[Imc] RE: [infoshops] cincy collective

Sun Nov 25 01:38:52 UTC 2001

Greetings Aaron from Urbana-Champaign, IL!  We've gone through the 501c(3) 
process, and as far as I know, we're the first and only IMC that has done it. 
While the other IMCs seem to operate fairly well without non-profit status, we 
have started to get requests from others to be "sponsors" because of our 
non-profit status. Seems like grant-giving organizations like to see that we 
are "official". As I am not directly involved with grant-writing, I am 
forwarding your message to the U-C IMC listserv (imc at urbana.indymedia.org) and 
maybe others could offer more specific advice on non-profit status. Hey 
Imcstas, anyone want to take a stab at explaining our membership structure?

As for publishing houses, what we've mostly done is write letters to 
publishers asking for free subscriptions and such. So far, we've received 
Adbusters, EarthFirst, Utne Reader, Dollars and Sense, and several other left 
leaning journals for free. Some of our members have changed their mailing 
addresses on subscriptions to be delivered directly to the IMC also. Books are 
a little harder to get deals for. Seems that the more radical the publisher, 
the smaller they are, the more they have to struggle to make ends meet, the 
less likely they are to be able to give deals. A couple that you might want to 
look into are:

Arise Bookstore
http://www.arisebookstore.org/

AKPress
http://www.akpress.org/

and the infoshop.org website for lots of alternative information. I guess 
that's about it for now. If you have other questions, you could post to the 
U-C IMC listserv (imc at urbana.indymedia.org).

Good luck with the infoshop!

in solidarity,

James Jacobs
Radical Librarian
U-C IMC
http://urbana.indymedia.org/library

>===== Original Message From Civic Media Center <sheila at civicmediacenter.org> 
=====
>Aaron:
>
>The Civic Media Center in Gainesville, FL is a non-profit.
>Interestingly enough we did a presentation at the PAZ conference
>about the advantages and disadvantages to incorporating as a
>non-profit.  My response is going to be a tad long.  But I think this
>is an important issue for the radical community to think about and as
>there is no courses in "non-profit management for radicals" we have
>to hodge podge our info together as best we can.
>
>Being a non-profit means your group essentially makes a contract with
>the government.  Now many folks in the infoshop world are more than a
>little reluctant to make a contract with the government.   The CMC is
>not an anarchist space- though most of us either identify as
>anarchist or say we have anarchist leanings.  And it wasn't started
>by anarchists.  So the folks starting it had a lot less qualms about
>setting up in the legal channels.    There is paperwork and filing
>issues and fees and the like.  And when I think about the paperwork I
>will have to do this february, it's more than a little annoying.  But
>there are some major advantages.
>
>One- you can apply for grants.  Now like someone else said you can't
>get much for general operating expenses like rent, which often makes
>up the bulk of the expenses.  But you could get grants to cover the
>cost of buying books or magazine subscriptions for your collection.
>We are a lending library not a bookstore- and personally I encourage
>to think about making your infoshop into an alternative library as
>well as a place that distro's alternative publications.  There is
>something just so dang radical about lending versus selling books.
>
>Some examples of grants we received this year- barely even trying.
>$700 from Friends of the Library to cover the cost of having some of
>our books catalogued at the Public library- this means when someone
>goes to the public library and looks up books on Emma Goldman- they
>see that the public library has maybe one title and we, well, we have
>quite a few more.
>$100 from the Self-Education Foundation for just being great and
>having been around for a while- okay it helps that one of the board
>members is a former cmc volunteer.  But still it's grant money.
>$2300 from the Resist Foundation- to fund my job as fundraiser for
>four of so months to the tune of $500 a month.  This one took a quite
>a bit of work.  And we didn't get the full amount we asked for, but
>we got most of it.
>
>Two- you can solicit donations from the community.  97% of our
>funding comes from our community, either through memberships, extra
>donations or events.  I have gobs and gobs I could tell you about all
>of this, having been sucking down books on fundraising as fast as I
>can.  And I'm about to go off on what seems like a tangent, but it
>relates to the issue of money from the community.   But here the key
>questions you need to ask: who are you serving?  Why are you setting
>up shop in the first place?
>
>The CMC is a space that is chocked full of radical publications- and
>all of us who bust our asses for the place define ourselves as
>radicals.  But we view this space as a public space- one that serves
>the community at large.  Basically, I want that little old church
>lady who has suddenly become interested in the issue of sweatshops
>and needs to do research to find out more to feel like she can come
>into this space and be welcomed and that she will be respected and
>helped.  And I want her to know that if she starts a group that she
>can set up a presentation or discussion group that can meet here.
>And we have managed to do this- sometimes more successfully than
>others.  In part because of this mission to serve the public at
>large- we have built up a membership base of about 311 active members
>who give anywhere from $5 to $1500.  Now people will give to your
>group even if you are not a non-profit.  But being a non-profit gives
>you a certain legitimacy in the larger, not so radical community even
>though the bulk of givers actually get no tax break for the gifts
>they make to non-profits because they file the short form.
>
>Three- If you have a college or university in your town, you can get
>"surplus" computer equipment.  For example, in our newsletter I put
>that we wanted G3's (high end Macs) or better computers.  Someone saw
>that and the department they were working for was switching from
>Mac's to PC's. And we got two G3's for free.  But we had to be a
>non-profit to get them.  And let me tell you it's nice to have high
>end computer equipment.
>
>Four- If you do the paperwork right (which after 8 years of being
>around we finally got the paperwork for this one filed) you don't
>have to pay sales tax on your purchases.  This can save you quite a
>bit of money.
>
>Five- You don't have to collect sales tax on the sale of items that
>directly relates to your mission.  This one is a bit tricky.  Let's
>say your mission is to make radical publications available to the
>public- then you don't have to collect sales tax for "radical
>publications"  but if you were to sell toasters as a way to raise
>extra money, you'd have to collect sales tax.  This one you'd have to
>do a little research on to fully understand.  I'm still trying to
>make sure I've got it down.
>
>Six- You'd almost definately have to work with folks from outside the
>radical or punk or anarchist community.  And personally I think
>that's a big, big bonus.
>
>Okay, enough on all that.  Good luck how ever you decide to set up
>shop.  If you want to know anything about fundraising, I'd be happy
>to send a list of books geared specifically to funky, radical,
>grassroots non-profits.
>
>enjoy,
>sheila
>
>
>
>
>>from our meeting last night, i have some specific topics that i
>>would like to pose to the list. our collective is currently looking
>>into :
>>-the advantages/disadvantages of non-profit incorporation
>>-some good distros and radical publishing houses and what kind of
>>deals are offered (deals for org.'s, bulk
>>buying, consignment, etc.)
>>-successful models for membership structure
>>since none of us have done this before and want to avoid attempting
>>to re-invent the wheel we'd love to hear your thoughts and
>>experiences.
>>much love and gratitude to all those who responded to the last post.
>>peace.aaron
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>>
>>http://www.eco-action.org/infoshops
>
>--
>Sheila Bishop
>co-Coordinator
>Civic Media Center & Library, Inc.
>sheila at civicmediacenter.org
>352-373-0010
>http://www.eco-action.org/infoshops