Public Media Bridge Fund turns from emergency aid to sustainability grants for local stations, with $10 million from Knight Foundation
The fund Public Media Company built after Congress rescinded federal money for public broadcasting has raised $87 million and seeks $38 million more. A new grant and coaching program for smaller stations takes applications from Oct. 20 to Nov. 19.
Denver. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is committing $10 million over three years to the next phase of the Public Media Bridge Fund, which Public Media Company created for local public radio and television stations after Congress rescinded federal funding for public broadcasting in 2025. Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, Knight's president and chief executive, announced the commitment at an event in Denver marking Public Media Company's 25th anniversary, according to the fund's release dated Oct. 14.
The fund says it has raised $87 million from more than 1,500 donors and aims to raise $38 million more to strengthen stations for the long term. Knight's money is meant to help stations diversify revenue and build partnerships through sustainability work at vulnerable stations and regional collaborations meant to preserve, and in some cases expand, local content.
From emergency grants to lasting models
Knight seeded the fund with $10 million, and within weeks it raised $26.5 million from a coalition of funders; Knight also gave $3 million directly to at-risk stations in Knight communities. By December 2025 the fund had awarded $26 million to 74 organizations operating 186 radio and television stations that serve more than 30 million people.
Public Media Company, a Boulder, Colo., nonprofit that advises public media organizations, had never made grants before. "So we sort of turned ourselves inside out, hired some staff and became a grantmaking organization," its chief executive, Tim Isgitt, told The Associated Press.
In March the fund opened a rolling call for collaborative operating models: projects of two or more organizations, at least one of them a public station that qualified for Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding. Such projects, from regional networks and mergers to shared finance or engineering, can receive grants of up to $500,000, low-interest loans and advice. Texas Public Radio, which agreed in July to combine with the nonprofit newsroom San Antonio Report, is getting help from the fund with that combination, its chief executive, Ashley Alvarado, told the AP.
A coaching and grant program opens Oct. 20
On Oct. 6 the fund announced Pathways to Sustainability, which pairs a station with a coach to draw up an action plan, then lets it apply for money to carry the plan out. It is open to stations that qualified for CPB funding as of Sept. 30, 2025, and provide a unique local service, with total annual budgets no larger than $2 million for radio-only licensees, $5 million for television-only licensees and $7 million for joint licensees. Applications open Oct. 20 and are due Nov. 19. For this and future programs, the fund will support organizations rather than individual stations.
“Emergency support gave them time to stabilize. Now the priority is durability.”
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