It's time!
For this week's Tuesday Content, I'm cheating a little: first, it's Wednesday; second, instead of new content, I'm "unpaywalling" a section of my $upporters-only "Quarterly Extravaganza".
Learn below about the eternal dilemma: should our org be a nonprofit or an LLC?
(If you prefer to dive deep into the long form version of this thread, find the full content on my blog: https://essentialrandomness.com/posts/extravaganzas/2-2-llc-vs-nonprofit)
To support our project (and get early access to this content), support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/essentialrandomness
Cutting to the chase, we chose to (very soon) incorporate as an LLC. It was not an easy choice, and we went back and forth–and agonized over it–for quite a while.
However, a few considerations tipped the scales:
First, while our projects have a “charitable intent” that would allow us to qualify for 501c3 status (a.k.a. become a nonprofit), we decided that the procedures required would place a too heavy weight on our already-stretched shoulders.
Next, as we spearhead many ambitious projects with very little budget, we wanted to be able to reward those who took a bet on us with their time and work, should our efforts eventually pay off.
(You can learn about these projects here: https://essentialrandomness.com/posts/enter-the-fujoverse)
Finally–without mincing words–the online (and fandom) discourse around nonprofits made us uncomfortable: while it’s true that nonprofits have a charitable intent, they still have a balance sheet to balance, and produce work that deserves to be paid for. This is easy to forget!
Obviously, given that our projects have a clear “anti-corporate bent”, becoming a for profit corporation came with concerns.
However, we found that LLCs are an incredibly-flexible legal structure that gives us ample power to add ethical guardrails!
There's a lot to say about the various options, and we've just started exploring them. If you want to learn more about these, you can read the article/slides or watch this video (https://youtu.be/5DTQinOmuEU?t=1832&si=uJfWR8gDxkkHIZGl) by the excellent
https://www.theselc.org/, whose help has been invaluable throughout all this!
(To be clear: until we have more resources in place and a better understanding of our future, we’re going to keep things simple: at first, our LLC will be what’s called a “single-member LLC”, owned by yours truly (me). We'll keep evaluating options as we work to reach stability!)
A small appeal: our research took a lot of time, effort, and money. Lawyers are *expensive*! This journey is only going to get more complex from here on out.
If you know lawyers who love infodumping about corporate or other law (especially on Discord), please send them my way!
Finally, a note about @bobaboard@tech.lgbt: I often rant on the incompatibility between profits, and sustainable, community-driven social networks. This hasn't changed!
While we’ll move many of the projects in the BobaVerse under the new legal entity, BobaBoard will stay behind as an independent project. We’re currently looking into fiscal hosting as a lightweight option to grant it nonprofit status, without adding an unsustainable administrative burden.
Once again, you’ll hear more as the year progresses.
...and that is all for this week! Once again, to support this journey towards a better web, you can donate on Patreon (https://patreon.com/essentialrandomness) or on my own website (https://essentialrandomness.com/support-me#donate)!
You can also help us by boosting this thread (https://indiepocalypse.social/@essentialrandom/111812904263960179) and sharing the blogpost with all your friends and fandom-oriented Discord servers: https://essentialrandomness.com/posts/extravaganzas/2-2-llc-vs-nonprofit
We'll keep you updated about this all as the year progresses. Look forward to it!