[juneau-lug] Re: Non-profit

  • From: Nels Tomlinson <nelstomlinson@xxxxxxx>
  • To: juneau-lug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 06:33:42 -0800

I was on the board of an Alaskan  non-profit corporation.  A ton of work 
is a low guess.  To the best of my knowledge, the only way to be a 
``non-profit'' is to incorporate.  That requires a lawyer to draw up a 
charter and bylaws, it requires paying some (small, but >>0) yearly 
fees, it requires occasional meetings of a corporate board and of the 
membership.  

Are any of us accountants?  Having no payroll would dramatically 
simplify the bookkeeping and reporting burden, in comparison to what I 
experienced, but there are still a lot of forms, including yearly (or 
was it quarterly?) Federal taxes.   Becoming a State non-profit is easy. 
 Becoming a Federal tax-exempt non-profit is different.  Even if we were 
to get the Federal non-profit status (we probably could), there are 
still forms to fill out; we just wouldn't be writing big checks to send 
along.

Incorporating involves orders of magnitude more complexity than a bunch 
of guys meeeting every month or so.  It would probably be cheaper to pay 
the commercial room rental rates once a year for an installfest, if 
that's our only reason for incorporation.  Since we can use the rooms in 
the city libraries for our meetings, free of charge, and since sometimes 
we can't get organized enough to HAVE meetings, it might be premature to 
talk of incorporating.

At Purdue, the majority of the interest in Linux, and the LUG, was on 
campus.  We had goood name recognition there, and little anywhere else 
in town.  That was an engineering school with a large CS department; 
radically different from our little normal school.  Still, students are 
the group most likely to have time and desire to try something new.  I'm 
going to guess that here, if we can't muster up six students who're 
willing to form a student LUG, we're probably not going to need a very 
big room for an installfest anyway.

Nels

Justin Burket wrote:

>I agree that becomming a non-profit would be a ton of work for the lug.
>
>
>I called a couple more folks around town today to inquire about meeting
>places that would be suitable for a install fest.  I think for the most
>part the libraries are good for the smaller monthly meetings but an
>install fest would take a bit more space.  Not to mention bandwidth,
>unless we do it all via cd's.
>
>Here is wshat i've gathered so far
>
>Community Schools....
>
>
>These guys handle scheduling for roo rental for most of the schools around
>town.
>
>Commerial Organizations (the lug as it currently stands)
>30/hr.
>
>Non Profit
>1-4 hrs -> 8/hr
>5-8 hrs -> 16/hr
>9-12 hrs -> 24/hr
>
>They have space at the downtown high school in the library that would
>include internet access and enough table space to accomindate several
>computers.
>
>UAS
>
>Non Profit Only
>
>30 for the first 2 hours, I didn't get what the rest of the rate was after
>2 hours.  However the dialy rate is 90
>
>
>All of these places determined if you where non-profit by the tax ID
>number.  I checked the irs website and found that according to pub 557 the
>user group mwould most likely be exempt from taxes under section 501(c)(7)
>pg 49.  if i'm undestanding everything correctly that would enable the LUG
>to book rooms as a non profit.  there are some funky things in section i
>quoted above like limited memberships and closed facilites, so i'm
>uncertain if that's the right section to be looking at.  However I i'm
>sure there will be something in there that would be appropiate.
>
>Still interested in a install fest?  Does someone have room at their place
>with a cable modem?  I'm still hopping one of the UAS clubs would be
>interested enough to host one for us.  I talked to Sarah at the student
>activities and recreation office and was given two possbilites.
>
>UAS Gaming
>Contact: Aaron Cook
>
>UAS Macintosh Users
>Contact: Ivan (didn't get teh last name)
>I have the phones number for Aaron and Ivan if anyone is interested.  I've
>called Aaron's place and left a message explaining what i'm hopping to
>acomplish.
>
>Justin
>
>
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>  
>


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