Posted on 12/08/2001 12:25:12 AM PST by Jim Robinson
Is Free Republic a commercial operation or a charity?
Well, here's the way I see it. Free Republic is neither a charity or a commercial operation. It is simply a website. A public political bulletin board, just like thousands upon thousands of other non-commercial, not for profit, public political bulletin boards, only larger.Our participants post and discuss political topics, government topics, constitutional issues, current events and other miscellaneous topics. I operate it as an avocation (a hobby). I was sued by a couple major media players, so I filed as an LLC to gain at least a small amount of liability protection in case others want to jump on after the LAT/WP or in case some wild-eyed poster comes in and posts a bunch of crap that brings lawsuits my way.
In the beginning, I paid all of the expenses of operating the website out of my own pocket. But as it grew and the expenses grew, and I went broke, I could no longer afford the bills. Free Republic has tens of thousands of participants and is steadily growing. Because we are posting under the fair use provisions of copyright law, I cannot charge a membership fee, I cannot sell merchandise, I cannot sell advertising, and I cannot enter into any commercial business. I simply cannot earn money on Free Republic as a commercial operation.
And, because of the fact that we advocate various political positions and even support (by arguing for or against) various political candidates and or conservative issues or causes, I cannot qualify as a public benefit non-profit charity (501C, etc.).
Because I have no personal capital or resources, and I cannot seek outside investors or capital (that might be construed as being commercial), and I cannot charge for services or products (that may also be construed as being commercial), I'm pretty much stuck with the choice of folding up the public political discussion board (thus depriving myself and thousands of others this obviously effective and established opportunity of exercising our first amendment rights to political free speech), or allowing others to voluntarily donate money as gifts to pay the expenses. There is not much room to do anything else.
All we (our participants) want to do, both as individuals and as a group, is to be able to exercise our first amendment rights to criticize the illegally expanding government and its chief advocate, the mainstream media. This is our right under the Constitution. And we do this by posting news articles and other public information to use as a base of comparison and basis for for critique and political discussion.
Because we cannot be commercial and we cannot be a public charity and I do not have the financial wherewithal myself to fund it, the readers and participants willingly chip in to keep the website going. There is no way this giving is commercial and there is no way that it is a public benefit charity. It is simply a relatively small number of the total readers and participants willingly taking it upon themselves to gift money to Free Republic to keep the discussion board from going broke. No one is forced to contribute to Free Republic and, in fact, the vast majority do not. No price or fee is charged to anyone to read Free Republic or to participate in the discussion. It is totally free.
We do not engage in commerce. We do not sell anything. We do not have customers. We do not have subscribers. We do not have a paid membership. We do not have investors. We do not purchase anything, other than bandwidth and equipment to keep the discussion board operating. There is no inventory, no manufacturing, no sales, no services rendered, no investors, no stockholders, no board of directors, no outsiders, no sales people, no employees, no payroll, no payroll expenses, no payroll taxes, no employee benefits, no nothing. There is no commercial business taking place here. There is nothing commercial about Free Republic.
A commercial operation would be doing some kind of business. It would have a price list or rate book and or a catalog or product sheet or a description of product or service or some other communications vehicle that would allow potential customers or clients or subscribers or members or investors or whomever to see what is offered, what he is purchasing, and how much he would have to pay for it, and how it compares to the competition. There is no proposal or sales order or contract or agreement that describes a product or service to be delivered for a fee or a price and there are no contractual documents or agreements between buyer and seller describing how money or goods or services are to change hands. There are no guarantees or warrantees for fitness or suitability. Nothing. No commercial business is transacted.
Free Republic is not a commercial operation, period.
So, then, is it a public benefit charity?
Free Republic does not fit within the definition of a public benefit charity or professional fundraising operation. Participants willingly give to keep the lights on and the board operating, but Free Republic is not a registered public benefit charity or church or any other such operation. It is not a 501C non-profit organization, in fact, because it engages in politics and supports and promotes various conservative political issues and causes, it cannot qualify as a public benefit charity.Free Republic's legal and tax status is a California Limited Liability Company filing with the IRS on form 1065. The excess of receipts over expenditures for an LLC, such as Free Republic, LLC, flows back to the members (mainly me in this case) and is reported as income on our personal tax returns.
There is no money paid out to outsiders or investors or charity seekers or beneficiaries. We do not raise funds to be used for public benefit. We do not raise funds to be given to others. We do not take on charitable causes. We do not offer charitable services.
The gifts we receive are not charitable giving in the sense of a 501C or other state or federal chartered public benefit charity. There are no beneficiaries. We are not a church, not a hospital, not a foundation, not a trust, not a fund, not a school, not a library. not a public benefit corporation and we are not tax exempt. The givers do not receive a tax deduction for their gifts. There are no strings attached in exchange for the gifts. Once the gift is given the giver no longer controls the gift. We have no financial or fiduciary duty to the giver.
We are simply not subject to the corporate charity or public benefit laws of the various states and we are not a public benefit charity.
Is it a tax exempt operation?
No. We pay taxes on the excess of gifts received over funds paid out, because we have to in order to comply with the IRS regulations for hobbies, but that does not make us a commercial business. Again, we do not manufacture, purchase for resell, or provide a service in return for pay. We do not sell memberships, or advertising or anything else. We do not operate a business. Any cash received is received as gifts. The givers are not promised anything in return nor do they receive anything. No one must give to use Free Republic. The website is free to all participants. It is simply a public political discussion forum that I operate as an avocation and people are willing to freely give in order to keep it alive and on the air, because they love it.What is Free Republic then?
So, Free Republic is not a commercial operation nor is it a charity. What is it then? It is simply what it is, a non-commercial, not for profit public (decidely for conservatives) electronic townhall meeting and bulletin board discussion forum operated as an avocation with its expenses paid for in the form of taxable gifts from some of its fans because they love it, and they do not want it to die.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
I wonder if the membership is sufficient . . . if we could build up an endowment . . . of some substance.
Perhaps an endowment not technically connected in any legal way . . . but with a group of trusted board members of a new org . . . which happened to 100% of the time donate 100% of the endowment interest etc. to the operation of FR.
Not sure what the legal implications of all that would be. But would love to see FR avoid the quarterly hassles.
And, would love to have it so JimRob didn’t need to feel like he was living on the quarterly edge—not that he does—just what I might feel like in his place.
I know that IF I ever won a lottery or some such, I’d sure be seeking ways to set up FR and JimRob and family in a way that was much more financially secure and insulated from potential hassles—if there was such a way.
Being a semi-retired pauper—no danger of that any time soon, as far as I know.
But if Rush could raise 2.1 million in a week for that farce of a letter . . . seems like we ought to be able to do considerable something toward an endowment.
I wonder if there were a category of 10% of the quarterly goal set up toward an endowment if that would be worth doing???
Blessings to all concerned and particularly to JimRob and family who afford us so much meaningful participation in the body politic at this critical time in our history
as well as who afford us so much fun and enlightenment.
bttt
;)
Of course not. The only thing that matters is that Jim raises enough money to cover the budget. Of course, it would be nice if enough people signed up for a monthly donation so they could terminate the quarterly FAT’s.
I do not always agree with every poster, nor do I demand they agree with me.
I know from the homepage why I am here and why I would bother to become engaged in this site. If you gain nothing other than meeting very special and brilliant people, you have learned so much.
That in itself is a plus, a privilege for all of us, rich or poor, to engage in free speech. Unique in a world of those that wish to shut the conservative down.
It is neither a corporation, an individual/private business, a charity, or a business operating under a fictional name!
It is a unique Life Form that is totally dependent on the brothers and sisters of Free Republic who donate their time, talent and treasure to keep it alive and thriving. We nurture it, and it in turn nurtures us when we visit it!
The Free Republic Life Form is a truly unique entity. There is nothing else like it on earth! There will probably never be another entity like it! Thank you for being its creator and the leader of this flock of believers!
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! INDEED!
I don't know where you got the 99% number from but don't forget that there is a choice for people to donate anonymously.
BOBJ in all the years that I have been on this board I think that you may have had a negative influence. I will grant that you kept JR alive in the earlies, and I give you credit for that but your one size fits all Kali Republican Republican politics drove a lot of non Kali’s off.
I agree and hope the ones that can afford to remove a couple of trips to Arbys a month could help here.
There are different ways of looking at that number. If you count all the people who come to FR over a three month period, that number may be low. If you count only regular users, say people who come here once a week, that number may be high. Divide the amount Jim raises every three months by the average donation to get number of donors than divide that by what number you want to use as participants.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe you could be a little more specific. My involvement and contributions to FR go far beyond my efforts in FR’s early years.
“Kali Republican Republican politics”?
You'd think they would stay here.
I could call myself a Non-Hindu Goddess Kali and I'm staying!
One of the things that I realized, aside from the fact that FR network drove many of the activists, that I relied on, away from FR, is that a centrally planned, Kali style, Republican Assemblies ain’t going to work.
I’m not sure what you mean by centrally planned Kali Repub Assembly. The National Federation of Republican Assemblies is a national organization of all state republican groups, the President residing in FLorida. It’s not run from CA, they are only one of 50 chapters. So you’ll need to explain this in more detail.
In any event the FRN was never affiliated with this group other than working together on specific projects. The NFRA did give Jim their annual “Ronald Reagan” award back in ‘02 or ‘03, an award Jim was honored to receive.
As for the Networks affiliation with you, I am again mystified. I know there was an active chapter based out of Connecticut who was one of the original chapters in FR, but I don’t remember the the Network dictating anything to them. As I recall they were pretty independent anyway, I doubt they would take that kind of instruction well.
In fact, the Network never dictated anything to any of the Chapters. The purpose of the FRN was to be a resource and provide services for them, not to tell them what to do. The FRN helped fledgling chapters get organized, gave them a website where they could conduct business in private, organized online meetings so chapter leaders could discuss activism and went so far as to provide a million dollar insurance policy so chapter leaders wouldn’t have to worry about losing their homes if a FReep went bad.
At one time we had 50-55 FR chapters involved. OF course some were just a few people, others were very active. We helped organize the 250 rallies around the country during the election debacle and over 250 for the “Rally for America” during the run up to the WOT. We had working relationships with dozens of other organizations. FRN members created the “Winter Soldier” website which ended up being a tremendous resource for the press during the Kerry and Swift Boaters campaign. IN fact, two FRN BOD members created and managed the Swift Boat website for them.
OF course that was destroyed by partisan elements in FR through a process of character assassination and lies. Now, 95% of FR activism is centered around DC which primarily is directed at getting on the face of Code Pink.
I think that is more important than a nationwide network of activist chapters affiliated with dozens of other professional groups that can pull together national activities on short notice, or building research websites like WinterSoldier.com?
Don’t you?
Thank you, Jim.
You and your wife and family and FR are the best.
What brought this on?
Oh, pooh, forget my last question. I just noticed the thread is six years old. Doh!
btatbiwaf
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