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Announcement of AVEN's incorporation


michaeld

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Much discussion has been raised recently about AVEN's legal status, and how this affects both the outage issues we have been experiencing and efforts to fundraise both for a better technical platform and for visibility endeavours.

First we would like to announce that AVEN is now incorporated as a not-for-profit NGO through the state of New York, USA. The current members of the Board of Directors are AVENguy (founder of AVEN and tech admin), Coleslaw (tech admin), michaeld (Project Team), Kelly (admin) and ithaca (AVEN archivist and former moderator and admin).

The role of the board of directors is to provide a framework for the teams - the Admod Team, the Project Team and the Declassfication Team - to run the boards. The board is responsible for the AVEN bank account and legal entity. The board legally owns the site, though delegates decision making on the day to day running of the site to the above teams. Barring unusual circumstances - for example if legal issues arise - the board will not interfere with this decision making progress. Board members can offer to mediate disputes that might arise within the teams should that occur. Finally the board are responsible for the technical maintenance of the site, either directly - for example two members are also tech admins - or by delegation.

We need to make it clear that our incorporation is a work in progress. AVEN is currently incorporated as a small-budget 501c3 organization with the US Internal Revenue Service, which means that all donations are exempt from taxes by the US government. If the amount of money that we raise increases much (above $5000 annually) we will need to start the complex process of applying for tax exempt status more formally. The board would love help from any lawyers familiar with this process, but it's not urgent.

There are two main reasons for fundraising. One is to improve the technical stability of the site. Another is for visibility and education projects. At present the former is our priority. Our plan is to move to a new cloud based server in the next year, which will be better able to handle the weight of traffic we experience. We will be giving more detail about the funds we need to raise to make this happen. At present our donation page on paypal is here.

We will also be adding extra tech positions to our team in the near future. Coleslaw, current tech admin, will be making a thread detailing the various roles available, and how to apply for them.

Thank you for reading!

Michael

PS. I would like to apologise for the time it has taken to post this announcement, since we received questions relating to it; I take responsibility for this.

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CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake:

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Congratulations and thanks for all the hard work everyone.

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Are you asking us to wait on making donations as to not go over $5000 mark or should we feel free to donate through the link?

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Are you asking us to wait on making donations as to not go over $5000 mark or should we feel free to donate through the link?

That's what I was wondering. It's like ok you can give money, but not too much money. Be careful, lol.

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Hehe, good questions. OK I'll get a proper confirmation on this. But my understanding is that larger donations are always "better" in the sense that AVEN will receive more money in the end, even after tax. However, if we go over the $5000 mark we will have to pay some of it as tax, which means that some of your donation will be going to the US government. At the moment, we're not going to go over the $5000 mark in a hurry, as we've only just set this donation site up. If we are about to go over - or ideally well before that - we will look into obtaining the formal tax exempt status we mentioned.

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Perissodactyla

I almost cried when I read this announcement. Then I made a donation. :)

*sigh*

Thank you all SO MUCH!

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UncommonNonsense

Awesomeness! I don't have much by way of money, but I sent some your way!

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This is great stuff! Very interested to hear more about the tech positions, being a nerd who is extremely grateful to AVEN, and with some free time on her hands. :)

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This is great news! Thanks and congrats! :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake: :cake:

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Skycaptain

Congratulations, and well done for all the hard work and effort needed to do this 🎂 🎂

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Great news, huge thanks to everyone who puts in all the effort :)

(small contribution is on the way)

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Sage Raven Domino

Awesome! I'm going to test the donation page later after I take a walk to an ATM :)

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Thanks all for the enthusiastic response! Yes definitely, if tech is your thing keep an eye out for the applications, as I understand there are several positions we need to fill.

On the less technical side, if you'd like to work with the board on our fundraising efforts and other logistics now that we are incorporated, I suggest you consider running for this PT position:

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/140069-new-project-team-member-needed-answering-team-and-wiki-coordinator-nominations/

While the position is technically about the wiki and the answering team, this one is actually pretty generic, and helping us with this ongoing process would definitely be a valuable part of the job.

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*wanders over, drops some money in the donation bin, whistles and walks away*

I've been waiting for years to do that. Thank you ^_^

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I would like to thank everyone for the positive messages, and for the donations arrived so far. :cake:

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Thanks for explanation michael.

Donation made!

Go AVEN!!

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Awesome, I've been looking forward to helping out. Donation made!

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How long will the donation page be up? I want to make a donation, but if possible I'd prefer to wait until the fall when I start TAing and have more spending money.

Either way, I'm glad AVEN has NPO status! Congratulations, and thanks for the update! :cake:

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How long will the donation page be up? I want to make a donation, but if possible I'd prefer to wait until the fall when I start TAing and have more spending money.

Either way, I'm glad AVEN has NPO status! Congratulations, and thanks for the update! :cake:

Well I expect it'll be up a while. After all once we've bought a new server, there's all those admods+PT wild parties we have to fund - and perhaps we'll think about including the DT in that too ... ahem, I meant to say, after tech comes vis outreach. Printing fliers, stickers, funding events such as ace conferences and possibly awarding educational and/or travel grants. Yes the page is not going to go away in a hurry, and we might get a permanent donation button to put on the website.

Thanks all for the support, financial or otherwise!

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Thank you (everyone involved)! Great news! :cake:

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How long will the donation page be up? I want to make a donation, but if possible I'd prefer to wait until the fall when I start TAing and have more spending money.

Either way, I'm glad AVEN has NPO status! Congratulations, and thanks for the update! :cake:

Well I expect it'll be up a while. After all once we've bought a new server, there's all those admods+PT wild parties we have to fund - and perhaps we'll think about including the DT in that too ... ahem, I meant to say, after tech comes vis outreach. Printing fliers, stickers, funding events such as ace conferences and possibly awarding educational and/or travel grants. Yes the page is not going to go away in a hurry, and we might get a permanent donation button to put on the website.

Thanks all for the support, financial or otherwise!

But what if I only joined the DT to gain access to the wild admods+PT parties? :ph34r: :P

And sounds good, in that case, I'll be donating in the near future, once I get settled in grad school and start actually making some money. I'm glad it's finally an option :)

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and we might get a permanent donation button to put on the website.

Yes! Is there a particular monetary goal that you're aiming for?

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and we might get a permanent donation button to put on the website.

Yes! Is there a particular monetary goal that you're aiming for?

There will be more details on this in the fundraising thread to come. But my current understanding is that to take AVEN to a stable cloud based server - that can handle our weight of traffic (including the rush of new members and views when a big vis piece come out) - we're looking at around $5k per year. That is our priority - the stability of the site. If we get there, we can think about setting further targets to make other projects possible. I need to emphasise this is my current understanding, and I'm not directly involved in the tech side of AVEN.

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5K a year? Then aren't you going to need more than that in donations to meet it? Unless there's a sizeable fund set up already...

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catsaregood

This is so great, and such a good feeling to be able to contribute financially to the community! Thank you for the huge hours you must all have put into getting this off the ground, and the ongoing time the Board will be giving :cake: :cake::cake:

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Yay, that's great news! :D I'd be very interested in contributing on the technical side of things in due course.

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