An existing 501 c 3 organization called Sustainable Bellingham has agreed to provide fiscal sponsorship for Transition Whatcom and Transition Whidbey and generally in the pacific northwest.

We are in the process of developing a Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement Form setting forth obligations and services.

We are also looking at "umbrella" Event Insurance for groups with a working agreement with Sustainable Bellingham, and look forward to finalizing these relationships in the near future.

If you are interested in establishing a Fiscal Sponsorship to get access to 501 c 3 status please contact me.

Thanks.

Hi all,

Hi Allen,

Thanks for your note.  I am certainly familiar with Transition initiatives(especially the one in Sonoma Co, CA). 

If the entity is indeed meant to be a for profit business  but with a mission, you might incorporate similar to any company with the addition of the 3 paragraph B Corp Amendment.   This amendment would expand the legal responsibility of the company to include the interests of their stakeholders and help preserve your mission over time.  The specific language can be found here:   www.bcorporation.net/become/legal

The separate thing that you may be hinting at is whether any of those states have explicitly passed Benefit Corporation legislation – which is a new corporate form for social enterprises.  The short answer is no for now.  However legislators and attorneys in WA and OR have expressed interest and may introduce legislation in 2012 or 2013.

Please let us know how we can help.  Thanks, Hardik

On 5 Dec 2010 at 21:16, David MacLeod wrote:

status than to start from scratch. Also, some TW members want to keep the
grassroots/volunteer focus of TW, and are worried nonprofit status might be a
negative in some ways. So they would prefer SB stay in existence to serve that

Well, on this particular point, someone might want to inform the TW people in
question that because of the non-profit status of Transition US, as a recognized
Transition Initiative TW already falls into that category, like it or not. Anyone who
worries about something like that has a misguided perception of the non-profit world
while thinking that the term "grass-roots" makes an organization somehow purer.
The difference is in the organization itself, how it is run, and the work that it does.

For the Earth...
_dave ewoldt_(this entire message is composed of recycled electrons)
Natural Systems Solutions
http://www.attractionretreat.org
http://naturalsystems.blogspot.com
Sustainable lifestyles, organizations, and communities

Thanks for reminding us to be upbeat Trish and for speaking directly at your Council's public meetings. I'm trying that incremental positive approach too.

I want to make sure you all know about SCALLOPS (Sustainable Communities ALL Over Puget Sound). I've been trying to keep the list of organizations on the home page of this site up-to-date.

Lots of Transition blooming in the region.

Cathy Tuttle
www.tinyurl.com/GreenCarols
Transition Seattle

Barbara,

Thank you for sharing this. I am going to forward it to everyone on our Discussion List here in Portland, Oregon. Your experience is valuable as a model for all of us. It seems like we are all caught, as we work in this turbid area, dimly visioning some kind of society that doesn’t resemble the one we live in yet must hold on to the elements that are universally required for humans to live in community at all, between acceding to the forms the government offers or finding some unconventional way to express freedom and still pay our way. None of us knows quite how to walk that path. So you experience along a path that has worked offers some light on our way. It helps.

Thanks again,

Jim Newcomer
Transition PDX Hub, Portland, Oregon

Hi Allen,

Great speaking with you. This is very exciting as you are navigating territory we know others will be navigating in the near future.

Here is a link to the new forum ... http://transitionus.org/forum/forums/initiatives-mullers/transition-nw

- let me know how you would like the description edited, if at all ... less is more sometimes
- we can control who creates topics so if you would like to limit people's ability to start endless threads we can hold control of that on this end and create new ones over time, i.e., start with 2-3 topics already underway via email and create new ones on as needed basis ... all you would have to do is tell me what you want. The way it is configured now is that any registered user can create a new topic
- I always anticipate spammers entering the conversation so please keep a watchful eye and if any spam rears it's ugly head let me know and we can apply additional measures. Hope this makes sense.

Best,

Carl Shuller
Transition US
www.transitionus.org
(o) +1.707.824.1554

~*~*~*~*~*~
Transition US is the national hub for the Transition Town Movement which was started in the UK in 2005. Our mission is to catalyze the building of resilient communities by inspiring, encouraging, supporting, networking and training individuals and their communities as they consider, adopt, adapt and implement the Transition Model. To sign up for our monthly newsletter please visit http://transitionus.org/news

Hello all,

It’s exciting to even have this conversation as it reveals the aliveness of transition in our region. Karen lamphear and i are in brazil right now visiting with many transition projects and the models that are working here are this partnering with existing groups that see transition as an expression of their mission and an opportunity to partner in an inventive way with other initiatives to create a whole picture of food, energy, economics, health, education… all transitioning. They are clear that were transition an umbrella it would stop the creativity. Transition is a container, an open space really. It allows partnerships to happen and conversations to happen at any scale that is suggested by the local conditions. They are bringing it to slums and schools and rich neighborhoods.  I think transition is a core understanding of the threats and opportunities of our times, a pattern that includes asset mapping and coalition building and celebratory event production and educational programs. It is a catalyst. We have at our disposal a set of core training materials and anetwork of trainers and a national hub and international hub that collects and disseminates stories and new materials and encouragement and perspectives and builds capacity for lateral linkages. We have all struggled with organizational issues once our initiating phase is over but i don’t think an umbrella org solves these challenges, only increases them. Part of the dangerous invitation of transition a la rob is to launch and ‘let it go where it will.’ The nature i think of transition, at least this is what brazil is showing, is an invitation to take our times seriously and ourselves no so seriously and invite others and keep on learning and dancing and inspiring each other with our amazing creativity.

Could we bring this up at the next convergence? And perhaps we are innovating organizational models, not just picking existing ones and fitting ourselves into them

So that is my 2 reals (brazil currency).

Vicki Robin

Hi Allen,

To begin with, thank you for your commitment to the Transition Initiative, seems important to say that upfront as e-mail is a difficult medium for anything with a possible emotional charge.

Speaking only for myself, I think where ever possible work to integrate the principles of the Transition Initiative into existing efforts, sort like grafting but much more systematic. I really do like the idea of having a bioregional group and having resources associated with it. If a local Transition effort does not have a local allied organization to partner with for the insurance and fund raising structures.

That being said, are we sure that we couldn't just partner any number of existing non-profit to get this functionality? Also, I'm really uneasy about this being an umbrella organization, a resource yes, but I'm of the opinion that the Transition Initiative in the NW has _not_ developed enough to setup bylaws that all Transition Initiatives in the NW to follow.

Speaking as a chair of a small 501c3 organization (www.thedirt.org and www.cnrg-portland.org), I'm not a fan of the 501c3 model for community organizing, as it has a pretty strong tendency to ossify how a group operates which could beneficial in some ways but quite simply IMHO, we have no idea how to transition our communities and metro areas.

Also, FYI, the website for Transition PDX is www.transitionpdx.org or www.tpdx.org

cheers,

+ Jeremy O'Leary
Portland

Allen,

It is my understanding, as a member of the Portland group (T-PDX) Hub,
that we are a) very supportive of a (loose), bio-regional, NW network; and
b) seeking new models (beyond 501(c)3).

For financial and insurance concerns, our own group, T-PDX, is loosely
affiliated with a church.

-Henry Amick
Portland

Great to see the transition movement continuing to evolve in the PNW. 

Transition Olympia (18 months young) has been meeting with other partner organizations for 6 months now and are on the way towards forming the working groups that would write an EDAP – though we might call it something else. 

Our partner group – ACTSS (Alliance for Community Transition South Sound) - has two npos with 501 (c) 3 status. One has offered to serve as a fiscal sponsor for us. At this point, I like the idea of keeping fiscal sponsorship local. 

I’m sure there could be other advantages to a bioregional hub.  We are pretty much at capacity organizing the Transition group and the newer ACTSS group. And we’ll be interested to see where this goes.

Naturally,

Joanne Lee

Olympia, WA

Hi All,

I think that Bill has some good thoughts and concerns. I will add my 2 cents, for information only as Transition Reno is clearly outside of the NW area.

During the time we worked as an official Initiating group (we have now Unleashed and many things may change) we first looked for and partnered with other organizations which already had funds to host events. During this year each member of the TI group also contributed their own personal funds to all the projects that we took on. This has been sometimes expensive (in the hundred's of dollars) and at other times less so. By the end of the year we had all donated tons of time and dollars to the cause. Money was collected at each of the events, and after the Unleashing some of our costs were reimbursed to the members of our group by group vote (as long as they had receipts).

During the year, we also were able to partner with an organization (Local Food Network here in Reno) that was a new 501 C 3, and for a very modest fee, became our nonprofit "umbrella" for donors who wished to have a tax deduction. This arrangement has worked well for us, so far. The accountant in our group also has reminded us, that if we keep records of our personal costs that we have donated to Transition Reno, we could also receive a tax deduction for those through this non-profit.

I offer this story to you all, so you could consider looking for a non-profit "partner organization" that might be willing to help be the umbrella, until such time as the larger group decides how to go. It also is worth considering how to reimburse costs incurred by group members or if you will do this and working with or being a non-profit, might give you all more options.

It was such a joy to meet many of you at the Transition Convergence, keep up the good works as we all need this kind of energy in our lives.

Thanks,

Barbara Greene
Transition Reno

Hi all,

  On further thought, I am excited that we can find ways to cooperate across the region to support the growth of transition.

   Other questions that came to me  are, 

1)      How does this initiative support the growth of transition in the region?  Is it needed or is there another structure that would better serve us at this moment?

2)      most of our local groups are struggling to find financial models that work for our work, what is the impact of taking on a non profit structure which we will have to fundraise for and if the org does its own fundraising, how will that impact our local efforts?   Given the struggles of the US transition to fundraise for its efforts,  I know this will be a challenge for all of us.

3)       Most non-profits are struggling to maintain their existence in these times and many of us in the non-profit world are trying to find new models for resourcing our work.  How can we in transition find those ways with each other rather than going to the non-profit model,  which is failing in many ways?

4)      What are the boundaries of this region?  

In solidarity ,

Bill

Alllen,

  I am sorry this is the first I have heard of this group, happy to participate in the conversation. However, I have strong reservations about this step.  I would like to ask what is the purpose of such a a non profit at this stage?  It seems that a discussion about the network of transition groups would come first before creating an umbrella group.   I am pretty sure that we need a lot of discussion about transition in the NW.

It seems like you are speaking with authority about the purpose of an organization that is an umbrella. But I disagree with that thinking based on my understanding of the nature of transition.

Many of us have recognized that transition is about initiatives supporting ongoing work on the local level and that we are not an umbrella for those initiatives. I would argue that that is the case for any regional structures that form  They should arise out of the needs of local initiatives.   From my sense of the regional gathering, we all were barely beginning to see ourselves as connected across the region.    I may be wrong, but It is premature to start such an “umbrella” without a lot more discussion than can happen in a few weeks, during the holiday season.

I urge folks to move slowly towards structures that are likely to represent the best for us.  

Questions I would have moving along:

1)      What is the best governance structure for a regional organization?

2)      If there are paid positions, who hires?  Who is hired?

3)      What is the purpose of any large scale “umbrella”

4)      How would a regional organization serve our needs beyond event insurance?

5)      How can we determine whether this makes sense at ths time or not?

In Solidarity,

Bill Aal

206 719 9665

I'd be interested on behalf of Transition Port Gardner. I am treasurer, so I'm the guy to talk to.  We have initiated the process of getting umbrellaed under the Foundation for Sustainable Community but haven't got very far with that yet.  How long do you expect this would take?

Dean Smith

Everett, WA

Hi Allen,

Thanks for your note.  I am certainly familiar with Transition initiatives(especially the one in Sonoma Co, CA). 

If the entity is indeed meant to be a for profit business  but with a mission, you might incorporate similar to any company with the addition of the 3 paragraph B Corp Amendment.   This amendment would expand the legal responsibility of the company to include the interests of their stakeholders and help preserve your mission over time.  The specific language can be found here:   www.bcorporation.net/become/legal

The separate thing that you may be hinting at is whether any of those states have explicitly passed Benefit Corporation legislation – which is a new corporate form for social enterprises.  The short answer is no for now.  However legislators and attorneys in WA and OR have expressed interest and may introduce legislation in 2012 or 2013.

Please let us know how we can help.  Thanks, Hardik