As a Scholastic Books Literacy Partner, Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) can purchase Scholastic books for distribution at a greatly reduced cost, approximately $1 per book, with Scholastic handling shipment and payment with GPB directly.  

With fulfillment costs so low, and the strong synergy between GPB’s and Scholastic’s respective commitments to literacy, GPB brainstormed ways to leverage the Scholastic book program as part of its stakeholder cultivation efforts around its local PBS KIDS service. And as many GPB viewers value the education services and PBS KIDS content GPB provides, membership seemed to be a natural area of untapped potential to test out an idea.

So, in Spring 2014, instead of traditional membership premiums, GPB experimented with donating books on the donor’s behalf. For an annual $120 gift to the station (or a sustaining monthly donation of $10), GPB would donate a total of 10 books to children in underserved communities across Georgia in the member’s name. 

The experiment was a big hit with recipients and donors alike, as well as for the station! GPB was able to donate over 3,000 books to Georgia Head Start and United Way from the first two membership campaigns alone, and the station raised over $75K from close to 500 donors in doing so.  Interestingly, the gifts were mostly sustainers, bolstering that important segment of the donor file, and the gifts were fairly equally sourced from TV and radio members alike. GPB members felt good about their gift to GPB and the ability to give back by giving to GPB. GPB cut down on premium fulfillment costs, assuring more of the dollars raised stayed with the station, and helped strenghten the ability of the station and its local partners --like Head Start and United Way-- to deliver on their early education missions.

GPB is now in the second year of this program and seeing similarly positive results.