Strategic Plan
2012 - 2014
Mission Statement
KFAI is a volunteer-based community radio station that
exists to broadcast information, arts and entertainment
programming for an audience of diverse racial, social and
economic backgrounds.
By providing a voice for people ignored or misrepresented
by mainstream media, KFAI increases understanding
between peoples and communities, while fostering the
values of democracy and social justice.
Our Organization
Since 1978, KFAI has been the voice of the community.
The station has been and continues to be the Twin Cities’
source for adventurous and innovative music, news, arts,
and community programs. The history of KFAI lives within
the thousands of volunteers that have given their time
and the listeners who have tuned in.
Our Organization
Since 1978, KFAI has been the voice of the community.
The station has been and continues to be the Twin Cities’
source for adventurous and innovative music, news, arts,
and community programs. The history of KFAI lives within
the thousands of volunteers that have given their time
and the listeners who have tuned in.
A Brief History of KFAI
• Founding:
– KFAI, Fresh Air Radio, went on the air at 90.3FM on May 1, 1978, after five years of
paperwork and other legal entanglements. The station’s first studios were in the
belfry of Walker Community Church and the antenna sent out a mighty 10 watts
from the roof of the Seward Co-op.
• 1980’s
– In 1984, KFAI increased its power to 125 watts and moved its transmitter to the
Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis, greatly expanding the coverage area. The
station later added a Saint Paul translator at 106.7FM in 1994.
– KFAI moved out of the Walker Community Church in 1986 to new studios above
Butler Drug at the intersection of Lake and Bloomington in Minneapolis.
• 1990’s
– In 1991, KFAI moved its studios to its current home in the historic Bailey Building
on the West Bank.
• 2000’s
– 2001 saw the dedication of KFAI’s renovated studios. The renovation increased
studio space from two working studios to six.
• Today
– KFAI broadcasts from high atop the IDS building and will soon be broadcasting in
crystal clear digital.
Strategic Plan
2012-2015
Strategic Plan Process
Community Input SPLAN Process
Strategic Plan
(high level)
Our Key Priorities
Our Strategic Framework
Action Plan
(implementation level)
Our Initiatives
Our Success Measurements
Our Roles/Responsibilities
Our Base Assumptions
We need to grow our organization to meet our
mission statement
We need to attract smart, creative people in order to
develop relevant and interesting programming…
We need to increase our community network to drive
discussion and build smart ways of making progress
toward our mission…
We believe our mission is relevant to more people than
we currently attract
Setting the Table
• Define our values
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We embrace our uniqueness
We are inclusive of the diversity of our community
We are locally-focused and produced, with a global view
We are community and volunteer driven
We provide access and a voice for the underrepresented
• Put strategies into 4 big picture priorities
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Building a structure to frame our strategies
Aspirational directions for the organization to pursue
Leveraging input, language and spirit of the organic process to-date
Many more from which to choose
• Board alignment and measurement
Strategic Priorities
• Expand the connection of our mission to a larger
audience
• Catalyze new collaborations, programs, and
organizations that grow new and existing audiences
• Convene programmers, journalists and artists to drive
leadership and innovation within arts and media
• Build a strong and growing organization
Priority: How do we expand the connection of
our mission to a wider audience?
• Building and leveraging new and existing partners to reach
largest audience possible and expand our mission impact
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Funders
Service / arts / media organizations
Schools
Governments
• Utilize technology to expand reach and impact for new and
existing audiences
– Increase audience participation with our mission
– Increase awareness and traffic to KFAI.org by developing/executing a
unified social media strategy
– Lower barriers-to-access of KFAI programs
• Expand existing an organizational marketing plan
Priority: How do we catalyze new collaborations,
programs and organizations that grow new and
existing audiences?
• Create a strong content development and production support
structure for programmers, journalists, and artists
– Share expertise and knowledge (incl. content development)
– Provide a suite of tools (technology, equipment, etc.)
– Access to potential funders
• Develop training and educational services for programmers,
journalists, and artists that expand their capacities to do great
work
– Workshops
• Ex. Licensing of content, education (writing for broadcasting)
– Training seminars
• Ex. Building awareness among audience members
Priority: How do we convene programmers,
journalists, and artists to drive leadership and
innovation within arts and media
• Utilize our media, partnership, and community network
to bring power to issues
– Become an agenda-setter and drive discourse for issues
related to those underrepresented by mainstream media
– Create agendas relevant to programmers/journalists/artists
to address needs and build solutions
– Research and data-driven influence
Priority: Build a strong and growing organization
• Diversify and grow revenue
– Build long-term fundraising development plan
– Maximize earned revenue (new services, methods of delivery, partnerships)
– Develop innovations in fundraising
• Maximize human capital for greatest mission impact
– Effective volunteer management
– Ensuring opportunities for employee training & development
– Structured process of community input and new initiatives
• Provide an infrastructure sufficient to allow staff to achieve organizational
goals
– Create a capital expenditure plan
• Ensure the highest quality programming reflecting our values
– Build a transparent program evaluation system
– Enhance and increase youth initiatives
Board of Directors
Committee Realignment
Realigning the Board
• Align Board committees to the SPLAN
– One committee per strategic priority, so the plan is always
front and center in every meeting
– Institutionalizes that we succeed and fail together, removing
silos
– Provides a home for ideas and innovation
– ED leads measurement discussions with each committee
– Dashboard created to track progress quarterly
Board Committees
• The current functional committees (Executive, Finance,
Governance & Nominations) will continue to exist and will have
the same responsibilities. However, in order to insure no Board
member becomes over-tasked, these committees will become
smaller.
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Executive Committee: 4 – President, VP, Secretary & Treasurer
Finance Committee: 2 + the Executive Director
Governance: 3
Nominations: 3
• In order for the Board of Directors to focus their efforts on the
Strategic Plan, each of the 4 strategic priorities will have a
Board of Directors committee.
Board Committees Structure
Board of Directors
Functional
Committees
Strategic Plan
Committees
Executive Committee
Connection
SPLAN Committee
Finance Committee
Catalyst
SPLAN Committee
Exec. Dir.
STAFF
Governance Committee
Convening
SPLAN Committee
Nominations Committee
Strong & Growing Org
SPLAN Committee
Who’s on Strategic Plan Committees?
The make-up of each of the 4 Strategic Committees will be:
• 3 to 4 board members with one serving as the chair of the committee
• 1 staff member
– Staff can only serve on one committee and cannot chair.
– Committee term is one year.
– A staff member can also serve as a subject matter expert
• 2 or more volunteers
– One year term
– By invitation of the committee
• Additional subject matter experts as needed
– No mandatory term
– Can be someone not currently associated with KFAI that has relevant knowledge or
experience
• Each Board of Directors member must serve on one of the 4 Strategic
Committees
– Due to the demands of Board work, there will be an exception to this rule for the Board of
Directors President and the Treasurer (who serves on the Executive and Finance
committees)
How Do We Handle New Work?
• In order to accommodate the amount of work that needs to be done and
ensure enough “face” time for Board collaboration and feedback, we
propose the following changes to the Board of Directors meeting schedule:
– Meeting time, place and frequency remains the same as current
– Alternate monthly meeting agenda between functional business and strategy
– The Strategic Plan committees will also be expected to meet as necessary to
achieve their objectives. These meetings are construed broadly – they could be
by phone, email or collaborative editing via Google docs.
• The Board meeting schedule is as follows:
– Functional business meetings – January, March, May, July, September,
November
– Strategic plan meetings – February, April, June, August, October, December
Board Committee Structure
• Functional Business meeting agenda
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Financials / pledge drive
Audience metrics (Arbitron & website stats)
Operations
Marketing
Governance & Nominations/elections when necessary
SPLAN Dashboard
No routine staff reports – Staff reports will still be done but board interaction will be
through email and Google documents before every meeting. Any issues for substantive
board discussion need to be added to the agenda before the meeting.
• Strategic Plan meeting agenda
– A 50 minute meeting with all Board members
– 3 committees present a 10 minute check-in using the dashboard and any other relevant
info. Check-in could be as simple as “all green light” or “here’s our problem area” or “we
have some skill/assistance requests”
– 1 committee will present a 20 minute full report to the board at each meeting. This means
that each committee will do this every 4 months (3 times per year).
– The remainder of the meeting will be broken up into small-group work
Additional Notes
• The Executive Director is responsible for overall delivery of the
strategic plan and does not serve on any specific committee
– The ED has an open invitation to any of the Strategic Plan committee
meetings, but is not required to attend
• The ED is involved in developing and monitoring metrics for
measuring impact and progress of the Strategic Plan
• The Strategic Plan and Board structure will be included in the
Board Orientation program in January