[freegeek-startup] Non Profit status, shared?

[Iain (FreeGeek) Davidson]

Cool,  I see the implications.  Great idea, I would be happy to have a
FG-PDX person on our board.  I'll seed the idea and see what happens.

As we work on getting our own Non-profit status....   and under provisional
status....

--- How about this idea?

We won't be able to offer tax-deductable donations, but others can donate to
our cause anyways.

If they really want to a tax-deductable donation, we suggest that they write
the check/cash to 'Free Geek-Portland'.
We'll ship them down to you, and you deposit them with clear record keeping,
and in return 'grant' us about 98 to 99% of it back. (The 2 to 1% is kept as
a transaction service expense 'donation' . Or a flat $$$ amount for each
transaction? :)

I wonder if that's allowed between states ?

How did FG-PDX handle tax-deductable issues during provisional status ?
-iain



On 7/25/06, That Man Behind the Curtain <richard at freegeek.org> wrote:
>
> 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
> _______________________________________________
> Making new Free Geeks outside of PDX mailing list
> http://lists.freegeek.org/mailman/listinfo/startup
>
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