RADIOTHON MANUAL First Things First:

RADIOTHON MANUAL First Things First: 1. Select Dates o Successful Radiothons happen every time of the year, look for a time where COF members and station personnel are not over obligated and can dedicate an appropriate amount of time to the project. 2. Number of Days o Select number of days for an effective Radiothon, suggesting it is 1-3 days long. It is desirable to send the message that the radio station cares about kids. 3. Hours o Weekday hours usually run from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and weekend hours from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Keep the momentum up by running montages/liners over night. 4. Primary Location o Select a highly visible location such as a mall or retail location. The phone bank should be as close to the on-air talent as possible. 5. Change Angels o Included in this manual is a section on Change Angels. This program generates funds and awareness but it does require pre-planning, so make the decision as soon as possible on whether to do it or not. 6. Training and Support o The ACH staff is always here to assist the stations and the COF members. 1

Planning: 1. Telephones o You will need to decide how your Radiothon will get and use telephones. Many cellular phones can be donated for use or you can run land lines and use a centralized number (recommended option). o If you have a land line, try to keep the call in number as simple as possible. Many people will be calling in from a cell phone during drivetime. 2. Chairs, Tables, & Trash Cans o Determine the number of tables and chairs needed for air staff, volunteers and observers. Also have plenty of trash cans and scheduled pick ups, especially if you are serving snacks. 3. Banner o Display your COF banner at the event, next to the station s banner. 4. Volunteers o Volunteers are primarily needed to answer listener s calls; if your Radiothon includes call outs, they are great to make this happen. Encourage volunteers to obtain credit card information for method of payment, when possible. o Phone bank shifts should run from two to four hours. Depending on your Radiothon, the most important times to be fully staffed are during drive times, usually 7:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. o A volunteer should be tallying donations hour-by-hour. This person also plays a critical role during power hours. It is their responsibility to keep on-air folks up to the minute on how many more pledges are needed to hit their goal. o If you have someone come to the Radiothon that has a really compelling story, have a volunteer do a mini-interview with them to get the history, direction and key points that would be shared with your on-air talent; this allows the talent to get to the heart of the story. o Depending on the size of the event, volunteers can be used to help stuff pledge forms. A quick mail-out is critical to an improved pledge fulfillment. o If you decide to have a collection box at your Radiothon, have a volunteer oversee it to ensure the security of the donations and assist with any walk-up pledges. 5. Flip Charts/Erase Boards 2

o A flip chart should be positioned so that it is easily visible to the talent. This chart should be kept to tally power hours and miracle makers. This also makes for a great place to display the telephone numbers and quick facts about ACH. 6. Food and Drink o The care and feeding of staff and volunteers make for a happier group. 7. Break Room and Training Space o Try to find a space to train your volunteers before they answer phones to ensure they are totally prepared. Also try to find a nice place for the talent and those volunteers that are there all day to get away and relax for a couple of minutes. 8. Contact List o Prepare a list of all the phone numbers of key people that you may need or want to contact during the Radiothon. 9. Daily Hospital Information o Have your ACH Liaison lined up so that he/she can give you each morning the number of patients in each key area of the hospital. I.E: the number of surgeries, the weight of the smallest baby, number of E.R visits, etc. 10. Security o If you will be accepting or transferring large sums of money, you may want to consider the assistance of a security guard. 11. Pictures o Arrange to have pictures taken at your event! Some pictures that might be really nice to have are: i. The on-air talent with a live-interviewed patient ii. Phone bank volunteers iii. Banners hanging iv. Change Angels v. COF team members vi. Final Check presentation 3

Sample Phone Script & Volunteer Instructions: Answering the Phone: o Please answer the phone, Hello. This is Mary Doe. Thank you for calling the Arkansas Children s Hospital Radiothon. May I take your pledge? Filling Out the Pledge Form: o Please print CLEARLY! If the pledge form is not filled out completely, or if we cannot read it, the pledge doesn t count! o Please do not fill out the forms while they are stacked. The ink may go through to the other forms. o The entire address must be on all three copies of the pledge form. Pledge forms will be mailed to all donors. Please check to make sure that the address shows on all of the copies. o Repeat information to the caller name, address, phone number and method of payment. Always double check credit card numbers! Remember to get an expiration date if the donor is paying by credit card. o Callers may make a variety of pledges. Fill out the amount of the pledge in the space provided. o Please make sure you get a phone number. o Say THANK YOU! Credit Cards: o VISA, MasterCard, Discover and American Express accepted. o Please inform the caller their pledge will show up on their next statement. A letter will be sent to them for tax purposes. o Don t forget to double check credit card numbers and expiration dates! Special Pledges: o If a challenge is made, please write the information on a piece of paper and hand it to a COF member. o If a business is making a pledge, please get a contact name. o Please note on the form if a special request is being made in honor, in memory, etc. o If you see someone make a pledge in person, please make sure a pledge form is filled out. Mark PAID. 4

Sponsorship Opportunities: Creating the opportunities Pre-Radiothon Months before the Radiothon, the radio station and COF members should brainstorm together regarding different types of Sponsorships. Here are some ideas for you to start: Change Angel Local Presenting Hourly Matching Sponsors Phone Bank Cell Phone 5

Change Angels: 1. Promotion o Promotion is key to this part of the Radiothon. You want to start far enough in advance to get kits out and give them time to collect but not so far that people receive the materials and forget. Three to four weeks works best. 2. How to Promote o The success of the Change Angels relies on the station promoting participation on-air. It is the person at the front desk, not the owner of the company that decides to get involved. The most successful promotion is live appeals and spots. Sign up should be concentrated in two morning shows or in a one day push and should be executed like power hours. 3. How to sign up o Have options, and keep it simple. Let them sign up by calling or faxing their information. 4. Sponsorship o This can be part of a larger sponsorship package or it may be stand alone. 5. Order materials o You should give your Angels something to gather the change. They should receive a letter explaining the promotion and the how to. If at all possible, give them stickers to hand out or flyers to post. They should also get a sheet to turn in with their money that signifies how much they have collected. 7. Schools o This is a great way to get into your school system. Have a competition among different classes or schools. 8. Angel Celebration o Thank your angels with a celebration event. This can also serve as the drop off for the Angels change. 6

Day of Event: 1. Identify your Quarterback o It s finally game day! Decide a volunteer to be the support for the on-air talent. o Below are some key things that the Quarterback needs to stay focused on during the duration of the Radiothon: Prepare any interviews Help the phone bank volunteers Organize power hours. Help talent set a goal - aim high! 2. Talking Points/Price List o Talent should have easy access to ACH facts and figures o There is a price list in this manual 3. Miracle Makers o Have talent push Miracle Makers. This is a monthly giving club that asks for $15 a month with NO END DATE. This must be credit card or direct withdrawal to qualify. We do not invoice for Miracle Makers. o The talent needs to ASK for this! Incorporate this into the power hours. You get what you ask for! 4. Power Hours o Power hours create a sense of urgency by setting a goal for the hour. During these hours, announce you need X amount of Miracle Makers or a dollar amount you hope to reach. o You want to do these during drive time when the most listeners will hear. 5. Music o The music you play is crucial. You do not want to abandon the stations format during the Radiothon, but you do want to focus on what type of music during the Radiothon. You can kill the mood if you follow an emotional moment with the wrong song. 7

Processing Pledges: The whole success of your event falls on the proper handling of pledges. Everything from the actual completion of the pledge form to the mailing and follow-up after the event are critical factors to making or breaking your event. Here you will find a complete description of the pledge process. It is very important that you train your volunteers thoroughly regarding how to record pledged gifts. Once they get the gift, correctly following through the pledge process is what actually gets that gift in the bank. Here are some guidelines to follow: o Make sure your volunteers are making their ask in an appropriate manner. A script is included in this guide. o Once the pledge is made, make sure your volunteers are recording the information on the pledge form properly. First, have them ask how they would like their pledge form to read. This is important. (Mr. Adams is making a gift on behalf of his business, Adams Motors, yet he sends in his payment on his personal check bearing the name John Adams. In the Foundation office, we will not necessarily know to match this gift to this pledge.) They must record the donor s name, address, phone number, gift amount, event identification, the date and their name or initials. The pledge is meaningless if we have no volunteers certifying with their name or initials that the pledge is valid. o Now that the pledge is recorded, it will be tabulated. It will be gathered and taken to a separate area where another volunteer (likely a COF member) will tabulate the gift to keep a record of the event s total. o Once tabulated, the pledge forms will be processed for mailing. The forms, which are triplicate copies, will be separated and processed accordingly. (Unless they are for $100 or more.) The white or top copy will be checked for complete legibility. Then, it will be placed in a window envelope along with a pledge stuffer and a reply envelope. Be sure to put the envelope flaps down when grouping the finished pledges so they can be mailed. It might be helpful to make an Excel Spreadsheet of the UNDER $100 pledges; but WE STILL NEED THE HARD COPY. o All $100 or more pledges will need to be separated, BUT the other copies will be grouped to be sent back to the Foundation office. Here, they will be booked into our system and we will mail reminders until they have been paid or written off. o After the event, a report will be generated by the Foundation office that will list all pledges that have been paid since the event. We will forward this list to the chapter. At this point, the chapter will compare the list to their stack of yellow and pink pledge forms and remove pledge forms for those pledges listed as paid on the 8

Foundation report. All remaining yellow pledge forms will then be mailed out as pledge reminders. Think of this as a second notice that the pledge is still outstanding. 9

Miracle Makers Information: What can you do with $.75 a day? You could buy a soda, a snack or even a pack of gum. Or, you could help make miracles happen for a sick or injured child. Arkansas Children s Hospital announces a new way to make a difference for the children we serve - monthly giving through Miracle Makers! Miracles Makers commit to a monthly donation to Arkansas Children s Hospital through on-going credit card or debit card payments, or electronic funds transfers from a checking or savings account. You choose the amount you want to pledge. You may cancel your monthly gift at any time by simply notifying us in writing. Must donate a minimum of $15 per month to qualify as a Miracle Maker. As a Miracle Maker, you will receive: Monthly communications from the hospital by mail or email, including patient profiles featuring children being helped by your contributions and Miracle Makers postcards with short patient stories, hospital news and happenings. Our goal is to keep you connected with the hospital and our special patients. Issues of the ACHiever, our informative magazine, by mail or email, whichever you prefer. A tax letter acknowledging your cumulative annual contribution, mailed in January of each year. The knowledge that you are playing an important part in life-saving treatment for sick kids. 10

Do s and Don ts: Do s Keep the focus on the children Give the telephone numbers slowly and OFTEN Use Power Hours Put listeners who have just made a pledge on air to discuss why Ask for specific amounts of money Play montages Be prepared Don ts Beg for money Auction off anything on air Talk about how much has been raised at any point (except Power Hours) Have too many phone numbers Allow the event to be only sad Be afraid of silence! It is sometimes the most powerful time! 11

Media Exposure and Promotion of the Event: It is always a good idea to publicize your event before it happens. When the DJs ask their listeners to call in, think of how much better received they will be if their listeners already know about the event and its purpose. Plus, it will act as additional PR for your chapter, and may cause others who would like to get involved to do so. It might even rustle up a few new members for you. Remember, every time you show your community a good thing you are doing in support of Arkansas Children's Hospital, you gain a better image to your neighbors. You can ask the station to begin running liners about the event up to a month out. Their DJs could mention throughout the month that the event is coming up and to tune in during those days. 12