Yes, people really do win pledge drive giveaways at WBEZ

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One Curious City listener was skeptical about whether real people actually win WBEZ’s pledge drive giveaways. They do. But there’s a little more to that answer. Plus, an economist who studies fundraising explains why people give money during pledge drives in the first place. This episode was originally published on March 3, 2022.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for making WBEZ part of your life and for supporting it too.
0:05.0	Check out our thank you gifts like the WBEZ elevated tea with art by Chiw-W-Su.
0:09.0	I love that one.
0:11.0	Make your monthly gift today at WBEZ.org slash donate.
0:15.0	What's up Chicago? I'm Erin Allen and this is Curious City.
0:20.0	It's pledge drive season here at WBEZ. That's when we ask you to donate some cash to support our work and then we offer you a little something in return. Sometimes it's a mug or a nicely designed t-shirt and sometimes it's a chance to win an iPad. We are giving away an iPad at 7 o'clock.
0:38.3	Or even a wild vacation.
0:40.3	To Portoviayarta, Mexico.
0:42.3	Getting your name in the drawing to win a trip.
0:45.3	We've done these drawings for years now,
0:47.3	and one Curiosity listener straight up didn't believe it.
0:50.3	She wanted to know, do people actually win these things?
0:54.7	In all my years, I have never heard of anyone winning a Pledge Drive prize, which led me to ask,
1:03.8	is it real?
1:06.3	This is lifelong WBEZ listener, Skyler Shrimp.
1:10.5	She asked us this question back in 2022.
1:12.6	Last episode, we demystified the process of donating your old car to our station.
1:18.6	Today, another Aaron is going to demystify the giveaways.
1:21.6	My old colleague Aaron Cahoe used to work on pledge drives at WBEZ.
1:26.6	So Skyler's question was right up his alley.
1:28.9	I'll let Aaron take it from here. Skyler grew up among other WBEZ listening Chicagoans,
1:34.3	and she says she pays close attention to these pledge drives, including the big prizes that we offer.
	...

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