[Noisebridge-discuss] membership dues via employer matching funds?

[Sai Emrys]

Not as an opinion on what NB should or shouldn't do, but as nonprofit
technicalities IME:

Membership dues are not donations, they are fees for a provided
service (membership). Anything *over* the membership dues amount is
donation. (Similar things go if you ever sell tickets to an event; you
have to decide what portion of it is the "fair market value" of the
product/service. For example w/ my conferences, we set a fair ticket
price, counted anything over that as a donation, and let people in for
less than that [incl. for free] if they asked.)

As such, they may not qualify for matching funds that are contingent
on it being a donation proper. That'd be up to the individual
employer, though, and I don't think there'd be any negative
reprecussions to NB of convincing the employer to match (and thus
treating the member's contribution as a fee but the company's as
either a donation or an advanced payment against future membership
dues).

This also doesn't affect whether NB chooses to give some alternative
to fixed-fee membership; for example, you could hypothetically say
that membership is "free", but there are (strongly) suggested
donations. Personally I'd be leery of such a situation with my
nonprofit-management hat on, but IANYL, so check w/ your lawyer if you
want to look into this option.

- Sai