Save Progressive Radio Station GDPR

Grateful Dread Public Radio was founded in 1996 to serve the greater peace-progressive community. We provide stellar news/talk programming, arts and culture shows, educational offerings, lifestyle pieces with an emphasis on environmentalism and sustainability, and activism opportunities that encourage listeners to take an active role in promoting positive progressive change in the US and beyond. Most importantly, we present access to points of views, voices, artists, and ideas largely absent from mainstream media. We truly are a one-stop shop of diverse voices and views for We The People. Since its birth, what we call GDPR REVOLUTION99 has been listener funded radio -- and we've survived nearly 22 years. But 2017 was a particularly crushing year. Though listenership is up -- we log more than 30,000 listener hours per month on average -- contributions have fallen, leaving the owner to shoulder more and more of the necessary expenses of running this independent public radio station and, sadly, to cut back on some of our operations. Among the challenges, two of our much-needed computers died in late 2017 -- we cannot afford to repair them. Royalty fees are rising. Vital software and several pieces of equipment are in desperate need of upgrade. Staffers need their stipends for the important work they do. Adding to the urgency, the owner (me), who is uninsured, has encountered serious medical issues that have her in and out of the hospital. The bottom line, in order for GDPR to continue past our 22nd anniversary and into 2018, in order for us to continue our crucial mission (the importance of which is amplified due to the Trump assault on the US) WE NEED YOUR HELP.  All funding will go toward station operations -- program acquisition, broadcasting costs,  necessary promotions, computers and broadcast equipment, newsgathering, production of original content, including our flagship program Persistence Radio with Natalie Davis, etc.

I am an award-winning journalist and broadcaster with nearly 40 years experience and a near-lifelong progressive-issues activist. GDPR is my labor of love, my way of using my collection of skills to contribute to the effort to make the nation and the world better, stronger, cleaner, fairer, and more sustainable. It is my way to inform, educate, and inspire our many listeners, who write me regularly to say how much the station means and has meant to them. What we do is important, and in the time of Trump, when more and more progressive media voices are being stifled, independent media outlets like GDPR are more crucial than ever.

Please. Help us survive into 2018 and allow us to thrive in the future.