Five-minute general counsel: can a nonprofit change mission?

By Rick Colosimo / October 15, 2010 / Comments Off on Five-minute general counsel: can a nonprofit change mission?

This LinkedIn question asked about mission drift for non-profits. There are a couple different layers of answer, depending on what’s going on and who’s asking. First, the fundamental concern: will the change of mission jeopardize nonprofit status (and that typically means jeopardize 501(c)(3) status, which means deductibility of donations by donors)? The answer depends on…

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Five-minute general counsel: should I be a social enterprise?

By Rick Colosimo / September 9, 2010 / Comments Off on Five-minute general counsel: should I be a social enterprise?

Here’s a question on quasi-nonprofits that I’ve been hearing more often: Do I need to have a nonprofit status to become a social entrepreneurial enterprise? I found this LinkedIn question to be interesting for two reasons: first, it’s very related to a nonprofit question I field all the time, and second, I have a current…

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Five-minute lawyer: how to plan a nonprofit

By Rick Colosimo / October 25, 2009 / Comments Off on Five-minute lawyer: how to plan a nonprofit

You’ve probably already seen our Five-minute Lawyer post on How to Form a Nonprofit, but sometimes people are at an earlier stage of the process, where they haven’t figured out what they exactly want to do. This process looks a lot like planning a for-profit business in the early stages, but here are a few…

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Five-minute lawyer: How to form a nonprofit

By Rick Colosimo / October 9, 2009 / Comments Off on Five-minute lawyer: How to form a nonprofit

I regularly find people asking this question: How do I form a nonprofit? What most people mean and want is a charitable organization that satisfies the requirements of IRC 501(c)(3), which gives donors assurance that their donations will be tax-deductible. To set up a charitable organization, you generally run through the following steps: 1. Determine…

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