Volunteers wanted

Discuss the LLORG's and HTLAL forum's past and its future here.
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zenmonkey
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby zenmonkey » Tue Aug 25, 2015 11:11 pm

emk wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:A UK unincorporated association does not create additional concerns of libel because it is unincorporated - the individuals members continue to carry their own responsibility in terms of debt, legal obligations, etc... it cannot enter into contract, it can't be sued, only it's members can, individually.

We'd like to avoid personal legal liability for the people running the forum if possible.

zenmonkey wrote:Now, I'm not a lawyer - but for over 10 years I was responsible for the largest on-line medical community in France and in Germany and lead the European strategy and marketing group and worked very closely with lawyers and my country equivalents in the UK, Italy, etc...

I'd prefer not to talk about any real-world identities here, out of courtesy. But I'll PM you later with more details of where we're getting our advice. Short form: They help put non-profits on sound legal and organizational footing professionally.


Both sound good. 8-)
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby aokoye » Wed Aug 26, 2015 3:07 am

This may have been covered in other threads, but can I ask why the idea of becoming a non-profit is being floated around? What are people wanting to get by becoming a non-profit and why do they think it's a good idea?

Again, I'm coming at this from the experience of having been on a national board of directors of one non-profit, being an intern at one of the healthiest non-profits I've ever seen, and heavily involved in other ways with various other nonprofits. I also have a number of friends and family who are either currently employed by non-profits, have spent a lot of time volunteering with them in various capacities.
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby aokoye » Wed Aug 26, 2015 3:15 am

rdearman wrote:We don't want to "burn out" people, and a charity is a good way for people to help without having to dedicate their life to it.


A non profit is actually a very good way to burn people out. Burnout is very very common in people who work and volunteer for nonprofits. It's a serious issue and is the death of some (probably a lot of) nonprofits.
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nexus
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby nexus » Wed Aug 26, 2015 3:40 am

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Last edited by nexus on Sun Apr 24, 2016 1:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby Serpent » Wed Aug 26, 2015 3:48 am

You'll probably be allowed to PM people once you've made 3 posts :)
Welcome!!!
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby nexus » Wed Aug 26, 2015 4:05 am

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Radioclare
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby Radioclare » Wed Aug 26, 2015 8:04 am

emk wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:A UK unincorporated association does not create additional concerns of libel because it is unincorporated - the individuals members continue to carry their own responsibility in terms of debt, legal obligations, etc... it cannot enter into contract, it can't be sued, only it's members can, individually.

We'd like to avoid personal legal liability for the people running the forum if possible.


I've been a trustee of an unincorporated (charitable) membership association in the UK for about six years now, and although I can see why the whole personal legal/financial liability thing sounds off-putting to start with, in reality it isn't that scary because you're unlikely to ever have a serious problem if you can show that your organisation is run responsibly and competently. I guess the key things are making sure you trust the other people involved, ensuring that everyone has regular access to accurate financial information while no one person has the ability to make payments on their own and taking professional advice when you're out of your comfort zone. The association I run is more complex than I imagine any forum association would be (in that we employ staff, lease property and hold substantial investments) but it's been running in this format for about 40 years now without big issues. The biggest challenge is probably trying to recruit competent trustees in the first place :)

Of course, there's always the risk that a crank can try to sue you, and my organisation is an Esperanto language charity so we certainly have our fair share of cranks ;) For charitable unincorporated organisations in the UK at least there is something you can take out called trustee indemnity insurance, which cover legal costs and damages in civil court cases. It doesn't cover fines and penalties incurred in criminal cases, because I don't think it's possible to insure against breaking the law. But it does cover a lot of the bad stuff that could potentially happen and you can choose the level you want to insure to depending on your risk. I took out a policy for my charity for the first time last year and paid £200 for cover up to £200 000 so it was fairly affordable. Whether it exists for non-charitable unincorporated associations, I'm not sure.

Ultimately the most important thing is that those people who are doing all the work and taking all the risk find a structure that they are comfortable with. Whatever the jurisdiction, I completely agree that trying to create a set-up where no one person has responsibility for everything is the best way forward. A few years back I was involved in trying to salvage an organisation that had become completely dependent on one individual after that individual tragically disappeared. No one else had any copies of the books and records and it took me eighteen months to track down where all its assets were held. That's a truly nightmarish situation to be in and I'm in favour of any structure that stops that happening :)
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby emk » Wed Aug 26, 2015 9:51 am

aokoye wrote:This may have been covered in other threads, but can I ask why the idea of becoming a non-profit is being floated around? What are people wanting to get by becoming a non-profit and why do they think it's a good idea?

Several reasons:

  1. We need a legal entity which can own a Amazon web services account (or the equivalent), have a bank account, own a domain name, and have a PayPal (or whatever) account. And we want to do this in a way that no one person is legally essential for renewing or accessing those assets.
  2. We do not want to "commingle" forum funds with anybody's personal funds, because that makes it almost impossible to say who spent what or where the money went.
  3. At least in the United States, it's relatively easy to achieve limited-liability status, which normally protects everybody involved if the rules are followed. (Well, I can't speak for European law. I'm not sure under what conditions European countries could "piece the veil" of US limited liability organizations.) I've set up for-profit limited liability organizations before.
Note that this does not need to be hugely complex. There are various kinds of non-charitable non-profits, such as social clubs, which have very minimal legal requirements (beyond filing an annual tax form and renewing the organization online), and which still provide all of the above. And even if we ran this as an unincorporated partnership, or out of someone's pocket, any revenue would still need to be reported on some tax form. If you accept money, you've almost certainly got to report it somewhere.

Anyway, some of this stuff is ultimately the decision of the people paying the server bills and owning the technology-related assets. We'll look at the options, listen to professional advice, and do something that makes sense.
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby iguanamon » Wed Aug 26, 2015 11:26 am

Rhian wrote:I'm putting together lists and trying to organise people. We have lots of people for technical help but we could do with lots more for static content! :)


If you'd like someone to write a profile on Haitian Creole or Ladino (Djudeo-espanyol), I feel qualified to do that. I could also share my experience of learning Portuguese to an advanced level.

I have been thinking about updating my top post on HTLAL- "The multi-track approach". It could be in a static section on learning techniques and could be useful to people as an alternative to traditinal methods. I'd like to see such a static section on learning techniques have as many articles as possible from successful learners who are long time members to show new people the diverse learning styles that exist here- everything from no srs to heavy srs, no courses to all courses, no reading to all reading and everything in between.

Imagine a page with the header "learning approaches" and then a newbie could scroll through, say 15 or 20 articles from longtime forum members describing their approaches. Of course, this would serve as a "loss leader". Some people will read the info, figure they now have enough knowledge to learn a language and that will be it. Others will see the value of forum member's advice and seek out the forum in this way... and that's why we're doing this.
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Re: Volunteers wanted

Postby Serpent » Wed Aug 26, 2015 11:33 am

Definitely please repost it here! There are many links at wikia. (I'm aiming to replace most links to threads from htlal.com)
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