VICTORY & HOPE
Thanks to all the Pacifica members who voted with us in Pacifica’s 2023 Local Board Elections. Thanks to you we and our allies won a majority of LSB seats at three stations, plus additional seats at other stations, which gets us much closer to bringing about real change! Your support is essential for moving forward. People across the network are now grappling with Pacifica’s dauntingly high debt, defaulted loans, and loss of basic operational resources.
To meet this escalating challenge, in January 2024, Pacifica’s Local Station boards elected 20 new Pacifica National Board (PNB) Directors. Two Affiliate Directors were also elected to represent the over 200 affiliate stations that utilize Pacifica programming and share their programming with both Pacifica and other affiliate stations. The introductory speeches of the new Directors indicated that they have a wide range of experience with activism, nonprofit management, and broadcasting, and that the majority of Directors seek to provide Pacifica management the necessary support to address the current financial crisis by making all stations financially self-sustaining with program changes based on listener support in alignment with Pacifica’s mission.
This can include the need to:
- Address the full reality of Pacifica’s severe cash insolvency with effective utilization of current limited resources.
- Promote fair, representational governance with bylaws that protect the assets of stations that are paying their bills and help all stations to be self-sustaining.
- Strengthen collaboration with Pacifica’s over 200 affiliate stations across the country.
- Embrace new media platforms reaching out to youth and diverse, multiracial communities.
- Conduct productive, respectful meetings across Pacifica that focus on responsible governance.
CHANGES TO FIGHT FOR
At the January 25, 2024 seating of new Directors on the Pacifica National Board, Pacifica Executive Director Stephanie Wells stressed the importance of improving programming as a key to financial sustainability.
Susan Young, the newly elected Chair of the Pacifica National Board, will bring her valuable nonprofit experience to the PNB. As a former Texas ACLU board member, she helped lead efforts to turn that organization around from barely making payroll to having a staff of 60. In her PNB candidate speech she shared her deep concerns about the state of the world: “… the carnage in Gaza, the fact that the US is funding the endless aggression of a war criminal, the assault on women’s and LGBTQ rights, the immigration/criminal justice industrial complex that powers the New Jim Crow, the assault on voting rights and the rise of blatant fascism in the US with Texas as one of its testing grounds.”
Susan and other Pacifica National Board Members from Texas understand, in a concrete way, the threat of right-wing violence and the apologists who promote it. KPFT was bombed twice by the KKK and it is the only Pacifica station in a red state. KPFT has demonstrated how to put a station in deficit back into the black amidst strong opposition.
HARD DECISIONS
Many Pacifica new board members have set goals to bring Pacifica’s finances back into the black. Their plan is to empower Pacifica’s skilled ED and staff to help make all Pacifica stations financially self-sustaining in alignment with the Pacifica mission.
We know that there will be difficult decisions in the coming months. Your caring and support are the key to our future success. We appreciate the thousands of votes that have laid the foundation for viable solutions for the network.
Please tell your friends, family and colleagues about your favorite programs on the station that you love, so that we can continue to expand our membership and future voting base. Please be sure to keep your membership current, as another Delegates/LSB member election is this year.
We are planning to send out a survey (simple and quick to fill out) so that you can let us know what your favorite shows are (and were), what kinds of programs/topics you would like to hear, and what programs you can do without. So please start thinking about this and watch for an email announcing the survey.
THANKS again from New Day Pacifica to you and the many members and allies across the country helping to insure Pacifica’s survival and self-sustainability for each of the five stations at this crucial time!