Posted by robeano on April 11, 2008 at 9:54pm
The Seattle Drupal Users Group is organizing a DrupalCamp for this summer. I'm in contact with a local university where we would like to host the event. The university is requesting that we exist as an actual nonprofit entity and that we have liability insurance. Has anyone else come across these issues before? Can the Drupal Association help here? I have contact the Drupal Association, and I'm awaiting their response, but I thought I might post here as well. Any thoughts or hints would be greatly appreciated? Is it time for our DUG to become a nonprofit?
You can learn more about our camp at http://groups.drupal.org/drupalcamp-seattle
Comments
401(3) c difficult
From what little I know, it is a long and painful process (also costly) to become a 401(3) c organization with "official" status, so if we can piggy-back on some other organization's status, that would be much easier and less expensive. I think there is zero chance we could get this in place before the summer. Liability insurance for an organization is not cheap either. If we go that route, we will need to either have a sponsor/angel pay for all these costs, or have membership fees or meeting fees.
Is there a possibility we could get a local company (perhaps a web hosting company?) to sponsor the camp and provide insurance under its wings? Or hold it at their offices (Adobe comes to mind)?
On a somewhat related note... Given what transpired with the LinuxFest Northwest sign-up (i.e. no one signed up to staff the booth, three people signed up to give talks), I am wondering whether or not we even have the will to pull off a larger Drupal Camp than what was done last year. Or even equal to what was done last year.
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RE: difficult
I believe it's 501(3)c
Is this business liability they're interested in?
Is there no interest in hosting the event at last year's location.
I can't imagine Youngstown requiring insurance.
-josh
Non-profit status
Getting official non-profit status in the U.S isn't that easy and its getting more difficult by the day (thank you Microsoft!), particularly for any OSS related projects.
The short answer to your question is no.
I have not heard of anyone needing to be a registered non-profit to hold a Drupalcamp.
The longer question is..
Yes, liability insurance is fairly common in the conference/camp world and big-ish conferences usually are required to have it. I've never heard the request that you had to be a non-profit in order to have this insurance but rather just a company. Setting up a company is really easy in the U.S (compared to other countries) and can sometimes be as simple as a single form sent to the state with a small fee (and often online). Its been a few years but when I lived in Washington I was able to do it all online for about $35. As a business you can get liability insurance for a number of companies although it can be expensive. Ask the University for a company recommendation.
So this is always a "fear" when putting on barcamps. That you will actually have to form a formal company, buy insurance and deal with all of the bureaucratic stuff that goes along with it. Sometimes you can't get around it but sometimes you can......
Way I've found to get around it.
Partner. ;)
Is there a local UNIX/Linux/PHP/Web Developer/Drupal University group on campus? The key being registered on campus.
If so partner with them and have "them" put the camp on. If they put the camp on then they are covered via the University assuming, of course, that they get it approved via the proper channels.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer so... attempt at your own risk.
-Jacob Redding
-Jacob Redding
Actually it is 501(c)3 ;-)
Actually it is 501(c)3 ;-) regarding insurance, jacob is right, we can buy a policy from a local broker that should cost too much, but typically if we are partnered with an official campus organization that should be a problem.
We may also want to look toward an alternate space that is not so "restrictive" if the universities are becoming a problem.
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Agreed. I started checking
Agreed. I started checking out hotels, and I am wondering about CHAC (although I haven't checked with them yet). Most of the hotels are pricey. I'm also checking with the WA Convention Center, I'm waiting to hear back about some pricing details, but it's looking to be too expensive as well.
Should we be considering limiting the number of attendees?
Robin