Lilly Endowment to Support American Public Media's Being In Audience Engagement and Resources for Public Dialogue
Contact: Brad Robideau
(651) 290-1113
brobideau@americanpublicmedia.org
www.americanpublicmedia.org
Lilly Endowment to Support American Public Media's Being
In Audience Engagement and Resources for Public Dialogue
(St. Paul, Minn.) October 16, 2007—Being® with Krista Tippett, public radio's premiere conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas, today announced it has been awarded a $1.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.
Produced and distributed by American Public Media™ in St. Paul, Minn., Being is heard on over 200 public radio stations and by podcast. In four years of award-winning weekly production, Being has emerged as a distinctive media platform for bringing an informed and intellectually robust conversation on religion and spiritual ethics to U.S. and global audiences.
The Endowment will support the innovation of multi-media resources to draw new listeners and deepen audience engagement with the conversations hosted on the radio program and its Webby-award winning Web site, www.speakingoffaith.org. It will focus specifically on educational outreach to churches, synagogues, mosques, and other places of worship and community, offering new resources for learning and discussion.
"We are thrilled to have Lilly Endowment as partners as we move into a new stage of growth," said the program creator and host Krista Tippett. "This generous funding will allow us to remain on the cutting edge of change in our industry, while meeting listeners' desires to apply insights from Being in their own lives and communities. It will equip us more creatively and practically to enhance public discourse between religious people, ideas and institutions and critical issues in our world."
In an initial exploratory project with Endowment funding, Being created resources for adult and family discussion on topics ranging from the religious roots of American democracy, to the spirituality of parenting, to "the soul of war"—reflections of a National Guard chaplain on the experiences of soldiers engaged in the war in Iraq.
Lilly Endowment is an Indianapolis-based, private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family—J.K. Lilly Sr. and sons J.K. Jr. and Eli—through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. The Endowment, however, is a separate entity from the company with a distinct governing board, staff and location. It is devoted to the causes of religion, education and community development.