Foundations Commit $36.5 Million in Emergency Funding to Protect Public Media in Vulnerable Communities

Knight Foundation, Pivotal, the MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation call on others to join them in supporting local public radio and television stations after loss of federal funding

MIAMI – August 19, 2025 – The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Pivotal, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation today announced that they will commit nearly $37 million to provide immediate relief to public media stations at risk of closure following federal funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

The recent rescission of $1.1 billion in federal funding for CPB will have dire impacts on the nation’s more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Some 115 stations — serving 43 million people — are losing more than 30 percent of their budgets, according to the most recent data available. This places them at risk of drastically reducing service, or even closing, as soon as October 2025 without emergency funding. Rural, Indigenous and underserved communities are most vulnerable to losing their local stations — and with them, access to reliable local news and educational services.

“Local public media stations are trusted community anchors that connect people to vital news, culture and civic life,” said Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, president and CEO of Knight Foundation. “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.”

The commitment of $36.5 million includes $26.5 million in support for the Public Media Bridge Fund, a philanthropic effort managed by Public Media Company and developed with seed funding from the Schmidt Family Foundation. The fund aims to secure local public media service across the country and will provide immediate stabilization grants and low-interest loans to the most vulnerable stations — particularly those in communities where public media is the sole source of local information — and offer advisory services to help them reimagine operations and achieve long-term financial sustainability. To learn more about participating in the fund, please click here.

In addition to supporting the fund, MacArthur is committing $10 million in direct support to 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 John Palfrey, president of the MacArthur Foundation. “Stations serving rural, small to mid-market and Native communities as well as documentary ecosystems are disproportionately impacted by the funding cuts and need intentional support. These stations are more than just broadcasters — they are critical sources of information and connection.”

Today’s announcement demonstrates the philanthropic sector’s commitment to public media as a durable pillar of civic life. This initiative creates a vital emergency revenue stream, providing the public media network with the stability and time needed to diversify funding sources and develop sustainable business models that will help secure its long-term future.

Many of the at-risk stations have already eliminated entire teams or canceled critical programming in anticipation of revenue losses. If the stations close or scale back, millions of Americans will lose access to free, reliable local news, educational content, cultural programming and emergency alerts. Critical reporting networks at the local, state and regional level will be severely disrupted.

Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, said, “For more than half a century, the Ford Foundation has been proud to support public media and ensure everyone has access to free, quality news and regional programming, whether they live in rural America, the suburbs or big cities. We are proud to join this emergency funding effort to get additional resources to public media at this time of great need. We all must continue to support public media and develop new and innovative strategies and funding mechanisms for the long-term sustainability of this critical resource.”

With this announcement, the foundations are issuing a nationwide call to philanthropy to join them in fortifying public media at this critical juncture. Their aim is to ensure that every community has continued access to trusted, independent, local journalism.

Knight Foundation

Knight Foundation is a social investor that supports a more effective democracy by funding free expression and journalism, arts and culture in community, research in areas of media and democracy and the success of American cities and towns where the Knight brothers once published newspapers.

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

The MacArthur Foundation boldly invests in creative solutions to urgent challenges, sparking hope for our future. We work on a few big bets that strive toward transformative change in areas of profound concern, including the existential threats of climate change, the challenges of criminal justice reform, revitalizing local news in the U.S. and corruption in Nigeria. In addition, we maintain enduring commitments in our hometown Chicago, where we invest in people, places, and partnerships to build a more inclusive Chicago and in journalism and media, where we invest in more just and inclusive news and narratives. We also make awards to extraordinarily creative individuals through the MacArthur Fellows program and for solutions to critical problems of our time through 100&Change.

The Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation is an independent organization working to address inequality and build a future grounded in justice. For nearly 90 years, it has supported visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation and advance human achievement. Today, with an endowment of $16 billion, the foundation has headquarters in New York and 10 regional offices across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Learn more at www.fordfoundation.org.

Pivotal

Founded by Melinda French Gates in 2015, Pivotal is a group of organizations that work to accelerate the pace of social progress and expand women’s power and influence in the U.S. and around the world. Through high-impact investments, philanthropy, partnerships and advocacy, Pivotal seeks to remove the barriers that hold women — and all people — back. Pivotal includes Pivotal Ventures, LLC, and Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation, a 501(c)(3) private foundation launched in 2022.

The Schmidt Family Foundation

Established in 2006 by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, the Schmidt Family Foundation works to restore a balanced relationship between people and planet. Through grantmaking and investments, the foundation partners with communities around the world in working for renewable energy, resilient food systems, healthy oceans and the protection of human rights. A longtime advocate of public media, the Foundation has supported National Public Radio and its Collaborative Journalism Network, which increases local coverage, especially in underserved communities, and expands investigative reporting capacity.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

RWJF is a leading national philanthropy dedicated to taking bold leaps to transform health in our lifetime. To get there, we must work to dismantle structural racism and other barriers to health. Through funding, convening, advocacy and evidence-building, we work side-by-side with communities, practitioners and institutions to get to health equity faster and pave the way together to a future where health is no longer a privilege, but a right. Learn more at rwjf.org.

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Press Forward, Knight, MacArthur invest in Rebuild Local News, ground-level public policy

This article originally appeared in a News@Knight Newsletter. Subscribe here.

The real action of public policy is happening on the ground—in cities and states across the country that increasingly recognize the value of local news as a public good. They have led the way with initiatives like employment tax credits (New York, Illinois), funding for fellowship programs (New Mexico, California, Washington state, Illinois) and requirements for government advertising to support community and ethnic media (New York City, Chicago, San Francisco).

California Local News Fellow Anthony Victoria, left, in the field doing audio reporting at the Victorville courthouse for KVCR, an NPR affiliate, in Southern California’s Inland Empire. (Photo by Janette Villafana)

Accelerating this local momentum is why Press Forward recently announced $3.45 million in funding to support public policy in five state initiatives, along with funding grassroots efforts from key players in Rebuild Local News and Free Press to provide tools and resources to 36+ local chapters of Press Forward as they convene stakeholders and advance policies to support the newsrooms in their communities. Knight and MacArthur Foundation added to Press Forward’s investment in Rebuild Local News, for a total of $5.25 million in grants over three years. All this adds up to one of the largest investments ever made to advance public policy for local news.

So what does public policy look like in action? Let’s look at two key initiatives that are supporting rural, urban and suburban communities.

Government advertising: Modeled on an innovative program in New York City, states and cities can require that local ad spending go to smaller community and ethnic news organizations. Here’s how these programs help newsrooms and small businesses:

In Henrico, Va., the Henrico Citizen and Henrico County Economic Development Authority partnered to launch the Henrico Small Business Boost program in 2023. It provided subsidized, three-month advertising campaigns across the paper’s print, newsletter, digital, social and audio products for 20 small businesses. The Citizen launched a second round of the program last year, doubling grants to $80,000 for 40 small businesses.

*A packed City Hall meeting in San Francisco discussing advertising spending on community and ethnic media. (Photo by Maya Chupkov)*

San Francisco has developed and maintained a similar program. In FY 2022–23, the city spent $126,527 on advertising in community and ethnic media, recently expanding the effort as it spent thousands more on smaller media during a campaign around food waste. Maya Chupkov of California Common Cause recently organized a convening at San Francisco City Hall to discuss the advertising program. Chupkov said the program has progressed as more city departments get on board, showing a willingness to spend marketing budgets on small newsrooms.

Local fellowship programs: In these programs, a state typically funds a journalism school to run a fellowship program that pays the salary of reporters to work in newsrooms for a year or more. The programs are designed to create a pipeline for young reporters and boost reporting in underserved communities. Here’s how they have had an impact in three states:

California Local News Fellow Anthony Victoria (pictured up at the top) is an audio reporter for KVCR, an NPR affiliate in Southern California’s Inland Empire. He has helped his newsroom report on the wellbeing of immigrant communities in the wake of sometimes violent and unprecedented federal policies. One story in particular found that people from local agencies were being misidentified as immigration officers.

New Mexico Local News Fellow Kylie Garcia covered arts and culture for the Santa Fe New Mexican, writing more than 200 stories, and is now a reporter for the Albuquerque Journal. Her editor, Carolyn Graham, said the program “provided our publication with a person with a fresh perspective on the world and technology that opened all our eyes…We also opened her eyes to the importance of creativity and innovation.”

Murrow News Fellow Monica Carillo-Casas has been producing stories for Spokane Public Radio and the Spokesman Review in English and Spanish. “We all bring something unique and we are able to produce so many stories that have helped bridge the gap between media and communities,” she said in a video about the program. Three Murrow fellows have been covering the Washington state legislative session as well, and all coverage from fellows are free to publish for any news outlet.

What’s striking about these impacts is that they are being made around the country, in liberal, moderate and conservative areas. In many cases, these public policies were supported by both Democrats and Republicans, who understand what communities lose when they don’t have local reporting. We believe this unprecedented—and increasing—funding for public policy that supports local news will replicate these positive impacts in even more communities.

Written by Duc Luu, with Mark Glaser

Edited by Atena Sherry and Kara Pickman

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Rebuilding the Roads, Bridges and Power Lines of Local News

2025 Esserman-Knight Journalism Awards

To provideon-the-job training for the next generation of journalists.

To provide litigation support for journalism and open government cases as well as establish long-term independent funding for such work.

To providesupport forresource-strappedsmall publishers covering localimmigration issues impacting their communities by providing accurate, culturally relevant information through trusted sources.

To support the process tohire anew executive director who candrivethe growth and expansion ofMedia Impact Funders.

To support the hiring of the founding Executive Director of the Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media.

Create a multi-school Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) that will offer a financial incentive for recent journalism school graduates from a diverse range of schools to work in local news.

To increase career pathways into the broadcast industry by providing internships to students participating in the NAB Leadership Foundation’s Media Sales Academy and Technology Apprenticeship Program.