What is a Non-Profit Organization?

A Non-Profit Organization (NPO) is a form of organization that is non-commercial in nature. It exists to further a cause, and uses any surplus revenue to do so, rather than distributing income to its shareholders, leaders or members. NPOs are tax exempt or charitable, meaning that they do not pay income tax on money that the organization receives. Wikipedia has more information.

Why does The Fuel Rats need a NPO?

Currently, The Fuel Rats uses a significant amount of resources of a few rats - monetarily, to the tune of around USD$150 per month. We have stopped taking donations as the process was not very transparent, and the merchandise sales are no longer active due to the costs and workload associated with them. The NPO opens up some avenues for us to hold accounts bound to the legal entity of the organization itself, rather than a single person taking on that responsibility. It also allows us to apply for free software and discounts from various vendors and providers that lessens the cost to those individual rats. It will also let us do a more transparent donation and merchandise process, since the finances are not tangled into another person's personal finances.

Does that mean the Fuel Rats will be controlled by the NPO?

No. The NPO is a legal entity that supports the Fuel Rats, not an entity that controls the Fuel Rats. It's more like a fan club, providing support to the players. The NPO will have a chairman and a vice chairman for legal reasons, but the responsibilities involved there will pretty much be to have a yearly meeting, spin a bottle to see who is chairman for the next year, and then move on. The NPO will exist solely to provide additional resources to the Fuel Rats, and let the rats who currently have to pay out of pocket off the hook for the costs associated with keeping us going.

So what does the NPO mean for the average rat?

In all honesty - not much. You will get an email or two from the NPO per year, telling you about the yearly meeting and its results. If you're already a registered rat when the NPO goes live, you'll probably get an email asking you to make an action on your rat account to determine if you want to be a member or not, since the opt-out will be part of the registration process. Other than that, the rats still operate exactly the same way as before.

Hey, if the NPO is getting free software and benefits, can I get it too?

No. Most, if not all such offers from software companies, specifically designate how such software can be used. It is usually restricted to NPO management and persons designated for specific tasks. If you're looking for specifics, take a look at TechSoups eligibility rules.

What are the details with regards to the NPO?

The NPO is based in Norway, as two of our willing rats live here, Norwegian NPOs are not required to have any strict regulatory oversight, and do not cost money to form. The signatories to the establishment of the NPO are Kenneth Aalberg (Absolver) and Alex Sørlie Glomsaas (xlexious). The foundation document (translated from Norwegian) can be found below. Our organization number (For tax deduction purposes and similar) is 920216730.

Do you need help with the NPO?

Thank you for offering, but there's really not a lot of management involved in the NPO itself. Nothing that really affects the Mischief is handled in the NPOs board; it exists to give us the ability to hold a bank account without ties to the personal account of any individual rat, and cleans up any tax concerns with regards to donations, and possibly merchandise. If you want to help the Mischief more than merely through ratting, consider working towards becoming an Overseer, or if you have skills with various code bases such as C#, C++, Java or Python, consider talking to the Tech Rats about helping out on our Open Source code projects


Foundation Document for «The Fuel Rats»

 

 

On 07.01.2018, a foundation meeting was held to create the NPO "The Fuel Rats"


Present as founders were Kenneth Aalberg and Alex Sørlie Glomsaas. 

Kenneth Aalberg was chosen to chair the meeting.


A foundation document with suggested bylaws was presented. The NPO was then formed.

Membership fees were set to NOK 0,-

 

 

The NPO's founding is confirmed by the signatories below:

 

Name

Kenneth Aalberg

Address


 


Name

Alex Sørlie Glomsaas

Address

 

 

 


Elected to the board was Kenneth Aalberg as Chairman, and Alex Sørlie Glomsaas as Vice Chairman.


The NPO was declared founded and the meeting was adjourned.

 

 

Steinkjer, 07.01.2018


Suggested bylaws for ”The Fuel Rats”

 

§ 1       The NPOs name

 

The NPOs name is: The Fuel Rats and was founded on 07.01.2018

 

§ 2       Purpose

 

The NPOs purpose is to support the player group The Fuel Rats, a multinational player group in the game Elite: Dangerous by Frontier Developments. The player group has several hundred members, and demands resources beyond what is normally required for such groups. The NPOs purpose is to give the player group a legal entity, rather than individual members of the player group assuming legal responsibilities for the group as a whole.

Beyond representing the player group, the NPO has no control over the player group. This is retained by the players themselves.

 

§ 3       Legal entity

The NPO is self-owned and an independent legal entity with a non-personal and limited responsibility for debts.

 

§ 4       Members

The NPO is open for all players that are a member of the player group The Fuel Rats. Membership is free, and all members who are registered as active in the player group for the past six months is accounted as an active member in the NPO. All members in the player group are given the option to decline membership in the NPO, while still remaining active in the player group.

 

§ 5       Right to vote and electability

All active members are eligible to vote, and may be elected to the board.

 

§ 6       Membership fees

Membership in the NPO is free.

 

§ 7       Board member compensation

Board members shall receive no compensation for their service.

 

§ 8       Yearly meeting

The yearly meeting, kept in January of every year, is the highest authority of the NPO.

The yearly meeting is summoned by the board with at least one months notice, direct to the members or through press release. Suggested agenda items for the meeting must be sent to the board at least two weeks before the meeting date. A complete agenda must be available for the members at least one week in advance before the yearly meeting.

All members have access to the yearly meeting. The board can also invite other persons and/or media to be present.

 

The yearly meeting is established with the number of voting-eligible members that are present. No one has more than one vote, and voting cannot be done by proxy.


Chairman for the meeting is elected by the members.


The meeting can only process suggested changes to the bylaws that have been added to the agenda at least one week prior to the meeting.

The meeting cannot process items that are not part of the agenda.


§ 9       Voting at the meeting

Unless otherwise determined, a ruling, to be valid, must be made with a majority of votes. Blank votes are considered not rendered.

Voting is in written form if there is more than one suggestion. Only suggested candidates can be balloted. If several candidates are to be elected at the same vote, the ballots must contain the number of different candidates that are being elected. Ballots that are blank, or do not contain nominees, or a different number of nominees than are being elected, are not counted.


When an election is made singularly, and a candidate does not achieve more than half the votes, the vote goes to the person with the most votes. If the number of votes are equal, the vote is decided by lottery.


 When more than one person is being elected, everyone, to be considered elected, must have more than half of the votes. This does not apply to reserves. Should insufficient votes be rendered to the candidates in the first vote, those who have gotten more than half the votes are considered elected. There is then a second election between the remaining candidates, and the majority vote decides. If there is a tie, the vote is made by lottery.

 

§ 10      Purpose of the yearly meeting

The yearly meeting shall:

1.         Go through yearly report

2.         Go through financial report

3.         Handle agenda items

4.         Set membership fees

5.         Approve budget

6.         Elect board, consisting of Chairman and Vice Chairman.

           

§ 11      Extraordinary yearly meetings

Extraordinary yearly meetings are made when the board decides it, or at least 1/3 of the members eligible to vote, requires it.

The meeting is called in the same manner as ordinary yearly meetings, with at least 14 days notice. 

 

An extraordinary yearly meeting can only handle agenda items announced in the summons.

 

§ 12      Board


The NPO is lead by a board consisting of two members. The board is the highest authority of the NPO between yearly meetings.

 

The board shall:

1.         Carry out the decisions of the yearly meeting

2.         Designate, by need, committees or persons to perform specific tasks, and instruct them.

3.         Administrate and control the NPOs economy according to the current bylaws and decisions of the yearly meeting.

4.         Represent the NPO.

The board shall convene to meeting when the Chairman demands it, or a majority of the board members demands it.

The board can make decisions when a majority of the board's members are present. Decisions are made by majority vote. On a tie, the meeting chairman's vote counts twice.


 Signatory rights for the NPO are held by the Chairman and Vice Chairman together.


 

§ 13      Changes to the bylaws

Changes to these bylaws can only be made at a yearly meeting, or an extraordinary yearly meeting, after being put on the agenda. A 2/3 majority is required to change a bylaw.

 

§ 14      Dissolution, merger and separation

Dissolving the NPO can only be done on an ordinary yearly meeting. If dissolution is mandated by at least 2/3 majority, an extraordinary yearly meeting is called three months later. For dissolution to occur, the decision must be repeated at this meeting with 2/3 majority. A dissolution board can be elected to handle the dissolution. The ordinary board can be elected as dissolution board, and is by default made dissolution board if no other election is made.

The NPOs assets shall after dissolution and liquidation further the purpose of the NPO by donating those assets to a charitable foundation dedicated to providing more people with the opportunity to game. Unless changed through bylaw, or the charity has ceased to exist, the assets are donated to the charity "Special Effect".

 

No members have any claim to the NPOs assets or share of them.

Fusion with other NPOs or separation of the NPO is not considered dissolution.

Decisions on fusion or separation and necessary bylaw changes in this situation is made in accordance with §13 of the bylaws. The board shall in this event develop a plan for the merger/separation that the yearly meeting shall vote on. During fusion or separation, approval shall be acquired from the NPOs creditors.

 


 

  • No labels

9 Comments

  1. Falcon JSDF (Royd)

    So Patreon? I would look into setting up merch again, even if it only the T shirts. Alot of the new rats would pay good money for them


    1. Absolver

      The specifics of how we're going to handle donations are not decided yet. We're leaning towards a donation drive that aims to recover simply our operating costs, rather than a running donation stream that might end up giving us a surplus we have to deal with. 

      Forming the NPO makes it easier to handle merchandising, as we can have a separate accounting for selling them, but the merchandising still needs to be handled by someone. Until we have someone willing and able to take up that responsibility, we're not going to spend too much time pondering that particular issue. It is covered by the bylaws for the NPO to assign such tasks, so it isn't a blocking issue to not have it set up yet.

  2. Unknown User (zatie)

    The old system worked just fine, bring back the US system

    1. Absolver

      There was no U.S system. How it was handled before was one guy doing merchandise sales and PayPal donations to his personal account. The NPO is forming not only to provide a clearer separation from an individual rat handling something for the Mischief as a whole, but also to give the numerous benefits of having a separate legal entity to handle such things. (And prevent things like the tax man showing up at the door of said rat, demanding to know why they've been receiving funds and not paying taxes for them.)

  3. Falcon JSDF (Royd)

    Transparency is easy, $150 dollars out each month. Donations in. Also if we are going to ask for donations we are going to have get the site fixed, the leader board still isn't right. My rescues are over estimated. My account is still garbage with join date and all the info is locked off. This has been left unfixed for far too long and needs to be sorted out.

    1. Absolver

      1) The leader board is not part of the vital operations of the Fuel Rats. Your rescue count being incorrect does in no way prevent clients from being rescued. Nor is it likely to affect any external parties from whether they choose to donate to the Fuel Rats or not. If you do not wish to donate to the Fuel Rats because your rescue stats are incorrect, you are entirely in your rights to do so.

      2) Forming a NPO does not actually mean that any of the developers working on the website or any other Fuel Rat related system is going to get paid. It will be fixed when the unpaid people who are working on those systems have the time and the inclination to spend said time - for free - making those changes.

      3) Transparency in this case will mean that the published budget and yearly financial report will be made public, as is required by law in Norway for NPOs. The budget and financial report will be posted to Confluence as well.


  4. Unknown User (toynt420)

    Mentioned this in chat, just popping a comment here so its on the thread.

    Responding to Absolver's comment: "We're leaning towards a donation drive that aims to recover simply our operating costs, rather than a running donation stream that might end up giving us a surplus we have to deal with."

    Have we thought about the possibility of donating anything we raise above operating costs to a charity? Giving clients the option to, if they wish, make a donation and anything we make above operating costs will be given to x charity. The idea of receiving voluntary donations from commanders who we've helped, in a video game, and merchandise sales and donate anything we make extra to a charity that is helping people in real life, seems pretty cool my head. Also it might elevate the concern about running up too much of a surplus, and if operating costs do change for any reason, we would know we're covered.

    I know this is probably quite a bit in advance as we don't really know how much we're talking about yet.

    I also don't know the logistics/legalities of an NPO donating to another NPO, from what I've read it is possible with some caveats such as no conflict of interest etc.

    If this is considered, we can also think about think about the possibilities  of donation drives during holiday/sale season for the chosen charity.. again thinking quite a bit in advance.

  5. Astronowolf

    This page could do with an quick update to reflect that we are taking taking donations once more. (smile)

  6. Aldarion 3TwoAlpha

    I fully agree with what Taynt posted: beautiful idea. Also it would help to prevent the taxman asking for money under the right circumstances (depending where one would donate) - at least after the laws of my country, which atm is Germany.