Issues in this election

[Alain Berranger]

Greetings to all colleagues,

I'm new to NCSG via NPOC and very few of you know me.

I am quite comfortable with the civil society sector or third sector, having
worked with it internationally all my life and in most continents. While it
can be generally accepted by most that US Foundations holding a 501 c 3 IRS
status can be clearly considered not-for-profit, they cannot be considered
as civil society, but as a benefactor of civil society. Yes, 501 c 3 are a
US construct, but philanthropy exists throughout the world. Civil society,
in a global sense, really represents communities of all kinds that come
together for social, political, religious, environmental, even economic
purposes and are always not-for-profit. If they are for profit, they cannot
be truly considered civil society. Now, it is possible for a nonprofit
organization to have a commercial activity (it is sometimes called earned
income) provided the surplus funds from these activities (selling T'-shirts,
running training workshops, etc...) are ploughed back into the fundamental
mission and activities of the organization. Like Muhammad Yunus once put it
to me: "Grameen can be defined as a not-for-loss organization...." so while
its main objective was empowering poor women by ensuring they have access to
micro-credit, they could also sell the products made by these women (I paid
$5 in the 90's in Dhaka for a lovely hand wowen cotton shirt made in a
village somewhere and which I'm still wearing today!...). Sellling shirts
did not make Grameen a commercial entity.

It would be interesting to me to discuss the status of universities or
governments, in relation to their main activities and their fundraising
practices...but I will leave this discussion to another moment, hopefully
during the election.

Alain BERRANGER

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Marc Perkel <marc at churchofreality.org>wrote:

> Many people in this group know each other very well. Some of us (me) know a
> few people here well. So in this election, once it becomes a contest, I
> think we should perhaps talk about what the candidates bring to the table. I
> think it's important that we make the best decision we can out of the
> outstanding candidates we have to choose from.
>
> For example, since this is the non-commercial constituency and the rest of
> ICANN is commercial I think we need people who understand that just because
> someone has a 501c3 IRS status or a .org domain name that doesn't mean they
> are non-commercial. There are plenty of places for commercial users to
> express their interests and the non-commercial side is not one of them. So
> I'd like to see people who see the bright line between commercial and
> non-commercial be the ones who get elected. I personally feel that the voice
> of money is a threat to the future of humanity and that someone has to speak
> for people. And that someone would be us.
>



--
Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA
http://www.jumo.com/ict4dk
Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business, www.schulich.yorku.ca
Trustee, GKP Foundation, www.globalknowledgepartnership.org
Vice Chair, Canadian Foundation for the Americas - www.focal.ca
O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824
Skype: alain.berranger
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