On 2013-06-24 at 21:58 -0400, Jesse Trucks wrote: > The reality of spinning off another whole organization,
Then my request is entirely to determine what LOPSA can or can't do in its current form. (Lobbying for a charity whose exempt expenditures are under $500k appears to be capped to 20% of all expenditures, per http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/4911 but again competent legal advice is needed, not my naive cherry-picking) > We need to slow our membership churn, increase retention and growth, > and finish paying off all external debt (which is just around the > corner) before we can funnel money into any expensive programs, and we > have very little expertise currently available to perform serious > political work in any country, let alone many countries. > > As much as many of us would love to get involved in the politics that > affect our professional lives, it is extremely costly and time > consuming to do so poorly, let alone to do it well. See, this is why I would like LOPSA to determine what the legal limits are, and also the practical limits. If it is entirely legal, and will not endanger 501(c)3 status, for LOPSA to retain a lawyer and publish analysis of acts that affect our profession, then that might be the limit of what we do; members can use that analysis and talk to their own local congresspersons about how "hey, this new act is going to put me out of a job, and I'm in your district" based on that analysis. If the analysis is reputable, it can carry weight. If we can't directly lobby politicians and that's purely because of financial constraints, that's good to know but if we know what we _can_ do, we can acknowledge those constraints and plan around them. We can know what's feasible and what isn't and be ready. Folks on the relevant board or committee can have reached out to groups like the EFF or ACLU and gotten advice on when a lawyer might or might not be a good idea, given finance, and might get recommendations on which lawyers to talk to. And if LOPSA can demonstrate that it's actually *DOING* something here, trying to make a real world difference to the benefit of the members, then it becomes realistic to hold out the hat and say "It's going to cost $X00,000 to do this, can you contribute to the legal fund?" and start to raise money *as soon as the legislation appears*, by being ready to gear up and respond. http://governance.lopsa.org/LOPSA_Bylaws#Purpose Oh, and the byline at the top of the website <https://lopsa.org/>: "To advance the practice of system administration; to support, recognize, educate, and encourage its practitioners; and to serve the public through education and outreach on system administration issues." I'd like the "through education and outreach on system administration issues" to evolve beyond raising cheers for Sysadmin Appreciation Day and be ready to provide education, through outreach, when we see proposed legislation that might otherwise drive many of us to have to change careers. What can I do to help? -Phil, US Person, GB citizen, sysadmin, crypto and security guy _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
