Community radio stations across the country are facing major changes in staffing, leadership, and technology. On top of existing challenges and changes, stations are tasked with keeping up with, and meaningfully serving, evolving community demographics. Quick fixes and bandaids for the everyday fires that crop up at stations can only go so far before they create stressful environments that perpetuate burnout and stand in the way of sustainable, healthy growth. 

This is why NFCB created the Audience Counts Initiative, a program that provides stations with training, education, and hands-on experience to make meaningful change at the root of these issues: change management, conflict navigation, volunteer and leadership training, and local journalism. Through the ACI, NFCB is helping stations stay nimble while remaining true to their mission.

Broadband technology, media consolidation, and the disruption of local journalism have all challenged community stations. The Audience Counts Initiative was designed to complement to NFCB’s Community Counts Initiative, which leverages the Circle of Engagement model to focus on exploring sustainable paths forward. Both CCI and ACI were created with an eye towards sharing case studies with other NFCB stations and the larger public media system.

Funding for ACI is provided by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) whose mission is to ensure access to non-commercial, high-quality and educational public media service to all Americans.