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  • From: Jim <ashevillecurrencyproject@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] NGOs, 501c3s and USA-centrism
  • Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:30:08 -0500


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




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