As we welcome a new year, we also welcome two new board members to NFCB’s leadership team. Today we’re sitting down with Llu Mulvaney-Stanak, Executive Manager at WGDR/WGDH in central Vermont. Llu brings so much to their community and to the greater NFCB community and we’re thrilled to welcome them to the team!
Serah Mead: I love a radio origin story. Can you share with us your relationship with radio and how you came to be at your station?
Llu Mulvaney-Stanak: I got my start in community radio as an angsty tween back in the 90s. It was the very same station that I now am the Director of – WGDR, Plainfield – so it is a full circle moment for me in so many ways. To say that getting my first show changed my life is an understatement. It was both the anchor I needed at that time and a creative outlet that would become a lifelong passion for me. I went on to do college radio when I went to college, but upon graduation, my hopes to work in radio were dashed as commercial radio in Vermont was both very limiting in what you could play and what they paid. Instead, and ironically, I took a job that paid more than radio in the nonprofit sector after graduating. I still kept radio as a side hustle, doing shows on the weekends on commercial, college, and/or community radio for the next two decades. When WGDR’s ownership changed hands from Goddard College to the community in 2021, I was in the right place at the right time. Becoming the first Director under community ownership has aligned my my passion for radio, years of nonprofit management and resource wrangling, and ability to adapt to change — all a time when the station has needed all of that in equal parts. Becoming the Director at WGDR was something my teen self dreamed of all those years back. And, in the midst of all of this, I am very lucky to also have recently landed a second dream radio job, as a music show host on Vermont’s public radio station – Vermont Public – this past year. So, I get to have a mix of the creative show outlet and the day to day station mission moving every week.
SM: As you step into this role as a board member for a national organization, what are you most eager to learn more about? And what are you eager to bring to the table?
LMS: In the wake of CPB’s defunding, we are in the rumble of a huge moment for community and public radio. It is one I think NFCB is well positioned to help lead the sector through, with creativity and courage to do things differently. I am eager to learn and frankly, ask a bunch of questions—from other board members, station leaders, and others about what just hasn’t been working and thus, what opportunities we have to shift things for the better. What has really worked for stations that we can skill share more nationally? What leverage can we build as community radio (and public) to move our missions in smarter, not harder ways?
I think I can bring to the NFCB board the spirit of queering things up. As in, the way things have always been done has often not served all or even been the best way to do things. Queering it up — a concept from queer community/culture — is being willing to be creative in the face of challenge, use joy as an organizing tool, and to remember the power of making an experience — including the planning and building — connective and inclusive. I’ve also got some “real time” experience with WGDR now almost 5 years out from losing our CPG grant, as a small rural station, and what we’ve tried, what’s worked, what we’re building upon to not just survive, but thrive with a totally different foundation than the station has had for 50 years.
SM: What was the most helpful advice you received in your community radio journey so far?
LMS: It wasn’t so much advice, it was more a reframing. We had our 50th anniversary as a station a couple years back and one of our programmers was a historian at the Vermont Historical Society and dig some digging into our station archives (that we had donated to them during ownership transition for better preservation). In past recordings by other Station Managers in those archives, she found someone who described being a Station Manager as being the “parent of the station.” As a parent myself, it struck me just how true that is. You are in charge of the overall well being of not just the “home” but the people in it. And, because community radio attracts a certain kind of personality with lots to say and lots of opinions on things, a parenting approach to the conflicts, disagreements, and other agita that comes up is a far more effective strategy than a top down leader or, frankly, consensus building for everything (a hold over from the Goddard way of doing things for our station). Some may hear parent and think I mean treating programmers and volunteers like children. That’s not the case. I mean parenting in its best form — a sounding board, a safe person, a coach, a steady holder for all the feelings to get let out. I think when done with intention and humbleness, “parenting” is one of the best organizing skills one can bring to any effort.
SM: This year has really tested the resilience of community broadcasting. When you look to the future, what is your vision for public media and community radio? What do you think it will take to get there?
LMS: Honestly, I think public media and community radio only share the format of radio. By design and need, what we do and how we do it have long been different. We have a chance to learn from each other about what still works in what we do, what we could borrow from each other, and what could we start doing with intention, together, no matter the size of a station.
I’ve long believed that those with more means, including organizations, have a duty to lift up those with less means. Where could we cost share among those with means, so we could cover the costs to participate by those with less—on everything. PRO fees, NFCB membership, SoundExchange, the coming PMI work (which I think is intended to be free). What could be possible if small stations could worry less about the money and more about making great content?
I also think that the nonprofit sector is facing its own looming crisis with less volunteers and less wealth sharing (philanthropy on a higher level), as this boomer generation begins to disappear. Most people in the country simply don’t have the time or money to lift up the many organizations doing good work. Federal funding, once thought to be untouchable, is no longer a solution for big funding. I think we will see a downsizing of the nonprofit sector and we need to be ready for it in community radio, because so many of the smaller stations rely heavily on volunteers – some for everything – and the margin of error on budgets is often skewed by just a few major donors.
How do we get there? Don’t forget who we are (the heart) and what we do best (our why). If we ensure we are making better and better, local content, the listeners and the support will come. We must be ready to change our infrastructure to go where the listeners are — have great online listening UX, along side the best broadcast reach you can get. Then, get local and state investment in our the public good and need that our stations meet. I believe there should be some % of every station budget funded by public tax dollars (not federal, with all the limitations that once had), but fair and equitable funding from local government—in the same way that libraries, parks, and other places for public good are invested in.
SM: Finally: What would be your dream music festival lineup? You can choose any artists, alive or dead, past and present (even future!).
LMS: Wow, not a fair question to ask a music nerd like me!
I’d love to see a line up that has at least Robyn, Beyonce, and Prince headlining. Each of those folks have/had such a command of how to create the awe that only live music can provide.
