By Caitlyn Petty | BG Falcon Media intern
Bowling Green State University’s One Day is the single biggest fundraising event of the year and an important one for Falcon Media. The event officially takes place April 3rd and 4th though “early giving” is available now – just click here. One Day brings together alumni, faculty, students, and other supporters to raise funds. As our day of dedicated giving approaches, you might wonder what exactly your donation is going towards. This year, Falcon Media is raising money to help its students succeed and to prepare for the future by creating hands-on experience.
This past year, the Falcon Media Fund paid for all of the BG News printing costs and made possible a number of smaller equipment purchases.
The Falcon Media Fund helps us pay student stipends which is crucial since many students have recently been struggling financially at a much higher level than in years past and allows our students to focus on their education instead of the financial burden of attending a university. At a time when we are working to grow student media, we eliminated paid staff positions to make our budget. Recently, the school has had to eliminate paid staff positions to meet its budget figures.
Many students have to make the decision between paying their bills or volunteering with Falcon Media to gain the experience necessary to compete in the workplace. One of our student executives works two other jobs in addition to their Falcon Media responsibilities and several others are working part-time jobs. This is all in addition to full academic loads.
As Falcon Media continues its efforts to expand our live sports broadcasting, we are being hindered by equipment. A Comrex is the device that allows us to broadcast athletics events and while we have three in hand, age has taken its toll. Each of these devices is close to 10 years old and one of them is in the hands of our engineers who hope to patch it together. But that’s just a band-aid. We need to invest in new devices so our students can get the hands-on experiences they deserve and learn outside of the classroom setting. These devices cost upwards of $6,000.
Our recent partnership with the athletics department created incredible opportunities for our students. We have unprecedented access to coaches and players and for both women’s basketball and volleyball, not only are we the only outlet providing live game coverage but our students are traveling with the teams. This results in an immersive experience that greatly enhances our content while our students learn what it means to truly work a beat. The reception from the students and surrounding community has been incredible. Although the athletics department provides transportation, we foot the bill for lodging and food, which can run anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 dollars depending on the sport. And we’d like to expand this opportunity to our hockey coverage next year.
Those are some big numbers but any contribution to our team will be helpful and appreciated. In fact, we have made great use of items such as USB storage devices, video memory cards, mini phone tripods, and wireless Bluetooth lavalier microphones, all of which we can purchase for about $25.
Better yet, every donation of any size goes toward our challenge gift. When we reach 25 total donors, it will unlock a $3,500 gift made possible by alumni Duane Pohlman, Harold Brown, and Mizell Stewart III as well as Dr. Ellen Schendel, the deal of the school of Arts & Sciences, and Karl Smith, the Falcon Media Manager. So every little bit goes a long way.
Our advertising efforts continue to raise revenue in new and creative ways but not nearly as much as our growing needs and we have new revenue products in production, but it will take some time for them to produce positive results. In the meantime, we hope you’ll be a part of sustaining Falcon Media, knowing that every dollar goes to providing our students with meaningful experiences.