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The Bush Foundation made its initial grants in Public Broadcasting in 1971 and increased its funding in 1976, based on the recommendations of Bush Consultant John P. Witherspoon. Initial grants in this area were focused on providing matching grants to fund operating budgets of public television and radio stations serving Minnesota and the Dakotas.
Over the next 30 years, the Foundation supported a wide range of public broadcasting initiatives, including audience development and sustainability, start-up support for community and Native American stations and capital campaign contributions.
Summary of Giving
From 1971 to 2008 the Bush Foundation made 123 grants to 23 Public Broadcasting organizations totaling more than $16.4 million (see full list).
Major grant areas included:
- Matching-gifts for membership challenge drives
- Capital campaign contributions
- Funding for start-up expenses and new equipment
- Planning and capacity-building
Learn More....
Background
Grants Overview and List
Return to Bush Legacy Home Page
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How Bush Grants Made A Difference |
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The "Bush Push"
The Bush Foundation gave nearly $2.1 million in dollar-for-dollar matching grants to public broadcasting stations for funds generated through membership drives. The activities to garner these additional funds became affectionately known in the public broadcasting circles as the “Bush Push.”
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Moving Into the Digital Age
The Foundation assisted many broadcasting stations with grants to upgrade or enhance their technology and equipment. For example, a $127,090 grant to Prairie Public Broadcasting in 1999 enabled the organization to establish two-way electronic connections among the three public television stations in North Dakota. In 2004, a $350,000 grant to Twin Cities Public Television contributed to a $3.6 million program to upgrade their digital production and transmission equipment. Minnesota Public Radio received an $873,035 grant in 1998 to create one of the first designated “new media” departments in public broadcast journalism.
Finally, a 2006 grant to Twin Cities Public Television (tpt) resulted in the creation of the Minnesota Video Vault, a web-based, on-demand video service that contains hundreds of hours of documentaries, performances, interviews and speeches from the vaults of tpt and other regional organizations. The Vault will ultimately provide a platform for the preservation, digitization, cataloging, tagging and presentation of video material from the archives of tpt and other regional public television stations, museums, educational institutions, historical societies and more. It is also a powerful education resource, tagged to relevant Minnesota State Academic Standard benchmarks, to facilitate classroom use.
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