permaculture

[Jim <ashevillecurrencyproject@gmail.com>]

Hi-
Many countries have way to differentiate for-profit and non-profit entities.

501c3s are a creation of the USA tax code. In case you hadn't noticed, 
not everyone on this list is from the United States of America. Though 
those of us from the US tend to think that everyone knows what we mean. 
(And all too often, folks from around the world do. I heard a speaker 
who visited China say that folks there understood where North Carolina 
and Wyoming were. He asked the audience: How many people here know where 
Beijing and Shanghai (new names?) are?)

Judging from an earlier entry that said
"The Permaforest Trust is a not-for-profit education centre and 
demonstration farm created to promote sustainability.[in New South 
Wales]" it looks like this is a similar entity in Australian law.

In contrast, in the United Kingdom, " The Permaculture Association 
(Britain) is an education and research charity registered with the 
Charity Commission for England and Wales 
<http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk>. Our registration number is 290897."
http://www.permaculture.org.uk/mm.asp?mmfile=charitystatus


I'm not writing this for everyone to talk about non-profits, but to 
mention that these are all different from being an accredited NGO.

In the late 1980s, partially to get stodgy governments off their feet, 
the UN started encouraging (even more than they had in the past)
NGOs to register and raise heck. Thus, the organizers of the Earth 
Summit purposely included an citizen parallel summit-- they knew that it 
would collectively be more honest and insightful than the governments.

The Center for this kind of thing is the NGLS (Non-Governmental Liason 
Service)
http://www.un-ngls.org
Though, that said, I didn't find an easy link to how to apply for such 
status (there is both general status, and status for each conference, if 
I remember correctly).

I subscribed to their Go-Between newsletter for years leading up to the 
Earth Summit in 1992 and afterwards.
There is a subscription form on the website noted above.
-- Jim