search

mattdsteele / howconf

HOW Conf - a Hands On Workshop conference
13 stars 1 forks source link

Funding sources / LLC #10

Closed mattdsteele closed 11 years ago

mattdsteele commented 11 years ago

I talked with @eliperelman recently and he mentioned that we'll need to figure out soon how we fund things like venue reservations - i.e. who writes the checks. This would also ensure that organizers don't end up underwater.

Do we need to register an LLC or something similar?

I have no experience in this space, so I'm hoping someone has advice on how to handle this.

mattdsteele commented 11 years ago

Anyone have advice here? If not, I'll just be reserving the room at Platte River in my name this week.

andypeters commented 11 years ago

(disclaimer: i am not a lawyer by any means of law. please consult an actual lawyer before taking legal advice from this hack.)

unless we think this unconference will become more of a thing that we do once a year, then i'd say no need to incorporate. one of the big things is, that'll take a while to register and paying taxes on the entity just isn't worth it. will we have any legal liabilities anyway that should be passed onto the business entity? if we think this will become a business where we start accepting more and more money, and traveling the region doing this more often... then yes we will need to do it. that being said, are taking money for this? who and how will that go to anyone?

to help out people like yourself @mattdsteele we could all do an agreement of some type; typically labeld a "gentlemen's agreement". saying who's contributing what (money, etc).

eliperelman commented 11 years ago

The only reason I brought this up is the devLink Conference is a non-profit organization, 501(c)3. They do one conference a year, and that's it.

davekerber commented 11 years ago

The biggest concern I could see is that when renting the space someone is going to have to agree to be responsible for everyone who attends and indemnify the park from any liabilities. So I think there is a very very remote chance that whoever signs the papers could get in legal trouble if anyone is hurt or injured. As Andy said, you would need actual legal counsel to know for sure.

On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 1:22 PM, Eli Perelman notifications@github.comwrote:

The only reason I brought this up is the devLink Conferencehttp://www.devlink.net/is a non-profit. They do one conference a year, and that's it.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/mattdsteele/unconf/issues/10#issuecomment-17830388 .

jmhobbs commented 11 years ago

IANAL, but everyone is paying for and entering the park on their own, which probably has some bearing on liability. Anyone know a cool lawyer who could give free/cheap advice? Perhaps as a sponsorship opportunity?

zachleat commented 11 years ago

Man, if we do end up ponying up for an LLC it’d be sweet to get one that could be reused by a bunch of things in town (NebraskaJS, specifically). Maybe name it the Omaha Tech Collective LLC or something. :)

If you have long term plans to scale this bigger though, that’d make less sense.

After a very cursory glance at Big Omaha and Silicon Prairie News, I didn’t see any mention of an LLC there? Do they do something else?

nwertzberger commented 11 years ago

OMG is an LLC...

If we are worried about this, we could get event insurance. Unfortunately the cheapest i can find is about $100, and i don't really know if i trust the site.

mattdsteele commented 11 years ago

There's probably 2 separate concerns, indemnification and payment/funding stuff. Maybe a simple waiver is all we need for the former.

@jmhobbs is helping me get in touch with some lawyerly folk for advice, so stay tuned.

heller commented 11 years ago

An "umbrella" user group LLC might be neat, but it's sort of an exercise in yak shaving IMO.

Nonprofit status probably couldn't happen in time for September.

mkolakow commented 11 years ago

We have experience in setting up a non-profit. It's certainly worthwhile, but it is a bit time consuming and somewhat costly. Using a lawyer can help. The other problem is that it's easy to lose the non-profit status.

Michael

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Matthew Heller notifications@github.comwrote:

An "umbrella" user group LLC might be neat, but it's sort of an exercise in yak shaving IMO.

Nonprofit status probably couldn't happen in time for September.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/mattdsteele/howconf/issues/10#issuecomment-18353415 .

atreides322 commented 11 years ago

I listen to a lot of TWiT podcasts and they often advertise LegalZoom. Might be worth looking into if this is something we seriously need.

http://www.legalzoom.com/limited-liability-company/limited-liability-company-overview.html

On Jun 26, 2013, at 10:19 PM, Michael Kolakowski notifications@github.com wrote:

We have experience in setting up a non-profit. It's certainly worthwhile, but it is a bit time consuming and somewhat costly. Using a lawyer can help. The other problem is that it's easy to lose the non-profit status.

Michael

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Matthew Heller notifications@github.comwrote:

An "umbrella" user group LLC might be neat, but it's sort of an exercise in yak shaving IMO.

Nonprofit status probably couldn't happen in time for September.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/mattdsteele/howconf/issues/10#issuecomment-18353415 .

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

mattdsteele commented 11 years ago

Probably should update this.

I talked with a lawyer and my takeaway was we're incurring some risk by not incorporating, but it would be way more important if this were an ongoing venture, or if we were trying to make money from it. I'm not that worried about this for a one-time event. We can probably get by with a basic waiver during registration.

I'm closing this unless someone feels strongly enough to pick it up & run with it.