Re: help us design nonprofit org funding mechanisms

[Scott Christley]

Hi all,

Seeing that this is such a "hot" topic ;-) I will add my thoughts to mix.


>1) Charge for "membership" in a type of entity that has influence over
>the direction of the development of the package.

I would shy away from this because the notion that money is linked to
development work reminds me of special interests groups that exist within
the US government.  It gives the corporations an impression that they can
influence the direction of development, and it throws politics into the
development process where only technical and scientific questions should be
at debate.

>2) Charge for "membership" in a type of entity that provides levels of
>service to the members.

This is a good idea but now you muddled the water regarding whether this
non-profit is just suppose to be a development organization or is it also
trying to appeal for commercial support accounts.

My idea would be to charge a "membership" but not have it tied to anything,
purely charitable.  Set up various levels of membership; don't setup boring
levels but make them relate to Swarm itself, like:

Hive Founder ($25,000 or more)

Simulation Modeller ($5,000 or more)

Swarm Associate ($1,000 or more)

Worker Bee ($100 or more)

Pseudo-Random Number ($100 or less)

Then just do a bunch of publicity stuff; send out newsletters (snazzy
printed ones), give on-site tours, give tours of commerical installations,
send them t-shirts, coffee cups, and CD-ROMS.  Essentially make them feel
all warm and fuzzy inside for doing such a good thing; add images and links
to their web pages, etc.

As for how to setup a non-profit corp, my suggestion is to get a lawyer to
do it for it.  Specifically find a software lawyer who has an existing
template for a non-profit software corporation and do some minor
modifications.  Generally there needs to be these things:

* a board of directors
* at least two executive officers

You can set it up so that Hive Founders automatically get on the Board of
Directors so that they can lend their expertise towards the growth of the
corporation.  The officers would be the ones actually doing the work, can
hire and fire people, etc.

Scott