non-profit status
Tex
Dallas/Ft. Worth
How hard is it for you guys to apply and get a non-profit org status? If your non-profit we could donate gear to you and get a write-off on tax's.
I don't have 5 year old crap stuff. I have opteron systems I could donate if the tax write off was good enough.
Something you should look into !
Tex
I don't have 5 year old crap stuff. I have opteron systems I could donate if the tax write off was good enough.
Something you should look into !
Tex
0
Comments
It would require a lot of form-filing to start it though, including making the SMx Committee into a board of directors and such. What I've seen in the way of guides recommend a lawyer to look over the paperwork so you don't end up getting declared for-profit by accident. That's a time and monetary commitment.
What do other team members think? Is this worth it? Would you take advantage of it?
I'm real sorry things didn't work out between you and him. You'll find the right brother-in-law some day...there are plenty of fish in the sea.
This site and the hardware it runs on are owned by a corporation based in Michigan. The shareholders are shorty, mediaman, and myself. With that structure in place, we do have a path for non-profit status, but man there's a lot of paperwork and waiting to go through.
But donating stuff and getting a tax write off at this point almost works better then selling it to ya cheap as the value I use to write it off can be higher. If your really non profit you might even be able to aproach vendors to donate some gear or sell it to you at a very favorable price.
For example you might not love Dells or Compaqs but if they would donate 10 computers a piece of something like... last years home computer models wouldn't it be nice to have reasonably new dependable computers. Anyone have friends on a newspaper staff? If you could trade vendors VERY positive writeup about your team and the donated computers in a paper or magazine etc... Maybe even trade off some advertising here at S-M in return for a donation and free publcity for the vendor etc..
Make it a win win deal for them. They love good publicity about helpinga fine cause.
Tex
I dont know if any other teams have done this or not but I think you can donate to Stanford and get a tax right off for it. I guess this is kinda the same thing.
I just called my cousin in New Orleans. He's specializes in real estate law and teaches it at UNO and basically he said he thinks it might not be much different than filing as a corportation and he will pull the paperwork to find out exactly what it entails and call me back tomorrow.
So ...how much can we afford?
And of course, most importantly, I need to sit down with shorty and mediaman and talk about this
I was just asking because I'm sure he'll let me know his fee. He typically does a good deal but I'm sure I'll find out tomorrow what the fees are. I'll let you guys know and you can mull it over.
Looking back it seems like a dumb question but forgive me please ...at my school we provide services for free to non-profit organizations all of the time usually only charging for whatever expenses are incurred.
I'm sitting down. It would not be in our best interest to classify Short-Media.com as a non-profit organization. We are indeed "not profitable"....yet.
A subsiduary organization could be created for the Folding at Home project. Absolutely meticulous records must be kept of the value of all donated items at time of receipt or and shipment.
This includes records of serial numbers and model numbers.
The governing body of the company...the company itself is responsible for any tax receipts handed out. This could result in financial responsibility if the tax receipt is questioned. We are legally responsible.
The "books" must be kept up every month with a LOT of detailed information and a summary report emailed to the board of directors each and every month. There must be only one person handling the books until such time they are promoted, retire or move on.
The exact legalities I don't know but I do know that everything must be on the up and up from an accountant's perspective...never mind if it is a good idea or not.
BTW...it's a good idea you are attempting here. I suggest you draw up a business plan to further define direction and goals. That'll help define your needs.
I'm all for going non-profit. I'm sure we could find someone to assist Prof in the handling of books and such.
Many items donated to the project have a small monetary value. Someone in the 20% tax bracket is not likely to be too concerned about taking a write-off on a $10 NIC - they're probably going to spend more than that on the postage to send the part in.
How many of you who have donated parts actually itemize your tax return? How many would start doing so just because you donated a $50 MB? The answer to both questions, I suspect, is very few of you.
(Here is where it gets interesting.)
How many of you would donate more (and better) equipment if a tax deduction were to be a factor? I can name at least one: Tex, who raised this question by starting this thread. I suspect that there would be more than a few others. If you had a MB & CPU that were still useful and that you wanted to sell, taking an in-the-bag tax deduction might be more appealing than playing the Deal Depot/eBay crapshoot game. If you ran a small business and upgraded five computers you might prefer this strategy, as opposed to running a dozen or more online auctions to sell the equipment off piecemeal.
The way I see it, most donations would fit into the "I don't care about a deduction" category, making the bookkeeping question irrelevant. The donations involving the meticulous record-keeping that MediaMan mentioned would likely be sizable enough to make it worth the effort.
Setting up Team 93 and/or the SMx Project (gotta get in a plug
As Parts Manager, I am confident that I could handle the bookeeping aspect, though I certainly wouldn't turn down any help. In my building engineer days I was responsible for inventories in up to five buildings at a time. Discrepancies came out of my annual bonus; a serious problem would have cost me my job. At one point I had an annual budget of well over $100,000 at my disposal for parts, supplies, and replacement equipment. Needless to say, my company wanted to be sure that they were getting what they paid for. Accordingly, I kept a record of every last nickel.
Finally, we would need to be confident that the value of the donations over the long haul would be worth the legal expense of attaining not-for-profit status. It would make no sense to pay a lawyer $500 in order to receive $350 worth of donations. Answering the question of how much money and effort is involved is a good starting point. I'm glad to see that people are already looking into that.
A few important points + caffeine + lots of BS = Business plan. Most of the business plans we wrote had little more real content than an executive summary...
I'm confident prof could handle anything we throw at him.
How valuable it is will be determined on how hard YOU GUYS decide to push it. Its like selling stuff. If you sit and wait for the phone to ring with someone wanting to buy something from you as a small new computer shop you may not last long. YOU GOTTA GET ON THE PHONE or GO IN PERSON. GO SEEK BUISNESS OUT !
Print up some buisness cards. Do mailings to the big buissness's in your area especialy if they are active in donating to other non-profits like the United Way or boy scouts. I wrote the big fund raising package used by the Boy Scouts of America. Sure they get some pledge money from individuals like parents that donate. They shoot for big donations from Corporations and buisness's to fund the local Boy Scout chapters. Every nickle and dime from kids membership fee's all go to the National Office. To support the local Offices (for instance I did a LOT of work in Detroit at the local office there Prime!) they must raise their own moneys. Detroit for example has so many poor families that the local Boy Scouts serve they can't exist trying to get the parents to make donations/pledges. They went and got guys on the board of the Big Auto firms to sit on their board and they run hugemoney raising ventures with their vendors and clients making big donations. They hold all kinds of fund raisers from gold events to popcorn sales etc..
All those huge stacks of scsi racks and tape librarys, 20" monitors etc... I posted I had got for free? That was gear that big corporations were going to PAY to have someone haul off. Thats how most big companies get rid of old gear. THAY PAY to have it hauled off. You need to be pro-active. You need to go after the corporations and buisness's and SEEK OUT this stuff. Make contacts. Get write ups in the local paper about your team and its goals asking for donations. Write TONS of letters! Offerring to haul off old stuff for free and OFFERING the tax write-offs.
Good god my mom dies of cancer and Robins had breast cancer. How many millions of others in this country are in the same situation and might see a small add in a local paper and decide YOU GUYS could make better use of their old computer sitting in the garage they were going to sell at a garage sale. SELL OLD STUFF IN YOUR OWN WEEKEND SALES and buy faster newer stuff.
Have computer fix-it centers in a supermarket parking lot 1'st Saturday of each month where you diagnose whats wrong with someones computer for $20 or guarantee to fix anything spyware/virus wise for $50. LOCAL SHOPS CHARGE $75 AN HOUR TO DO THIS!
Have brochures get out in the community and get known. It will start to snowball. Friends tell friends about you and someones husband or wife will tell someone and your gonna get a call to get a couple big U-Haul trucks and haul some stuff off. Sell what you don't want but you gotta SPEND EVERY PENNY back on more gear or helping manage your team or whatever. You gotta spend every dad-gum penny so you show no profit. That can go to an accountant or a lawyer or NEW PARTS or whatever....
If your going to sit back and be passive it aint worth it. Get a plan to be active and go attack this thing from a level you never dreamed of before. Your talking now about having this team blow up into something unlike any other team before it. You will be the poster boys of how everyone wants to do this ! The pattern for success will be made. And it will of been YOUR PATTERN.
Tex
It's true. We did them for a Principle of IT class and it was pure, unadulterated BS. I'm convinced the goal is to babble on long enough that it seems like you know what you're doing. A goal and a checklist take about 1/5 the time and are 5x more helpful and clear :o
Tex
If the latter, I can think of a few things that need to be carefully thought through. I come from a background of failed business ventures, so believe me when I say I know what can go wrong
1) What happens if Folding@Home shuts down?
2) Who would the corporate officers be?
3) What is your revenue stream? Donations only?
4) What is your statement of purpose?
5) What happens if team 93 and short-media.com split?
6) Who will "own" the team assets and the rights to team IP?
Just some food for thought
Attaining not-for-profit status would only help. The mere fact that we had gone to the effort to do so would add legitimacy to our project in the eyes of potential donors. As you've said, the rest is up to us.
The F@H team would be best served as a non-profit for sure.
Wouldn't it be best to keep any assets from the F@H team seperate? For both parties?
I am speaking as someone not affiliated with either organization but your purpose and goals seem to be contradictory.
In fact by showing short-media is donating webspace or advertising F@H can be a write off for short-media's corporation.
I never looked but this F@H team does have its own website too anyway right? I am not advocating moving the forum (this is your home) but you need Prime to have a web site for you guys also that looks like a company if you do this among many other things on your list. Have pics of some of the bigger folding farms you operate. Talk about your mission and your plans etc..
You want small adds in your local paper for the team and buisness cards etc.. with your website on it. Heck a 800 number anymore is dirt cheap from someplaces and to have a website of your own and a 800 number chnages your whole appearance to another level.
Get serious and go get em gang!
Tex
"I don't frickin know." Is there an international tax accountant/lawyer in the house?
This opens up a proverbial can of worms. It's never easy but really...anything good is never really easy. Shorty, Prime and I are now busily discussing this. I know I have a whole bunch of questions and the larger picture is something that sat on the back burner for a long time...suddenly it's back on the front burner.
I can say that our goal is to do the right thing for Short-Media and for its supporters.
If this is doable I'm sure you guys can make it happen.
I felt I had over stepped my bounds and was waiting for a team member to get their butt back to this thread and say that for me.
tex
The SMx commitee seems like the most appropriate answer, given that they make the SMx decisions anyway.
Yes.
The advancement of science, namely through the promotion of the Folding@Home project. Elaborate at will.
It doesn't matter because I think that'll be about the time that life on Earth ceases
The non-profit itself would own the assets, wouldn't it? The "board" would decide what to do with the equipment and funds, including how to deal with it if Folding@Home... uh... folded.
All class acts to the last one. That I know first hand.
Best of luck to you in all your future work and decisions.
Tex