We here at Recycle-A-Bike (www.recycleabike.org) in Providence, RI have been using space at The Steel Yard (www.thesteelyard.org) for a couple seasons now. They're doing some major renovations and site remediations (they're located on an old metalworking site and there's lots of nasty things in the ground and in the air), so we're moving out of the old space and looking for a new one.
The Steel Yard seems really excited about the idea of incorporating us as a full department, along with Ceramics + Glass, Metalworking, Foundry, Jewelry, and some other programs. There's also a site on the space where we could build a standalone shop and storage space from shipping containers. They could be a really good fit for our program, and it would save us a lot of dealing with becoming our own legal entity.
I didn't hear any situation that was similar to ours in discussions at Bike!Bike! in August. Most people seem to rent space and just do things on the fly, incorporate as their own 501c3, not-for-profit, or collective, be a startup working under the auspices of an existing organization, or have a fiscal sponsor that's hands off. I think we're different because we've been running for 6 years on our own in various spaces, with pretty much no legal status, and we're thinking about joining up with an existing 501c3.
I'd like to know if anyone has some advice for us on things to watch out for, or at least make sure we take into account as we think about whether to incorporate ourselves into The Steel Yard. A couple questions I can think of immediately.
- Jim Bledsoe of the Bicycle Kitchen mentioned that if you become a
501c3, your assets can't ever be transferred to any other legal entity other than another 501c3. This means that if we decided to become part of the Steel Yard, then split in a few years for some reason, we'd have to become our own 501c3.
- What does it mean to have a loosely organized collective operating
within a 501c3 with an established board/staff structure? Since we're not a legal entity on our own, can we write something into an agreement with them that at least recognizes the collective's existence? None of the Steel Yard's other departments started like ours would; they grew out of people coming to them to start classes and other programs.
peace,
andrew recycle-a-bike providence, ri