The PBS Foundation was created in June 2004[1] and seeks donations from individuals, corporations and foundations to support the work of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) at a national level.[2][3]
Founding
In a May 2005 speech, then-PBS President Pat Mitchell provided further information about the motivation for the Foundation’s creation as follows:
“To make it possible to solicit the kinds of major gifts from individuals and private foundations that enable us to launch new national and local initiatives, to invest in more content, to fully optimize this content with new technologies, we set up a PBS Foundation.”[4]
In the same speech, Mitchell announced that the liberal Ford Foundation had committed $10 million in support of the PBS Foundation, representing the first contribution to its coffers.[5]
Activities
Located in Arlington, VA, the PBS Foundation is currently led by Brian Reddington[6], its executive director, who in 2010 succeeded the inaugural executive director, Cheri Carter.[7] The foundation’s fund-raising efforts include an online donation initiative[8] and a program started in 2014 that focuses on building an endowment.[9]
Overseeing the PBS Foundation is a 13-member board[10]; its members serve without remuneration and are appointed by PBS’ Board of Directors.[11]
In 2015, money raised by the PBS Foundation was used to support PBS production of news/current affairs, scientific, learning and arts programming.[12]
Funding
Foundations that have contributed to the PBS Foundation are: Adobe Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Anne Ray Foundation, Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Atlantic Philanthropies, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Charles H. Revson Foundation, Ford Foundation, George Lucas Family Foundation, Grable Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Kern Family Foundation, Newman’s Own Foundation, Orfalea Foundation, Skoll Foundation, and W. K. Kellogg Foundation.[13]
People
Around the time of his appointment as PBS Foundation Executive Director, it emerged that Brian Reddington had from 2003 to 2006 jointly owned a New York City condominium with PBS President Paula Kerger and her husband.[14]
Lewis Cullman, who served on the PBS Foundation’s Board of Directors from 2006 to 2007[15], has been identified as a member of George Soros’s controversial Democracy Alliance.[16]