[freegeek-startup] Non Profit status, shared?

[That Man Behind the Curtain]

Iain (FreeGeek) Davidson wrote:
> At one time, there was some talk about allowing some affilates to
> 'share' the non-profit status of the Mothership/PDX .
> 
> Is that a workable idea.   Could a free Geek in Bellingham, accept
> donations using the 'Free Geek Portland' non-status.  Would a
> 'kick-back' of a few bucks help with the incentive of allowing use, or
> would we need to ship all the money/checks down to portland for
> deposit.  Then FG Portland, 'grant' us a payment in return ?

The 501(c)(3) nonprofit status is granted by the IRS to a given
corporation, in this case, Free Geek, Inc. in Portland.

Speaking technically (at least my understanding of the technicalities,
IANAL) we here at Free Geek have three options:

1. Create or incorporate a new startup that is part of our organization,
subject to our articles of incorporation, corporate structure, bylaws,
board of directors, etc.

2. Offer some kind of a fiscal sponsorship relationship to a new
organization while it is starting out.

3. Stay out of it. No tax status support at all. (Though we can help
people walk through the process by giving them copies of our documents,
etc.)

Now as to practicality, Option 1 (and maybe option 2) would require us
to register in the state of Washington (or wherever the new Free Geek
startup was located). That's a minor hurdle, I think.

Another piece of work for option 1 would be to adjust our bylaws so the
board could have representation from the new site, perhaps by changing
our board selection procedure and requiring each branch to have its own
council. Again, if we decided to do that, it would not be a huge amount
of work, but it could take some time to get all the input necessary.

More important though, is that we are already stretched running our own
organization. Extending the corporate shell to another location could
draw energy away from our core job, which is keeping our current site
and programs in good shape. Even as we are currently working, providing
advise and documentation to the other startups is a fair amount of work.
And there are liability issues to consider if we provide a "minimal"
corporate shell, but let the branch have a lot of autonomy. These things
probably rule out option 1 any time in the near future. From informal
conversations among the current board members here, I don't see this
kind of change in the offing.

Even the fiscal sponsorship option could be more work than we want to
handle, but is may be exploring sometime in the future when we have few
more processor cycles to spare.

> Have any other FG used the 'FG-PDX' status as a helpful startup
> 'boost',  successfully?  Or were there any problems with it?
> 
> (Ok, outside of Oregon state ?

Nope.

-- 
Richard Seymour
That Man Behind the Curtain