Somebody asked a question about forming two related entities, one for-profit and one nonprofit. The idea was that certain facilities that would be used by the nonprofit could be used in slack time by other businesses paying a market rate. The business model seemed to be that there would be grants for the nonprofit, which…

I recently got an inquiry for someone with an unusual entity selection question. Here it is: “I am in the process of creating a non-profit. Can you please tell me whether you think a non-profit should be an LLC or Corp… and why?” Now, this person didn’t just pull my name out of a hat;…

Here’s a short link to one of my other blogs, Watch Rick Train. I’m raising money all year for Reed Academy, starting with the Tough Mudder in Pennsylvania tomorrow and finishing with Ironman Florida in November. My goal is $140,000. This is the start. Thanks for your support; I’ll post updates at the WRT blog.

Nancy Lublin’s column in Fast Company is always interesting, even moreso when I disagree with her. A column from February, “We Really Need to Talk,” (oddly renamed on the web as “Foundations’ Four Biggest Faux Pas”) is a little list of four points she’d make to foundations. To me, they boil down to versions of…

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…

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…

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…

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…