On 7/19/07, Alison Wheeler
<wikimedia(a)alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
On Wed, July 18, 2007 15:52, GerardM wrote:
It is not even true that a board member could not
be paid a
salary because otherwise the legal entity is an for profit
organisation.
OK, I might have slightly muddied the two points there in the way I
worded
my point, but to clarify: in the UK (and, no doubt, some other
jurisdictions) it is not permissible to pay the board member of a
non-profit / charitable organisation for their being a board member,
whereas with a 'for profit' organisation this would be normal.
That's
correct, you can't pay a board member for being a board member,
since (in just about every case) the board are the non-profit
corporation equivalent of shareholders in a for-profit corporation.
A board is not
a nonprofit corporation equivalent of shareholders in a
for-profit corporation. The equivalent to shareholders would be members,
of which the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't currently have any, or perhaps
failing that, donors in some sense. The for-profit corporation
equivalent to a nonprofit corporation's board is - surprise, surprise -
the board of the for-profit corporation.
I don't see what the comparison to shareholders has to do with the issue
anyway. A for-profit corporation can certainly pay shareholders for
being shareholders. It's called a dividend, or a distribution, which is
one of the things that absolutely distinguishes a for-profit corporation
from a nonprofit.
--Michael Snow