Matt- The challenge would be the function of the organization as reported to the IRS versus what the organization actually does. If your exemption status is based on Activity A , and you started to do Completely Unrelated Activity B without proper notification and process with the IRS, you can lose that 501(c)3 status. This happened to an organization I was involved with many years ago. For your example, a 501(c)3 organization created for the objective is connecting investors to businesses is perfectly fine. If that organization later started funding scholarships for underprivileged children without properly involving the IRS, they could jeopardize that exempt status. The Program Committee would absolutely work with the Board to get a proper opinion if content was being considered for acceptance that could run us afoul of those rules. On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 4:09 PM Matt Harris <matt@netfire.net> wrote:
On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 11:35 AM Mehmet Akcin <mehmet@akcin.net> wrote:
Great point ;-) thanks Tom
On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 09:29 Tom Daly <tjd@fastly.com> wrote:
Mehmet,
Good idea, the opportunity for innovation and supporting ideas of others in our operator groups is important, but NANOG is probably the wrong venue.
Have you considered NANOG's 501c3 not-for-profit status in your analysis of bringing this idea to the community? As a presenter, how would one protect his/her intellectual property being shown to the proposed "sharks" and/or the audience? (would an audience be permitted in the room?)
I can't speak for the NANOG Board nor the Program Committee, but as an interested party in NANOG's 501(c)3 not-for-profit status, I am pretty certain this activity would jeopardize our recognized exemption with the IRS. I think this is an important detail you explore before proceeding.
As someone who had dealt with non-profit management many times and served on several non-profit entity boards of varying sorts, I don't see any issue here at all with simply hosting such an event. As long as NANOG handles the procedes from the event properly, there should be no issue. In fact, there are 501(c)3 organizations which exist with a primary goal very similar to this: connecting investors with potential investments. Check out Code2040, the Techstars Foundation, and Change Catalyst, among others.
I'd like to hear why you feel this sort of event may cause an issue or jeopardize NANOG's tax status. Can you be a bit more clear about why you are concerned about this? Perhaps there's something I'm overlooking.
As far as intellectual property goes, it would of course be up to the presenter how much they would want to share publicly. Not all intellectual property is a "trade secret", plenty is covered by copyrights and patents and can generally be shared with an audience without granting said audience unlimited rights to that intellectual property. For example, just because you attend a concert with a particularly performer does not mean you then have rights to illegally download that performer's mp3s. Of course anyone who does treat their work product as a trade secret would not share such work product with any audience. If a presenter did wish to share additional information with the "shark"/investor participants above and beyond what is shown to the general audience, they could establish non-disclosure agreements with the interested parties. NDA's between potential investors and recipients of investments are extremely common. This would of course be between the presenter and their attorney to determine the appropriate course of action and to draw up any relevant documents. Any time anyone is considering accepting an investment in their work product, I would very highly recommend that they engage an attorney whom they trust in order to vet any agreements and ensure that they fully understand all ramifications thereof.
Good luck folks!