Dear ____________,

I am involved in a grassroots effort to start a community-based, non-commercial FM radio station in remote, rural northeastern Oregon. The entire population of our county is 7000 people, and our town of Enterprise is home to around 2000. Over the past few months we have worked hard to raise $10,000 to pay the engineer and attorneys needed to guide us through the complicated application process with the FCC. We have now been informed that we are competing for the same frequency with three large religious organizations. Some applied for the maximum number of licenses (ten) allowed under this current FCC offering, to spread their influence across the country without regard to the needs or desires of the local community. FCC regulations allow us to negotiate a settlement with these applicants, but it appears that it will take another $15,000 - 20,000 to persuade them to withdraw their applications so ours may go forward.

My organization, The Wallowa Valley Music Alliance, is a small educational non-profit that has teamed up with local folks who are interested in fair and informative community radio. Together we have formed The Radio Enterprise Group. It includes volunteers from our local peace and justice group, former public and commercial radio professionals, musicians, writers, poets, farmers, cowboys, and a variety of other hard-working citizens with diverse political and religious beliefs.

We are distressed at how quickly and easily our dreams for a creative and homegrown radio station can be threatened by the big money and power of religious groups like the ones competing for this license from the FCC. In considering where to turn for the money we need to stay viable, we thought that you might be able to point us in the right direction. Our local individual and family contributors gave generously to raise our first $10,000, but we feel we must look further to raise the $20,000, during these challenging economic times.

Do you have any suggestions as to where we can find the funding we seek? Might you or your company be willing to help us meet our goal? Any advice and/or financial support will be greatly appreciated. Please consider this an emergency plea, as there is little time remaining for us to defend our dream. The FCC has given us a short time to engage in settlement proceedings with the other three applicants.

Sincerely yours,