Six months after rushing out emergency grants to keep public radio stations on the air, the Public Media Bridge Fund is shifting its focus from triage to transformation. Its first open call invites public media organizations to apply for support on collaboration projects.
The Bridge Fund’s new Sustainability Program seeks to address the structural inefficiencies and duplication that underlie the crisis, it says. Funding will combine grants of up to $500,000 per project with low-interest loans and advisory services for mergers, regional networks, shared back-office services, or partnerships with non-public media organizations.
The move comes amid heavy uncertainty around the future of federal funding, even with a US District Judge’s recent ruling that President Donald Trump’s Executive Order barring any federal organization from distributing money to NPR or PBS is unconstitutional.
To be eligible, projects must involve at least two organizations, one of which must be a Corporation for Public Broadcasting-qualified public radio or television station, and must demonstrate measurable efficiency gains, cost savings, or revenue growth without sacrificing local programming or community engagement. The Bridge Fund will review letters of intent on a rolling basis.
The program follows the Bridge Fund’s December stabilization round, which distributed $26 million across 74 organizations operating 186 radio and television stations reaching 30 million people.
PMBF Executive Director Erik Langner said: “Over the past six months, our focus has been getting urgent support out the door to keep stations from going dark, while assessing what the system needs next. Moving forward, we’re focused on helping the system work better, together.”
Public Media Company CEO Tim Isgitt added, “As we look to the future of public media, the Sustainability Program is designed to establish replicable, scalable models that strengthen long-term resilience.”
