MISSION

That America's strongest public radio stations better serve the public and thrive during a period of radical change.

CORE STRATEGIES

Analysis. Provide station leaders with accessible and actionable analysis and planning that captures the big picture and the long-term view and that enhances strategic and operational decisions.

Action. Foster dialogue and cooperation among stations and between stations and others to address issues and opportunities that emerge from our analysis and planning.

Advocacy. Work for funding, regulatory, and legislative policies that advance public radio=s services nationwide

CURRENT FOCUS

Develop analyses, strategies, and plans that help increase the value of stations’ content and services, extend stations’ share of the public’s use of electronic media, advance stations’ sustainability and effectiveness, and enhance stations’ roles as robust and compelling locally-controlled institutions.

Analyze programming, technology, and organizational issues surrounding the mainstream emergence of new delivery channels and growing use of on-demand and interactive media. Frame issues as they emerge, manage ongoing discussions among station leaders to foster understanding of these changes, and work with stations to shape plans for local action and recommendations for national policy.

Develop analyses that help stations and others strengthen and enlarge public radio’s current signature formats and services through better understanding of the dynamics of audience use, financial support, and public value.

Examine the evolving public service and economic context for investments in local content creation to advance thinking about individual station programming services, the creation of new content, and aggregated investments in local, regional and national services.

Develop strategies and recommendations for actions that will increase major gifts and philanthropic support for public radio stations.

Work collaboratively with other organizations that are addressing the issues of public radio content, service, and sustainability in a changing media framework – both organizations within our field and others who share our interests from an academic, philanthropic, or public service perspective.

Work for funding and regulatory policies and arrangements within the structures of public broadcasting that help stations thrive in the rapidly changing media environment and that strengthen services that speak to distinctive geographic and interest-based communities.

Help shape arrangements between stations and content providers that more effectively support and reinforce stations’ role as the primary source through which listeners connect with public radio’s most highly valued programming.

Play a leading role in the development of funding policies at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Work to align the policies, procedures, activities, and decisions of the many entities that affect public radio – funders, regulators, networks, producers, national and regional organizations, an array of support, representation, and affinity organizations, and key vendors of research, technology, and other services – with the “enlightened self interest” of member stations.

Work to strengthen the capacities of other organizations that include a substantial number of SRG members and that SRG members consider especially important to their work.

Provide an innovative, web-based marketplace for public radio pieces that supports stations’ efforts to shape services that set them apart from other media choices, that attracts and nurtures proven and emerging talent to work within our field, and that helps public radio’s content creators extend the reach of their work.

Strengthen and develop the Public Radio Exchange as a semi-autonomous operating division of SRG that provides a service for all of public radio in which programmers find and license work from other stations, independent producers, and international broadcasters and in which producers – station-based or independent – license their work directly to stations.

Develop of tools and approaches that apply the innovative technological, curatorial, and social networking approaches that have been developed at PRX to a wider range of public radio opportunities and services, especially station curation and presentation of on-demand content.

Explore new avenues and approaches for direct-to-consumer distribution of public radio programming in ways that benefit both stations and producers.

Explore more aggressive projects and partnerships with stations, networks, producers, and other parties

Support public radio’s professional staff and civic leaders as they guide stations to new levels of excellence, scale, complexity, and effectiveness. Assist them in developing and implementing local plans that advance their public service, capture significant financial support, open doors to partnerships, and foster accountability and public trust.

Organize an annual planning retreat during which members receive briefings on critical issues and new developments in the field, have a rewarding opportunity to exchange views on key issues, and develop a shared vision of public service toward which they can work individually and collectively.

Work with individual SRG member stations on in-depth planning and strategy development projects.

Updated: January 2006