Foundations Pledge $37M to Keep Public Media Afloat

Several philanthropic organizations have pledged nearly $37 million in emergency funding to provide "immediate relief" to public media stations affected by the rescissions package passed by Congress.

The Knight Foundation announced Tuesday it was joined by the MacArthur, Ford, Schmidt Family, and Robert Wood Johnson foundations, as well as the Melinda Gates-led Pivotal Ventures, in committing $36.5 million to keep local public radio and TV stations afloat in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s $1.1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

"Local public media stations are trusted community anchors that connect people to vital news, culture and civic life," Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, president and CEO of Knight Foundation, said in a release. "This is an urgent moment that calls for bold action. We are proud to stand with our fellow foundations and urge others to join us in securing the future of public media."

Public Media Company established a $26.5 million bridge fund that it announced will "provide grants, low-interest loans, and advisory services to at-risk local public media organizations."

MacArthur Foundation committed $10 million to directly support public media stations.

Public Media Company CEO Tim Isgitt said the goal is to raise $100 million over two years.

"Mass station failure could lead to other stations failing — a bit of a ripple effect through the system," Isgitt told The Washington Post.

The House and Senate passed $9.4 billion in Department of Government Efficiency cuts, which included more than $1 billion that had been earmarked for PBS and NPR through the CPB. Trump signed the cuts into law on July 24.

Isgitt told the Post those cuts affected 115 stations serving 43 million people, "all in rural and underserved areas of the country."

"The idea is to move resources to stabilize these at-risk stations, but also to help put them on some sort of pathway to sustainability," he told the Post.