January 2023

January 19, 2023, San Francisco

Agenda

• Review Agenda & Vote

• Vote to approve previous minutes

Discussion Topics

• Committee Updates

  • Events

  • Marketing

  • Fundraising

  • Tech

  • Board Development

  • Music

  • Finance

  • Strategic Plan

• Review Action Items

• 2023 Dashboard

Closing Items

• Open for public comment

• Any other business?

  • Board.bff.fm needs updating- minutes have not been posted since March 2022, Irving needs to be added to board personnel

  • BFF.fm sponsor DOPE Project Narcan training

Minutes

Present:

• Amanda Guest, Chair, Executive Director

• Clair McDevitt, Secretary, Chair of Fundraising Committee

• Brandon Paski, Chair of Marketing Committee

• Ben Ward, Technical Director

Absent:

• Erika Delgado, Events Director

• Caryn Kesler, Vice Chair, Creative Director

• Irving Pham, Treasurer

6:07 pm — Convene, Vote on Agenda & Previous Minutes

Vote YES to approve the November minutes.

Vote YES to adopt the proposed agenda.

6:08 pm— Committee Updates

Events

• Moved monthly band showcase to The Knockout Room and it’s going great. Two shows so far, one in Feb. attendance is higher. Last show went so well that we were invited to a Friday in April.

• The Makeout Room night is now BFF.fm karaoke night.

• Kicked off another year at Casements

• Talking to Teddy about events at the Secret Alley that are more community-based, not so music focused.

• Slow Page St. holiday party/art mart/mug swap

Marketing

• Two solid committee meetings in a row, lots of good ideas.

• Content Day - gathering content from all DJs on Feb. 11. DIfferent stations for DJs to visit to answer a couple questions. Use that content as anchor to get more content out - lead in for newsletter, blog, etc. Committee members will be writing, filming and posting.

• Amanda: met with a new volunteer today - she is definitely interested in the marketing committee. Used to write for a music magazine, has a background in music journalism. She might be interested in helping us get connected to what DJs are doing in their communications. Possibly bring back DJ profiles.

• Possibility for blogs and interviews.

• Caryn is redoing the look of our social media. Working on new visual identity for social for 2023.

• Submitted NoisePop yearly partnership, Brandon will follow up after the festival.

• Working on Live Nation ticket giveaways and UC Theater in Berkeley - ticket giveaways or co-sponsored events.

Fundraising

• 2023 grants tracker: Foundations and Grants for BFF.fm

• Still haven’t heard from Bill Graham Foundation grant. Amanda went to Bill Graham’s birthday party fundraiser and met some people involved with the foundation.

• Amanda: spending a lot of time on underwriting, Peter and I have had several meetings with FItness SF, possible commitment coming. Jill from Die Alone Radio is also interested in helping with underwriting, she’s doing lead generation then passing off to Peter. Amanda will work with Peter on proposal and closing.

Tech

• Last Tech Committee meeting had no attendees.

• Met with Public Media Apps on periodic check in, had banner size upgrades. Have more secure links for sharing for contests. They’re extending the voicemail feature to share video and audio.

• Donation/sponsorship support for open source software (Azurecast specifically, and more generally a plan for being good open source citizens).

  • Want to think more broadly about how we share money with causes we support.

  • Azurecast is a small team funded by people in the community. We pay to license/host other platforms, it would be nice to both support the project and develop a plan for how we support these things.

  • Amanda: I agree but we need to get to a point where we’re fulfilling our budget first. They have a Patreon, $5/month

  • If we were financially secure, I think a great thing to think about would be supporting other orgs that we’re benefitting from, and other orgs that support the music scene. Could tie into purchasing bulk licensing for DJs and other things we discussed at the annual retreat.

• Amanda: want to have conversations with everyone on a committee about establishing high level goals for the year. For tech: working on creating a more attractive event schedule (similar to when we used Do The Bay)- have all events listed and nice to look at; little refresh of homepage, last updated 2015. Working with Codex - has potential to be useful, like to start thinking about it from tech and marketing perspective, how can we get people thinking about this to create something more informative..

  • Ben - the thing that’s been in place since it shipped is the dedicated page for local labels. That exists if somebody wants to prioritize it. That could be a niche to start testing out a mechanism for getting people involved.

Board Development

• Secretary position for 2023 - postponed to March 2023 meeting.

• SF Art Board Match event March 29- event requires sliding scale payment based on budget size. We should participate with at least three board members.

Music - no updates

Finance

• P&L sheet updated until end of year 2022: BFF Transaction Log (2022)

• Amanda will work with Irving to prepare the annual report. (also needs analytics, app downloads, unique web visits, any interested detail about listenership)

• Ben: Can also pull YOY web increase, likely pretty flat. App is new, number of constantly active users is pretty low, highlight would be total downloads. Total number archive listened and estimate of unique listeners and total listening hours.

• Activated Double the Donation, works with GiveButter to prompt a matching gift. Will also search existing donations and prompt people to check for matches.

Strategic Plan

• Had a volunteer for stakeholder interviews, that person hasn’t been reliable, had wanted that portion of the task completed by the end of this month. Going to talk to Taproot about relisting the ad. Will follow up with Lydia to see if she’s still available to do them.

  • Clair will ask a friend and a networking group if anyone is interested in volunteering.

6:59 pm— Review Action Items

• Amanda and Brandon to meet about BFF.fm holiday party - party cancelled

• Clair will sked fundraising committee mtg with Amanda; conversation about separate fundraising advisory board; Parks Alliance and Al and music, etc.

  • Amanda will follow up with Taproot about assistance with fundraising advisory board development

  • Clair and Amanda will follow up with Al in January re: music in GGP.

• Irving add givebutter campaign to DJ dues accounting. Done

• All of us, reach out to people in our networks for end of year fundraising. Done

• Amanda follow up with Sac station - no movement on their part; and Public Press - Amanda talking with them.

• Brandon - proposal for NoisePop partnership. In progress, Brandon follow up after the festival

• Clair - add strat plan section to agenda for upcoming meetings - Done.

• 2023 Dashboard

  • Ratify metrics dashboard - confirm categories for inclusion. Include streaming audience with live event attendees. Talking with the Complex about 2023 events. Not sure the right opportunities are there.

  • Begin filling in metrics on a monthly basis

7:30 — Public Comments

No public comment

7:31 - Other Business

• Board.bff.fm needs updating- minutes have not been posted since March 2022, Irving needs to be added to board personnel. Clair will update and check drafts folder for missing minutes.

• BFF.fm sponsor DOPE Project Narcan training

  • Board approves moving forward, Clair and volunteer Inger will reach out to DOPE Project then follow up with Amanda on next steps.

7:38 — Meeting adjourned.

The next meeting of the BFF.fm board is scheduled for 6pm on March 16, 2023. See https://board.bff.fm for more information.

Action Items

• Brandon reach out to NoisePop after festival is over re: 2023 partnership

• Clair sked fundraising committee meeting, review fundraising dashboard

  • Clair and Amanda will follow up with Al in January re: music in GGP.

• Amanda follow up with Bonnie at BGMF

• Ben set up payment to Azurecast.

• Clair add to agenda for next meeting: Secretary position for 2023

• Ben and Amanda - analytics for annual report

• Amanda and Eddie to meet re: besties bash

• Brandon and Amanda talk about Live 105 material and event/silent auction in the spring

• Amanda: continue planning committee night - start scheduling thread in Board slack.

• Begin filling in metrics on a monthly basis - take to slack channel to sort out who will do what.

• Clair: Board.bff.fm needs updating- minutes have not been posted since March 2022, Irving needs to be added to board personnel

• Amanda: ask Noel about Narcan installer.