Kindness of strangers

All of us who work in public radio, and in all sorts of public service not-for-profits, can declare along with Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, "'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." We aren't quite the lilies of the field who "toil not, neither do they spin;" we toil a lot. But for our raiment (fine or otherwise) we have always been in the faith business. Faith in the value of our efforts, and faith that the community will provide for its support.

It's come time once again (starting Monday) to put that faith to test, as we do each year in our fall fundraiser. It would be easy to view this regular exercise as a burden, both in the making and in the hearing, but the longer I work in public radio, the more I see it as an opportunity. We get to see our faith born out, year after year, in a way that no other endeavor provides. There is no compulsion, there is no exchange regulated by "the invisible hand of the market," there is only the giving and receiving of gifts. And for the giver, there is a rare opportunity to value something based on one's own experience and circumstance, not on a bar code readout.

I am not among those who want to change the business model of public broadcasting to something more "scientific" and "predictable." I predict that we'll do just fine. You just have to have a little faith.