[TriLUG] Upcoming vote on TriLUG non-profit status

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Mon, 31 Jan 2011, David A. Cafaro wrote:

> In the end it was agreed that, though a pain, the benefits 
> are worth it, primarily for the donation of space and 
> bandwidth we receive.  Anything we can do, like being tax 
> deductible, that makes it easier for companies to provide 
> donations to us is a good thing.

I was the treasurer of NCSA (the local SysAdmin group) for 
about 3 yrs and converted the books to auditable double 
entry accounting, in preparation for a possible move to 
501(c)(3).

Accountants and people (businesses) with money recognize a 
501(c)(3) as a legitimate organisation - we're just like 
them; we keep records and we're accountable to the State for 
any money/assets we have/receive. That's just about all a 
business needs to know about us. The accountant gives us 
$1000 and the boss doesn't have to spend the rest of the 
year wondering if the money is being abused - he knows that 
the State will come after us if we do and he can forget 
about (worrying about) us.

Otherwise to get money, the people who run TriLUG have to be 
known and checked out by the benefactors and this has to be 
done for every donation.

I couldn't convince the SC at NCSA to change to 501(c)(3). 
At the time the original founders of NCSA, who had formed 
the core of the SC and found all the presenters, had left 
and the people remaining didn't have the public 
personalities of the founders. This left NCSA a lower key 
organisation and it was hard for a couple of years to find 
people for the SC, presenters, and to find meeting places. I 
wasn't going to be surprised if NCSA disbanded. NCSA still 
goes on, so I assume the decision not to incorporate worked 
out OK. NCSA is smaller that TriLUG and presumably has a 
smaller budget. The local python/zope group ZPUG is also a 
small group. They meet at the work place of one of the 
members and (AFAIK) have no money to manage. The ZPUG 
mailing list and webpage I expect is handled personally by 
one of the members.

For a while, I belonged to the Raleigh Astronomy Club (RAC). 
Members come from all professions and enough members eat 
accounting and lawyering for breakfast, that incorporating 
as a 501(c)(3) was a no-brainer. RAC has minimal problems 
getting meeting space (they meet at the museum in Raleigh), 
finding places to observe (and camp) for a weekend, and 
appearing as an upstanding member of the local community at 
festivals and community events.

The issue then is not whether to be a 501(c)(3), but how big 
(or small) does TriLUG want to be. How big means how much 
non-personal resources (money, rackspace and hardware, 
meeting space) does TriLUG want to control/have access to.

It would appear that TriLUG is on the borderline in chosing 
which way to go. A regular business (or a club like RAC) has 
employees who like accounting and lawyering and who can 
maintain the legal framework for their business. In contrast 
TriLUG is 100% techies, with no in-group expertise in 
accounting or lawyering. To be a 501(c)(3) TriLUG will have 
to pay for the legal/accounting advice that's available for 
free at RAC. Hence TriLUG will have to be bigger than RAC to 
convert (stay) as a 501(c)(3).

I assume that TriLUG doesn't have free ($) access to people 
with lawyering/accounting skills (eg spouses, siblings, 
boy/girlfriends) otherwise I would have heard about it 
already. Can organisations like tux.org, EFF... handle it 
for us (presumably for less $ than a regular lawyer)?

So the question then is how big is TriLUG and how big does 
TriLUG want to be? How big in this context means "what's our 
budget (annual income, annual expenses, assets)?" As well, 
what are these numbers through the years - is TriLUG going 
up/down, where does money typically come from - who gets it 
- are there a small number of hand shakers and back slappers 
who shake out the money, get/find the resources? If these 
small number of people disappear from TriLUG, will there be 
people to replace them or will TriLUG wither? I don't come 
to meetings much, so I don't know the answers to these 
questions. I assume since TriLUG asked members to contribute 
$ for pizza at meetings, that we're not particularly flush. 
If we're a 501(c)(3) the financial information has to be 
public and given to members in an annual report. I assume 
even if we're a DBA the information has to be freely 
available.

So how big is TriLUG?

Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
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