Where Difference Matters, You Can Make A Difference

Where different matters, you can make a difference.

These past few years at KCPR, we’ve been focused on growth — building upon the legacy left by our alumni with the help of our donors and community. We have been innovating, developing, and integrating KCPR and Mustang Media Group. Last year, we asked you to usher us into the new era of KCPR with your support. Thanks to you, we’ve made it. Welcome to the New Era of KCPR.

Each week of our 6-week-long pledge drive, you will receive a newsletter from us with an update on how close we have gotten to our goal of $20,000. Each newsletter will focus on a different cornerstone of KCPR, including our alumni, families, supporters, community, and students.

Starting April 17th, Len Filomeo and Earl Ruby will match the first $2,000 donated to KCPR's Pledge Drive that week. Big thanks to Len Filomeo, Earl Ruby, Neal Losey, and Bruce Flohr for all they do for our station.

Innovation

During the pandemic, our student volunteers inevitably had to get creative with their craft, which sparked innovation in our station. In 2020, we had 5 DJs recording remotely from their homes. Today, we have 20 DJs on staff working hard to train 20 more new DJs. KCPR’s new podcast team has released four different podcasts with a growing audience across all streaming platforms. We’ve seen the birth of new roles at KCPR in marketing and art that have brought cohesion to our station. In 2021, we on-boarded our first Art Director, who designed station merchandise and branding for KCPR. Now, our current Art Director manages a team of over a dozen individuals who curate the station’s image on social media, online, and on campus. We’ve added multiple positions to our marketing team, including a fundraising manager whose sole focus is to bring our alumni, parents, and donors into the conversation about what we do here at KCPR.

The new class of DJ trainees meet in the station for the first time.

Development

With a portion of the funds raised from last year, we could afford to pay our student leaders a bigger stipend, allowing them to spend more time developing our sound, our news, our content, and our brand. With a rising budget, KCPR has been able to host events like Open Mic and Friday Night Invite at Open House, attracting new talent to our station and raising awareness about who KCPR is. Your donations helped send KCPR to the Intercollegiate Broadcasting Systems (IBS) Conference in New York City and the Associated College Press (ACP) Conference, where KCPR was nominated for multiple awards. Student leaders learned invaluable information at the conference about ways to improve our station and won national recognition for the Best Giveaway and Best Cover Page.

Our student managers in New York after the IBS conference.

Integration

As we develop and grow at KCPR, we seek the opportunity to collaborate with each other, across platforms at MMG, and with our partner organizations, such as Shabang, SLO Brew Rock, and Boo Boo Records. Our members often work on multiple teams combining their passion for music with their passion for art or their love of news with the creativity of content. Our members work to uplift each other’s work and highlight the best in each individual at KCPR. We have made concrete efforts along with Mustang News to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion at MMG with station-wide diversity training, a new DEI committee, and a public forum to engage with the community we serve. Mustang News on KCPR gained national recognition this year with the coverage of the Kristin Smart trial, which required collaboration across all platforms. This year, we had an unprecedented number of ticket giveaways with our partnerships like SLO Brew Rock and Fremont Theater, and teamed up with Shabang to promote events like Battle of the Bands.

Nico Vinuela poses with reporters and a media lawyer in front of the courthouse during the Kristin Smart Trial.

At KCPR, we truly believe that different matters. You can make your difference today with a donation to support the New Era of KCPR. The student volunteers and leaders at KCPR will work tirelessly to continue to innovate, develop, and integrate because we love our station, and we hope you do too. What we do here at KCPR matters. Who we are matters. Our alumni, parents, friends, supporters, donors, and community matter. You matter.

KCPR PLEDGE DRIVE DONOR THANK YOU's

(the best part!)

We couldn’t do what we do at KCPR without you, so we want to thank you with specific items featuring designs from our design contest.

Every donor will recieve a KCPR sticker pack and keychain as a thank you!

With every donation, you will receive a sticker pack chosen out of dozens of designs by the KCPR team: