2016 Station Activity Survey
1. Describe your overall goals and approach to address identified community issues, needs, and interests through your station’s vital local services, such as multiplatform long and short-form content, digital and in-person engagement, education services, community information, partnership support, and other activities, and audiences you reached or new audiences you engaged.
KBOO Community Radio’s Mission states: KBOO is an independent, member-supported, non-commercial, volunteer-powered community radio station. KBOO embodies equitable social change, shares knowledge, and fosters creativity by delivering locally rooted and diverse music, culture, news, and opinions, with a commitment to the voices of oppressed and underserved communities.
KBOO has been a valuable part of the Willamette Valley and the Columbia Gorge for 48 years; we reach Salem, Oregon to Longview, Washington — from Mt. Hood to the Coast Range. KBOO provides local service in a variety of forms, including an informative and engaging daily newscast, many high-value local public affairs programs, daily weather reports, and a thriving community events calendar. Additionally, KBOO regularly presents these services through a variety of venues: on-air broadcast, social media, email, mobile app, website.
KBOO's local programming is produced mainly by volunteer hosts and producers in the community we serve. Those producers are charged with gathering stories and points of view that voice and meet community needs. We have a daily news production, entirely created by local, citizen reporters who keep their eyes and ears on the local news scene and make suggestions for stories and features KBOO can cover in a longer format. KBOO has a Community Advisory Board comprised of members of the listening audience.
We’ve increased our engagement with our audience through multiple channels. Our most recent improvement have been through digital avenues. We hired a Web and New Media Coordinator who developed a new, mobile-responsive website with the help of an outside contractor; this position also coordinates our social media outreach, and has grown KBOO's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram platforms extensively since being hired. We send a monthly e-newsletter to all our constituents, then supplement communications with emails to targeted program and volunteer groups. One major improvement of our digital engagement was made in the development of our mobile app, which connects smartphone users with KBOO’s audio content, online presence, and community communications.
KBOO’s in-person engagement remains a strong aspect to our local service through our training programs, which are free for volunteers, and through our presence at community events. Over 800 people went through volunteer training, the majority of which continue to engage in the KBOO community. As one indication of the efficacy of our training program: 178 people were trained in audio production in 2015. We support the local community through a vigorous co-sponsorship program, having promoted 110 events throughout 2015. KBOO's co-sponsorships provide an opportunity to build relationships with community partners while providing listeners with information about important community events. They also give valuable support to community organizers, grassroots campaigns, and independent artists.
KBOO’s service to local music, arts, and culture manifests through a number of settings. Our Artist in Residence program is now in its fourth year. Every year, one artist or one collaborative group of artists is awarded twenty hours of studio recording and production time with a KBOO sound engineer in order to create a piece of sound art that will be publicly presented at the end of the residency. The Artist-in-Residence program is open to artists of all disciplines whose project proposals include sound as a major component. KBOO nurtures a thriving live music broadcast schedule, which highlights local artists. Our arts & culture programming includes regular shows on theater, fine art, graphic novels, DIY culture, and more.
2. Describe key initiatives and the variety of partners with whom you collaborated, including other public media outlets, community nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, the business community, teachers and parents, etc. This will illustrate the many ways you’re connected across the community and engaged with other important organizations in the area.
With regards to our work with other public media outlets: KBOO Community Radio is a member of Oregon Community Media, an alliance of community radio stations throughout the state of Oregon. We work on collaborative programming, including the broadcast of the Waterfront Blues Festival, benefitting the Oregon Food Bank, thanks to KSKQ, KPOV, KSOW, KYAQ, KMUZ, KWSO, KMUN, and KTCB. We produce content together and are working to improve community station operations by sharing knowledge about membership, fiscal responsibility, and other issues to create a firm foundation for our future work and nurture strong partnerships.
KBOO engages in many collaborative projects on a regular basis. One example: with financial support from Oregon Humanities, we are piloting a podcast program with Morpheus Youth Projects and the Center for Intercultural Organizing in order to empower communities to speak to the issues that affect them through recorded media: in this case, the criminalization of people of color, LGBTQQ individuals, and other marginalized groups in our community.
We have also participated in successful partnerships with Degentrifying Portland, the Teen Councils of various branches of the Multnomah County Library system, and Caldera to improve youth outreach and programming. Since 2002, KBOO has run a Youth Collective: a youth mentorship and broadcast education program with a monthly radio show focused on youth concerns and youth voices.
As a participating cultural nonprofit, KBOO promotes and encourages local participation in the Oregon Cultural Trust. The Oregon Cultural Trust's mission is to lead Oregon in cultivating, growing, and valuing culture as an integral part of communities. We join in this effort by inspiring Oregonians to invest in a permanent fund that provides annual grants to cultural organizations. Thanks to the efforts of participating cultural nonprofits, including KBOO, Oregonians donated a record $4.56 million to the Oregon Cultural Trust in 2015; the total is a 5.4 percent increase over 2014.
KBOO supports and collaborates through its live-remote broadcasts of events in the local community. We air an annual live broadcast of the Tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in collaboration with the World Arts Foundation, Inc.. In support of Health Care for All-Oregon, KBOO presents a live broadcast of the Inner City Blues Festival every year. Good in the Hood is a non-profit organization founded in 1990 to be a creative medium by which Portland residents, businesses and organizations can engage in music, food and resources while connecting people with experiences that strengthen unity in the community. KBOO has broadcast this festival for many years. KBOO Community Radio is a founding sponsor of the Waterfront Blues Festival, which supports the Oregon Food Bank. Cathedral Park Jazz Festival, presented by The Jazz Society of Oregon, is another event that KBOO supports through its broadcast. We also support a number of neighborhoods and their celebrations throughout Portland, including the Montavilla Jazz Festival and the Clinton Street Fair.
3. What impact did your key initiatives and partnerships have in your community? Describe any known measurable impact, such as increased awareness, learning or understanding about particular issues. Describe indicators of success, such as connecting people to needed resources or strengthening conversational ties across diverse neighborhoods. Did a partner see an increase in requests for related resources? Please include direct feedback from a partner(s) or from a person(s) served.
KBOO's 12 month membership average for the fiscal year of 2014 was 4,635. Over 800 people went through volunteer training, the majority of which continued to engage in the KBOO community in a variety of ways: KBOO members are listeners, volunteers, donors and programmers. KBOO is a hub for community engagement, which is a key factor of health for any community. KBOO listeners can call in and participate in important dialogues about issues that are deeply affecting our community. They are invited to community events that KBOO leads and co-sponsors with 100’s of community partners, and, most importantly, they bring their voices and their diverse community experiences to the KBOO broadcast and to the world through our website. KBOO encourages and makes possible deep engagement and dialogue that is vital to the health of our society.
178 people were trained in audio production in 2015: KBOO provides 100’s of hours of on-site, training and mentoring each month to people of all ages, incomes and physical abilities, with an emphasis on the voices of those communities that are unserved and underserved. This radical act helps ensure that all voices will help shape the landscape of our community, not only those voices with the most resources and power.
KBOO owns its building and equipment and developed a 3-year facility, IT, and equipment plan for 2016-2018: We continue to make improvements as well as plan and build our reserve fund to help us take care of maintenance as well as replacement of equipment. During the 2015 fiscal year, KBOO created a server room with added cooling equipment, newly-installed server racks, and new hardware and software. This provides KBOO with a much-needed IT infrastructure that will keep the station's networks and computers stable and secure, and provide a base for continued expansion — including a digital audio archive, second stream capability, expanded storage space, and increased security. This serves our community as it helps ensure KBOO programming is archived and available to the community.
In 2016 we raised $45,000 and created a new state of the art Production Room 3, which will allow KBOO to train over 100 more programmers from underserved communities in our region as well as serve as a back up air room in cases of emergencies. We also received a $25,000 grant to rewire our facility and will continue to take care of the tremendous community resource that is our facility, our equipment, our training capacity and our broadcast.
KBOO has an $800,000 balanced budget: After several years of end-of-year deficits, KBOO’s most recent years have ended in a surplus. We are also re-hiring needed staff positions, building planning and long-term budgeting systems, a new website, an app and hiring a newly-created position: Web and New Media Coordinator.
KBOO is member owned, with a member elected board of directors: The KBOO Foundation Board of Directors evolved from a not very diverse group in 2014, into including half female members and five members who are people of color. This diversity better represents the KBOO volunteer community and the Portland-Metro area, and therefore provides more relevant leadership and better services to our broadcast community. An example of this leadership is in 2015 when the membership, staff and board of KBOO Community Radio developed a new mission and vision statement that included a focus on anti-oppressions and de-colonization, with a focus on leadership development of those who are most impacted by oppression. This effort included our community, and solicited input from the public. This process and these statements are now guiding our current strategic planning process in 2016.
KBOO is one of the oldest independent community radio stations in America: In 2018, KBOO will celebrate 50 years of being on the air with many events, including a 6-month retrospective exhibit hosted by the Oregon Historical Society — which will be taking place alongside an exhibit of Oregon Black Pioneers. KBOO has also been seeking funding for assessing, documenting, restoring and digitizing our 7,000 reel-to-reel and other analogue files; this collection constitutes an enormous historial asset to our community. These digitized historic files will be tagged for easy searching and will be available to the general public on a special server connected to the KBOO website. It will also be available to history classes at local institutions and to researchers.
KBOO has mentored many other stations while they grow and develop systems for sustainability and programming: In 2015, KBOO transferred our FCC license of KBLU in Pilot Rock, in Eastern Oregon, to Blue Mountain Community Radio. In supporting the launch of new independent stations, KBOO is empowering communities on the air to grow. This is KBOO’s second offshoot — in 1983, KBOO helped launch the now flourishing KMUN in Astoria. KBOO, KMUN, and KBLU all owe a debt of gratitude to the many supporters who believed in the importance of independent radio from the very beginning and, indeed, all believers in the power of people.
In 2016, KBOO hosted the staff and volunteers of Coast Community Radio (KMUN 91.9 FM, Astoria, Oregon; KTCB 89.5 FM, Tillamook, Oregon; KCPB 90.9 FM, Warrenton, Oregon) for two days to mentor in volunteer coordination, programming, engineering, management and other organizational systems. The board and staff of KMUN will come for a second two day mentorship in May.
4. Please describe any efforts (e.g. programming, production, engagement activities) you have made to investigate and/or meet the needs of minority and other diverse audiences (including, but not limited to, new immigrants, people for whom English is a second language and illiterate adults) during Fiscal Year 2014, and any plans you have made to meet the needs of these audiences during Fiscal Year 2015. If you regularly broadcast in a language other than English, please note the language broadcast.
KBOO is committed to equity and diversity and has programmers and programs from many cultures. Thirty percent of KBOO's on-air programmers and forty-percent of our board of directors are people of color. We provide youth a safe, supportive setting where they can learn technical broadcasting skill and put youth perspectives on the air. KBOO broadcasts more than 8 hours a week of Spanish language programs as well as in Italian, Farsi, Yiddish, Dutch, and Italian. We have had Spanish language programming for over 25 years. KBOO has programs serving the African American, African immigrant, Spanish language, Asian, Pacific Islander and Native American communities. KBOO has programs from prisoners, labor activists, LGBTQQ communities and other underrepresented and marginalized groups.
In 2016, KBOO community leader Mic Crenshaw was hired to expand our Youth Collective offerings to include another music program using Hip Hop as a tool for social justice and awareness. This program expansion will include the use of Hip Hop Battles; helping facilitate a Youth Run Venue space at the Social Justice Action Center (SJAC) through a partnership between SJAC and KBOO; facilitating internship opportunities for youth of color like the one with Oregon Black Political Convention at KBOO; international Cultural Exchange through Hip Hop and the Afrikan Hiphop Caravan; organizing artists, musicians and cultural and low paid workers through a localized effort in association with the Artists Cooperative Network (ACN). The KBOO Youth Collective was started in 2002 and we are thrilled to support the youth in our community through Hip Hop culture and music.
In 2016 KBOO launched two new programs for the transgender community, QT (Queer Trans) POC (People of Color) Talk and Transpositive PDX. These programs are an extension of the vibrant activism going on in Portland reflecting the Transgender, Two Spirit, Non Binary and Gender Non-Conforming Communities.
While it is our hope that all of our programming serves our whole community, the specific KBOO programming that is by and for underserved communities, include:
An Evening of Afrotainment
Join host Celeste Carey, aka Adiva, to hear music of the African Diaspora by Black artists-worldwide. All genres...from African traditional to esoteric experimental.
Armando Puentes
A little bit of funky Tejano mixed in with some traditional Conjunto as well as Mariachi music. Offering some public affairs/issues pertaining to the Latino community - in Spanish
Black Book Talk
Monthly program featuring interviews and discussions of works by African American authors. Co-hosts Emma Jackson Ford, O B Hill and Patricia Welch review works in all genres by well-known and emerging authors. Occasional call-in shows allow audience members to talk directly to authors and/or share their opinions on works by Black authors.
Bread and Roses
Bread and Roses is a collective of nine women-identified radio activists. We offer feminist public affairs programming. We give voice to those working for social justice and equity, globally and locally. We strive to challenge systems of oppression. All this, and we have fun! Bread and Roses highlights the achievements of women artists, activists, athletes, scholars and innovators.We strive for programming excellence and collaborative efforts, providing access and training to women.
Buscando America
Buscando América es un programa cuyo objetivo es promover la acción para el cambio social a través de las artes, la música, entrevistas y debates políticos y culturales, con información sobre eventos de actualidad y oportunidades para la educación, un espacio para el activismo y las opiniones en las comunidades diversas de Portland y alrededores. - in Spanish
Disability Awareness
A monthly show about issues affecting people with disabilities and their communities.
Domingos para Recordar
Gracias por escuchar y ya lo saben, a gozar de la vida que recordando es volver a vivir. Las noticias que a veces no se escuchan en otras partes, y en cuanto a economia, les voy a decir como ahorrar un poco de algun modo. - in Spanish
Ear to the Streets of Portland
This program will have conversations around organizing in the Black/African community in Portland and surrounding areas in Oregon, and music of all genres in free-form. The goal with 'Ear To The Streets of Portland' is to create thoughts around organizing and bring people together for understanding ideas for proactive approach to for and about Black Portlanders.
FA Radio
FusionArte is a program that focuses on art and culture, seeking to inform the Hispanic community about both areas. - in Spanish
guess who's coming to radio??!!
This is a show with a goal to address the sociopolitical issues relative to African people and our experiences, in ways that promote positivity, awareness, and pro-activity. We are currently located in the U.S.; however, wherever we are on the globe we are all connected, and none of us will be free until Africa is free!
The Holland Hour
Het Hollands Uurtje! - in Dutch
Italian Hour
Italian music primarily from the 50s, 60s and 70s with occasional modern tunes. - in Italian
La Voz de la Comunidad
News, music, general information, interviews Obras de teatros, entrevistas, informaciones para la comunidad, entrevistas, todo lo que concierne a la comunidad latina. - in Spanish
La Ruleta
Underground, alternative, non-commercial, mainly Mexican, Latin American, Hispanic music. - in Spanish
Labor Radio
Of the working class, by the working class and for the working class. A seven-person collective, including the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
LGBTQArts
This show focuses on art and music in the local LGBTQ community.
Madness Radio
Madness Radio: Voices And Visions from Outside Mental Health brings you personal experiences of 'madness' from beyond conventional perspectives and mainstream treatments, and also features authors, advocates, professionals, and artists.
More Talk Radio
Call-in Talk Radio hosted by leaders within Portland’s African American community.
Mujeres Bravas
Latina Music - in Spanish
One Land Many Voices
Hosts explore political, social and cultural issues affecting Palestine/Israel and the conflict there from a human rights centered perspective.
Pacific Underground
Pacific Underground is a show by Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs) taking the mic into our own hands. There are nearly 225,000 APIs in Oregon. But in one of America’s whitest states, the issues that impact us simply aren’t covered in the media.
Persian Hour
Persian Art and Music. - in Farsi
Poetic License
Poetic License: The liberty taken by an artist/writer in deviating from conventional rules to produce a desired effect.
Portland Jewish Hour
Jewish, Yiddish, Ladino, Klezmer, Israeli, Mizrahi and Sephardic Music and Culture. - in Yiddish
Preference
We aim to provide space on the radio for members of our community, especially the traditional least-voiced, to air their preferences about how our social world can better meet their (our) needs, focusing on the LGBTQA community of Portland, Oregon and surrounding areas.
Prison Pipeline
Prison Pipeline is a radio program dedicated to educating the public about the Oregon criminal justice system. Our goal is to present a unique understanding of the criminal justice system, address the root causes of crime, and challenge the status quo. We seek to promote awareness and activism in order to foster a safe, healthy, and just society.
QTPOC Talk
This show features two local members of Portland’s Queer and Trans Communities of Color (QTPOC). The goal is to increase support for Portland’s Queer and Trans Communities of Color and the intersectionality of these identities. This show will act as a medium for uplifting the narratives of Portland's QTPOC community by providing updates, interviews and reporting national news pertaining to a Queer and Trans People of Color (QTPOC) demographic.
Transpositive PDX
Transpositive PDX explores the vibrant activism in Portland reflecting the Transgender communities
Right 2 Survive
Confronting the housing crisis and organizing housing activists to address systemic inequalities.
Rose City Native Radio
Rose City Native Radio is a native youth music and public affairs show. It features local and national native issues and contemparary native music.
The Motif: Re-Imagine a Jazz Sensibility
Post modern representations of improvisation, across dramatic modes, and re-imagined spaces of diverse music genre.
The Soundbox
The Soundbox focuses on Local Hip Hop Noise. Music and Mayhem via downtempo, hip hop, rap, drum n bass, beat breaks, and everything else EXCEPT the kitchen.
Tonalli
Radio Tonalli es un programa Latina/o que cubre noticias locales, regionales y internacionales con un emphasis en temas y analises sociales, culturales, educativas y politica. - in Spanish
Veteran's Voice Radio Show
Veterans for Peace deals with matters of war and peace. Also deals with veterans health issues and the after effects of war.
Voices From The Edge
Voices from the Edge lends a KBOO microphone to informed guests you might not hear anywhere else. With an hour to invest, the call-in format engages listeners in meaningful conversations about crucial issues like racial disparity, government accountability, environmental justice and politics on local, state and national levels.
5. Please assess the impact that your CPB funding had on your ability to serve your community. What were you able to do with your grant that you wouldn't be able to do if you didn't receive it?
KBOO is not a current CPB grantee.