Putting Research Into Action: Brainstorming & Prototyping

The Public Radio Incubation Lab launched with the goal of “bringing transformative ideas to life in public media,” with equal emphasis on how we set about that work as well as what that work eventually produces. The second Lab team is tackling the theme of working better together to advance station membership and donations.

The Lab team has been hard at work applying design thinking principles to address the complexity of our problem statement, “working better together to advance station membership and donations.” This post will explore our process — from research study, to brainstorming and on to prototyping — and we’ll let you know how you can join us for our upcoming Demo Day showcasing our prototypes.

Embarking on a process to discover better ways of working together throughout the NPR-Member station network was a daunting task, and we knew that seeking input outside of our own expertise would be key to generating ideas rooted in evidence rather than assumptions.

We approached our research study with the focus of interviewing to fundraising and fundraising-adjacent professionals from NPR headquarters and Member stations from a variety of geographic locations, station sizes, and formats. Prompting our interviewees with non-leading questions about their experiences working with NPR, allowing us to get the best information possible and dig deeper to truly understand the challenges at hand. We also talked with NPR staff about their experiences working with stations. Here’s an overview of what we heard:

• Fundraising-related information being sent from NPR to Member stations is not always getting directly to its primary users, it is being passed along through forwarded emails or third-party listservs.
• Existing fundraising processes between NPR and Member stations related to membership are largely transactional, such as requesting event talent or custom promo spots.
• When it comes to NPR and Member Stations working together, personal relationships — usually based on having met in person — get things done. This is crucial as getting even small things done together seems to build trust.
• Neither stations nor NPR know what to expect of each other when it comes to fundraising. For example, station staff don’t look to NPR for guidance on membership, which is frequently the largest station revenue stream. When it comes to collaborating with stations, NPR’s Development division focuses on major gifts.
• Capacity to leverage data and tools varies greatly across Member stations.
• There is a strong willingness to “work together” on all sides, but there are varying capacities or appetites to commit time, money, and people.

Lab team members Chad, Cp and Elyse analyzing sticky notes full of ideas during our brainstorming session.

Using these insights, we set out to generate ideas for tools and practices that could help make progress on building trust and goodwill, help fundraisers connect to NPR and to one another, making communication more efficient and how to better represent stations on NPR digital properties.

Our team came back together in-person at NPR HQ in D.C. and used a number of design thinking exercises to conduct brainstorming sessions. This resulted in 200+ sticky notes full of different ideas focused on answering the questions raised from the key insights of our research study.

Of those 200+ ideas lovingly, albeit hastily, scribbled on sticky notes, we knew we couldn’t build prototypes for every single one of them. We held a round of “dot-voting” where each member of the lab could affirm which ideas they thought were closest to achievable in terms of building a prototype to present at the end of the lab.

The matrices we developed using Miro, examining feasibility, viability and desirability of different ideas.

Then, we plotted the ideas on matrices to evaluate viability, feasibility and desirability to determine the highest areas of impact.

The core question we are trying to answer: What practical ideas would get NPR and Member stations to a point where we are working really well together, and as a result, more revenue is generated through by member stations throughout the system?

While our research study helped us get to brainstorming, we wanted to include even more perspectives as we refined our top ideas. We had that chance at the Super-Regional in New Orleans, where we asked the station and NPR leaders in attendance to weigh in on potential solutions for the key challenges we heard about in our study.

I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat at this point — and our team is hard at work creating tools, practices, and ideas for how we might begin to figure out how NPR and Member stations can work better together. Your chance to see and hear all about our work is fast approaching!

The Rotation 2 team presented our recommendations on Thursday, November 21 at 3 PM ET, which you can view using this link. Contact us at incubationlab@npr.org with any questions.