When Congress cancelled federal funding for public broadcasting in July, they left KVPR defunded, but not defeated. While the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down for good on in January, your local public radio station isn’t backing down. Instead, KVPR’s determination to serve the Central Valley has never been stronger. While some local stations elsewhere have already announced plans to shut down, here at KVPR, we’re not going anywhere. However, as of October 1, 2025, KVPR is now a 100 percent community-supported service.
The end of federal funding eliminated about 7 percent of the KVPR’s overall funding, or $192,000 for the new fiscal year that began October 1, 2025. During the summer, as the drama over the end of funding played out, KVPR developed a plan to address the potential loss head-on.
With the end of federal funding, KVPR is now 100 percent community supported
The plan included emergency fundraising and a freeze on hiring for any vacant full-time positions. It also had contingency steps including cuts to programming, operations and local coverage. Thankfully, thanks to the incredible support of our listeners, we have been able to avoid those cuts, preserving KVPR’s programming and local service.
Responding to a crisis
Within hours of rescission passing in the House of Representatives, KVPR launched a special two-day on-air fundraising drive, which raised over $48,000. Donations large and small continued to flow in from listeners across our region. KVPR’s September fund drive focused on signing up new monthly sustaining members and featured a $12,000 challenge from the James B. McClatchy Foundation and a $25,000 challenge from several of KVPR’s Leadership Circle donors. All told, in September, KVPR collected pledges from 426 new or increasing sustaining members, a record for the station. Overall membership giving was up 29.5 percent for the year. Thank you to everyone who helped in this effort!
Thanks to increased listener support, KVPR has avoided cuts to programming and operations. Now the hard part begins.
“Public radio is a vital force for tens of thousands of local listeners across our valley. Now that KVPR has been defunded by the federal government, this station is truly 100 percent locally supported,” said KVPR President and General Manager Joe Moore. “The foundation of our operation is individual giving. It’s a sink or swim moment, and we’re seeing people answer the call. We’re encouraging people who have been on the sidelines to become supporters, as well as encouraging those who have been giving for years to increase their support. The response has been incredibly encouraging.”
Challenges ahead
However, public radio isn’t entirely out of the woods. As we enter a new year, and the issue of public media defunding fades from the headlines, the sustainability of this enhanced listener support will be critical. For 47 years, CPB was essentially the KVPR’s largest sustaining member. “We know that we’re going to need a lot more sustaining members in the weeks and months to come, as well as additional annual donations and one-time major gifts to secure public radio’s future,” said Moore, explaining that sustained fundraising in 2026 and 2027 will be critical to sustaining the station’s service.
“We are so grateful for the community support that has come through in the last few months. Now we need to turn our focus to sustainability. Right now, nearly 60 percent of KVPR members give as monthly sustaining donors. Our goal is to raise that number to 70 percent, which is in line with other stations, and to do so by growing our membership ranks with over 1,000 new donors. It’s a big challenge, but it’s one that we can achieve when our local communities come together to protect public media,” said Moore. Your support as 2025 comes to a close can make a big difference, and help secure public radio’s future. Make your contribution today at KVPR.org/donate.
Other impacts of the CPB shutdown
Likewise, with the end of 2025 approaching, the totality of the loss of federal support is coming into sharper focus. Beyond the loss of direct support for stations like KVPR, there are other system-wide expenses once supported by CPB which will now likely fall on the budgets of local stations. CPB’s indirect support included funding for things like the online content management system that hosts station websites and podcasts, and intellectual property licensing, which allow stations the legal clearance to air music programming. The ultimate bill for these costs is still to be determined, but it’s another part of the picture in the post-federal support era of public broadcasting.
GOAL: Add 1,000 new KVPR members and achieve 70 percent of overall station donors as monthly sustaining members
With the shutdown of CPB, KVPR is also losing out on another federal grant that would have kept the station on-air in the event of a major emergency. In late 2024, KVPR was awarded a $38,000 FEMA Next Generation Warning System Grant, which was administered by CPB. Following the rescission of federal funding, KVPR was forced to relinquish this grant, leaving the project incomplete. The project was intended to fund the construction of an auxiliary transmitter site at the station’s studio in Clovis. The new site would have been used in case KVPR’s main transmitter site at Meadow Lakes was impaired by a natural disaster. Twice in the last five years, climate-related disasters took the transmitter site off-air.
In 2020, the Creek Fire came within half a mile of the site. While the transmitter was not destroyed by the fire, the station went off-air for days due to an extended power outage. The outage left KVPR running on a backup generator which eventually ran out of fuel and fire conditions prevented the station from refueling the propane generator. In 2023, a similar incident involved an extended power outage caused by a major snowstorm. The station ran on its generator for days, but with roads blocked, the station was unable to safely refuel in time and went off air. If the station had access to an auxiliary transmitter site in those instances, KVPR could have remained on-air.
This is a critical public safety issue, and not just for KVPR listeners. KVPR is one of two local broadcast stations responsible for disseminating Emergency Alert System messages to all other radio and television stations in the six-county San Joaquin Valley region. In the event that KVPR goes off-air in an emergency, listeners to all other local stations might not receive these critical alerts, for everything from flash floods to wildfire evacuations.
Defunded. Not defeated.
Despite these setbacks, KVPR remains committed to the station’s public service mission. We need public radio for moments like this one. In an age where misinformation spreads like wildfire, and AI-generated slop floods the digital world, the value of hearing real voices, from the Central Valley and beyond, has never been more important.
In an era where truth is often under attack, KVPR is your source for information that you can trust, thoughtful coverage that explains the totality of a story, and brings you new ideas and perspectives. Help support KVPR’s continued service in this new era for public media with your contribution today. Donate now at KVPR.org or by returning the envelope that’s included with this magazine. Thanks so much for your support!