Comments on: Who Owns a Nonprofit?

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 04:14:59 +0000

Who owns the nonprofit organization? If you people really look into it and dig hard (I mean really try to look and contact people from the organization) you will see that the Feds (any federal government type corporation) are the people that actually own the “non profit organization”.

By: Laura Otten

Laura Otten — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:28:57 +0000

Response from Laura Otten: This is tricky, and Idon’t know all of the facts, nor am I a lawyer. Although Mission Fish is described by others as a nonprofit and a charity and has a nonprofit web address suffix (org), it is not an independent organization but rather part of the Points of Light Institute (formerly known as the points of light foundation). The Points of Light Institute describes Mission Fish on its 990 as “a social enterprise” of the institute. that says to me that it is a business that supports itself and turns the profits over to the institute for it to use as needed. As such, the institute could decide that it no longer wants to run this social enterprise and close it down or, in this case, where the social enterprise is a valuable commodity, sell it for a fair market price. This would work just as if it were running a Dunkin’ Doughnuts as a social enterprise and decided to no longer run it. It could be shut down or sold.

By: Evan

Evan — Wed, 18 May 2011 22:01:58 +0000

How is it possible for a for-profit company to purchase a non-profit? I wasn’t aware this is possible. But – it looks like Ebay did just that with its purchase of MissionFish (http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/02/ebay-acquires-nonprofit-fundraising-tool-missionfish/)

Can you shed some light on this?

By: Laura Otten, Ph.D., Director

Laura Otten, Ph.D., Director — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:13:32 +0000

Where did you get the idea that Convio was ever a nonprofit? They work with nonprofits, but they are not one themselves.

By: Tad Druart

Tad Druart — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:54:22 +0000

Convio was created to provide innovative software and services that help nonprofits reach more people, raise more money and do more to fulfill their mission. The company has always been a commercial entity focused exclusively on helping our nonprofit clients achieve results in marketing, fundraising, advocacy, constituent relationship management and other related services – in fact our 1,400 clients raised more than $1.3 billion online last year alone. While many of our people have worked for nonprofits and are passionate about serving them we have never been a nonprofit organization. At times in our history people described us a “a nonprofit software company” which could be misunderstood as we are the nonprofit. As nonprofits pay us we reinvest in research and development and other services to conintue to innovate and improve our oferings so that our clients can maximize the value or their investment in Convio and maximize the value of all their relationships. Hope that clarifies our position.

Tad Druart, Director, Corporate Communications, Convio

By: luke

luke — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:41:50 +0000

then how do you explain nonprofits who have gone public and have shares traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange such as Convio (CNVO)?

By: Charitylawyer

Charitylawyer — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 07:33:27 +0000

This is an excellent post and something more people need to understand. Its something we see in practice all the time, the failure of founders and others to understand the limits of their authority. Have also blogged about this topic at
http://bit.ly/a377mo

By: lmd

lmd — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 04:21:57 +0000

hey love your post, read all the comments. i have the same question that “rusl” posted. Could you possibly help answer that question?

THANKS!

By: Griselda

Griselda — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:27:29 +0000

IMHO, NFP is only for offshoots to your main business once you already have a decent living and stability.

Be aware that the founders of NFPO’s have basically signed away all rights to make a decent living from their ideas and efforts. If you find that down the line your board fills up with elements hostile in some way to your aims or you require higher compensation or status, don’t be surprised if you start to hate your once loved creation.

These organisations can also be (and in my experience are frequently) abused by councils and government bodies. If working for the common good, there will come times where you must apply for funding to assist in your aims. In the UK this ultimately means Big Lottery funding. Don’t kid yourself. They will offer funding and withdraw that pledge and hold you to ransom to try and transform your project into their ugly and, most often, daft vision of the future. I have witnessed multiple cases where money has been promised then later denied even after achieving the goals set out in application to receive those funds. The worst thing about this, is that millions in lottery funding budgeted for the good of the people is not even spent, year after year.

The one plus is that your organisation does acquire some degree of the perceived decency of being a purely charitable group. The limited liability is a moot point, as other organisational structures also benefit the founders and board with such protections.

Do your homework.
Research all the options.
Don’t take the advice of ‘authoritative’ bodies as gospel.
They have their own agendas.
Top of the list is to offload their own workload onto you, most often for nothing in return. Be wary of invitations to ‘pooling’ or ‘partnership’ business meets. These tend to be nothing more than sessions to get YOU or someone else to do work for nothing so the folk who are actually employed in government can sit on their fat asses and claim your efforts as their own. I have witnessed this thieving of intellectual works all too often. Once the parties involved found out someone else was claiming they wrote all those policies, you can be damn sure they won’t be wasting their time to help get some lazy idiot thief promoted again.

And over all. Take care and try and keep a bit of humour in reserve. You’ll need it

By: marketing for non profit

marketing for non profit — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:05:12 +0000

Very good points i think you really need to understand what a non profit is all about. A lot of people should be starting a for profit business instead of a true non profit organization.

In a lot of ways starting a non profit is much harder then starting and running a normal business.