Nonprofit – Data Roads Foundation

Lists like this should all be prefaced with this statement of fact: there is absolutely no legitimate support for ending network neutrality anywhere, and anyone acting against net neutrality has a direct and personal short-term financial interest in fostering network monopolies and online extortion. This is usually because they are being paid directly by the incumbent monopolists and extortionists, either as a lobbyist or another form of political campaign financier.

Network neutrality protects capitalist competition online against corrupt government officials picking crony market winners and losers, so there is no legitimate economic or political argument to be made against net neutrality. The only rational discussion left is about how to act to restore net neutrality in the US and abroad, and how quickly.

Let’s start with a lighthearted and semi-serious take on the issues. Of all main stream media analysis, John Oliver’s new show does the best work on this topic.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) on Net Neutrality

Next up is a similar mainstream analysis of net neutrality, this time with a target audience who frequently plays video games.

Continue reading “A few different takes on Net Neutrality”

Starting a nonprofit corporation is the most difficult type of legal incorporation you can accomplish in America today. The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has revoked 501(c)(3) nonprofit status from hundreds of thousands of charitable corporations, some within just months after they were first granted c3 status due to a computer glitch. This has devastating effects on the basic bookkeeping and survival of nonprofit activities worldwide. The IRS is widely known to be slow to grant c3 status — so slow that their computers immediately revoke it after determination letters are finally sent, because the proper Form 990 submissions are not in their system from the past 2 years (never mind it’s almost impossible to properly submit the Form 990 without first gaining nonprofit status and a corresponding Employer Identification Number)!

In other words: the IRS is so slow to acknowledge innovative nonprofit activity and its worldwide benefits that it makes new nonprofit incorporation nearly impossible, implicitly favoring for-profit activity instead.

For the reasons above, among others, the majority of responses to my early search for nonprofit startup advice can be summarized in one short emphatic phrase: “Find a fiscal sponsor!” So what the heck is that?

Continue reading “What is a “Fiscal Sponsor”?”