ward, Secretary, Technical Director
Absent:
Tom Tierney, Vice Chair
18:13 — Convene, Vote on Agenda & Previous Minutes
Vote YES to approve the February minutes.
Vote YES to adopt the proposed agenda.
18:14 — Committee Updates
Events
March Bestie Bash, went well. Less viewers on Twitch this time around.
We have a new volunteer to help run the event in future.
There will be another in April.
Technologically we ran 3x streams from the same source. We have the capability to do it to others (e.g. Twitter, Instagram Live.)
We didn’t get any significant viewership on YT/Facebook, but there are engagement and activity benefits to keep streaming there all the same.
Events meeting next week.
Tech
Creek update soon that should help make the codebase more accessible to other’s contributions.
Getting Involved Page ready to start development, pending volunteer.
No update on Analytics Infrastructure this month.
Video infrastructure is impoving well (see above.)
Board Development
Made a job posting on LinkedIn for a development director
Actively looking for someone with a fundraising and development background to join the board.
Marketing
No update this month.
Fundraising
Marisa launched a t-shirt campaign — our March tinitivity. So far today we’ve made $200. Campaign for that will last ~a week.
We’ve moved over to a new platform called Bonfire (from Teespring). It has a nice upsell purchase flow where people are able to buy
No tinitivity for April, but for May there will be a Roll Over Easy mug
Amanda has found a product that will allow us to better integrate Corporate Matching into our donation flow.
Music
No update this month.
18:29 — Reviewing Last Month’s Action Items
Tinitivities
Eddie’s idea was to set up Marisa which is already running! Ben’s idea for a “donator appreciate page” on the website might be too big for a tinitivity (again), but could be a cool thing to add to a future fundraiser.
Q: What’s the cadence for theses?
A: The goal is to do one per month, and stagger them. Some are transactional (e.g. selling a tee, mug), others are mission driven/emotive (e.g. a fundraiser for a birthday) — we’d like to have a 2:1 ration of emotional:transactional each quarter. We don’t want to have a totally transactional relationship with our listeners.
Jen: The emotional kind of fundraiser is the sort that should get people engaged over and over rather than a one-off purchase.
We would still like to figure out a tinitivity for April. We do want to get more people involved in coming up with the ideas, but would like to have more examples to point to before we do that.
2020 Review
Caryn: We’re ready to share the report with Amanda, will set up a meeting with Tom and Amanda to do that.
Next step after this is to set 2021 goals at the board level.
18:32 — Scavenger Hunt: Sponsorships, Etc.
Amanda has put together a deck pitching the Scavenger Hunt to potential sponsors. Have set out 5 sponsorship levels based on some best practice advice, with an expensive top level to co-brand the event with us while covering the entire budget.
Working with a graphic designer who might collaborate on collateral for the event (e.g. maps), who is also reaching out to potential sponsors.
Working with Clair to approach initial possible sponsors. Clair working on less formal version of the pitch letter that will be distributed to DJs for wider community to use for outreach. We want to complete “warm touch” sponsor outreach by the end of April, so we can call it early whether to go ahead if we don’t get the sponsorship we need. Have been advised that we should have a 6 month lead time before the event to gather funds from corp sponsors.
19:11 — Even Bester Frequencies
Sometime in 2022 — possibly 2021 — the FCC will be taking new applications for LPFM frequencies.
The application window will be announced by the FCC, 1–2 weeks long. During which time we can apply for a spot on the spectrum. From the information available, there is a frequency available in the vicinity of Ocean Beach. Right now, there are no frequencies available in the Mission/Downtown area at this time, but we’ve been advised by engineers that this is fluid.
After applying, if we’re the only applicant we’re automatically accepted. If there are others running, there’s a 30 day window to file a petition to deny the competing applicant. Ultimately, a points system determines who wins: By our self assessment we already have 5 points (maximum score.) In the event of a tie, a time-sharing agreement can be negotiated between the competitors, to combine for a maximum 15 points.
If, after all that, we would then be given a permit to construct a radio tower within 3 years. That requires working with an engineer. It’s recommended to start working with an engineer early, and we have contact with three potential people. In turn, one of those is extremely well regarded and significantly boost our chances of success.
The earliest we would be on air would be 2025/2026. So, discussions over how this might change how we do things don’t need to come to a head any time soon (e.g. not broadcasting profanity; but we also don’t have to broadcast exactly what we broadcast on BFF.fm — and depending on the sharing arrangement, might not even be able to do that.)
Further benefits:
“Be a real radio station”, for those who care about that.
Reduced licensing fees as we’d be a non-commercial educational broadcast.
Q: Are there any major competitors already known?
A: Not that we know of. Q: How much does this cost?
A: Filing/engineer fee can be in range of $1500–$3500 to apply, can be fees for scouting to find a location, but we’ve been able to get some pro-bono assistance with that already.
Costs around finding/putting a tower in San Francisco is more amorphous. e.g. Putting something on Sutro Tower is ~$2500/month. Other times you can get a transmitter on a cell tower. Dublab in LA has a transmitter on a hill in someone’s backyard.
There’s then some ongoing costs to maintain filings with the FCC and hardware maintenance with the engineer.
Start-up fees for actually getting on the air are really hard to estimate without specifics of transmitter location and so on, but maybe in $25k–$50k range to get on the air? We’ll need to plan for growing the scale of our fundraising accordingly.
If we get a signal, it opens us up to further coverage via repeaters around the city. That’s in ~100k-territory.
Amanda: Of the mind that this is worth pursuing, and not the end of the world if it doesn’t work out.
Jen: Getting a better cost estimate would be good, but that leads to making a multi-year financial plan
Ben: Given how open ended this is, no reason not to explore it. Obviously requires a step up the rungs in terms of financial operation, but that’s not misaligned with the existing plan. We do already have one big multi-year goal to get our own studio space that also requires significant financial stepping up. Is there any danger to pursuing both?
Amanda: No — in fact, I think they could inform each other (e.g. looking for a studio space in the same part of town as our signal, acquiring a building that we could put a transmitter on top of, etc.)
19:53 — Strategic Planning
In 2019 we did a 3 year strategic plan. The fundraising aspect of that has fallen very short (e.g. this year was planned to raise $250,000). We should consider how to get realigned. Maybe “pretend 2020 didn’t happen”, or otherwise revisit the plan and extend it beyond the original window and do the next full scale strategic planning in 2022.
Means we can focus on meeting our core mission and making up the fundraising shortfall.
19:53 — Public Comments
No public comments this month.
20:08 — Any other business?
Ben’s new glasses look good. He has aged and now has to have a dedicated computer prescription.
20:09 — Meeting adjourned.
The next meeting of the BFF.fm board is scheduled for 6pm on April 15th 2021. See https://board.bff.fm for more information.
Action Items
All:
Action Item: Include “Review the Strategic Plan” in next month’s agenda — everyone should review it beforehand.
Contact Amanda if you have sponsorship ideas for the scavenger hunt
Continue to think of Tinitivities.
Last updated