Re: Drupal foundation (was: [drupal-devel] adsense from google for drupal)
(back on solid ground, have a ton of notes to post over the next couple of days) On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:57:51 +0000, Vladimir Zlatanov <vlado@dikini.net> wrote:
Joining SPI would basically enable us to collect tax deductible donations from US citizens. Nothing more and nothing less. There is a similar organisation in .de but due to German tax laws they cannot _guarantee_ that we will get the money that people send to them on our behalf. I suspect that they say this to cover their legal behind, but... Also, this would only be applicable to people paying taxes in .de. Tax deductions are good, but not the only thing which matters. Things that matter IMHO are:
Vlado makes a good point, and I think that is how we should approach the construction of a foundation. What do we need it to do? As I see it, there are actually only 3 things that are absolutely required, and everything else comes down to support functions. * have legal standing as some sort of entity which can do things (like own * be able to receive money (i.e. open a bank account) * pay out money While some sort of "foundation" would be a nice-to-have, I think a structure that handles those items would be a good start. Donations and tax-exempt status are additional issues. I'm putting my "general" notes underneath the Developer Sprint: http://drupal.org/node/18269 I've got a page on governance that is going to go up, which essentially recommends setting up some working groups not just for development (e.g. Metadata, Media & File, etc.) but also for management. We already partially have this with, for example, the Documentation mailing list, but we need a few more. The Community group would handle non-technical community issues. See my notes, then lets keep this momentum going! -- Boris Mann http://www.bryght.com
Boris Mann wrote:
On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:57:51 +0000, Vladimir Zlatanov <vlado@dikini.net> wrote:
Tax deductions are good, but not the only thing which matters. Things that matter IMHO are:
Vlado makes a good point, and I think that is how we should approach the construction of a foundation. What do we need it to do? As I see it, there are actually only 3 things that are absolutely required, and everything else comes down to support functions. * have legal standing as some sort of entity which can do things (like own * be able to receive money (i.e. open a bank account) * pay out money
While some sort of "foundation" would be a nice-to-have, I think a structure that handles those items would be a good start. Donations and tax-exempt status are additional issues.
Perhaps the thing to do is create a central, top-level entity that can do those 3 things above (legal standing, receive money, pay money) first. Then it might actually be much easier to create national tax-deductible foundations which are member organizations of that top level entity. The national organizations can pass donations up to the global entity as legitimate charitable organization expenses. At least, such a scheme would work in the U.S. Eventually if we get "wealthy" enough we can afford to pay an expert to tell us how to become a worldwide charitable foundation. I'm currently the president of the board of a U.S. 501(c)3 tax-deductible charity, so am familiar with that piece anyway. -- Chris Johnson
Perhaps the thing to do is create a central, top-level entity that can do those 3 things above (legal standing, receive money, pay money) first.
Then it might actually be much easier to create national tax-deductible foundations which are member organizations of that top level entity. The national organizations can pass donations up to the global entity as legitimate charitable organization expenses. At least, such a scheme would work in the U.S.
I very much agree: national organisations are hard to do, especially in Europe where there is a lot of fragmentation. If we leave out tax deduction first, we'll have much less to worry about. Steven Wittens
I very much agree: national organisations are hard to do, especially in Europe where there is a lot of fragmentation. If we leave out tax deduction first, we'll have much less to worry about. True, but a charity/non-profit status is essential IMHO. Apart from independence it is more fair to the donors, although they might not get tax deductions or like in UK the foundation wouldn't be able to claim part of their taxes (which is practically the same).
Boris, is right that we probably must settle the working groups first, and then take the most pragmatic approach, whatever it is, based on what do we want to achieve by having a foundation. Iechyd da! Vlado
participants (4)
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Boris Mann -
Chris Johnson -
Steven Wittens -
Vladimir Zlatanov