Re: [gentoo-nfp] 2019 Gentoo Foundation Trustee Election & Annual General Meeting

[Robin H. Johnson]

On Sat, Jul 06, 2019 at 11:50:38AM -0400, Aaron Bauman wrote:
> Robin, would you please share your opinion on the direction you would like to
> see the Foundation go?  That is, are you in favor of an umbrella or maintaining
> a 501c3 for the Foundation?  Combination of the two?

This is only for AFTER the present IRS needs (4 years) are fixed, as I
believe some Umbrellas will not even talk to us until then.

My first preference would be that we are merged into an Umbrella
organization, if we can find one that is acceptable to all parties.
- compatible with our social contract
- doesn't stumble that Gentoo provides ways to install non-free stuff
  (this might rule out some libre-oriented Umbrella, e.g. FSF)
- able to accept a project the size of Gentoo (both in terms of manpower
  & financial scale [per my discussion on unbalanced donations on the
  501(c)3 tests])
- Not so large that we're inconsequential to the Umbrella (e.g. Linux
  Foundation)
- The umbrella doesn't have to be a 501(c)3 specifically, I personally
  feel that joining the other 501(c)* umbrellas should be considered on
  their merits. The benefit of donations to us being a tax credit to the
  donors should be considered VERY far below the other requirements.

If we CANNOT find any Umbrella, then we should carefully weigh the costs
of a new 501(c)6 specifically vs the costs of the extra 6 years of IRS
filings. (read: somebody should start a wiki page doing this! not me)

I do NOT believe that we should attempt to run a 501(c)3 ourselves, the
trustees have time constraints on the 501(c)6 scale: The additional
burden that would be imposed in running a 501(c)3 would be the
proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.

I also do not believe that we should entirely outsource the running of a
501(c)3: but partial outsourcing SHOULD be considered.

> If maintaining a foundation, how do you propose the financials are taken care of
> in the future?
Contract service from the SFC to aid in book-keeping.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Treasurer
E-Mail   : robbat2@g.o
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