Can we and should we pull off an official Edgeryders organisation?

Workspaces LOTE2 “Spinning Off”
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41

Nadia and K

I’m not sure that

Nadia and K

I’m not sure that an organisation with a international legal structure is entirely necessary.  I think as long as it is registered in a country that uses the Euro (as I’m guessing most of the work will be in Euro donominated countries) things should be OK.

Of course this does not mean that the international legal form Dante mentions should not be considered.

Guess if there is to be an ‘international’ (as opposed to operating just in one or two countries) Edgeryders organisation that we need to start identifying a few possible legal structures and weighing them up against each other.  Also look and see if we can find any channels for advice/support?

42

Someone in the Community knows alot about this

British guy, was in the unmonastery session during #Edgecamp…in the #socent space…grrr names!!! Anyone else remember?

43

I know who you mean, I talked with him one night. He has lots of experience with company legal structure and now works helping organisations get such things in order.  I think his name may have been Patrick?? (but I am good at forgetting names)

44

regarding international not for profit under belgian law

Hi Darren,

Regarding the status of the international not for profit under belgian law,

though I am not a specialist, to my current understanding,

it is basically a not for profit under belgian law,

with the potential to have as founders and members people living and based anywhere in the world.

It also makes it possible to use the organization for projects anywhere in the world.

It keeps its legal base in Belgium.

It is not too complicated ( apparently ) to set up,

and, as Belgium has 3 official languages,

the legal and administrative aspects can be processed in French, German or Dutch,

which is ananother advantage ( especially if we have french, dutch or german speaking members involved )

45

International ‘trading’

The multi language factor does sound appealing.

Having said that this has got me thinking about the possibility of registering something in the UK - so that all the company documentation can be done in English, which is the main language of communication amoungst Edgeryders.

My main reason for not suggesting this has been the trouble with this has been the difference in currencies £ vs € and difficulties (expenses) when changing between.  It would however be possible for a UK registered organisattion to have a Euro bank account.

I’ve got a fair bit of knowledge and experience with UK organisation structure and registration and know where we could go looking for assistance.

46

Get the UK path cleared maybe?

Darren, would you be up for exploring the UK path and getting to a bullet point list of the requirements and context advantages? Then they could be compared with other paths. From what I hear, the UK system is quite friendly to that sort of stuff. Also, that’s the leading country in terms of impact investment - if we take on aggressively the social enterprise mantle there is finance up for the grab (not grants, finance - grants too, but these are everywhere, though not abundant).

47

A UK path ? : Limited Liability Partnership

Hi Darren, Alberto, Noemi, …

Regarding UK options,

though I do not know all of them,

I did hear of a specific form which I find of interest,

which seems very flexible.

It is called a “Limited Liability Partnership”.

excerpt :

“A corporate ( moral person ) body independent from its members, with limited liability - you can not loose more then what you put in -. You do not even need a written agreement. It costs 20 pounds to set up.”

I believe this may be a particularly interesting legal framework if we want to account for our contributions in specific projects - some in the form of time contributions, others in making available property, etc -

I am not sure a LLP is an ideal framework for not for profit oriented European Grants ( but then, who knows ? ). For European Grants, I see a Belgian Based International Not for Profit ( limited liability ) or a European Economic Interest Group ( unlimited liability / all partners take all the risk )

Now, back to UK Limited Liability Partnerships :

Chris Cook gave presentations on potentials to combine different forms of Equity in a LLP approach.

http://p2pfoundation.net/Limited_Liability_Partnership

see this video if you have time :

slides with financial construction examples :

48

AISBL : Internation Not for Profit

Hi Nadia,

Just to let you know that I am in the process of creating such an AISBL (International Not for Profit Organisation). Bear in mind, this is ruled by “Royal Decree”. If you follow the normal process, it takes a lot of time. Total cost for creating such a corporation is around 1.500 Euro. Mainly to pay for the Notary expenses because it is still an ad-hoc process very complicated to automate and often the first application is rejected (Notaries are very careful at checking all requirements even though some of them are quite ambigous).

For the people more interested in the legal aspect, check out "TITTRE III of Belgian Law on ASBL, AISBL and Private Foundations dated June 27th of the year 1921 (art. 46 to 58). A Private Foundation is also a potential instrument for what you are looking for.

If you go for the AISBL, you’ll then have to take care of “Fiscal Authorities Article 316”, a basic paper wherein you have to provide carefully the required information about “principal activity” and “accesory activities” in order to justify the percentage of revenues that can be considered as “profit”. Indeed, an AISBL can make money but should describe the share of this profit compared to the total revenues.

There are some very interesting aspects of AISBL related to “Gifts” or “Donations” as described by the Belgian legislation. I would recommend that you investigate that as well. It is more interesting than the mechanism in place in Switzerland for example. An AISBL is often used to distribute money for scholarships (Bourses d’études) that was received from donators. Legally speaking two diffrent kind of “gift” according to the Belgian legislation. We are here entering quite complex grounds …

Hope it helps,

Philippe

49

from ASBL, to AISBL ?

Hi Philippe,

I am very interested in sharing further along your ungoing experience.

I ask myself : if a Brussels structure is to be set up, perhaps it could be easier to first set up a ASBL ( costs 150 euros and can be less complex ), and then shift to a AISBL at a later stage depending on needs ?

Perhaps an ASBL could even be set up before the Lote2 meeting, and already be used ( for limited liability and an bank account ) to support specific projects which would emerge out of Lote2 ?

Or perhaps it could be possible to collaborate with other AISBL, such as the one you are setting up ?

I am based in Brussels.

It would be interesting to meet up, perhaps even before Lote2

( 6-9 in Brussels : http://edgeryders.ppa.coe.int/blog/lote2-is-happening-december-6-9-in-brussels-see-you-there/ )

For a drink at any time, or for this meeting/presentation on the 29th of November on the topic of ASBL/AISBL at a lawyers office in Brussels :

( my contact : dante -at- ecobytes -dot- net )

50

Not always the case

While I agree that the moniker of socent is being thrown about as a slogan to attract young energy to asset class dinosaurs i have to state here that are functional and worthy uses in this…most especially social business as per Yunus.

The Yunus Youth foundations would be very interested to liase in this aspect. Also social business foundations provide great funding and support for social bus dev. I have the neccesary contacts and will elaborate on all of this later.

In short: dont throw out the social business babymwith the bathwater of green washing :wink:

51

david who was going to socap in SF

was it the guy you’re talking abt?

52

Late in the game, but I’m here

Hi there, Eimhin here (your David, its my middle name) been reading through the above and have a lot to add. for future reference, this is me.

53

participatory-chaotic

This is the report on what is coming out of the idea to register the Edgeryders Official Org in Malmo. It is little bit longer than what I usually write here. I appologise for violating my own no’scroll’down rule.

Since we have been talking about official edgeryders org, I have started communicating the idea to people who might be interested in joining in and administrating such an organization in my local area.

I have roughly explained the concept and the history of the edgeryders community. I have tried to make it as participatory as I could (as a big fan of participatory design and ethnographic action research) and let others decide which form a local chapter of Edgeryders can take for a start and which activities optimizing youth transition will achieve a sufficient level of participation.

Challenges:

-People can relate to the idea, but not to the edgeryders platform.

I see two reasons for that: not being acquainted to lote participants and the difficulty to make sense out of extensive online discussions which has started a long time ago.

-So the challenges, as it always is with participatory design, is to enable shared vision.

People:

-People who are willing to run an initiative are mostly those involved in local youth driven organizations already, but struggling for the optimization of the activities.

Needs:

-Apparently there is a need to strengthen connection between existing local grass root orgs, businesses an creative individuals in transition.

Conceptual map:

  • Diversity, lean startup, socent.

Form:

Form that it seem to be taking is a hub.

Funding:

-A person who got busy with Edgeryders Local straight away has experience with YiA as well, so she has started putting together a YiA project for the last call for proposals of the program. Local unconf and the first mingling event will be created with the help of Swedish based foundations and local authorities.

If the first small scale projects will be successful, bigger projects can be created.

What’s left of the starting point:

-Small scale local festival/the unconf with representatives of local business forums, successful lean startups, grass root no’s and people willing to explore their ideas, but not yet sufficiently networked.

Where am I:

  • I will try to communicate between Edgeryders Main (as I named it) and the buzz around Edgeryders Local (as I named what has started here).

  • Get people I have met at LOTE to present on the events organized here.

Conclusion:

  • What I have pictured as Edgeryders Official Org, looks like growing Edgeryders Events Local Chapter.

Any suggestions? Thanx.

54

prospects regarding members and language ?

Sounds like an interesting perspective.

If there is enough interest, and if it can be of support, it may be interesting.

My question is : if it is organized under swedish law, and if there are not enough swedish speakers willing to manage such administrative aspects, what happens ?

Also, does it require Swedish founding members only ? ( or having residence in Sweden )

///

I try to compare this with a Brussels / Belgian based international not for profit,

where members - including founding members - can be based anywhere,

though there may be the requirement of a physical address in Belgium. ( can be done at someone’s home , without liability for this person )

I also take into account language aspects related to administration - in Belgium they can be done in French, Dutch/Flemish, or German.

55

So register it in Sweden?

Hey K and Dante, so basically we’re talking not just organizing events, but under an official registration, right?

Like Dante, I know in Romania an NGO can have associates(members) and founders from any countries, provided it’s based here. But the language of papers is indeed an issue.

So if this YiA girl is about to register it, does this mean all future activities, that others here in the community may come up with, will have to be performed under that organization right?

Whichever way it is, I think it’s a good starting point and it gets us/you closer to what we intended: some more concrete action, especially now that some of the people here are helping with a next iteration focused much more on what we can do concretely and partner with municipalities.

What I’d suggest is that whenever you decide on a first event you post a wide call and we’ll help get the word out, maybe others would like to help set it up or attend. Myself included :slight_smile:

Well done!

56

As far as I Understand, it is not only about events.

The mini event seems like a good activity to prototype at the start.

YiA savvy girl wants to do stuff under YiA program for a start, because it is a relatively accessible source of small scale funding for an organization which is just came into existence, or even before, for an informal community.

I’m not trying to rush anything, but it seems to me that prototyping it locally on a small scale can be a good thing to keep offline activity going.

Also try to befriend local authorities here, so there will be an example to show to local authorities elsewhere.

In all fairness, I am not so active at the moment, but few peeps here are excited and doing stuff. I cant get them on the platform though, to discuss the org with us, but should I?

Format seems to be quite Edgeryders relevant, I might just take a step back and try to be a link between all the local ER buzz and the community.

57

Not for profit in SWE

Board can consist of anyone, not necessarily Swedes. The only administrative bummer is tax declaration.

I have to get my head around what is tax deductible and what is not.

People willing to be in the board were involved in other grass root no profits here, and they seem to be familiar with Swedish tax system more than I am.

Also might get free advice from local incubators, even though they are usually working with businesses, they might give us a hand with administrative puzzles.

58

You might be interested to read this

"Nor does the problem of how we should be legally organised currently have a perfect answer. The solution we found for the time being was to create something called a European Economic Interest Grouping. This is one of the few legal entities which can be created directly in European law, and can have and transfer its head office in any member state. As the name suggests, it groups together entities based in several member states into one grouping. As the name also suggests, the legal form has not been made primarily with the idea of non-profit associations or cooperatives in mind.

There is a European Co-operative legal form, which is better in many respects, but has a large capital requirement which made it unattainable for us." http://socialenterprise.guardian.co.uk/social-enterprise-network/2012/sep/25/co-operative-societies-transnational-hurdles-limitations

Apparently the interest grouping does not necessarily have to be formed with capital. Members are free to use alternative means of financing. Have you heard about this? Worth considering?

59

Good fiind Noemi,

I’ve been

Good fiind Noemi,

I’ve been following European Alternatives work for a few years now.  I get occassional newsletters they send out - but I have missed this aspect.

I guess they may give advice on how they have taken things forward (thinking about it a few months back they were doing a lot of open work on their organisational / governance structure.)

As your link suggests a European Economic Grouping (EEG)- groups together entities in a number of different countries - so I guess that an Edgeryders EEG could be built up from A Sweedish Edgeryders organisation and another (or some other) European organisations.

60

EEIG has no limited liability

Hi Noemi, Hi Darren,

Jacky ( who was at Edgeryders ) has personal experience with a EEIG.

Though it may be a very flexible approach,

one major disadvantage with a EEIG, as I understand it,

is that it has NO LIMITED LIABILITY.

This means every partner is responsible for ALL of the risks.

see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_economic_interest_grouping

///

Other organizations, such as a international not for profit under belgian law

( or other suggestions given here ? under Swedish or English Law ? )

may be more interesting in that respect.

A Belgian based INGO has , as far as I remember, limited liability that can be defined within its statutes :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_economic_interest_grouping

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/AISBL