Arabeyes has often thought about registering as a non-profit somewhere where it has a solid presence due to a variety of reasons/benefits yet we never got around to it. A number of issues and limitations had come-up in the past and I'm sure will continue to rear their ugly heads which have distanced us from accomplishing this long-held goal (paperwork and legal issues being key). As such, Arabeyes is humbly requesting comment and is seeking help on this topic from anyone with a bit of insight onto this subject.
- We don't mind being flooded with initial paperwork, but we don't want to have to continually submit paperwork on a periodic basis. We want to set it up, do it right and forget about it. - It would be nice to get some tax breaks for those looking to donate in the registered country (if possible), but this is _not_ a requirement. - We would like to attain some legal certificate so that we could actually open a bank account with that document with Arabeyes as the holder. We'd also would like to show this certificate to people to note to them that we are indeed a "legal" entity. A number of people as well as companies have noted in the past that their rules of engagement dictate that they only engage with legal entities (this is what we've heard repeatedly so don't ping us on what this means since we don't have a clear physical central location and most certainly don't look like many organizations out there). It would have been ideal if we could register Arabeyes in an Arabic country, but even the more progressive of them (like the UAE) seem to put some crippling hurdles (the concept of a not-for-profit seems to generate some chuckles as well). As such our next choices are the European Union and Canada (any comments/help from there ?). I've personally looked into what it would take to setup such a thing in the US and the amount of quarterly paperwork is beyond anything I'd want to be tagged with (its a major repeated headache with audits and countless quarterly document submittals - I'd rather Arabize code than swim in paperwork). Any comments/thoughts/directions ? If you happen to have a lawyer friend that is willing to look into all of this pro bono (ie. free) do please let him/her know about our situation. We don't have any offices, but our history and track-record speak for themselves in terms of commitment and longevity. Before anything is done, do please let us know in advance - agreement must be reached before any process is initiated. We are not looking for any surprises or heroic actions and don't want nor expect anyone to simply come back and tell us that they registered us in Tahiti :-) For those interested in such topics and in Arabeyes' upkeep and related issues do please subscibe to the 'forum' mailing-list. http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/forum Salam. - Nadim __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ General mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/general
