Making the Community Radio Sector Sustainable

This programme relied on personal contact to build capacity. The in-class training segment, which consisted of individual and group work, was broken into two 3-day parts; 23 people attended. In the first segment, modules were entitled:

• Building Social Enterprise
• Developing a Marketing Plan
• Developing Strategic Thinking and Business Planning

At the end of the first 3-day segment, each team of participants was asked to choose one area of intervention to work on during the break between the first and second parts of the training programme. The objectives of this exercise were to (i) get radio stations to initiate the process of thinking about sustainability, and (ii) find out which radio stations were serious about the programme. A report-back session provided the teams with space to discuss what they had achieved during the break. Most of the radio stations set out to convince their board of directors and staff of the need to begin to move toward sustainability. Another common goal was to begin to sell the concept of charging for services. A good number of participants wanted to initiate the process of looking at their markets.

In the second segment, modules focussed on:

• financial analysis and planning - provided participants with very basic knowledge on how to read financial statements (what to look for and how to interpret them).
• generating revenue - provided participants with information on how to raise funds. Pointed and practical fundraising tips were offered. A case study was used to illustrate how a community-based organisation faced with financial deficit analysed various fundraising options.
• introducing change into the organisation - the focus was on how participants could lead and manage change in their organisations. Strategies for introducing change were discussed, and ways of dealing with possible resistance to change were highlighted.
• planning for change - provided participants with an opportunity to plan, on a step-by-step basis, the changes they will introduce into their organisations. Each team identified a number of change goals and worked out action steps needed to accomplish these goals. For each goal and action step, a time line was developed.

The on-the-job follow-up component lasted for a period of up to 6 months. Each team participating in the training was asked to indicate areas where technical support would be needed. Common proposed areas included preparing a business plan; conducting board training; setting up financial systems; facilitating market assessment; and preparing funding proposals. While the provision of intensive support to all radio stations that attended the workshop was beyond the physical and financial capacity of ABC Ulwazi, the strategy that was proposed involved providing intensive support to a few pilot radio stations. For these stations, a detailed work plan spelling out objectives, outputs, activities, and time line was prepared and agreed upon by the station and ABC Ulwazi. A reporting schedule was set up. Following this, a support system and schedule was put into place, agreed upon, and implemented. Community radio stations not in the pilot were provided with some support, depending on the nature of their request.

ABC Ulwazi has proposed additional follow-up mechanisms including sending evaluation forms to all stations at specified benchmarks to see how the learning has been put to use, and visiting the stations to investigate whether (and how) changes have been made.

Community Media Sustainability.

According to ABC Ulwazi, many community radio stations depend on one or few donors for funding; this funding is often not only inadequate to cover costs, but is unreliable. While the government licences community radio stations in South Africa, it does not provide the funding needed to keep the stations vibrant. As a consequence, most depend on volunteer staff, have limited numbers of programmes, are on the air for only a few hours a day, and produce programmes of compromised quality. Because of this weak position, the corporate sector tends not to do business with community radio stations, hence effectively limiting the possibility that the stations will become financially sustainable.

Participants in the workshops identified some common areas as important for fostering the sustainability of community radio stations. They include: carrying out board and staff training aimed at introducing and gaining acceptance of the need to move the station toward sustainability; carrying out a market review; carrying out a strategic review of the station and preparing a business plan; identifying sources of revenue; and introducing the concept of charging for services. The report-back period indicated that most of the radio stations had gone a long way toward implementing what they had set out to do. Those that did particularly well were Khwezi Radio, Soshanguve, Kanya, Bush, and Setsotho Community Radio. The performance by the radio stations in this period tended to depend on the stations' internal capacity and organisation.

At the end of the workshop, participants were asked to assess its usefulness. On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 would indicate that the training was of great value), the average score was 8. Of the modules covered in the workshop, the topics on leading and managing change and developing strategic thinking and business plans were considered most useful. Financial analysis and generating sources of revenue were considered relatively less useful.

According to an International Journalists' Network article "Practical 'sustainability' manual launched for community radio" dated September 5 2003, "ABC Ulwazi was established in 1993 to train rural, township, and poor people for community radio stations. It has, to date, provided internships, bursaries and other assistance to over 40 community radio stations and over 400 trainees in South Africa. The organisation also has helped raise the professional standards of community radio through its training programmes, with many of its graduates finding employment in national mainstream commercial radio".