1) Contributions from corporations and wealthy individuals are tax-deductible, and their pledge drives emphasize that. Those are not included in your "1 percent."

2) A good part of their budget comes from programming fees from affiliate stations, e.g. for the right to run Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Nature, or NOVA. Those stations, in turn, have 501(c)(3) status.

Although NPR receives less than 1% of its direct funding from the federal government, member stations (which pay dues amounting to approximately one third of NPR's revenue), tend to receive far larger portions of their budgets from state governments, and also the US government through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

1/3 isn't 100%, but it's also far from insignificant.

My local affiliate breaks it down as 50% member support, 40% corporate/charitable underwriting, 10% state/local govt funding. Maybe other NPR affiliates also get federal grants, but this one doesn’t.

Seems like we’re back to a pretty small fraction of funding for the US State to exert hard control over the content produced.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3551625-the-time-has-co...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/706290/npr-revenue/

So, as a correction it's closer to ~22.5%. Still a not insignificant amount.

It gets 1/3 from member stations, which get “far more” than 1% from various levels of government.

“Far more than 1%” of 1/3 does not mean “1/3”. It’s actually, IIRC, about another 4% of NPRs funding that indirectly comes from government this way, bringing NPR to about 5% government funding, including indirect government funding through its members stations.