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2012 ANNUAL REPORT of the New England Public Radio Foundation, Incorporated to the

University of Massachusetts Amherst

FFor over 50 years, 88.5FM WFCR, and now New England Public Radio, have been inextricably connected with the University of Massachusetts and the Five College consortium. This mutually beneficial partnership has been at the heart of WFCR’s success and is a vital component of

the station’s goal of creating a more informed public—one challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of events, ideas, and cultures. This remains at the core of New England Public Radio’s work throughout western New England.

The Annual Report to UMass for 2012 serves to share our accomplishments for the year, and look ahead to the exciting partnerships between the University and the Five College community and the New England Public Radio Foundation in the year ahead.

For the NEPR Foundation, whose mission is to provide support and advice to the station, 2012 was an important year. Its membership changed in an orderly way: Paul Lambert, VP of Guest Experience and Programming at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, became President of the Board as Marc Berman stepped down after four years of service at the post; six directors finished their terms (Bob Pura, Bob Kirkwood, Jim Leheny, Marc Berman, Michael Miller and Steve Mitus); two new members joined (Rosie Caine and Jenny Kallick); and in January 2013 Carey Baker, Steve Wittenberg, Claudia Perles and Ellen Freyman also joined as Directors.

UPDATE: The 50th Anniversary Campaign for WFCR TIn December of 2012, The NEPR Foundation purchased as a condominium the first floor and part of the basement of the historic Fuller Block Building at 1525 Main Street, part of its planned expansion into downtown Springfield. The first floor will be gutted and completely rebuilt, with the basement area incorporated into the design. When completed in the spring of 2014, the 17,000-square-foot space will house four radio production suites, a technical operations center and music library and office space for the station’s programming, operations, engineering, development and administrative staff. The expansion is part of the Greater Springfield - UMass Amherst Partnership’s plans for a greater UMass presence in the region’s largest city.

Renovations at Hampshire House, where New England Public Radio will maintain a facility including studio and office space, are also included in the capital campaign budget. Work there will commence following the completion of the Springfield facility, we expect that to be in 2014. NEPR will continue to use the Peggy and David Starr Studio, a state-of-the-art facility located at the WGBY-TV building.

In recognition of the combined gift of $391,000 from the Five Colleges for the 50th Anniversary Capital Campaign, and combined overall capital contributions since 1993 of over $1,000,000, New England Public Radio announced in 2012 that its studios in Hampshire House on the UMass Amherst campus would be named The Five Colleges Studios at UMass Amherst.

The New England Public Radio Foundation's 50th Anniversary Capital Campaign for WFCR has raised over $5 million since it began 18 months ago. That fundraising momentum puts the station on course for the construction of its new facility in downtown Springfield, the centerpiece of the comprehensive campaign. Of the $5.5 million raised to date, $4.1 million has been designated for facilities, leaving just $1.3 million to be raised to fully fund the Springfield building project. Fundraising efforts are ongoing, and the public phase of the campaign will begin in earnest in 2013.

Upon completion of the building fund, the campaign will focus on raising money for local programming initiatives on WFCR and all-news WNNZ, a facilities endowment, and an endowment for classical and jazz programming.

Campaign committees, which include several NEPR Foundation Board members, have been

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established in Hampshire, Hampden, Berkshire and Franklin counties and will be formed in Connecticut to help secure gifts to the campaign.

The Five Colleges Studios At Umass AmherstIn January of 2013, the following on-air mention was added to WFCR and all-news WNNZ: "Hampshire County production comes from the Five Colleges Studios at UMass Amherst." This recognition airs on WFCR and all-news WNNZ five times a week: On WFCR, Monday - Thursday at the beginning of All Things Considered, and Fridays at the end of Morning Edition, and on all-news WNNZ AM and FM, the recognition airs once a day in rotation between 7am and 4pm (note: WNNI-FM in Adams, MA, and WNNU-FM in Great Barrington, MA will join this network in 2013). This has an approximate in-kind value to each campus of $25,000 per year.

Community ContributionsIn 2012, 13,004 individual donors made contributions totaling $1,650,323; and business underwriting revenues increased from $1.2 million to $1.3 million and added 79 new businesses. On-air fundraising exceeded the previous year with only 29 days of on-air fund-raising, fewer than ever before in the station’s history. NEPR also launched its Sustaining Partner program in 2012 with great success. This new model of fundraising where donors give monthly on a continuing basis will help to mitigate the peaks and valleys in revenue caused by relying on semi-annual fund drives. The Sustainer program offers more efficiency and stability, and shorter pledge drives because we expect more donors and more revenue as a result.

New Station AcquisitionsThe NEPR Foundation acquired another new frequency in the Berkshires - this time in Great Barrington. 88.9 FM WNNU will serve the southern half of Berkshire County as part of the all-news WNNZ network which currently includes AM 640 in Hampden County and 91.7 FM in Franklin County. In 2011, the Foundation acquired the rights to 98.9 FM in Adams which will be put on the air once funds have been raised as part of the 50th Anniversary Capital Campaign for WFCR.

On-AirThere were several on-air highlights on WFCR and all-news WNNZ in 2012. Classically speaking: the station continued its tradition of live broadcasts from Tanglewood; operas from the Met and other great American opera houses; and Springfield Symphony concerts. Jazz a la Mode host Tom Reney and Music Director John Montanari have continued their popular blogs at nepr.net,

Tom and Jazz Safari host Kari Njiiri were MC’s at the Newport and Tanglewood Jazz Festivals and along with John and Walter appeared in classrooms across the Five Colleges and UMass as guest lecturers and MC’s at various music events. NEPR officially appointed Jill Kaufman host of Morning Edition and Susan Kaplan host of All Things Considered, and reporter Karen Brown won a prestigious Knight Fellowship in Science Journalism at MIT which has kept her in Cambridge for much of the year. The newsroom also hired two former interns as reporters, Leana First-Arai and Henry Epp, a former Hampshire College intern.

EventsNEPR continued its very successful partnership with Amherst Cinema and the UMass Fine Arts Center, The Jazz a la Mode Film Series. Hosted by Jazz a la Mode’s Tom Reney, the series brings great jazz films to audiences at Amherst Cinema, and now highlights jazz ensembles from the Five Colleges before each showing. Groups from Smith College and UMass Amherst performed in 2012. And despite the gale force winds and hurricane warnings, NEPR proudly hosted its major donors, volunteers and underwriters at its annual Appreciation Event with Hampshire Shakespeare Company at The Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies. NEPR was also proud to be a part of the Western Massachusetts U.S. Senate Debate Consortium, which brought Massachusetts Candidates for U.S. Senate Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown to Springfield in October.

InternsThe NEPR Foundation supports and continues to encourage the station to build on its internship program. The program, conducted in conjunction with the Five Colleges, gives students from UMass and the four colleges the opportunity to gain firsthand experience in the world of public broadcasting. In 2012, NEPR offered 9 paid internships to students—5 of whom were from UMass Amherst.

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In the fall of 2012, New England Public Radio enthusiastically undertook a project that it had been looking forward to for years. With the goal of providing more content for our communities and accessing the rich and varied resources our region holds from the Five Colleges and from Williamstown to Worcester - AudoFiles – New England Public Radio’s online-only content source was born.

AudioFiles consists of four distinct content areas that tap different resources including WFCR’s 50 year-old archive, and lectures and happenings across the five college campuses, to give the community access to new ideas, historical moments and a bit of everything in between. Visitors to the site can listen to a growing number of lectures from the Five Colleges, programs from institutions like the Springfield Public Forum which has never before in its 75-year history recorded its offerings, and The World Affairs Council. See below for information on each of AudioFiles distinct categories.

ThE CollEgE CoNNECTIoNThe five colleges and colleges throughout our broadcast area are an important resource for lectures, poetry readings, discussions, and live music. The College Connection gives access to varied events from the colleges in our region at the click of a mouse. Recent recordings include Michael Steele presenting “The Future of the GOP and our Democracy” at Amherst College, Mark Anthony Neal presenting “Social Justice in the Age of Social Media” at UMass-Amherst, and “Security in the Digital Age: Are Women at Risk” a panel discussion presented at Mount Holyoke College.

STREET lEvEl SouNdSStreet Level Sounds collects unique cultural contributions, community-based happenings and local music performances from throughout western New England. Recent recordings include Erica Lorentz presenting “Active imagination: Accessing our Creative Imagination,” CNN Analyst and author Jeffrey Toobin at the Springfield Public Forum as part of the Western Mass Jung Center’s 2012-13 Lecture Series, and Lecturer Jeff Monseau speaking about James Naismith’s unique philosophy, the game of basketball, the YMCA, and Springfield College, presented by The Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke.

FRom ThE ARChIvESFrom The Archives showcases audio from a diverse group of speakers, including Isaac Asimov, Noam Chomsky, and Angela Davis, music selections from

live concerts, and historical broadcast moments such as Nixon’s announcement of withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, all from WFCR’s extensive and recently digitized audio archive.

WFCR ENCoRESArchived by date, WFCR Encores allows music-lovers to listen to our nationally-recognized hosts’ meticulously crafted playlists any time they like. WFCR Encores also includes archived selections from our weekly Commentaries feature (including several Five College commentators), highlights from WFCR’s Spanish-language program, Tertulia, and complete Morning Edition Extra segments, along with the complete catalog of WFCR’s Field Notes.

AudioFiles depends heavily on the station’s interns. While the project got underway in the fall of 2012, it employed just two interns, one from UMass Amherst, and one recent graduate from Hampshire College. Each spent many hours working with the project’s director and station webmaster, Peter Chilton, collecting audio and producing and posting content to the site.

In January, AudioFiles signed on a total of six interns from UMass Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Hampshire Colleges. The interns are responsible for collecting audio from their campuses and the greater community in addition to producing their own content based on a series of interview prompts. Each is provided a production kit and works primarily his or her own campus, with several training sessions and group meetings throughout the semester.

New England Public Radio will formally launch AudioFiles in 2013, but we invite you to take a look at nepr.net/audiofiles.

On March 2, 2013, Bill Cosby took to the stage at Springfield Symphony Hall for a benefit performance in support of the 50th Anniversary Capital Campaign for WFCR. We are thrilled that Dr. Cosby, an avid listener to the station, donated his time for this special evening and proud to have had the support of the University of Massachusetts Amherst as one of the event’s presenting sponsors. The event raised $140,000 in support of the capital campaign.

LOOKING AHEAD

BILL COSBYLiveNEW ENGLAND PUBLIC RADIOfor

BILL COSBYLive

NEW ENGLAND PUBLIC RADIOfor

BILL COSBYLive

NEW ENGLAND PUBLIC RADIOfor

BILL COSBYLiveNEW ENGLAND PUBLIC RADIOfor

STREETLEVELSOUNDS

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Digitized content of

on-air broadcasts

from years past.

From The Archives

showcases audio

from a diverse group

of speakers, includ-

ing Isaac Asimov,

Noam Chomsky, and

Robert Frost, music

selections from live

concerts, and

historical broadcast

moments such as

Nixon’s withdrawal

of troops from

Vietnam.

Music and news

don’t exist within a

bubble. Street Level

Sounds collects

community-based

happenings, local

music performances,

and unique cultural

contributions from

throughout western

New England.

WFCRENCORES

WFCR Encores

provides hours of

locally produced

music programming.

Archived by date, this

collection allows

music-lovers to listen

to our nationally-

recognized hosts’

meticulously crafted

playlists any time

they like.

THE COLLEGE CONNECTION

The Five Colleges and

colleges throughout

our broadcast area are

an important resource

for lectures, poetry

readings, discussions,

and live music. The

College Connection

gives access to varied

events from the

colleges in our region

at the click of a

mouse.

STREETLEVELSOUNDS

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WFCRENCORES

THE COLLEGE CONNECTION

STREETLEVELSOUNDS

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WFCRENCORES

THE COLLEGE CONNECTION

STREETLEVELSOUNDS

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WFCRENCORES

THE COLLEGE CONNECTION

STREETLEVELSOUNDS

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WFCRENCORES

THE COLLEGE CONNECTION

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In 2012, the New England Public Radio Foundation:

• Reviewed, approved and submitted the Foundation’s Annual Report to umass to the license holder the university of massachusetts in February 2012.

• Cultivated candidates for director vacancies and actively sought appropriate candidates for other Board vacancies.

• Exceeded its goal of raising $3.2 million in pledges and gifts by may 2012, prior to closing on 1525 main Street by more than $400,000. This included $750,000 in cash to purchase the condominium space. over $5.3mm toward the overall $7 million goal has been raised.

• The Foundation hosted the fourth, most successful to date, Arts humanities Awards event at the log Cabin in holyoke

• Changed the name of the Foundation from WFCR Foundation, Inc. to New England Public Radio Foundation, Inc.

• Started NPR diversity Training Program

• Approved the receipt of $1 million in New markets Tax Credits.

• hired an architect, construction manager, and owner’s representative for the Springfield building project.

• Established a subsidiary 501 (c) (3) non-profit – NEPR Real Estate Foundation, Inc.

• NEPR Real Estate Foundation, Inc. closed on the property at 1525 main Street, on Thursday, december 27, 2012.

The New England Public Radio Foundation's Challenges for 2013

• Close on New markets Tax Credits.

• hold ground Breaking Ceremony in march with umass.

• Begin construction of 1525 main Street in may.

• Frequency expansion for all-news WNNZ.

• Raise $2 million for the 50th Anniversary Capital Campaign for WFCR this calendar year.

• Complete the Foundation’s 2012 Annual Report to the license holder.

• Recruit new directors to the Board, including a vice President as soon as possible.

• discuss impact on Annual Budget due to shift in giving to Sustaining Partners (monthly giving) Program.

• discuss the role of the Board in fundraising.

• Conduct a complete review of the by-laws.

• Continue to work with NPR on diversity.

• host “Bill Cosby live for New England Public Radio,” march 2, 2013.

• host the 5th Annual NEPR Arts & humanities Awards, may 7, 2013.

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hampshire house131 County CircleAmherst, mA 01003-9257

In conclusion, the NEPR Foundation can report to the University (and Five College consortium) another successful year for the station.

The New England Public Radio Foundation, Inc. March 13, 2013

“ The years ahead provide a time of unprecedented challenge and opportunity for New England Public Radio as the

network and the university open to new voices, technologies and markets. under the strong, thoughtful leadership

of CEo and general manager martin miller and his remarkable, dedicated staff, NEPR is positioned for a critically

important step forward to claim an increasingly vital role in regional news, programming and outreach. While I have

a great deal to learn in my new role, I am honored to be associated with these institutions, ideas and individuals.”- Paul Lambert, Chairman of the NEPR Foundation, Inc.