Jerry Woods, Director of Marketing & Morning Show Host, WGTS 91.9
“One of the most powerful things we get to do is point the spotlight at big needs and ask our audience to help meet those needs. In 2025, when the government shut down, many people in the Washington, DC, region didn’t get paid for more than a month. We had people with six-figure salaries who hadn’t been paid in six weeks and were having problems putting food on the table. WGTS listeners stepped up and donated over 20,000 pounds of food, and Convoy of Hope gave another 50,000 pounds, and together we were able to feed thousands of people in our community.”

TJ Jackson, Community Engagement Director, Life 88.5
“One in seven families in Kansas City experiences food insecurity and may not know where their next meal will come from. During the eight Tuesdays leading up to Thanksgiving, Life 88.5 hosted eight Terrific Tuesday food drop-off locations across the listening area, encouraging listeners to care intentionally for their neighbors. Listeners responded by providing a record 10+ tons of food (20,096 pounds) throughout Terrific Tuesday. All food remained in the communities where it was collected, strengthening neighborhood food networks.”

Jennifer Bailey, VP of Marketing & Community Connections, Encouragement Media Group
“While larger cities often get most of the attention, we made a deliberate effort this summer to show up in smaller communities across our listening area. Through consistent on-air promotion, we invited listeners to meet us in their towns, with each stop also featured online so people could easily see when we’d be nearby. Partnering with local coffee shops, our promotions team and on-air personalities created space for prayer, conversation, and genuine connection over a cup of coffee. The response was incredibly encouraging – we even marked each stop on a large office map to visualize the reach. Because of that strong engagement, Small Town Summer Stops is becoming an annual outreach, with plans to expand through a Summer Stop Tour T-shirt and listener voting to help choose our next destinations.”

Haley Radeka, Director of Brand & Marketing, The JOY FM
“Miracle on Your Street was a promotion new to The JOY FM in 2025.  We had over 6500 entries, thousands of real families and individuals who responded to the opportunity to have their rent or mortgage paid for 3 months in 2026. The winners included a single mom of twins, a dad supporting his wife through cancer and job loss, a sister raising her nephews, a widow and soon-to-be grandma, and a single mom recently out of a tumultuous relationship. With support from a local credit union, The JOY FM awarded 5 families across our 5 states, totaling more than $30,000. The best part, though, was that we got to step into the lives of everyday listeners, share their stories, and be the answer to prayers for provision that have been prayed for a long time. Our hope is to expand this promotion in the future and share more stories with our listening community.”

Marina Rojas, Promotions & Marketing Director, Spirit Radio
“We worked with our local Minor League Baseball team to co-host Sunday Family Fun-days. We promoted all the Sunday games, and were given 200 tickets a game to donate to local youth groups and churches. It was a great way to connect with the local church and provide an experience for smaller congregations that wouldn’t normally be able to have a group outing like that. The ballpark saw a spike in attendance on a day they usually do not, our local churches got a free experience, and we got brand exposure on a larger scale.”

Inspired by these stories? Noise Makers Vol. II is packed with creative ideas from across Christian radio to help you bring moments like these to life in your own community.

The post Making Moments Matter: CMB Promotions Day first appeared on CMB.

The post Making Moments Matter: CMB Promotions Day appeared first on CMB.

I knew my responsibilities. I could lead people and navigate the day-to-day demands of the role. I embraced being the “guardian of the product” and the “protector of the license.” Even the responsibility of answering to a board of directors didn’t intimidate me.

No, the thing that gave me pause was the reality that one day I would stand before God and give an account for how well I stewarded this incredibly powerful tool He had placed into my hands. That realization became the motivation behind the somewhat unconventional path I chose to lead KYTT down.

Coos Bay, Oregon, is indeed a “small market,” and some of the initiatives we undertook may not be practical—or even desirable—in other markets. But I am convinced of this: to whatever extent we invest in the spiritual well-being of the communities we serve, beyond our programming, the overall impact our stations have will grow.

I was asked by the CMB team to briefly explain a statement I made in a previous article having to do with the fact that Christian radio was not fully capitalizing on the influence we have in the communities we serve. I offer that not as an indictment, but as an observation born out of experience, and as an invitation to consider what more might be possible.

If sounding great on the air and attracting a larger listenership is the fuel that ignites our vision, then respectfully, I would contend that the vision is too small. Not wrong—just incomplete.  I believe we can do more.  

Is it possible that your station’s presence in its community could serve a greater purpose than it does right now? Could the content of your broadcast be a means to an infinitely more important end, rather than the end itself?

Those were questions I wrestled with at length early on in my tenure as GM.  And the grappling led me to a deeper burden for my community—a growing passion for the souls of the people who live here. Along with that came a revelation that KYTT could do a better job of serving the local churches by coming alongside those pastors and leaders and helping them fulfill God’s calling in their ministries.

I won’t go into detail here (although, if you’re interested, I’d love to share more), but I will say that the decision to intentionally partner with these vibrant fellowships changed everything for KYTT.  It reinvigorated our mission.  We began to see that when the station “washed the feet” as it were of the Church, the seeds of revival were sewn, and our shared vision for growth produced real fruit.

One of the early initiatives of this new partnership was a unifying movement among dozens of area churches called “Pray Oregon Coast.”  The simple prayer of an itinerant revivalist is what the Lord used for me to begin to see what was possible.  Once I believed that God truly wanted the station to help bring churches together, I was fully committed.

We started with a simple vision: bringing pastors and their spouses together for a nice dinner program, to thank them for faithfully serving Christ and His church. It was a tremendous success, which led to more regular gatherings and, ultimately, a shared vision of reaching the area for Christ. All of this grew out of a belief that our presence in a community was multifaceted and not limited to what happens on the air.

Another example of this kind of community engagement was a listener-funded benevolence outreach called the Good Neighbor Fund. Through that fund, the KYTT listening family ministered to hundreds of families and individuals.  Everything from covering past-due water and power bills to rescuing a widow’s home, which was on the verge of foreclosure. We didn’t set out to create something this broad, but with every step of faith, the Lord provided the wisdom, discernment, and resources needed to accomplish His purposes.

Songwriter Allen Levy once said, “To do small things well, over a long period of time, in the same place, seems to be how the Kingdom moves forward.” I believe that.

What KYTT has done in one rural community along the Oregon Coast may not look the same as what God intends for your station. But perhaps it can serve as an encouragement to consider that what happens on the air is only the beginning of our influence for the Kingdom.

Rick Stevens recently retired after a 45-year career in Christian radio. He can be reached at: guitargrandpa59@gmail.com

The post Using Our Influence for the Greater Good first appeared on CMB.

The post Using Our Influence for the Greater Good appeared first on CMB.

We live in a world of quick texts, slightly longer emails, and rare phone calls. Let’s face it: if you work in promotions, sales, or even programming, you’re constantly asking someone to do something for you. Frequently, they say yes. After the concert, sale, or event is over, how often do we take the time to say thanks? I’m guessing you always say thanks in person because your momma raised you right. But when was the last time you hand-wrote a thank you note, put a stamp on it, and dropped it in a mailbox? Those extra steps represent time and care. They represent gratitude. 

Every one of us wants to be appreciated. You never know when a thank-you note could turn into an opportunity to work together again on a bigger project, or it could turn into something more. As Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” On that note, I need to wrap this up; I have a couple of thank-you notes to write.

The post The Power of Gratitude first appeared on CMB.

The post The Power of Gratitude appeared first on CMB.