KEXP, a public radio station in Seattle, spins cutting-edge rock, punk, hip-hop, metal, electronic music, and more. Its special programming includes deep-dive explorations of Gen X classics like the Beastie Boys album Paul’s Boutique. Its YouTube channel includes exclusive video performances by indie groups like Let’s Eat Grandma and We Were Promised Jetpacks.
Fundraisers often struggle to find time to cultivate donors who want to leave a legacy. Here’s what a public radio station, an aid charity, and an advocacy group are doing to jump-start their efforts.
It’s turning out to be a good place for bequests.
Last year, the station learned that a loyal listener — who asked to be identified publicly only by her first name, Suzanne — left a $10 million bequest to KEXP. It was the largest gift the station had ever received and among the largest bequests ever given to a single public-radio station. The donor had been an on-and-off supporter who reconnected with KEXP during a capital campaign the station started in 2012, says Betsy Troutman, KEXP’s director of development.
In 2015, the donor, who had made a gift to the campaign to build KEXP’s new facility, toured the building, then under construction. Troutman called to thank Suzanne and invited the donor to join her and the station’s executive director for lunch. They discussed the campaign and Suzanne’s long relationship with the station as a supporter and listener. “She was super inspired,” Troutman recalls.
The station announced Suzanne’s gift in April; a KEXP D.J. played a set of songs on air in tribute, starting with Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne.” In the lag between receiving the bequest and announcing it, the organization got schooled in setting up an endowment.
It also got another estate gift.
“We got a $20,000 bequest from someone who had never made a gift to us,” Troutman says. “We didn’t know who she was.”
A ‘Slow Burn’
The experience prompted the station to start a formal planned-giving operation, Troutman says, launching it in tandem with the announcement of Suzanne’s bequest. So far, the Reverb Society, as it calls the club for listeners who have made bequest commitments, has been a big hit.
“Sixteen people have turned in paperwork in the first six months,” Troutman says. “We have another couple dozen who have asked for information.”
The station’s staff is ready to pursue planned gifts when appropriate. “All of our frontline fundraisers have the skills to have these conversations,” Troutman says.
In June, the station scoured its database, flagging every supporter who has given annually for at least 10 years. Of its roughly 19,000 annual donors, about 3,000 are steady, long-term supporters. KEXP, which began life as a college station in the early 1970s, has supporters stretching back decades.
“We did a direct-mail solicitation to those folks,” Troutman says. In addition, KEXP looks to promote the Reverb Society a couple of times a year with on-air spots.
“We’ve been doing kind of minimal marketing,” the fundraiser says. “We look at it as a long, slow burn.”
Unsolicited Calls
Creating the Reverb Society helped the station’s fundraisers cross a long-lingering item off its to-do list, one that kept getting postponed amid more urgent needs.
The bulk of its listeners, Troutman says, range from their mid-30s to their mid-50s.
“You wouldn’t think that people at that age would be considering their estate plan,” she allows. “But we knew anecdotally that a lot of people were putting us in their plans. We would get unsolicited calls from lawyers and estate planners.”
People who listen to KEXP regularly, she says, have proved to be receptive to conversations about planned gifts. “They’re going through a lot of life changes: dealing with their parents passing on, getting married, having children.”
The news of Suzanne’s generosity brought a lot of secret bequest donors out of the woodwork.
“Once we announced Suzanne’s gift, a lot of people came up to me and said, ‘Oh yeah, you’re in our estate plans, too. I just never told you about it.’ "
