Pledge-O-Rama Is Back!

Since return­ing to Win­nipeg’s air­waves in 1998, UMFM has been pro­vid­ing a diverse range of music, talk and spe­cial­ty pro­gram­ming to our fair city and it’s sur­round­ing areas. As with any orga­ni­za­tion, we have changed and evolved over the years but at its core, UMFM strives dai­ly to uphold a man­date to our lis­ten­ers, bene­fac­tors and of course our vol­un­teers to pro­vide them with a forum for for pre­sent­ing music and voic­es that oth­er­wise go unheard.

Since 1998, our oper­at­ing bud­get has con­sist­ed most­ly of stu­dent fees and ad rev­enue. While a lot has changed in 25 years, our fund­ing from the stu­dent fees has stayed pret­ty sta­t­ic, ad rev­enue has decreased con­sid­er­ably, and the cost of run­ning a com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion has steadi­ly con­tin­ued to rise. While we con­stant­ly explore alter­na­tive rev­enue streams that allow us to main­tain our dai­ly oper­a­tion costs and under­take nec­es­sary larg­er cap­i­tal projects that allow us to grow for the future, we rely on the funds raised dur­ing Pledge-O-Rama to help us make our goals a reality.

After a pan­dem­ic induced break in our fundrais­ing efforts, Pledge-O-Rama is back and we’re hope­ful that once again it brings us all a lit­tle clos­er to this great com­mu­ni­ty that we know and love so much! Pledge-O-Rama 2024 runs from April 19^th, start­ing at 6:30 PM (start­ing with Thank God It’s Free Range) and ends on April 26^th at 8 PM, cul­mi­nat­ing with Thank God It’s Free Range, where it all began a week earlier!

As men­tioned above, this year’s fundrais­ing efforts mark the first Pledge-O-Rama since the fall of 2019! We all know that in the world shut down in 2020 in so many ways, and that fall we made the very hard choice to hit pause on our annu­al fundrais­ing efforts, and more impor­tant­ly why we are back in full effect now. 

Here’s the three major rea­sons why:

• While we cer­tain­ly need the fund­ing that we raise dur­ing the Pledge each year to keep doing amaz­ing things at UMFM, the staff and vol­un­teers over­whelm­ing did­n’t feel that it was appro­pri­ate to ask our com­mu­ni­ty for mon­ey dur­ing a time when many were strug­gling — we know that the pan­dem­ic lead to a lot of hard­ship for many. So many of you faced loss of all kinds and we did­n’t want to com­pound that in any way. The pan­dem­ic forced us to run our oper­a­tions in a very skele­tal fash­ion, which allowed us to keep some of our nor­mal costs down — it just did­n’t feel right to ask you for mon­ey dur­ing a time when there was­n’t a lot of mon­ey to go around.

• For us, Pledge-O-Rama has always been about our vol­un­teers com­ing togeth­er in a major way to work towards a com­mon goal. While we were pro­gram­ming from home, many of us strug­gled to cre­ate new con­tent each week. Some of us ran ​“clas­sic” rebroad­casts for almost two and half years. While we did intro­duce some new pro­gram­ming and new hosts to our air­waves, not much was being done in per­son and that proved to be pret­ty stifling.

• In many ways, the return of Pledge-O-Rama in April is the per­fect end­ing to what’s been a pret­ty amaz­ing year for UMFM! Not only did the sta­tion cel­e­brate 25 years (!!!) on your FM dial back in Sep­tem­ber, but in many ways this year has been a real return to nor­mal­cy for our oper­a­tions. Things on cam­pus have felt very dif­fer­ent and we’ve been able to go full speed ahead for all of our oper­a­tions — we’ve trained and added a whole new group of amaz­ing hosts and vol­un­teers to our radio fam­i­ly and we feel that this some­thing that needs to be celebrated!
  

Plain­ly stat­ed, dur­ing Pledge-O-Rama 2024, our goal is to raise is $28,000. Start­ing at 6:30PM on April 19^th and run­ning through to 8PM on April 26^th, our hard­work­ing show hosts and vol­un­teers will be hit­ting the air­waves and tak­ing your calls in in an effort to reach our goal. $28,000 isn’t an arbi­trary num­ber to us, it rep­re­sents rough­ly 15% of our oper­at­ing bud­get goes a long way in assist­ing with the day to day main­te­nance and oper­a­tion of UMFM. After Pledge-O-Rama kicks off, we’ll be answer­ing those phones dai­ly from 6AM until 3AM. How­ev­er, if you miss dur­ing our prime pledge hours, you can just leave us a mes­sage at 204−474−6610 or drop us a line at pledge@​umfm.​com and one of our Smooth Phone Oper­a­tors will get back to you ASAP! Or if you want to come down to the sta­tion dur­ing Pledge-O-Rama to pledge your sup­port in per­son, we’d love to see you. 

Obvi­ous­ly no dona­tion is too small or too large, we’re grate­ful for all of your sup­port. Our aim is to make pledg­ing to UMFM as pain free a process as pos­si­ble, so we’re offer­ing you a num­ber of dif­fer­ent pay­ment options and pay­ment plans to pay your pledge. Your Pledges can be made over the phone (204−474−6610), in per­son (Room 310, Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­tre) or online. You can pay in one lump sum, or you can choose to pay month­ly, quar­ter­ly, semi-annu­al­ly or in what­ev­er oth­er con­fig­u­ra­tion that works for you, it’s just that easy. Pledges may be paid by in per­son at UMFM Head­quar­ters, Room 310 Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­tre, Mon­day through Fri­day from 10AM until 5:30PM. We’re hap­py to accept the fol­low­ing forms of payment:

• Cash
• Cheque or Mon­ey Order **(Made Payable To ​“UMSU Endow­ment Fund” if request­ing a tax receipt; write ​“For Dona­tion to UMFM in Memo Field”)**
• E‑Transfer (email pledge@​umfm.​com for all the details)
  
• Visa or MasterCard
• Pre-Autho­rized Cred­it Card Pay­ments based on your pre­ferred schedule
• Pay­pal

Please note that we can only accept in per­son pay­ments dur­ing reg­u­lar office hours, 10 am to 5:30 pm, Mon­day thru Fri­day. If you want to ensure that we can accom­mo­date you, you can always phone ahead at 204−474−7027!

• UMFM broad­casts a wide array of amaz­ing music — from indie rock to jazz, funk to folk, loud to hip-hop and every­thing in between! We dis­trib­ute a wide assort­ment of sounds, both known and unknown to our loy­al lis­ten­ers on a dai­ly basis, offer­ing a tru­ly ​‘hit-free’ alter­na­tive to reg­u­lar ter­res­tri­al radio in our com­mu­ni­ty, with a major focus on local artists and events.

• UMFM pro­duces, and syn­di­cates, some tru­ly thought-pro­vok­ing spo­ken pro­gram­ming each and every day! We strive to pro­vide our lis­ten­ers with the knowl­edge that they need to have mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions, make informed deci­sions, and expe­ri­ence new per­spec­tives that help them con­nect with oth­er folks liv­ing here in this great com­mu­ni­ty and beyond.

• UMFM has always done its best to sup­port the arts in Win­nipeg and its sur­round­ing area. From spon­sor­ing this city’s amaz­ing music and arts fes­ti­vals, to help­ing local bands in each facet of pro­mo­tion, to pro­vid­ing free list­ings on our web­site for every­thing from book launch­es and art exhibits to film screen­ings and per­for­mance show­cas­es of all kinds, UMFM has been a strong pres­ence in Winnipeg’s music and arts scene since its incep­tion in 1998.

• UMFM boasts a state-of-the-art record­ing and pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty that has record­ed some amaz­ing ses­sions. Our live band room has giv­en the sta­tion the rare abil­i­ty to sup­port local tal­ent from the ground up — we can give them a venue to record their first demo, a live ses­sion on UMFM, or per­form live to air. Any record­ings, either audio or video, belong to the artist and they can choose how they are used going forward.

• UMFM has gone beyond the radio and got­ten into pod­cast­ing as well! We’ve opened the doors to our pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties to part­ner with some great local pro­duc­ers, from the cam­pus and the com­mu­ni­ty, to bring you some amaz­ing lim­it­ed and ongo­ing pod­cast series. Radio is and will always be our first love, but we believe that great ideas deserve a plat­form to be shared with the masses!
  

• UMFM is a strong sup­port­er of stu­dent groups across cam­pus, and com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions across the city. We’ve nev­er hes­i­tat­ed in air­ing their PSA’s and have always giv­en inter­est­ed stu­dent groups time slots on our air­waves and the resources to pro­gram and run their own shows. We set up and run sound for all sorts of great cul­tur­al events on cam­pus and are always eager to pitch in and spread the word when­ev­er needed!

In return for pro­vid­ing these ser­vices, we are reach­ing out now to you — our loy­al lis­ten­ers, as well as our friends and our fam­i­ly. Maybe some of you have won tick­ets or prizes on one of our shows. Maybe you’ve phoned in and had your request played or have been inter­viewed and expressed your opin­ion on air. Or maybe you’ve attend­ed some of the events that we’ve spon­sored or you’ve been turned onto some amaz­ing new music by one of our many shows! Per­haps you’re a singer, or are in a band, that’s done an inter­view on the sta­tion and you want to say thanks…

What­ev­er the case, now is the time to show us your sup­port by call­ing in and pledg­ing to UMFM, a sta­tion that’s as big apart of your life as it is ours!

As Pledge-O-Rama returns once again we ask you, our loy­al lis­ten­ing audi­ence, for finan­cial sup­port — we know that you love UMFM’s pro­gram­ming and per­son­al­i­ties and that you under­stand how valu­able inde­pen­dent cam­pus and com­mu­ni­ty radio is in this day and age! 

As you may know, over the last few years, social media has become decid­ed­ly less social and since August 2023 we, like most oth­er news out­lets in the coun­try have found our­selves blocked on both Face­book and Insta­gram. It’s meant that two major chan­nels for engage­ment between the sta­tion and our com­mu­ni­ty have been shut down — in cer­tain ways it’s been a wel­come break from those plat­forms, but in many oth­ers it’s under­lined the impor­tance of sta­tions like UMFM and the role that they play in the bring­ing reli­able infor­ma­tion to the com­mu­ni­ties that they serve. It’s a pret­ty scary thing, and once again it demon­strates the impor­tance of sup­port­ing grass­roots, inde­pen­dent radio sta­tions like UMFM! 

All of that said, just in case you need­ed some addi­tion­al con­vinc­ing, here’s a few more key rea­sons why:

This year, 100% of funds raised dur­ing Pledge-O-Rama will go towards some of the nec­es­sary expens­es and upgrades that we had to neglect dur­ing the pandemic.

• Where­as past Pledge-O-Rama suc­cess has allowed us to invest into sig­nif­i­cant cap­i­tal expen­di­tures like replac­ing our anten­na and our broad­cast trans­mit­ter, as well as pur­chas­ing field record­ing and remote broad­cast­ing equip­ment, and per­form­ing main­te­nance and upgrad­ing our live record­ing stu­dio, this year it’s all about rebuild and repair!

• The time has come to replace and upgrade com­put­ers in both of our pro­duc­tion rooms, machines that have been in place and being put through their paces since 2010! Funds raised will also go towards the every­day inci­den­tals that are essen­tial to nor­mal oper­a­tions — things like micro­phones, cables, head­phones, turntable main­te­nance and needles. 

• Final­ly, it will go towards some of the fixed costs that have jumped con­sid­er­ably due to infla­tion, some­thing that has obvi­ous­ly impact­ed us all. We’re talk­ing about expens­es like radio tow­er rent, net­work main­te­nance and util­i­ties, plus things like audit and insur­ance fees.

• We have some big ideas on the hori­zon, but scal­ing back our fundrais­ing efforts dur­ing the pan­dem­ic has meant that any sur­plus that we had been accu­mu­lat­ing has been exhaust­ed or re-allo­cat­ed — and let’s be hon­est, a not-for-prof­it cam­pus & com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion isn’t always super lucra­tive ven­ture to begin with!

• The main point here is that fundrais­ing is no longer a choice for the sta­tion, it’s a NECES­SI­TY. We take this seri­ous­ly and your gen­er­ous dona­tions go a long way towards improv­ing the ser­vice that UMFM pro­vides not only to our cam­pus, but also this beau­ti­ful com­mu­ni­ty that we live in! Our lis­ten­ers have long pro­vid­ed the road map for our future. With the cost of run­ning a radio sta­tion con­sis­tent­ly on the rise we rely on friends of UMFM, like you, for sup­port in help­ing us con­tin­ue to bring you the best qual­i­ty pro­gram­ming for years to come.

We are 100% con­fi­dent that meet­ing, and hope­ful­ly sur­pass­ing, our Pledge goal in 2024 would mean that we can tack­le some of these projects head on! We’ve always run a pret­ty tight ship at UMFM when it comes to sur­plus spend­ing, so rest assured any extra funds left over are always put to good use!

Now obvi­ous­ly, the biggest incen­tive of all that any pledgee can receive is know­ing that your are sup­port­ing the qual­i­ty, com­mu­ni­ty-sup­port­ed pro­gram­ming that UMFM pro­vides on a dai­ly basis. How­ev­er, we’d like to thank all of our lis­ten­ers who pledge, and will be offer­ing some great incen­tives, includ­ing your choice of of some lim­it­ed edi­tion UMFM mer­chan­dise or a tax deductible receipt.

$25 – UMFM But­tons, Stick­ers, a UMFM Key­chain and a UMFM Koozie!

$50 – UMFM But­tons, Stick­ers, a UMFM Key­chain, a UMFM Koozie and a UMFM Cof­fee Mug and entry into the dai­ly BIG SUN draw!

$75 – UMFM But­tons, Stick­ers, a UMFM Key­chain, a UMFM Koozie and a 2024 UMFM Pledge T‑Shirt and entry into the dai­ly Sookram’s draw!!

$101.50 – UMFM But­tons, Stick­ers, a UMFM Key­chain, a UMFM Koozie, a UMFM Cof­fee Mug and your choice of a UMFM Pledge T‑Shirt or a UMFM Trav­el Mug, plus entry into the Fes­ti­val Express draw!

$150 – UMFM But­tons, Stick­ers, a UMFM Key­chain, a UMFM Koozie, a UMFM Cof­fee Mug, a UMFM Pledge T‑Shirt, a UMFM Trav­el Mug, a UMFM Cool­er Bag and one entry into our spe­cial Gold­en Tick­et draw!

$250 – UMFM But­tons, Stick­ers, 2 UMFM Key­chains, 2 UMFM Koozies, 2 UMFM Cof­fee Mugs, 2 UMFM Pledge T‑Shirts, 2 UMFM Trav­el Mugs, a UMFM Cool­er Bag, a new UMFM hood­ie and three entries into our spe­cial Gold­en Tick­et draw!

$50 - every­one who donates at this lev­el or above gets an entry into a draw for a dai­ly for tick­ets to one of this sum­mer’s hottest events, BIG SUN — a two day extrav­a­gan­za of fan­tas­tic bands, games and only your best friends! Takes place in the sum­mer place to be — Blue Note Park on August 2^nd & 3^rd!!

$75 - every­one who donates at this lev­el or above gets an entry into a draw for a dai­ly Sookram’s prize pack and also into the grand prize draw for a pri­vate brew­ery tour & tast­ing for you and up to 20 friends after which you’ll leave with a gift cer­tifi­cate good for a keg of your choice!

$101.50 - every­one who donates at this lev­el or above gets an entry into a draw for a brand new prize that we’re call­ing the Fes­ti­val Express! The win­ner will receive a pair of fes­ti­val pass­es, com­plete with camp­ing for 6 of this sum­mer’s hottest fes­ti­vals includ­ing Prairie Wind, Real Love, Rain­bow Trout, Trout For­est, Whoop & Holler and Har­vest Moon!

$150 - every­one who donates at this lev­el or above gets one entry into our now famous gold­en tick­et con­test — par­tic­i­pat­ing venues and fes­ti­vals this year include The Park The­atre, The West End Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, Sled Island, Jazz Win­nipeg and The Win­nipeg Folk Fes­ti­val!

$250 - every­one who donates at this lev­el or above gets three entries into our now famous gold­en tick­et con­test — par­tic­i­pat­ing venues and fes­ti­vals this year include The Park The­atre, The West End Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, Sled Island, Jazz Win­nipeg and The Win­nipeg Folk Fes­ti­val!