Why you should donate
WMBR is noncommercial radio, offering many hours of programming that cannot be found on any other radio station anywhere. We are 100% volunteer, with no paid staff. This is rare ‐ even among other local college and public stations. Our volunteers are MIT students, alumnus, staff and members of the local community.
Our primary source of revenue is listener donations. MIT provides the space and a small stipend, but over 99% of our operating costs are covered by your individual donations. We rely on your support to bring you our diverse programming!
Where the money goes
The COVID-19 crisis caused major changes in the way we operate, and these changes still affect us to this day. When MIT shut down non-essential buildings in March 2020, we lost the ability to broadcast live from our campus home in Walker Memorial. Luckily, thanks to your previous donations, we were able to set up remotely controlled broadcasting capabilities. Read more about how our tech staff made that happen here!
While we are still operating remotely for the near future, in-person broadcasting is on the horizon. After last year’s large undertaking of moving our FM transmitter, antenna, and tower from the Eastgate building to the new E37 building in Kendall Square, we shifted our priorities this year toward the finer details. We began to invest in the infrastructure that is necessary to start broadcasting live from our studios again, as much of the equipment and software needs updating and repairs after almost three years of reduced usage. With purchases ranging from nuts and bolts to a new PC for queuing music, we successfully tested a studio broadcast this spring by bringing the annual Campus Preview Weekend All-Night Broadcast back to Walker Memorial. As we look to have a greater volume of live shows in the future, your contributions will help to make hybrid programming of remote, pre-recorded, and in-studio shows a reality!
Your donations continue to pay for our webcasting and artist licensing fees, which are our biggest expense. But you're also supporting whatever else we need to make all this possible, from providing remote broadcasting equipment to new recruits, to paying for increased server space and redundancy for our remote show library. To this, we are incredibly grateful! Thank you for being the best listeners a station could ask for.
Premiums
A variety of premiums were available as our way of saying thank you for your support. They are tokens of appreciation for your tax-deductible donation to WMBR. This year we offered t-shirts, rugby shirts, duffel bags, outdoor blankets, rubber ducks, and stickers!
Here's a sneak peek at what the premiums look like: