For years KUNM radio listeners and viewers of KNME television have heard the pitch: Donate your old car. The public station gets the proceeds and the donor gets a tax write-off.

But along comes the federal Cash for Clunkers program — offering up to $4,500 to people who surrender old gas-guzzlers and buy new, more energy-efficient cars. Supporters of the popular program say it's a much-needed shot in the arm for the ailing automobile industry, as well as a way to reduce energy demand.

While there have been news reports of charities complaining about losing out to the government program in other parts of the country, spokeswomen for KUNM and KNME said this week that Cash for Clunkers so far doesn't seem to have hurt their vehicle-donation programs.

"We had a very, very strong July," Mary Oishi, development director for KUNM, said Thursday. "Maybe our listeners don't watch that much TV or maybe they don't want to go $20,000 in debt buying a new car."

Last month, when the first Cash for Clunkers program went into effect, KUNM received 39 donated cars, Oishi said. That's one of the station's best months this year, she said.

The vehicle donation program represents a "very substantial revenue stream," for KUNM, Oishi said. The station, which relies on contributions from listeners for funding, contracts with a company from Oregon called Center for Car Donations, which takes a percentage from the proceeds of each vehicle sale. The company first tries to sell the vehicles at auction. Those not successfully auctioned are sold for scrap, Oishi said. The donors can deduct the amount the car is sold for from their income tax liability.

Similarly, Polly Anderson, general manager of KNME, the Public Broadcasting System station in Albuquerque, said Cash for Clunkers hasn't had a noticeable effect on fundraising efforts.

"We've seen a little uptick lately," Anderson said. She said vehicle donations aren't a major part of KNME's fundraising.

Other organizations elsewhere in the country have not been so fortunate.

"If the Cash for Clunkers program continued and our car donations stayed down, and if we could not find a way to restore income, we'd have to cut beds," a Salvation Army official in Florida told The Miami Herald last week.

The director of a charity car lot called Mission Solano in Fairfield, Calif., in an e-mail this week worried about the program. "It is too early to know how much we will be hurt by the Cash for Clunkers program, but we know we can't compete with the government's checkbook," said Ron Marlette. "Our donations were already down due to the economy as people are driving their old cars longer or brokering a sale themselves. The Cash for Clunkers program could shut us down."

The federal program started out with a $1 billion budget last month. It was so successful that most of the original funds were used. Congress this weekadded another $2 million to the program.

The Senate rejected an amendment proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to allow participants in the program to give their old vehicles to charities. The program requires the "clunkers" to be scrapped.

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at roundhouseroundup.com.