Talk:Free Geek's status as a nonprofit

Two questions:

• what about the "Community Technology Center" part of the name? Is that totally unofficial, just a descriptor?
• is there a category this should fit in? FGFAQs?

--Ideath

• I think "Community Technology Center" is the unofficial (or not legally binding?) name of the place, not the organization.
• Someone categorized it as AboutFG.

RfS 08:41, 27 Jun 2006 (PDT)

Non-profit status for other Free Geek's not in Portland ?

I heard a rumor that the 501(3c) approval that Portland (Mothership) has, will also work for other Free Geek startups.

I'm in washington state, can I start our Free Geek using the Portland 501 (3c) status ? Until we can get our own?

-iain

We can legally use our corporate organization and 501(c)(3) nonprofit status to start branches up anyway in the US. The issues that I see are:

• You may not want to be part of the same organization, be run by the same board, etc.
• We want to protect the viability of our organization (the one that is currently local to Portland). Many organizations have been killed by their success when they mushroom out and lose focus on the organization at the center. We want to take care not to let that happend to FG in PDX.

We will be talking about this with folks from other FGs when some of them are in town for OSCON. Interested in making another trip to the mothership for that?

RfS 08:41, 27 Jun 2006 (PDT)