The article doesn’t mention the trust that owns The Guardian, now a limited company, which is quite interesting because it was set up to own The Guardian for purely philanthropic reasons.
You're right, of course, but the Scott Trust is not philanthropic in itself. It only exists to keep the Guardian and Observer going as they are. As such when finances become tight there are undoubtedly tensions between the overall philanthropic aims of the Scott family and the brute need for the trust to survive so the papers survive.
The intentions of the Trust were explicitly carried over to limited company in its constitution. Whether that's sufficient to protect it, well we'll see.
>>The Trust was established in 1936 by John Scott, owner of the Manchester Guardian (as it then was) and the Manchester Evening News. After the deaths in quick succession of his father C. P. Scott and brother Edward, and consequent threat of death duties, John Scott wished to prevent future death duties forcing the closure or sale of the newspapers...
https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2008/mar/06/...
https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/22/...