[hackerspaces] Hackerspace legal formation and insurance

[Carlyn Maw]

Yeah,

My understanding is that a DBA doesn't give you any protection at all - at
least it doesn't in CA

CRASHSpace is currently an sCORP and we have another 20 or so months to
decide to roll it into a 501c3 or not. A lot of that depends on what
direction the members want to take it in. We have insurance through State
Farm.

I briefly looked into the Fraternal Order route and it seemed a like a
status that would require crazy documentation to acquire and like it
provided limited benefits. But I could be wrong. I'd love to hear what you
find out.

Best
-- Carlyn
-- CRASHSpace.org

On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 5:58 PM, Lokkju Brennr <lokkju at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Discuss mailing list
> >> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> >> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >>
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> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
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