SaveWCAL is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that grew out of the decision by the St. Olaf College Board of Regents in 2004 to sell the assets of the WCAL charitable trust, thus destroying the first listener supported public radio station in the USA – a founding member station of National Public Radio (NPR) and a leading member of AMPERS (Minnesota Independent Public Radio stations) – and attempting to dismantle and repurpose millions of dollars in funds given to the WCAL charitable trust by tens of thousands of donors over the course of 80+ years.
SaveWCAL is made up of WCAL donors and listeners, St. Olaf College students, alumni, staff, faculty, parents and friends who care deeply about the station and its service to the college and the community. SaveWCAL is the largest and most invested "Friends of St. Olaf College" organization that the college has ever had. Our intention has always been to save the station to benefit the college — spiritually, historically, financially and educationally. More than 5,000 individuals signed our SaveWCAL petition during Fall 2004.
Our continuing work is in the spirit of trying to uphold accountability, heal, repair, and rebuild all that we can. We believe that the St. Olaf College administration and Board of Regents should be held accountable for its actions as the trustee of this venerable – and successful – charitable trust. In the spirit of the St. Olaf Honor Code, which every student must sign at every exam, we expect the leadership of St. Olaf College (senior administrators and the Board of Regents) to have "neither seen nor done any dishonest work" regarding the handling of the WCAL charitable trust.
Donations to SaveWCAL can be made by any of the methods indicated at the top of the right hand column of our web site.
The SaveWCAL Board consists of:
- W. B. (Skip) Chapin, Jr. '68 CPA, Treasurer
- David Keyes
- Dave Molvik '70
- Mark Sulander '79, Secretary
- Ruth Sylte '82, President
- Charles Umbanhowar, Ph.D., St. Olaf Professor Emeritus of Political Science
- Phil Voxland '66
- Gerald I. (Jerry) Williams '50
The SaveWCAL General Counsel is:
- Michael W. McNabb, general counsel
Ames Business Center
2500 West County Road 42
Burnsville, MN 55337 USA
Phone: +1.952.894.9812
Fax: +1.952.894.1891
This site is maintained by a group of SaveWCAL volunteers. As we have done in all our SaveWCAL efforts and on the old SaveWCAL.org web site (from where we got much past and historical information that is now populating the SaveWCAL LiveJournal site and SaveWCAL.net site), many posts are actually the result of a number of individual contributions from a variety of SaveWCAL supporters.
Official SaveWCAL postings/comments are clearly indicated with the "admin" or "SaveWCAL" identifier.
It should go without saying (but we'll say it anyway) that any comments posted to our blog entries are the opinions of the individuals who post them.
For information on Minnesota charitable trusts:
- Minnesota State Statute 5018.41: http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/getpub.php?type=s&num=501B.41&year=2006
- A Guide to Minnesota's Charities Laws: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/Charities/GuidetoCharitieslaws.pdf
- Fiduciary Duties of a Trustee: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/Charities/FiduciaryDuties.asp
