[hackerspaces] 501c3 and hackerspaces in the US

[Bert Hartmann]

MakerBar has thought long and hard on this recently, and decided that
501(c)7 was the right classification for us, due to the extra restrictions
on 501(c)3. 501(c)3 must be strictly for scientific, educational, artistic,
etc. purposes, which we didn't believe everything we did would be
"strictly" in that classification.

To answer your question, it doesn't matter how the money came in though,
everything is restricted to your purpose the same (unless there was some
additional restriction given by the donor).

One thing to note that we hope to take advantage of is the ability for any
(or most) 501 non-profits to create a 501(c)3 fund, which can behave like a
501(c)3 in terms of donations and tax implications, but allows the legal
organization to remain some other classification, so you can continue to
operate outside most of the additional restrictions most of the time,
assuming you have enough funds outside of the 501(c)3 fund. This should
allow MakerBar, for example, to create an educational fund, donations to
which would be tax deductible.

Hope that helped,
Bert

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 12:46 PM, Buddy Smith <buddy.smith at ieee.org> wrote:

> Are there any limitations on the use of donated funds, versus member dues,
> etc?
>
> --buddy
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
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