[hackerspaces] Hackerspace legal formation and insurance

[Lokkju Brennr]

BrainSilo went ahead and filed as a state nonprofit, and we're working
on 501c3.  One thing we are exploring, and would love to talk to
others about, is going down the fraternal order route - it generally
lets you do two very nice things (in addition to being a form of non
profit):
 - it lets you exist as a private club
 - it lets you have one parent org, and multiple chapters - but only
the parent org has to apply for and maintain the IRS status.  Any
chapters automatically receive it as long as the parent does.


Loki

On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 2:29 PM, Jason Bailey <drfuzz at gmail.com> wrote:
> Matt,
>
> DBA is just "doing business as" and is in order to legally conduct
> business in a name other than your registered corporation name.  You
> could, for instance, file with the state as "Austin Hackerspace Inc"
> and then further file a DBA as the actual name of the space.  (This is
> in fact what Hive13 does here in Cincinnati.)
>
> http://www.nolo.com/ is a good resource, in general, for deciding LLC
> or S-Corp, etc.
>
> The insurance question has been discussed on this list a few times in
> the past (in fact, I sent a similar email a year ago).  I'll point you
> to the archives of this list here
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/discuss/ though there isn't an
> easy search interface that I could find.
>
> Hive13 has liability insurance through a local company here in
> Cincinnati, http://www.cai-insurance.com/ Your group will need to
> decide how much coverage you want.  We have I believe $2,000,000 in
> general aggregate liability coverage with some per-incident maximums
> and pay around $900/yr.  Find a local insurance company and ask for a
> quote; they will probably ask questions about what types of activities
> go on in your space (or that you plan to have) and decide from there.
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 5:17 PM, Matthew McCabe <matt at mrmccabe.com> wrote:
>> The Austin Hackerspace is looking at options for forming a legal
>> entity and are considering an LLC or DBA.  What legal formation do the
>> US based hackerspaces typically use?
>>
>> Also, we are looking at buying liability insurance to protect the
>> founders and members of the space.  Any suggestions on what level of
>> coverage we should have?  Or recommendations on companies that provide
>> cheap liability insurance?
>>
>> Thank you for your help!
>>
>> -Matt
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