NEH grant to Nevada Public Radio will support technical upgrades

Nevada Public Radio has received a $500,000 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to upgrade the station’s technical infrastructure.

The station is the first public broadcaster to receive an NEH Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grant to help with broadcast infrastructure upgrades. The program started last year with WGBH receiving a grant to develop a digital asset management system.

Nevada Public Radio’s grant will go towards Give Voice, a $6 million major-gift campaign to upgrade the station’s broadcast infrastructure, start a $1 million infrastructure endowment and fund its journalism. Technical upgrades planned at the station include studio renovations and replacing equipment purchased as part of a 2003 service expansion.

“Nevada Public Radio is not unlike many public radio and television stations where that amount of investment that needs to take place all at once is simply out of reach without a sustained effort in a capital campaign and the lead gifts that we’ve been grateful to receive … so I think it’s wonderful that NEH makes a provision for that,” said CEO Florence Rogers.