Every year, March 19 signifies a new milestone for C-SPAN. The date represents another year of providing an unedited window into the inner operations of the U.S. federal government, adding further credence to the network’s “Democracy Unfiltered” motto. However, it also symbolizes resilience amid evolving (and quite interesting) times in both cable and news.

It’s now been 46 years since C-SPAN went live from the House of Representatives for coverage of floor debates. The inaugural airing began with a short speech from then-Tennessee Rep. Al Gore, and C-SPAN only had four employees at the time: Brian Lamb, Jana Dabrowski Fay, Don Houle and Brian Lockman. They were responsible for transmitting the first TV feed to an initial reach of 3 million homes. Safe to say both C-SPAN and Gore weren’t going away any time soon.

Since then, the nonprofit added C-SPAN2 to focus on the Senate, C-SPAN3 for additional public affairs programming, C-SPAN radio, a video library that now boasts nearly 300,000 hours of content and plenty more—all without a cent from the government. We’d be remiss to not mention the beloved C-SPAN Bus that hit the road in 1993 and traveled across the U.S. to educate communities and schools about what the public affairs network had to offer. It accomplished that task and then some, becoming C-SPAN’s unofficial mascot and a familiar pillar in the cable industry before ultimately being parked for good in 2021.

The idea of not taking funds from government entities is something Lamb feels strongly about even after four decades. In a special that’ll air tonight at 8pm on C-SPAN, current network chief Sam Feist asked Lamb if he’d ever thought about saying “Yes” to federal funding. Lamb was direct in his response: “Not only never thought about it, I would’ve never been involved in it. I think it’s a very bad idea to have a government institution fund media in any way,” the former C-SPAN CEO said.

While the commitment helps C-SPAN remain as unfiltered as possible, it means the network has to get money elsewhere. In addition to the license fees it gets from cable and satellite affiliates, C-SPAN recently started seeking donations from viewers. It also introduced limited advertising on digital platforms but has kept its linear options ad-free.

“We’re going to go out into the patriotic philanthropy world and find support to augment the subscriber fees, and we think that will be the trick,” Feist, who assumed C-SPAN’s CEO seat in September, said earlier this month at ACA Connects Summit.

C-SPAN is joining that patriotic philanthropy with its Founders’ Day celebrations, setting a goal to raise $46,000 by March 31. Find out more and how to donate here. – Noah Ziegler

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