Registering as a Non-Profit

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

Arabeyes has often thought about registering as a non-profit somewhere
where it has a solid presence due to a variety of reasons/benefits yet
we never got around to it.  A number of issues and limitations had
come-up in the past and I'm sure will continue to rear their ugly heads
which have distanced us from accomplishing this long-held goal (paperwork
and legal issues being key).  As such, Arabeyes is humbly requesting
comment and is seeking help on this topic from anyone with a bit of
insight onto this subject.

 - We don't mind being flooded with initial paperwork, but we don't
   want to have to continually submit paperwork on a periodic basis.
   We want to set it up, do it right and forget about it.
 - It would be nice to get some tax breaks for those looking to
   donate in the registered country (if possible), but this is
   _not_ a requirement.
 - We would like to attain some legal certificate so that we could
   actually open a bank account with that document with Arabeyes
   as the holder.  We'd also would like to show this certificate
   to people to note to them that we are indeed a "legal" entity.

A number of people as well as companies have noted in the past that
their rules of engagement dictate that they only engage with legal
entities (this is what we've heard repeatedly so don't ping us on
what this means since we don't have a clear physical central location
and most certainly don't look like many organizations out there).

It would have been ideal if we could register Arabeyes in an Arabic
country, but even the more progressive of them (like the UAE) seem
to put some crippling hurdles (the concept of a not-for-profit seems
to generate some chuckles as well).  As such our next choices are
the European Union and Canada (any comments/help from there ?).
I've personally looked into what it would take to setup such a thing
in the US and the amount of quarterly paperwork is beyond anything
I'd want to be tagged with (its a major repeated headache with audits
and countless quarterly document submittals - I'd rather Arabize code
than swim in paperwork).

Any comments/thoughts/directions ?  If you happen to have a lawyer
friend that is willing to look into all of this pro bono (ie. free)
do please let him/her know about our situation.  We don't have any
offices, but our history and track-record speak for themselves in
terms of commitment and longevity.

Before anything is done, do please let us know in advance - agreement
must be reached before any process is initiated.  We are not looking
for any surprises or heroic actions and don't want nor expect anyone
to simply come back and tell us that they registered us in Tahiti :-)

For those interested in such topics and in Arabeyes' upkeep and related
issues do please subscibe to the 'forum' mailing-list.

  http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/forum

Salam.

 - Nadim



		
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