Today’s guest is Mary Dunaway, Director of Development for the public radio station KPLU. Last fall it was revealed that KPLU faced an existential threat: the announced sale of its transmitters to another public radio and the layoff of its staff. A “friends” group was able to negotiate a chance for the station to “buy itself.” But they had a huge target ($7,000,000) and a short deadline (six months). How does a nonprofit, even one with the fundraising history and ability of a public radio station, go about raising such a large sum of money so quickly? Mary shares the story—even the nitty gritty numbers—of how the KPLU community rallied to save their station.

Mary Dunaway started at KPLU as a student caller when she was a student at Pacific Lutheran University. She continued to work her way up at KPLU, tackling first the annual fund, then major gifts, and eventually she became Director of Development.

SaveKPLU.org