Pledge Nothing

Click here to pledge nothing.

The Fight Continues

WRVU Friends and Family are continuing the fight. They are in the final stages of establishing an official 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization and they are working with lawyers to go over the details of the deal between Nashville Public Radio and Vanderbilt Student Communications as well as reviewing VSC’s stewardship of the station license.

Management, publicity, research and lawyers all take time and money from people that care about saving the station. WRVU Friends and Family need your support! Take Action now and give them some of the money that you MIGHT have given to Vanderbilt. You’ve already PLEDGED NOTHING now is the time to stand up and TAKE ACTION!

What's This About?

Vanderbilt's 6-decades-old radio station, WRVU, is slated to have its broadcast license sold, effectively killing the station.

The group which operates the station, VSC, has systematically moved to dismantle the station despite wide outcry and prolonged protests by alumni, students, faculty, staff, and donors.

From hiring serial college radio shutdown artist Chris Carroll, to removing "ass-pain" community DJs, to ensuring that community DJs (presumably more activist than student DJs who won't rock the University boat) don't come back, to putting the station license up for permanent sale, ignoring community feedback, letters, outcry, and bad publicity, VSC has made it clear that its years-long agenda is to sell the station license and take WRVU off the air.

The VSC board has shown complete disregard for community, student, and university donor opposition to the WRVU shutdown.

It is our understanding that VSC's staff budget dwarfs the cost of running WRVU -- making this a case of misplaced priorities.

The Vanderbilt administration has attempted to keep a low profile -- staying out of the controversy -- hoping that no one will make them care that killing WRVU is eliminating a priceless educational resource for the university.

We have no choice but to make Vanderbilt University pay attention.

So, what works?

We know that there are two things guaranteed to motivate the current Vanderbilt administration to act:

Threats to their stream of
incoming donor money.

Bad publicity.

So we're joining together to spread the word that shutting down WRVU is unacceptable.

We're going on record saying that we won't support closing the station by selling the broadcast license.

We're also calling for a 5-year moratorium on plans to sell the license, close the station or otherwise make it difficult for WRVU to stay on the air.

It wouldn't hurt if VSC fired its shutdown artist and let community DJs re-join the WRVU schedule.

We're doing all this by letting Vanderbilt University know that we, past, present, and potential future donors to Vanderbilt's fundraising efforts, are going to refuse to donate even a cent for the next few years unless they commit to keeping the station up and running.

So, how do I "Pledge Nothing"?

Easy. The easiest way is to just:

Click here to record your pledge.

You can even do it anonymously. We'll bundle up pledges and draft an email to The Campaign for Vanderbilt, various luminaries in the Vanderbilt administration, etc., and let them know just how many years of donations are getting zeroed out.

If you want to be even more personal, you can call, write, or email them directly.

Oh, and if your phone works anything like ours, you're probably getting regular calls from nice hard-working Vandy students calling you to ask for donations. We were just like these kids when we were in school, so be nice. But, when they call, tell them you'll not only not be donating this year, but if the University doesn't force VSC to back off plans to sell WRVU's license, you won't be donating for the next 5 years! (... or however many years you choose.)

Definitely drop us a line to let us know how it went. We'll share your stories here and with the good people at SaveWRVU.com.