Trust Translates into Powerful Partnerships
Oct 24, 2023
Last month I talked about trust as the essential element in everything we do at MPR. When we act from our core values, live into our commitment to being trustworthy, we can do almost anything. That’s why this month I’ll share with you the great work we are doing through partnerships and the way partnerships are a crucial path to our future as a media company.
Two big events of the past few years inform the way we work today. The pandemic and the murder of George Floyd have forever changed us. In his book The Phoenix Economy: Work, Life, and Money in the New Not Normal, Felix Salmon says the pandemic is an earthquake of an event; its implications will transform us in the same way World War II transformed the world after it.
We’re addressing our new not normal by recognizing we need to pivot to be excellent in our faithfulness to broadcasting exceptional content and creating compelling events. We need to go beyond what has come naturally. We must rapidly adapt and evolve to extend and amplify our work to a much broader audience. An audience that matches the demographics of our state. An audience we must meet where they are.
Today we recognize that partnerships are essential to fulfilling our mission, realizing our vision, and living our values. From the insightful news coverage we provide, to the financial savvy listeners can develop through our great money reporting, to the music and cultural events we sponsor, we’ve got a lot of ways to enrich people’s lives. What we are missing at times are different perspectives and the varied avenues for sharing our content with people who don’t already come to us. We are committed to creating more content and experiences with partners as well as to reaching new audiences through our partners. I’ll highlight a few to give you a sense of the range of things we’re doing.
Partnerships support Early Childhood Programming
You likely don’t think of us as being in the early childhood education business. But we are in the build a better society business. Our Little Moments Count Radio Podcast shares tips on the benefits of brain development in the first 1,000 days of life. Activities that build brain power also promote health equity and healthier outcomes in later life.
Started before I came to MPR, Little Moment Count is an evolving partnership with HealthPartners and an ever-expanding list of community organizations. Among other things, we’re working with KMOJ FM, KRSM FM, KFNU FM and Native Roots Radio to have trusted messengers from the communities they serve come on during their drive time slots and talk about examples of reading, talking, singing, and playing and their importance to a child’s development. We get that great information on their air when the most people are listening, and we compensate our partners for including this valuable content in their programming. It has a cumulative effect. We’re also working on extending our partnership with La Raza AM 1400, who broadcast from one of our towers, to bring the Little Moments Count Radio Podcast to their listeners, too (in Spanish of course).
Partnerships support Music Programming
Another partnership example comes from The Current. We didn’t revive Grand Old Day, the long-running one-day street festival that celebrates food, music, and local retail along St. Paul’s Grand Avenue. The Grand Avenue Business Association and Saint Paul Area Chamber did the heavy lifting on bringing it back to life. We did, however, decide to have The Current do what we do best—celebrate local music. We played a significant role in the event’s successful post pandemic return by having multiple artists from a range of genres perform. Now we’re looking to play an even bigger role in the 2024 festival.
So much about good partnership is simply taking the time to show up and be fully present. I had the great pleasure of attending an opening weekend performance of the Minnesota Orchestra as it introduced its new music director Thomas Søndergård a few weeks ago. It was a phenomenal performance and the energy and enthusiasm that flowed between Søndergård and the musicians carried over to the post-show reception. The whole night was electric. I saw Minnesota Orchestra President and CEO Michelle Miller Burns, a key partner in my work, on the biggest night of the season. We were both pleased just see one another after many months and to revel in the magical show we’d just taken in. It’s an important partnership as YourClassical MPR broadcasts the orchestra’s performances across the state.
Last, I’ll mention Carbon Sound, the contemporary hip-hop and R&B music stream we launched in June of 2022. You may not think of us as an organization that focuses on Black music but being public media calls us to reflect and serve more of the public. While we certainly had the ability to launch Carbon Sound on our own, we thought it would be better if we did it in partnership. So, before we framed things up, we approached KMOJ FM and asked if they wanted to create something with us that would be good for us, good for them and great for the community. We secured seed funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and established a dynamic music brand that fills an important niche in the market that neither of our organizations were providing from the music it plays and the storytelling about local artists it provides to the events it hosts and supports. We’re going back to ask for another investment from CPB to expand our work. Like any startup, it takes more than two years of investment to bring a project into its fullest life.
The lesson I take from all of this, and the forward momentum we carry into everything we do now, is to ask ourselves—what is the path to doing more with community, not for community? It can be something you initiate, or we initiate. It’s among our top priorities. Let’s partner!
Your support helps make all these partnerships possible. Thanks for being an essential part of what we do.
Duchesne Drew
President, Minnesota Public Radio
About Duchesne Drew
Duchesne Drew is Senior Vice President of American Public Media Group and President of Minnesota Public Radio. In this role, he leads the teams that produce MPR News, The Current, APM Reports and Marketplace. Additionally, he oversees YourClassical MPR as a part of Minnesota Public Radio.