[grc] Planning for affording staff -- NCE compliance calendar

[juice at whidbey.com]

Attached is the NCE compliance calendar put together by Jama Chapman
of KMUD for the 2014 GRC with some of the must do items referred to by
Al below. Some items may not be required by LPFM stations.

It lists the NCE radio compliance deadlines of many government
agencies (including state of California) plus internal items.  

Tom.

----- Original Message -----
From:
 "al davis" <ad253 at freeelectron.net>

Planning for affording staff

 On Wednesday 28 January 2015, Susan Raybuck wrote:
 > Since we are beginning to plan for a capital campaign to
 > build our station in Wimberley, I've been advised that we
 > should build into our campaign the funding requirements for
 > a full-time staff person for two years.

 I think in your case, that's bad advise.

 People at big stations usually have no clue about how to succeed 
 on a small scale.

 To estimate your budget, you need to consider what the listeners 
 are capable of supporting. Not understanding this, getting in 
 beyond the resources available, is a major cause of complete 
 failure.

 A quick check tells me that you are serving a rural area with a 
 low population:
 70 dbu: 2479
 60 dbu: 5280
 50 dbu: 11818

 A rule of thumb .... convert those numbers to dollars, one 
 dollar per person. On the average, that's how much money 
 available to you, per year, including everything.

 Taking these numbers, you should be able to run on an annual 
 budget of $5280. If you are really good, you might get $11818. 
 If you are really bad, you will fall below $2479.

 At those numbers, you can't afford paid staff at any normal 
 salary. You need a (nominally) all volunteer organization.

 > I assume that core paid staff member for a start-up station
 > would be the station manager. Yes? 

 No. Keep volunteers in control.

 The station manager is a decision maker, not necessarily doing 
 the work. The decision making part is not a huge time consumer. 
 It is best that the decision maker is not influenced by a 
 paycheck.

 Paid staff, paid help, is for work that must be done. There are 
 certain jobs that must be done, no matter what. There is no 
 controversy over what must be done, it just must be done. For 
 this, you can hire someone and say "it is your job to make sure 
 this gets done." .. and no more.

 It is likely that the same people might be doing paid work and 
 also volunteer work. It is important to maintain the 
 distinction. If a paid person also volunteers, that time is not 
 paid time. It is highly desirable that the paid people also 
 volunteer. It might even make sense to make it a requirement, 
 almost, meaning to recruit for the paid positions from your 
 volunteers. Just remember, paid staff are paid for specific 
 work, not whatever happens to come up.

 One possibly paid position would be a secretary level position. 
 The duties would be to make sure the bills get paid and 
 paperwork gets done.

 The other possibly paid position would be to raise money, with 
 the pay being perhaps a portion of the grants and underwriting 
 brought in by this person.

 You may need paid help in technical matters. An LPFM should not 
 be much work, nowhere near half time. Tech isn't all the same. 
 There's the computers, studio, transmitter, remotes. It is rare 
 to find an individual who is skilled in all these. The 
 computers-transmitter overlap is especially rare.

 You really can't afford any more, and this only in the best 
 case. Your key to success is that volunteers must do 
 everything, and you need a network of people you can talk to who 
 are not billing you by the clock. People here, people you met 
 at conferences.

 So make that first paid position "administrative assistant", 
 "operations assistant" or something like that. Again, the basic 
 duty is to make sure that certain work that must be done 
 actually gets done. NOT to make policy.

 Or start all volunteer, and when you notice certain work isn't 
 getting done that way, offer to pay to have it done. .. a 
 bounty, a stipend, to someone who can and will make the 
 commitment.

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Tom.


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