What the end of CPB funding means for VT.

WGDR & WGDH Supporters -

Early this morning Congress finished approving Trump's $9 billion recession package. Among the many horrible cuts to public services in this country and internationally, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) funding was fully eliminated. That is $2 billion over the next two years. CPB is a large amount of funding for NPR and PBS and affiliate stations in the states, including much smaller and rural stations. It is those stations, ones in Alaska, on reservations, where CPB funds more than 50% of their budgets, where the impact will be felt most. Many of these stations will likely close and their listeners will be left with no access to news, local coverage, and emergency alerts that warn of flooding, tornadoes, fires, and other life threatening events. This doesn't just impact public media, this impacts public safety.

Here in Vermont, we won't face the dire circumstance of any public or community station closing, but we are impacted.

Vermont Public will lose $4 million in funding over the next two years. They will pivot, but it will hurt how they do what they do for the entire state. We encourage you to tune in and follow their digital communications to find out how they are responding. And, we encourage you to give to them to help them fund this gap. It is a very community radio thing to do to rally around our radio friends when they need us!

WGDR/WGDH no longer gets CPB funding. However, we do have a deal through CPB still that keeps the music rights service we pay for affordable. This deal with Sound Exchange, one of the entities that controls rights, is now in question. Read Bob Boilen, the former Tiny Desk of NPR Director, explaining this a bit more. The five other community radio stations don't receive CPB funding either, so their future is not in jeopardy. But, they too may experience increased costs due to the music rights issue.

Central Vermont Community Radio's story is a cautionary tale of what happens when CPB money is pulled. In 2020, CPB funding was pulled from the station, due to an audit, while it was still owned by Goddard College. At the time, the station had an operating budget of $300,000, two full time staff, and Goddard's overhead support for administration, fundraising, and facilities. The CPB funding was half the budget. Only 16% of the budget came from community support. The loss of the CPB money was what made the College give the station to the community. They were unable to afford to keep it running.

Since then, we have worked extremely hard to not just keep the station on the air, but to build a sustainable operating budget. Four years in, we are now at around $135K a year, with one full time and one very part time staff. We are proud that nearly 80% of our budget is funded directly from listeners like you. And, yet, still are not at the capacity we had or need to produce the high level programming you want, need, and love. We'll keep at it and we know, alongside making sure public radio makes it through, you will keep up your support of your pals in community radio too.

This is not a time to turn it down, it is a time to turn it up. If you can, give a little. If you have more means, give more to the stations you adore and to the stations so many rely on every day here in Vermont.

Take good care folks and thanks for listening to all our great public and community stations in our green mountains.

Llu Mulvaney-Stanak, Station Manager WGDR/WGDH, Llu@WGDR.org or (802) 276-0365.

p.s. If you want to share a video summary of this message, check our Instagram page. With a special guest appearance by our WGDR antenna!

A Very Vermonty Auction

Updated 7-24-25

Get a first sneak peek of the upcoming Very Vermonty Auction​ on August 2nd.

Dozens of unique, fun, and exciting items are posted for you to check out now​. Some of these include:​

• Hand printed art from Bread & Puppet​, Mary Azarian, and Hard Press Print Shop (pictured right).​

• Dinner out at Nacho Mama, Outer Spice, Positive Pie, Sambel's Food Truck, and Burlington great eats at Poppy Cafe, Mister Fancy’s, Frankie’s, and more​.

• Truly unique WGDR experiences including a voice greeting recorded by Rumble Strip's Eric Heilman​, co-host a music show, live, with DJ Llu​, a private garden coaching session with Alan LePage​, and more! 

• Family adventures to ECHO in Burlington, the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, VINS in Woodstock,​ Kingdom Trail Association passes​, Mad River Glen passes​, and more.

• Self-care sessions in personal training, herbal consultations, yoga, mani-pedis, and somatic experiences​. ​

• Live music and comedy​ - Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, Ani DiFranco, Spruce Peak Arts, Hill Farmstead Brewery Harvest Festival of Ales and Lager, the Vermont Comedy Club, and more.

• Home and garden items, sourdough baking class, pet consultations, and more!​

These are just a few of the items you can bid on when we go live on Saturday, August 2. These items make great gifts or motivation to try something new yourself! Thank you to the many Vermont businesses, organizations, and individuals who contributed items to the auction. 

Don't let yourself forget to bid! Register today on the site and we'll remind you to bid early and often on the items you want​. When you register, you will be asked:

• For a PayPal account or credit card to have on file. This ensures winning bids, at the end of the auction, are processed securely and quickly. You will be prompted to confirm your win before a charge is made. You will not be charged if you do not win. We do not use credit card information for any other purposes.

• You will be asked to cover processing fees. This saves WGDR money! We appreciate if you cover them, but it is not required.

• You can be public or an anonymous bidder. Either way is still fun!

• That's it! We'll remind you to start bidding on 8.02.

We will still be adding items right up to going live, so if you have an item or experience of $50 value or more you’d like to donate to the auction, we’d love your support. Email Llu@WGDR.org for more information. Thank you! And, be sure to check the auction site frequently to know what you want to get a bid on.

And, if you don’t see an item you want to bid on, please consider leaning into our “season of new sustainers!” We’re looking to get 25 supporters to become a new monthly donor by Labor Day. For just $5 a month, you could fund the WGDR/WGDH programming you love and rely on. It’s like bidding on the station AND winning it all at once!

Take good care folks and thanks for listening, and soon, bidding!

Support our Underwriters & Sponsors

So far in 2025, we’ve received the support of 30+ underwriters and sponsors to help fund station costs. These local organizations, businesses, and individuals are showing their community-mindedness by using community radio to get the word out about what they do and offer. Please support those who support us!

Here is the list of these rockstars as of late June, 2025…

• Black Bear Biodiesel

• Buffalo Mountain Coop

• Capital Cannabis Company

• Catamount Arts

• Center for Arts & Learning

• Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation

• Concept 2

• Craft Cannabis

• Dana Dwinell-Yardley (designer)

• Execusuite/Ledgworks, owner of the Creative Campus

• East Hill Tree Farm

• Elevate Youth Services

• Front Porch Forum

• Galaxy Books

• Green Mountain Film Festival

• Harlow Nonprofit Consulting

• Hunger Mountain Coop

• Lawson’s Finest Liquids

• Maple Roots Festival

• Naive Melody Instruments

• Northfield Savings Bank

• Noyle Johnson Insurance

• Onion River Campground

• PCC

• Plainfield Co-op & Hardware

• Queer Arts Fest

• Red Hen

• Talmo Hair

• Times Argus

• Washington Electric Coop

• Vermont Council for Independent Living

Win Tickets to Higher Ground Shows

Thanks to a new partnership with Higher Ground, listeners can tune in to win tickets to shows each month. Catch some of great live music all summer long and into this fall.

In July tune in to hear ticket give aways for:

Davy Knowles - July 2 - on Discoverances, every other Sunday at 4pm

Shadowgrass - July 10 - on Woodwablers’ JazzGrass, every Wednesday at 7pm

Lisa LeBlanc - July 19 - on Future Reflections, first Monday of the month at 7pm

Iron & Wine - July 20 - on the Revel Level, Sundays at 7pm

Robert Lester Folsom - July 27 - on Woodwablers’ JazzGrass, every Wednesday at 7pm

Grieves - July 31 - on the Revel Level, Sundays at 7pm

SolarFest - August 8-10 - ticket giveaways all month long on Acoustic Harmony (Saturdays at 4pm), Woodwablers’ JazzGrass, the Revel Level, and Discoverances.

Hear the New Summer Schedule

Tune in for even more local shows this summer!

The new summer schedule is live as of July 1! Tune in to hear the 7 new and returning local shows: Show of Life, Eggs on Toast, Stranger & Deininger (in new spot), Unshelved, Where Do We Go From Here, Sex Fly, and Under the Covers. Spot them all in the green areas of the schedule 9those are our local shows, wow so many!). You can download your own copy to print here. Thanks for tuning in!

Thank you, listeners!

We had an amazing birthday weekend thanks to you tuning in and coming down to the station to party. Over 150 people turned out to celebrate and we had over 36 hours of special, live and local programming broadcasting all weekend long.

As of Monday, June 9, we have raised almost our entire goal for the weekend ($4K).

• With another $108 in gifts from listeners, we will hit that $4K.

• Our community sponsors also put another $500 in matching gifts for any last minute gifts coming in the mail by check or after the weekend. So, that could mean we could raise $5K.

• If you have yet to give to the station this year and want to make a birthday gift, you still can.

Thanks again to our community sponsors Physician’s Computer Company, Northfield Savings Bank, Lawson’s Liquids, Washington Electric Coop, and Concept2!

For those of you who missed the party - we felt you in spirit! Here are the brief remarks from our Station Manager, Llu Mulvaney-Stanak about a past year recap since our past party.

Welcome to our now annual birthday party! This marks 52 years of WGDR, 15 of WGDH, and 4 years of CVCR. These are big milestones for this station and everyone here in the room has been part of our success. Truly, we hope you all treat yourself with some great food, music, and company and celebrate with us here today! 

There are many folks to thank! 

To all volunteered to help set up the party and host and clean up. To our party committee – Charles, Maura, Barry, and Steve. I especially want to thank, DJ EhMmAh, Benge, and Kind who are DJing live today. To Charles for the great food spread. 

This year’s party has many great community sponsors who are matching every single dollar we raise, up to $2,500 this weekend. Thanks to Physician’s Computer Company, Northfield Savings Bank, Lawson’s Liquids and Concept2! Also, thanks to ORCA for PA.

Thanks to our board of directors, many of whom are new! Charles, Tom, Barry (here today) and David M., Elizabeth, Audrey who couldn’t be here. 

Thanks to our Programming Committee – Anna, John, Erica, Maura, Peter, and Ari. 

To our now 70 local programmers who are making great radio every single day for you, including this weekend with special birthday programming. 

And of course, to our listeners and supporters. We now estimate we have at least 15K folks who listen loyally to the station – about 10K of those on their radios and another 5K online and on demand. The station is growing in leaps and bounds and we are appreciate all the support the community has given us over the last FOUR years under community ownership!

It's been another big year at the station since our last birthday. I want to give folks some quick updates on what we’ve done together:

• We’ve added another 20 local shows on the air, taking the schedule up to 70 local shows. Alongside our curated syndicated shows, the schedule is getting really full, such a good problem to have!

• We’ve transitioned our board and programming committees from our founders to new groups of folks. These folks are tackling strategic planning as part of the next phase of community ownership.

• And we’ve added a few very part time staff positions – Corey & Levi are helping us with underwriting & sponsorship, as well as operations and programmer support. 

• We’ve also lost some friends along the way. Dave Tucker, long time host of the Long & Winding Road, member of our Programming Committee, co-Music Director, all around volunteer of nearly everything, and our most recent board chair passed in March. His impact on the station is immeasurable and we miss him dearly.

• We outlasted the “who’s buying Goddard campus” adventure of last year and now have a 2 year lease with Ledgeworks. This will see us through our strategy planning for what comes next with the station.

• We also secured state funding from the legislature – a first for community radio in the state and no small feat in our current times! This funding will help us finally move the WGDR tower to a better location for broadcast across our area. 

Lastly, I would be remiss to not take this opportunity to invite you to consider giving the station a birthday gift while you are here. Quite simply, this mission doesn’t move without money or in our case, broadcast without the bucks. In these times, protecting the public access to the airwaves is more important than ever. Community investment in our future success is what will keep this station in the hands of the community!

• First, we’re hoping for your time and talents. The station is always looking for volunteers to join committees, the board, help with special projects, and to help us improve the station. You don’t have to do a radio show to be part of this place! If you are interested in this, please seek out me, a board member, or a staff person to learn more.

• We are also asking for folks who have not yet given to the station, to consider giving a donation as a gift today. We’re currently at _______ raised, and that includes our match from sponsors. We’re hoping to raise at least $4K this weekend encourage folks to consider a gift of $15 or $52 – for the ages of our two stations – if you are able to make a gift. We can take cash or check today or you can give at WGDR.org. There are a few places here today you can make that gift online today or via OR code with your smartphone. Just find a staff or board member to help you. And, thank you!

Alright, that’s it folks, thanks again for coming to the party today. Enjoy yourself and we’ll give this back to DJ Emma!

Here’s to many more years of community radio broadcasting all over our area and online for generations to come! Woo hoo!