[Noisebridge-discuss] Noisebridge and fiscal sponsorship

[Asheesh Laroia]

Excerpts from Praveen Sinha's message of Tue Jul 31 22:58:02 -0400 2012:
> Hello Noisebridge!
> 
> I have an item up for potential consensus, and wanted to get people's
> initial feedback on it.   As some of you may know, I've been busy this year
> starting up a makerspace   http://oaklandmakerspace.wordpress.com/  in the
> east bay that is focused on bridging some gaps in STEM+AE (science,
> technology, eng, math, arts, entrepreneurship).   We have a space, and we
> are about to engage in kickstarter/indie go go fundraising.
> 
> Here's the deal:  we aren't incorporated yet, and don't have 501c3 status.
> This is sort of a glitch when it comes to fundraising because it introduces
> personal tax liability on one of us until our incorporation comes
> through.   However, we have a sort of chicken+egg on doing the
> incorporation since all of our funds are currently tied up in maintaining
> rent for the space :).

Hi Praveen!

My personal advice is to spend a weekend incorporating. It won't take
that long, and you can use the forms in the Nolo Press book on
How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation in California:
http://www.nolo.com/products/how-to-form-a-nonprofit-corporation-in-california-NON.html

You seem to have a reasonably good understanding that you need to
incorporate separately from your need to get 501(c)3 status -- I'm
glad to see that you have that clear in your mind.

Get a corporation, and do your Indie GoGo, and file for 501(c)3 before
the end of the calendar year. Then while waiting for the answer from
the IRS, you get provisional tax-exempt status, so you win the race.

This is orthogonal to the question of if Noisebridge can be a fiscal
sponsor. I'm only saying it because I think that either way, you ought
to race to incorporation.

If you want my help by appearing somewhere and staring at you while you
sit in a chair and read through that book, periodically waking you up
because you're bored to death, and then staring at you until you just
fill out the forms in there, I can volunteer to do that. (-:

I guess further replies along the vein I've started are probably off-topic
for noisebridge-discuss, so feel free to follow up with me personally.
(If they are on-topic, feel free to follow up on-list too!)

-- Asheesh.