Station Policies
WABE is committed to the highest standards of journalistic integrity and financial transparency. Our newsroom provides a vital public service and adheres to the following policies:
Cancellation and Exchange Policy
Editorial Independence Policy
Our news and reporting operation retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a strict firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. We also maintain a strict firewall between our management when acting in functional areas unrelated to our news and reporting operations and our news and editorial content decisions.
As an NPR member station, we adhere to the NPR Ethics Handbook and its guiding principles on Independence and Transparency.
Per our Donor Transparency Policy, our organization’s acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.
While our organization accepts gifts, grants, sponsorships and underwriting from individuals and organizations for the general support of our organization, our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.
Our organization may accept, from time to time, gifts, grants or sponsorships to support the coverage of particular topics or special projects, but our news and reporting operation maintains control over the news and editorial content of the coverage. Our news and reporting operations cedes no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of authorized distribution of editorial content.
Per our Donor Transparency Policy, our organization makes public all donors who give $1200.00 or more per year. Further, per this policy, we do not accept restricted gifts, anonymous or otherwise, that would compromise or infringe upon the journalistic independence of our news and reporting operations, or the news and editorial content arising out of such operations. Unrestricted anonymous gifts may only be accepted by our organization pursuant to safeguards that assure that the expenditure of such gifts are made independently of our news and reporting operations and are used instead for general support.
Our organization is a public school board licensee, from whom the organization occasionally receives both financial and in-kind support. Our news and reporting organization, from time to time, covers our licensee. Notwithstanding the financial and in-kind support from our licensee, our news and editorial judgments are made independent from our licensee. In accordance with proper journalistic standards, we do broadcast disclaimers to the public informing them that our organization is a public school board licensee whenever we report on or editorialize about topics pertaining to such licensee.
Gift Acceptance Policy
AETC (doing business as WABE) sets forth the following gift acceptance policy. This policy has four parts, related to gifts, namely (1) gifts that will not be accepted; (2) gifts that are generally accepted; (3) gifts that are subject to a prior review by AETC before acceptance; and (4) gifts that will be directed to the WABE Foundation, Inc.
- Gifts That Will Not Be Accepted
- Gifts that would cause AETC to violate any provision of its articles of incorporation, bylaws and any officially adopted policy of the Board of Directors
- Gifts that would cause AETC to be at risk of losing its status as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization
- Gifts that AETC determine would be too expensive or difficult to administer in relation to the gift’s value
- Gifts from any organization whose mission is contrary to the mission of AETC or that is contrary to the mission of public broadcasting generally
- Gifts that would be contrary to WABEs donor transparency or editorial independence policies
- Gifts that would present a conflict of interest to WABE’s journalistic work or that would compromise WABE’s journalistic independence
- Gifts That Are Generally Accepted
- Cash
- Donations made through credit card payments
- Marketable securities
- Estate bequests
- Retirement Plan Beneficiary Designations
- Life Insurance Policy Beneficiary Designations
- Gifts That Are Subject to Prior Review Before Acceptance
- Real Estate
- Tangible Personal Property
- Donations of Securities of Closely Held Business Entities
- Life Insurance Policies
- Gifts that contain donor restrictions, directives or expenditure requirements.
- Gifts That Will Be Directed to the WABE Foundation
- Gifts involving significant administration, including Charitable Gift Annuities, Charitable Remainder Trust, or Charitable Lead Trusts
- Gifts which have undergone prior review and determined by AETC to be best accepted and handled by the Foundation.
Donor Transparency Policy
We are committed to transparency in every aspect of funding our organization.
Our acceptance of financial support does not mean we endorse donors, or their products, services or opinions.
We accept gifts, grants, sponsorships, and underwriting from individuals, organizations and foundations to help with our general operations, which includes all aspects of our news operations.
We have adopted a policy to make public all donors who give $1,200.00 or more per year. As we are a grantee of the Corporation for WABE, this policy is implemented in compliance with CPB’s Donor Information guidelines.
Subject to the policy described above, we will not disclose a donor’s personal information to any non-affiliated third party without the donor’s consent. In this regard, we are committed to adopting and implementing appropriate policies and procedures to safeguard donor’s personal information.
We will, on occasion, accept gifts, grants and sponsorships related to the coverage of specific topics and special projects. However, in any such instance, our news judgments are made independently and are not based on or influenced by donors. We do not give donors or supporters the rights to assign, review or edit content.
We have adopted a gift acceptance policy, pursuant to which we do not accept restricted gifts, anonymous or otherwise, that would violate our editorial independence policy. Unrestricted anonymous gifts may be accepted; however, such gifts are only accepted pursuant to safeguards that assure the expenditure of such gifts are made independently by our organization for general support.
We will not accept donations from any source, including political parties, campaign organizations, elected officials, or candidates actively seeking public office, that would cause AETC to be in violations of the restrictions applicable to 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations pertaining to political activities.
We are a public school board licensee and from time to time, we receive both in-kind and financial support from our licensee. However, we maintain independence of our news operation from our licensee, notwithstanding such support. Consistent with proper journalistic standards, we do note that our stations our licensed to our public school licensee in any news coverage of issues related to our licensee.
We will not accept donations from sources that present a conflict of interest to our journalistic work or that would compromise our journalistic independence.
Cancellation and Exhange Policy
EVENTS
WABE’s event refund/cancellation policy gives you the following options:
1. If the cancelled event is going to be rescheduled within twelve months, you have the option of holding your tickets until the rescheduled date. You do not need to do anything to exercise this option and if we do not hear from you within 30 days of the event cancellation, we will presume that you have elected this option.
2. If the cancelled event is not going to be rescheduled, you have the option to convert the price of your ticket purchase to a general tax-deductible donation to WABE. You do not need to do anything to exercise this option and if we do not hear from you within 30 days of the event cancellation, we will presume that you have elected this option.
3. If the cancelled event is not going to be rescheduled, you can within 30 days of event cancellation elect a raincheck option, i.e., have the price you paid for the ticket(s) applied to a future WABE ticketed event. Or you can request and receive a refund of your ticket price within 30 days of event cancellation.
PLEDGE ITEMS
If you are not satisfied with an item for which you have pledged, you may return all products within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. Refunds are typically credited using your original form of payment. Payments made by credit card or ACH will be reimbursed within 5-7 business days from the date of the requested refund.
