[OOTB-hive] Becoming a non-profit

[Richard Esplin]

I agree with all of this. But as I look into it I will share my research. And it is easier for me to research in the US.

I spoke with a lawyer at the Free Software Foundation (Donald Robertson). Here are my notes:
* They provide "Fiscal Sponsorship" to projects to help them manage these money issues.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship
* They regularly provide this service for open source conferences hosted by third-parties.
* Order of the Bee's BeeCon probably fits in their mission because Alfresco is LGPL licensed.
* They usually ask for a branding concession in exchange for their service. They like us to emphasize "Free Software" (not open source), GNU, and GPL . They asked the Seattle Linux Conference to change their name to Seattle GNU/Linux Conference in exchange for this service.
* FSF Europe is probably the right group to work with. They use a different term for the same thing.

Cheers,

Richard

On Monday, July 20, 2015 13:34:02 Jeff Potts wrote:
> Good info, thanks.
> 
> I want to separate this issue from BeeCon as they are related, but not
> fully dependent on each other. There are ways the conference can accept and
> spend money without requiring The Order to have a formal business entity. I
> do not want the conference held up waiting on this. Maybe The Order will
> form an entity and, if it does, maybe the conference will leverage it, but
> it definitely is not a requirement.
> 
> Regarding where the entity should be formed, because most board members
> (and membership) are based in Europe, I think it probably makes the most
> sense to do something in Europe rather than the US.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Richard Esplin <
> richard.esplin at alfresco.com> wrote:
> 
> > As part of the discussion around BeeCon, I spent a little bit of time
> > reading about what it would take to organize Order of the Bee so that it
> > could accept money. Here are a few things I found:
> >
> > * Organizing as a non-profit in the US requires incorporating on the state
> > level ($100-ish dollars), and then filing for non-profit status with the
> > IRS ($750). It probably requires a few days of paperwork. The IRS rejected
> > non-profit applications from a few open source projects two years ago.
> >
> > * I'm pretty good at filling out this sort of paperwork and willing to
> > help out, but I won't be able to look at it until the end of August.
> >
> > * Germany and Belgium seem promising for organizing as a non-profit around
> > open source projects.
> >
> > * OOTBee can become part of the Software Freedom Conservancy, Software in
> > the Public Interest, or another foundation that exists to provide fiscal
> > stewardship services to the open source community. But as the community
> > organization for a commercial open source project, we might not directly
> > fit their mission.
> >
> > * I think CentOS has needs that are the most similar to ours. It looks
> > like currently is it legally affiliated with Red Hat.
> >
> > * We might be able to get some free legal advice from the Software Freedom
> > Law Center, Free Software Foundation, or Free Software Foundation Europe.
> >
> > * I'll get a sense for whether Alfresco would be willing to help OOTBee
> > organize as a non-profit.
> >
> > * I'll ask around at OSCON this week to see how other projects address
> > these issues.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Richard
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