2016 LRN.FM Satellite Fundraiser Recap – Thanks for contributing!

LRN.FM – The Liberty Radio Network, airs the best liberty-oriented audio shows 24/7 online and via satellite. Our current satellite coverage includes North and Central America and Sub-Saharan Africa. The signal is “Free-to-Air”, which means anyone in the coverage area can receive our signal for no monthly cost, providing they have the dish and receiver, which are very affordable. We’ve been on the American satellite since 2010 and have had a signal in Africa since 2012.

Last year we did our first Satellite Fundraiser to gauge the level of support that our listeners have for the platform. While this year’s LRN.FM Satellite Fundraiser did not garner as much in USD as last year’s, we had nearly as many contributors, and that was without the benefit of having a campaign pitch video, like we did last year. (The FBI took the video files in the March raid on the LRN.FM studio in Keene.)

In 2015 we had 46 contributions on Indiegogo, amounting to $4,925. However, $2550 of that came from two individuals. Factoring out those two mega-contributors, the average contribution was about $54. This year we had 40 contributions on Indiegogo for a total of $1760, meaning the average contribution was down a bit to $44.

In addition to the $1760 given at Indiegogo, there were three bitcoin contributions this year, totaling 0.26568 BTC, which is worth about $154 at current exchange rates.

Something new I tried this year that I believe was a mistake was the “Headtalker” campaign that ate up two weeks of potential fundraising right in the beginning. The idea of the Headtalker site, in theory, is to recruit people to commit to allowing the Headtalker platform to post a message promoting the fundraiser all at the same time, across social media. Supposedly this increases the likelihood that your project will be trending and so seen by more people. There’s no evidence it had any effect besides distracting us from promoting the fundraiser itself. Instead, we spent two weeks promoting the Headtalker and when it hit it didn’t really do much of anything to boost contributions.

So, we did not reach the $25,000 goal of the fundraiser, but since it was an Indiegogo, they allow us to keep what amount was raised (after they take a fee, of course). If you gave to or shared the fundraiser – thanks so much! Perks are being distributed now.