[Board] Legal Entities for OSGeo

[Cameron Shorter]

Daniel,
In answer to your question, my point to justify OSGeo International 
registering as a non-profit 501c3 status (accepting donations).

I don't think OSGeo International should set up a taxable entity for 
Project Sponsorship (yet). We should look first for a sister 
organisation to provide that service.

On 14/11/2012 7:37 AM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
> BTW, for everyone's benefit OSGeo currently has three types of fund 
> raising activities described at
>
> http://www.osgeo.org/sponsorship/opportunities
>
>
> 1- Fondation sponsors is fine for a nonprofit 501c3 if we treat them 
> as donors and only thank them in a "thank you" page with their logos 
> (a minimum change of terminology in the website would fix this)
>
> 2- Project sponsorship is not acceptable for nonprofit 501c3 because 
> that is a taxable activity that competes with private businesses. That 
> is why a new taxable subsidiary would be required to manage this if we 
> continue it.
>
> 3- Conference sponsorship falls in a grey area. As long as we treat 
> the sponsors as donors and only thank them with their logo then we're 
> fine. However if the sponsors get a 1/2 page ad in the conference 
> program or a booth then that part of the sponsorship amount 
> (corresponding to 500-1000$?) is not a donation, it needs to be 
> treated as "unrelated business income (UBI)". A nonprofit can have a 
> maximum of 15% of its revenues in UBI (you may also have to pay taxes 
> on that UBI income).
>
>
> On 12-11-13 3:27 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
>> Hi Cameron,
>>
>> I'm not sure I understand this part of your response:
>>
>> On 12-11-13 3:17 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>>>
>>> For purposes such as fund raising, I think we should be working with
>>> sister organisations, be they an OSGeo local chapter, LocationTech, 
>>> OGC,
>>> or something else.
>>>
>>
>> Fund raising, i.e. donations are acceptable for a 501c3 nonprofit. It is
>> also okay to have a "thank you" page on our website to thank our donors
>> and showing their logos.
>>
>> What is not acceptable is advertizement for our sponsors, i.e. any kind
>> of marketing talk/ads posted on behalf of the sponsors in our website or
>> conference program. Advertizement is bad, thank-you-logos are 
>> acceptable.
>>
>> For this reason I believe all our existing fund raising activities (i.e.
>> foundation sponsors) are fine, they may just need a bit or terminology
>> changes. Being able to deal with money is the main benefit of getting a
>> legal status, so if we have to go through sister organizations for fund
>> raising as you suggest then that defeats the point of getting a legal
>> status in the first place.
>>
>>
>
>


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

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