NPR expects that a boost in revenue coupled with spending cuts resulting mainly from a staff reduction will lead to the network’s first balanced budget in three years. A fiscal year 2015 budget presented at a Thursday meeting of NPR’s board of directors projected $190.2 million in revenue and $188.7 million in expenses. Depreciation and other cash adjustments are anticipated to eat up the $1.5 million overage, leaving NPR with a balanced budget. “This will be the first balanced budget since 2011,” said Roger Sarow, chair of the board’s Finance and Administration Committee and g.m. of WFAE-FM in Charlotte, N.C. “It was unbalanced three years out of five, and that just wasn’t sustainable.”

Also: Pubmedia reports lead to changes in Goldman Sachs policy.

A new show from the African-American Public Radio Consortium examines issues through the views of artists, activists, academics and journalists — all of them women of color. Hosted by longtime broadcaster Esther Armah, The Spin now airs on WNAA in Greensboro, N.C.; a digital channel of WWFM in Trenton, N.J.; and the Internet station Radio Phoenix. It also airs on commercial radio in Accra, Ghana, and Armah hopes it will find a home on London airwaves as well. Stations in Atlanta and Chicago have also expressed interest. Armah formerly worked for BBC Radio 4 and Pacifica Radio’s New York station, WBAI.

Also: Podcasting starts turning a profit.

Members of an NPR working group aiming to standardize levels of audio content delivered via the Public Radio Satellite System believe they have found one possible solution to the problem. Programs sent to stations through the PRSS vary widely in volume and may detract from the listener’s experience, according to Chris Nelson, NPR’s director of digital strategy. In May, Nelson shared with the NPR Board results of a study in which about 53 percent of the content examined by the working group deviated from standards PRSS recommends for consistent volumes. The group aims to give stations and producers affordable best practices and resources to help solve the problem.

Also: INN launches a site to track news about nonprofit journalism.

The former finance director of PBS Distribution, a partnership between PBS and Boston’s WGBH that handles digital and video sales, is accused of embezzling some $2.1 million in a lawsuit filed Monday. Christopher C. Morris of Chelsea, Mass., allegedly deposited 202 checks in his personal account at Citizens Bank from 2008-13 that were payable to PBS, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. The lawsuit does not say how long Morris worked for PBSd. Morris forged PBS’s endorsement on the checks, the lawsuit contends. Federal Insurance Co. (FIC), which insures PBS and its subsidiaries including PBSd, is suing Citizens Bank because the bank “should have known on its face that Morris did not have authority to endorse PBS’s signature and did not have authority to receive the monies,” FIC alleges in the court document.

After a four-year run, science correspondent Robert Krulwich’s blog on NPR.org, Krulwich Wonders, will end Sept. 30 as the network seeks to cut costs. “NPR (in the form of a super-top executive) sat me down and, after four years of generously supporting this blog, told me it can’t anymore,” Krulwich wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “It needs to cut costs and — you know the phrase — it has chosen to go ‘in new directions.’ So at the end of this month, Krulwich Wonders will no longer appear on NPR’s website.” In a statement, NPR said the blog started as part of NPR’s agreement to distribute Radiolab, which Krulwich co-hosts.

Also: A head audio engineer at Oregon Public Broadcasting takes first prize in an Atari contest.

Judges and the public have selected five winners of American Graduate’s Raise Up hip-hop and spoken word competition, which asked students to share original poems about challenges that lead students to drop out of high school. The winners will perform their poems live Sunday at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at an event hosted by Glynn Washington, host and e.p. of public radio’s Snap Judgment. Each winner will also receive a $5,000 scholarship from the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation. Raise Up is a partnership between CPB’s American Graduate initiative and San Francisco-based Youth Speaks, an organization that seeks to empower youth through writing and the spoken word.

Plus: Paula Poundstone says NPR listeners are "polite and fun. There’s not a lot of head-bangers."

David Candow, who was nicknamed “The Host Whisperer” for his work training hundreds of public radio hosts and journalists, died Thursday at his home in St. John’s, Newfoundland. He was 74. After a long career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Candow started a consulting business in 1995 and became known throughout U.S. public radio for his extensive work training journalists in writing, editing, interviewing and delivery. In 2008, the Washington Post described him as “a kind of Henry Higgins to broadcasting’s Eliza Doolittles.” His death prompted an outpouring of remembrances throughout public radio from the hosts and reporters he helped over the years.