[Peace-discuss] Look who is funding NPR

[Linda Evans]

Sorry for the cross-posting from WEFTA.  I thought it
was appropriate since Lisa just mentioned that we
can't underwrite at WILL.  Good thing Big Macs are
'controversial'.  'Public radio', plllleeaasssee!

Linda (still irate over Lisa's post for AWARE being
too political for underwriting...maybe if we
contributed to obesity and heart attacks we would be
fine)

NPR Given Record Donation McDonald's Heiress Leaves
$200 Million

By Paul Farhi and Reilly Capps
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 6, 2003
Page A01

National Public Radio will announce today the largest
donation in its
history, a cash bequest from the will of the late
philanthropist Joan
Kroc of about $200 million.

The bequest from the widow of the founder of the
McDonald's fast-food
chain both shocked and delighted people at NPR's
headquarters in
Washington yesterday. It amounts to almost twice NPR's
annual
operating budget. "No one saw this coming," said one
person.

The nonprofit organization, which will disclose
details of the
bequest at a news conference this afternoon, called
the donation the
"largest monetary gift ever received by an American
cultural
institution" in a brief announcement to its staff
yesterday.

The gift was such a surprise to NPR officials that
they were
uncertain what the money would be used for. The
organization's board  
is
expected to meet in the next few weeks to decide what
to do with  the
windfall. An NPR spokesperson declined to comment
yesterday.

NPR, best known for its daily news programs "Morning
Edition" and  "All
Things Considered," cut back on some of its music and
cultural  
programs
earlier this year, and there was speculation yesterday
that  Kroc's 
money
could be used to restore those offerings. It could
also  be used to
expand NPR's news programs, which are heard by about
22  million people
weekly.

Speaking generally, Michele Norris, a co-host of "All
Things
Considered," said any cash infusion is welcome at an
organization  that
is perpetually on tight budgets. "What we do every day
is a
miracle on the order of loaves and fishes with such a
small and
dedicated staff," Norris said.

Kroc, 75, died of brain cancer on Oct. 12 in San
Diego. She had been  a
longtime listener of NPR's local affiliate, KPBS, but
had no formal
association with NPR or history of funding it. People
at NPR said
yesterday that she had expressed admiration for NPR's
coverage of the
events leading up to the war in Iraq and its reporting
of the war
itself.

Her gift to NPR is one of several that flowed from her
estate. Last  
week
the University of San Diego and the University of
Notre Dame  announced
they each had been given $50 million by Kroc's estate.
The  donations 
are
the largest either university has ever received.

In 1998 she gave $25 million to USD for the
establishment of the Joan  
B.
Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice. Notre Dame hosts a
similar
institution, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for
International Peace
Studies, which was established in 1986.

With a long history of philanthropy, Kroc has donated
to individual
public radio stations in the past. In 2001 she gave $3
million to  KPBS
to help the station build a new studio. KPBS
spokeswoman Nancy  Worlie
said that her station also would announce a gift
today. She  would not
confirm that the gift came from Kroc, who lived much
of her  life in
Rancho Santa Fe, near San Diego.

Forbes magazine estimated Kroc's worth at $1.7 billion
and ranked her
No. 121 on its list of the nation's wealthiest people.
Joan Beverly
Mansfield was born in 1928, the daughter of a railroad
man who was  
often
out of work during the Depression. Still, he made sure
his
daughter received piano lessons, and eventually she
became a piano
player in a St. Paul restaurant. She met Ray Kroc in
1957 when he was
dining, onbusiness, and caught her eye. In his
autobiography he
called her a "blonde beauty." Though she was 25 years
younger, the  two
fell in love and eventually married. The couple had a
daughter,  Linda
Kliber, who could not be reached for comment
yesterday.

When Ray Kroc died in 1984, she took control of the
San Diego Padres,
which her husband had purchased 10 years earlier. And
though Ray Kroc
had been committed to philanthropy, opening the Kroc
Foundation in
Chicago to support medical research, his wife took
giving even more
seriously.

She gave more than $90 million to the Salvation Army,
the largest
donation that organization had ever received, to build
a 12-acre
community center that opened in June 2002. She also
helped build the  
St.
Vincent de Paul Joan Kroc Center for the homeless, a
palliative  care
center, and the Kroc-Copley Animal Shelter, all in or
near San  Diego.
She was also a major benefactor of the Carter Center
of Emory  
University
in Atlanta, and in 1987 she gave $1 million to the
Democratic National Committee, at the time believed to
be the largest
single contribution to a political party in U.S.
history.

During its most recent fiscal year, which ended in
September, NPR had  
an
operating budget of $103 million and broke even
despite the cost  of
covering the war in Iraq. Despite gains in listeners,
its income  has
grown slowly over the past three years. In fiscal
2001, NPR lost  about
$4 million.

About half of NPR's revenue comes from public radio
stations that pay
annual dues based on the size of their audience. The
balance comes
primarily from private donations and corporate
contributions. The
organization receives less than 1 percent of its
funding directly  from
federal tax dollars. The federal Corporation for
Public
Broadcasting supplies about 15 percent of the budgets
of NPR's member
stations, however, which then pay some of that money
to NPR.

Staff writer Roxanne Roberts contributed to this
report.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company



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