PCO Articles & Bylaws

For much of 2021, PCO has been streamlining its operations to be more efficient, effective, and to serve you better. One of the changes has been working on is a revised set of articles of incorporation and bylaws that make compliance with state and National Organic Program (NOP) requirements easier. This is an important set of comprehensive revisions that PCO's Board and Governance Committee has been working on updating for a number of years. The changes offer more opportunity for you to provide feedback and expertise, for transparency of operations, and to interact with the Board and staff - all of which will NOT affect your annual certification process.

Major changes enacted by the revisions:

1. A new structure establishing a single Board of Directors. Past bylaws required two boards (Advisory and Managing), creating inefficiencies and the potential for unclear boundaries in decision making authority to exist.

2. A transition from a member organization to a nonmember organization within the meaning of the Pennsylvania Nonprofit Corporation Law of 1988, as amended. Certified clients will no longer be categorized as members of PCO with voting rights. Nonvoting memberships, such as advocate and business memberships, will still exist as they do now, but no class of membership will have voting rights in PCO.

3. A new requirement with detailed instructions for presenting an Annual Report at the PCO Annual Meeting. This report for the Board shall be filed with the minutes of the annual meeting and will be part of the official record.

You can find a copy of PCO's bylaws at the button below: