Seattle’s NPR station raised nearly $1.5 million in less than 12 hours through an emergency fundraising campaign Friday after Congress approved clawing back $9 billion in already approved government money.
The $9 billion included $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding for NPR, PBS and member stations including 10 radio stations and four public television stations in Washington.
Money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting accounts for about 5% of KUOW’s revenue — $1 million — and funds infrastructure like satellite interconnection and emergency alert systems. The additional $400,000-plus raised on Friday will be used to maintain the station’s satellite distribution system, chief marketing officer Annette Promes said.
The station launched the emergency fundraising campaign at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, asking listeners on-air to cover the immediate fundraising gap. With a group of donors having already agreed to match $700,000 in contributions, the station reached its $700,000 fundraising goal from listeners shortly before 1:30 p.m. The grand total was $1.487 million.
“We were not expecting that we would meet our goal so early today,” Promes said. “It has been just overwhelmingly successful for us.”
The House approved the request, which includes cuts to previously approved foreign aid funding, from President Donald Trump by a vote of 216-213, according to The Associated Press.
As the Trump administration attempts to slash federal spending it deems unnecessary — this latest move will also rescind nearly $8 billion earmarked for foreign aid and the support of democratic institutions in developing nations — the tea leaves are grim for public media, which the Trump administration views as fiscally bloated and politically biased.
The bill now goes to Trump for his signature.
“We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: those who threaten open access to information do so because they fear the power of an informed public — a public capable of critical thinking, of holding power to account, and of exercising self-determination,” stated a letter from Kerry Swanson, KUOW’s interim general manager.
The Trump administration has been attempting to roll back public broadcasting funding that’s been in place for nearly 60 years, claiming it’s fiscal waste. Since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration in the 1960s, Congress has set aside funding for public broadcasting stations two years in advance, to allow them to implement any operational changes. With the passage of the bill, money that was already approved for the next two years would be rescinded, leaving stations like KUOW scrambling for alternatives.
“We are a mission-based nonprofit organization. … How we think about doing all of our work is: How do we listen to the community that we are a part of?” Promes said. “How do we tell the stories, provide the news and information that really matters in people’s daily lives?”
The impacts are immediate — affecting the current fiscal year, not two or three years in the future, Promes said, leaving stations with little time to react.
For smaller, rural stations, the hurt can be even greater: the Yakima Valley’s KDNA could lose up to 40% of its funding. KUOW is compiling a list of other stations in Washington that need funding.
While it’s reached the immediate emergency funding goal, KUOW is still asking for community members to become monthly donors. Monthly donations are a more stable revenue source, Promes said, that will prevent KUOW from doing more emergency drives next year. Promes said the station is still crunching the numbers, but it looks like there was a surge Friday in people signing up to become monthly donors too.
“We are here for people who can pay, and we’re here for people who can’t,” Promes said. “We are here to provide news and information to everyone, whether you can afford to access it or not.”
