Read the full bylaws here.

Summary by Olivia Henry, March 2021.

Organization description

CoastAlaska is a nonprofit shared services organization for public radio stations in Alaska. Member stations maintain independent programming, while CoastAlaska provides consolidated financial, operations, fundraising, engineering and some editorial services. Member stations are not “members” in the legal sense of the word.

Types of members

1. Member stations: Nonprofit Alaska public broadcasting stations with an FCC license. They are admitted by a majority plus one vote of the board.
2. Association members: Individuals or organizations with an interest in public broadcasting. They may be sponsored by two members of the board of directors. They do not have voting rights.

Board of directors

Composition

1. Two directors representing each member station.
2. Of these two directors, one must sit on the member station’s board. Neither can be professional staff of the member station or of CoastAlaska.
3. Nominees are presented as a slate at the board meeting prior to the annual meeting, and the board approves the slate at the annual meeting.

Governance

1. Member stations do not have voting rights themselves; their only role at the annual meeting of members is to select their two nominees per station.
2. The term for board of directors is two years.

Voting

1. For all but certain decisions, a majority vote constitutes a motion of the board.

Finances

1. The finance committee presents a budget for CoastAlaska.
2. Each member station submits a budget approved by its own board to CoastAlaska. Then the CoastAlaska Board of Directors reviews them and makes any modifications “necessary to assure the continued vitality of all of the Stations as a whole.” The overall CoastAlaska budget, reflecting constituent members stations’ budgets, must be approved by at least eight members of the CoastAlaska board.
3. Since this is a nonprofit, there are no surplus distributions.