Keeping news and media outlets afloat has been one of philanthropy’s notable recent success stories. Funders have stepped up to preserve hometown reporting under nonprofit news models, and big players like the MacArthur Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation are keeping the push going through the national Press Forward initiative and other funding. Philanthropic support has also been crucial in the realm of public media, including for PBS and public news outlets like NPR and PBS NewsHour.
But now, media grantmakers have an even tougher, nation-spanning challenge to face than the disappearance of individual local outlets: the impending shutdown of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides funding to local public stations across the U.S.
Following Congress’ decision to cancel $1.1 billion in support for CPB as part of its Trump-invoked Rescissions Act this July, the venerable institution has announced it will shut down at the start of 2026. But philanthropy hasn’t been silent on this one: A group of philanthropic funders has come together to commit $36.5 million in emergency funding for at-risk public television and radio stations. The funders behind the effort, announced earlier this week, are the Knight Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal.
The majority of the funding — $26.5 million — will support the Public Media Bridge Fund, a new pooled fund operated by Public Media Company, an advisory firm that works to strengthen nonprofit media and grow its local impact. The fund is looking to secure the continued existence of local public media services, and will initially focus on rural, Indigenous and other underserved communities that are most vulnerable to losing their stations due to federal cuts.
Public Media Company, which has been studying the potential impacts of defunding CPB since January, identified 115 local public television and radio organizations that are at risk of closing as early as this fall. Approximately 43 million Americans would lose service. This would, as Public Media Company notes, “cause irrevocable damage to our civic and democratic life.”
Funders have also contributed their own direct support for public stations. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which contributed $2.25 million to the Public Media Bridge Fund, is also distributing $250,000 toward public media efforts in Alaska and another $250,000 to public media in New Jersey, where the foundation is headquartered. Meanwhile, in addition to its support for the fund, the MacArthur Foundation is providing $10 million in direct support for public media stations, programs and organizations.
“Millions of people rely on public media for trusted local news, educational programming and stories that reflect their lives and experiences,” said MacArthur Foundation President John Palfrey in a press release. “Stations serving rural, small to mid-market and Native communities… are disproportionately impacted by the funding cuts and need intentional support.”
CPB has noted that rural stations are more dependent on funding from both state and federal government than urban stations. CPB grants accounted for 17% of an average rural station’s revenue compared to 9% for nonrural stations. About half of the corporation’s rural grantees relied on CPB for at least 25% of their revenue, and 33 rural stations, many of which are on Native American reservations, relied on CPB for at least half of their revenue.
Rural stations also have a much more difficult time raising money from private funders than urban stations do, with those donations representing 28% of an average rural station’s revenue compared to 40% for nonrural stations. This isn’t surprising given that most major foundations and well-heeled donors are based in metropolitan areas and tend to support public media either close to home or at the national level.
The Public Media Bridge Fund can neither replace the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributed around $500 million annually, nor make up for all of the funding shortfalls public stations will suffer. Instead, Public Media Company is hoping to keep the 115 most vulnerable stations afloat long enough for them to figure out ways to make up for lost federal funding.
“We’re trying to keep stations from going dark and keep service going immediately,” said Tim Isgitt, CEO of Public Media Company. “We’re trying to both preserve and then help transition these stations to more sustainable operating models. That’s the two-year arc of this. It’s not just about moving money to stations, it’s also about trying to help them do things differently, too. This is a decentralized system, so all of the decisions will be made locally about how to do that, but we’re trying to provide a bridge to that future.”
The Public Media Bridge Fund says at-risk stations received around $50 million in total per year, and it’s hoping to raise and distribute that amount by the end of this year, toward a total of $100 million over a two-year period. This, at least, is within reach. The fund is about a third of the way to its goal.
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A Schmidt Family Foundation grant sets the stage for a rapid response
The reason Public Media Company is in a position to implement this rapid response at all also comes down, in part, to prescient philanthropic backing. Earlier this year, the Schmidt Family Foundation, whose almost 20 years of support for public media and nonprofit news have been driven by Wendy Schmidt, awarded a small planning grant to Public Media Company so it could develop a plan to stabilize and strengthen public media. Thanks to that support, Public Media Company developed the Public Media Bridge Fund concept, which it presented to a group of funders in June. Following the announcement of the CPB cuts, several of them moved forward in supporting the fund.
“We believe that [public media and nonprofit news] are essential to a strong democracy; they provide trusted, nonpartisan and independent news within a broadcast infrastructure that neither commercial or government organizations can replace. From sharing emergency information to providing investigative journalism on local issues to elevating community voices, these independent stations underpin the cultural fabric and safety of communities large and small across the country,” said Danielle Simpson, communications manager at the Schmidt Family Foundation, adding that without critical support, stations may be acquired by commercial companies or special interest groups.
The dollars committed thus far are significant, but the need is greater still. Funders have issued a call to action, asking foundations and donors to join them in their support of the Public Media Bridge Fund and public media in general.
Compared to the breadth and public-facing nature of the rapid response funding philanthropy mobilized during the pandemic, funders’ responses to the Trump administration’s cuts in specific areas have been notably muted, though there have been some exceptions, including the Public Media Bridge Fund. Pooled funding can provide critical opportunities for joint action on the part of funders, particularly due to its lower barriers of entry — and the perception of lower risk.
Simpson said, “With the launch of the Public Media Bridge Fund, there is now a plan for navigating the crisis, but the hard work is only just beginning. We need support from other foundations and philanthropically minded families and individuals to help us preserve and bolster this critical civic institution.”
