That is exactly the kind of strategy we will have to employ to be able to maximize what we can make off the ballroom. As many activities as possible need to be justifiable as charitable so that we can sometimes have a big non-charitable event that brings in a lot of money. On 11/6/15 10:25 PM, Torrie Fischer wrote: > I'd always been told that a non profit can sell things and rent out things > as long as its within the purpose as filed with a 501c3 application. The > Omni's (abridged) legal purpose is to educate, do science, fight > oppression, and operate property to facilitate that. If there's an A/V > group that wants to put on badass professional shows while simultaneously > /teaching/ people how to put on badass professional shows (like a > vocational school, for example), thats legit, right? > > If not, could the purpose be legally amended to accommodate a new goal > somehow? "fostering oakland culture" or something just nebulous enough to > pass the IRS. > > I'm not a tax lawyer, don't know any, and have not been party to what > sounds like a very thorough discussion group so I hope someone tells me > why I'm a fool. > > On Friday, November 06, 2015 10:09:16 PM yar wrote: >> On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 9:00 PM, Torrie Fischer <tdfischer(a)hackerbots.net> > > wrote: >>> Is not making money an implicit attribute of being a Non Profit or >>> something? >> >> Sort of. You can make money, but most of it has to be from charitable >> donations. There's complicated math about exactly how much - at least >> 60%, but for large donations only the first $5k counts towards the >> total, it's based on a 4-year average, etc etc etc. The more >> non-charitable income you get, the more you have to worry about that >> stuff, and there's incentive to structure as much income as you can as >> "donations". The fundraising working group has been working for months >> on this, and the plan is for many member collectives to become >> fiscally sponsored by Omni, and all their members' payments to be >> called donations instead of dues. Most events that we do in the >> ballroom are educational, and collecting door money could fit into a >> donations framework pretty easily. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> discuss mailing list >> discuss(a)lists.omnicommons.org >> https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/discuss