[sudo-discuss] [omni-discuss] Benefit Corporation?

[Torrie Fischer]

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 at 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.
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