The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program recently received a $250,000 donation to help sustain the program, a little over two months after seeing a substantial funding cut from the federal government.

The donation comes from investor and lawyer Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr, according to a press release from the program. Culverhouse is encouraging other supporters of the program to also make a monetary donation.

The donation comes after a March 6 announcement from the IWP that the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs terminated grants given to the program for the past 58 years because the financial awards “no longer effectuate agency priorities” nor align “with agency priorities and national interest.”

Those terminated grants totalled nearly $1 million, a deficit the program is working to alleviate. The IWP has received donations and support since the initial announcement and has a donation information link on its website.

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In the press release, International Writing Program, or IWP, Director Christopher Merrill said he is grateful to Culverhouse for giving the program the chance to “build a bridge to a sustainable future.”

“We look forward not only to welcoming a larger than planned cohort of distinguished poets and writers to our Fall Residency, but to exploring new ways of understanding what their role may be in our changing world,” Merrill said in the release.

The press release states that the IWP will continue to develop creative programming to strengthen the program in the absence of the previously awarded funds, alongside the donations it receives.