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I like what Coral, Kyle and Tod have said so far: * work with an existing non-profit willing to be the community's fiscal sponsor * watch how the community continues to evolve to see if our own incorporation makes sense * lean slightly towards CLIR given past and present work with them, and wouldn't be outright opposed to ALA or OLF Peter On Jul 18, 2017, 2:52 PM -0400, Coral Sheldon-Hess <[log in to unmask]>, wrote: > It's worth pointing out that both ALA/LITA and DLF/CLIR would allow > Code4Lib to work with them as our fiscal sponsor for a few years, in the > lead-up to creating a legal entity of our own, should we decide we want to. > Neither requires a long-term agreement. And (having served on the fiscal > continuity working group, but speaking *only for myself*), I think this is > a far better option than trying to jump right into forming our own > nonprofit right out of the gate. > > For one thing, it comes with the possibility of having a sponsorship in > place in time for the 2019 conference. Someone who worked more closely on > the nonprofit option for our report is welcome to correct me, but it seems > to me (from what I remember from our discussions, writing/editing the > document, and also some work I've done with other potential nonprofits in > the past) that jumping through those legal hoops takes a whole lot of time > and effort. > > If people are really excited about forming a nonprofit of our own, I > certainly wouldn't stand in the way. It isn't a bad option. But I believe > it carries the same shorter-term risks as the "do nothing" option: we could > fail to find a temporary sponsoring organization for 2019, and I believe it > is probably more than we need to do, right this second. > > The fiscal sponsorship model seems to me like our best bet, especially as a > first step into getting more organized. As our fiscal sponsor, ALA/LITA or > DLF/CLIR (or, yeah, OLF) could take the EBSCO payments mentioned earlier in > the thread, as well as letting us receive grants and donations that are > only available to nonprofit entities. They could give us financial and > organizational continuity that we lack, and neither organization has > expressed any interest in telling us how to run our affairs; quite the > opposite, in fact. > > And, to be clear: I believe the "do nothing" option is wildly irresponsible > and asking too much of future conference committees; it does not give us a > reasonable risk mitigation model. Under the current model, we risk losing > our conference forever due to a natural or legal disaster (imagine > something like Hurricane Katrina or the NC bathroom bill, happening mid-way > through conference planning, one year). We only get to have conferences as > a legal non-entity, right now, because we have a solid track record of not > ever losing money--and talk to any former conference chair about how much > pressure *that* puts on them. We've been lucky to avoid disaster, and going > with the "do nothing" option is basically just assuming we will somehow > keep avoiding disasters, forever. Because, if we fail to meet our financial > obligations with a temporary sponsor? That's going to make it *really* > difficult to find other temporary sponsors. > > Again, I speak only for myself, and I don't speak as clearly as I probably > would under better personal circumstances. You're getting the best I've got > to give, this week. > > - Coral