[Board] Phone Call - NonProfit status

[Jeff McKenna]

Daniel, Brian's response to you bounced for some reason.  I will paste
his responses inline below:



On 2013-08-23 12:14 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
> Are you suggesting that we should continue to seek c3 status?


I sought and found professional counsel to help the Board make the right
decision, although the timing is offbeat and I apologize for that part
of it.

> 
> My understanding of David's last letter and the exchanges I had with him
> is that with c4 or c6 we could maintain most of our current activities
> except the project sponsorship program, this is based on the responses
> we got from the IRS to our qeustions and his own experiences with
> similar situations, and not on a pre-negociated deal of any sort. Given
> the position of the IRS vs software foundations, I'd be more than happy
> to get that (c4 or c6) and move on to more interesting stuff.

It is very possible this could be a good thing, however, the devil is in
the details.

> 
> With respect to the example of non-profit hospitals and medical
> research, I brought up that same example in our conference call with the
> IRS agent: I told her that what OSGeo people do to geomatics is
> equivalent to doctors performing research to cure a disease, i.e. we are
> researchers in the geospatial field and share our knowledge through
> various means in order to advance geospatial science ... her response
> was that contrary to doctors who work for the health of the population,
> we work to build software which *may* be used by private entities, that
> this is a private benefit and as such an activity not eligible to c3
> status.

I am grateful that my example has broadened the discussion. I am not
certain that legal theory is settled, but I am not an expert here.

> 
> Deciding whether this is right or wrong is left to the reader, but if we
> have an opportunity to switch to c4 or c6 with a minimum of effort and
> get the status that we need to perform our activities then I am happy
> with that. Actually, based on what we know today, c6 or c4 might have
> been a better fit for OSGeo than c3 since the beginning anyway.
> 

I also mentioned c(6) long ago.. When Tyler visited the Bay Area years
ago, I arranged a visit with a non-profit specialist at that time. I
have invited at least one serving OSGeo Board member to visit the San
Francisco Foundation Center physically, and to join in becoming more
fluent in current state-of-the-nonprofit arts.


thank you for your attention to this important matter

-- 
Brian M Hamlin
OSGeo California Chapter