[WikiEN-l] Print edition

[Nathan Russell]

--On Thursday, February 26, 2004 9:00 PM +0000 Caroline Ford <caroline at secretlondon.me.uk> wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> But what makes more sense for us, and for a publisher I think, is for
>>
>> us to use this to "prove" our quality by going to print, under the
>> Wikipedia name.  And for that we probably want to do as much of the
>> work as we can.
>>
>> --Jimbo

> We need to check how this affects our not-for-profit status.
> I guess that the plan would be for the wikimedia foundation to get some sort of profit share? In the UK this could count as primary purpose trading under UK Charity Law (depending on what the objects of the charity were) - and would be legal. In some cases a trading company would have to be set up.
>
> I know _nothing_ about US not-for-profit law - I just thought I'd flag it as a potential issue.
>
> Caroline

It's an issue to some extent - but non-profit groups - college honor societies, churches, etc do fund raising activities all the time.  I believe the issue is in what the money can be used for - and it can be and is used for employee salaries, specifically.

Nathan