business legal-concepts non-profit
Are there ways to hold communal companies?
<p>I'm going to give this a try:</p>

<p>Suppose a group of people want a kind of non-profit, open-source company that anyone can donate to or derive assets from, that no singular person owns but still has some level of organization, similar to communal housing.</p>

<p>What is the best kind of organization for this which is legally able to be registered in developed countries?</p>

<p>This would be a co-operative society, or a 'co-op':</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>A Co-operative Society is a membership
  organisation run for the mutual benefit of its members – serving their
  interests primarily by trading with them or otherwise providing them
  with goods, services and facilities – with any surplus usually being
  ploughed back into the organisation, although profits can be
  distributed to members.  A Co-operative Society may or may not be a
  social enterprise, depending on its activities and how it distributes
  its profits.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><em>From <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/31676/11-1399-guide-legal-forms-for-business.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">A GUIDE TO LEGAL FORMS FOR BUSINESS</a>,  UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills</em> </p>

<p>What you describe would be known as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_cooperative" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Housing Co-operative</a> which are common in many countries.</p>

<p>The <a href="http://www.ncba.coop/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">NCDA</a> are the US associated for Co-operatives.</p>

<p>The IRS has a non=-profit type 501(c)(7) called a social club. It is a membership model. There must be dues and it must provide for members to interact with each other and not be engaging in commerce.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/social-clubs" rel="nofollow noreferrer">See IRS rules</a></p>

<p>You also might want to check out Open Collective:
<a href="https://opencollective.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://opencollective.com/</a></p>
<p>They are trying to re-imagine what's known as the &quot;fiscal sponsor&quot; relationship that has often existed between an incorporated entity (often non-profit) and unincorporated associations working loosely without the burden of incorporation.
<a href="https://docs.opencollective.com/help/fiscal-hosts/fiscal-hosts" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://docs.opencollective.com/help/fiscal-hosts/fiscal-hosts</a></p>
<p>The platform is agnostic and allows anyone in the world to connect a bank account to the platform via Stripe Payments (acting as &quot;host&quot;), and offer slices of that bank account to &quot;collectives&quot;. These collectives can then transparently accept donations or payments through their collective webpage, and pay expenses requested by contributors. The platform mediates the inflows and out-flows. It can also act as just a transparent public ledger, in case people want to pass funds outside their platform, and just use the platform to manually communicate financial flows.</p>
<p>The platform has seen a lot of success in open source communities. In fact, the project founders have separately incorporated <a href="https://opencollective.com/foundation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">a national charity whose mission is to support community development</a>, and <a href="https://opencollective.com/opensource" rel="nofollow noreferrer">another nonprofit whose purpose is to support open source software development</a>. These both act as fiscal sponsor for hundreds of collectives worldwide, some of whom have budgets up to $500,000. They in a way scaling up the fiscal sponsorship model, and bringing down the admin burden through a platform they're building. These collectives can have many paid contractors, and yet none of the project leaders has had to go through the trouble of incorporating and managing a corporation.</p>
<p>It's quite the experiment, and they're definitely breaking new ground. In some jurisdictions, this is called a Shared Platform model, but they are definitely taking it to the extreme :)</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Suppose a group of people want a kind of non-profit, open-source
company that anyone can donate to or derive assets from, that no
singular person owns but still has some level of organization, similar
to communal housing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are numerous variations on this concept and the details of the control structure matter in terms of what works well. The seminal work on the topic is &quot;<a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0674649702" rel="nofollow noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Ownership of Enterprise</a>&quot; (1996) by Henry Hansmann (a Yale law school professor).</p>
<p>It explores why one would have cooperatives, mutual companies, and various forms of non-profits, as opposed to for profit corporations, and when for profit corporations are optimal.</p>
