On Jul 31, 2014, at 11:24 PM, Matt Simmons <[email protected]> wrote: > I suspect that we could argue that it is, in fact, related to furthering the > exempt purpose of the organization, but there's a significant chance that the > IRS wouldn't see it this way, and I don't see the need to risk it. But IANAL. > We'll have one on retainer for these kinds of questions as we go through the > formation, if that ends up happening.
I think - as a member - a question that is obvious here comes to mind:
- How much does forming this sub-corporation cost?
- How much does all the lawyering to figure out the formation/legalities cost?
- How much overhead is involved in managing a completely separate second
entity, cost-wise?
as compared to
- How much revenue does LOPSA (the 501c3) actually see from the conferences.
Because if the latter doesn't exceed the former, we need to seriously think
about walking away from that idea, most ricky-tick. We've taken on enough
cash-flow-negative burdens already in this organization's history, and are
trying to get rid of them, we don't need more.
Here's two questions that I would be interested in getting an answer to:
In 2013:
- How many members (total) either became paying members or renewed
(regardless of the source of that payment/renewal)? [exclude there
Student/Comp/etc. memberships]
- How many of the above were via either Cascadia-IT or LOPSA-East?
I'm genuinely curious to know the breakdown there. How dependent is LOPSA on
those conferences for having paying members of any kind?
Without having a lot of facts and figures at hand, my gut tells me that this
FEELS a lot like a desperate attempt to keep the "mandatory-membership machine"
operational, possibly at the expense of good financial solvency. It harkens
back to the "member-lock-in" points I mentioned in the previous e-mail thread,
as though the national org is desperate to maintain that lock-in at any cost.
And if we're investing cash flow just to keep the "mandatory/automatic"
member-base churn rate low, it raises some (to me anyway) obvious questions
about overall viability of the organization.
D
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