InterOccupy Finance Call 1-5-2011

OWS: Pete, Haywood, and Kelli

Pete: arrived on the 20th.  There wasn’t a lot of people and there was a lot of pizza, but people did need food.  People started to drop off money too.  Victoria had a big bag of money on her and they needed to get a bank account. A Lawyer helped them get an EIN number as “friends of liberty park” or NYCGA.  Lots of reciepts and money was getting out of control, so Pete jumped in to help out. They were putting Money into a checking account and then also opened a savings account.  They put together a process to recover debits and credits.

Occupy LA/Occupy Longview/ Occupy Ashville/ Occupy Scotland/Occupy

Stephen: Occupy LA is pretty much doing the same thing. We don’t have counsel and didn’t file until about 10 days ago. Paypal got ‘hijacked’ and we were cash only for several months.  we would like to better leverage online donations.  Tweeting target and in-kind donations.  What is the organizational strucuture?

OWSNY: We spent a lot of time researching what it means to be an unincorp association, but there isn’t a lot of case law on it.  Not a lot of precedent set.  We are spending a lot of time figuring out what that means. GA then becomes the board of directors and we don’t know how to make that happen.  Signers should not go to GA or spokes council and they have a lot of liability.  It doesn’t mean I don’t follow what is going on, but I am not there voting. We now have an office and we have gotten a lot more efficient at tracking money and expenditures. We are tightening that up.

Callie: How do you work with the GA and how do you form that entity?

Pete: it is a loose association of people and it was easier for people here to swallow.  Traditionally, it was how unions are organized.  So, when we layed it out, we did it very early on when the GA didn’t have a lot of tourists.

Haywood:  we still have these structure conversations. To me, there is always this problem when you incorporate that you have to give a leaderless movement a board of directors.

Joan: The GA seemed scared to adopt an organizational structure

Stephen: Maybe we weren’t scared and people were like “fuck you.”  We didn’t know eachother and you were asking them to trust them.  We were too young to form that organization.

Matt: We did it on a Saturday evening and it wasn’t the right time. people who were there were not there from the beginning.

Vickie: We have a very small group. prior to my first meeting it was a lot of arguing back and fourth and when those people didn’t show up, I got appointed.  We went to the credit union and opened the account for 2 signatures for withdrawal. We formed this buddy system and people are supposed to watch eachother, and we have you know 3 50 year old ladies going to the bank.  People want to do the 501c3.  I am not convinced because it is a lot of work.  if you are a 501c3 you can only use 25% of your assets for politics.

Pete: when you do a donation to a 501C4 there are not deductions.  You can engage in more political advocacy.  Your mission statement is what is going to make the difference.  But you’re probably better off getting a 501c4.

Vickie: so everyone so far is using the unincorporated association?

Pete: it matters by state. some don’t allow it.

Kasha:  are people setting up separate accounts based on specific needs? What about being a PAC?

Haywood: The only reason to register as a PAC is to endorse candidates.

Kasha: what about not endorsing candidates?

Pete:  You can do whatever you want, but I would be careful and make sure the group agrees. PACs are one of the big problem of money in politics.

Haywood: It is only for campaigns and elections. For orgs that want to get involved in politics they become 501c4 or as a superpac.  It is outdated. We are not a traditional movement, we are a resistance movement and we have a chance to show people how to do things differently.

Kashsa: we should also be using credit unions.

Pete: Agreed and we have it in a union owned back.

Pete:  we have separate accounts for bail and general funds so that we knew that some funds were set aside for the spring.

Steven:  We have the quicken non-profit software that allows up to separate the funds, but draw from the same account.

Haywood: Mission when you are incorporating is incredibly vital for you and for those who organize with you. Our mission is the peoples right to social and economic justice.  the more vague the better.  Make it as big and as broad as possible.

Callie: we are organizing against the US tax code that is put together for hierarchical orgs. I feel there is a way through and the finance committees can be an important part of that. If we can thread that needle then it is an important piece.

Iwanka:  is 18 signers a bad idea?

Stephen:  We talked to a bank manager about check signing.

Callie: finding trustworthy people is difficult.  People can be shady and we need to develop trust.  In a horizontal movement you have to pour a lot of trust into people.

Vickie: the checks literally have my name and address on them and it felt comfortable that we would have 2 people on them.

Stephen: how do we talk about tax liability? We filed and we open the bank account in the name of our org, but if we don’t have to put any of that money into the account then we both don’t have any tax liability.

Vickie:  No reporting to the IRS is reported unless you earn $10 in interest. So no IRS report will be filed.

Stephen:  we were under the impression that if you hit 10k then the IRS says that was income and it makes you personally liable.

Vickie:  I am not quite sure what you are saying.  There is a 10k cash reporting requirement for money laundering.  Taxes are about the interest you earn.  The bank account is not income.  it is not assumed that it is income.

Matt: There is the federal ability for a group to start their own credit union.  We know what is necessary.  A minimum of 500 but ideal 5000 to get it started.  we need a base-line plan to do that.

Jackrabbit: we could also have you request a call to try to coordinate this call for a national call.

Callie: Moving forward,  especially the national event on May Day.  the need for coodination and communication as a group to talk again?

(Discussion about doing this every 2 weeks)

Haywood:  we don’t even vote at GA and we just make decisions. But the culture of the movement is hostile to us.

Kelli:  People bring in receipts for everything.  we deal with petty cash, but the working group isn’t always so clear.  We continue to do re-structuring and we also will work on a directive. And we want feedback on it.

Joan: I have all that stuff for OLA.

John:  The best is that we don’t duplicate time.

Steven:  We could do a resources/finance WIKI to start managing that.

Vickie:  I absolutely want to share docs. I am beginning to appreciate this vast difference between the small and the big occupations.

Jackrabbit:  I am hoping the movement can reach out to everyone.

Kasha:  I want to support the idea of having the documents go up on interoccupy.org

Joan:  Let’s put them up under resources.

Julie: I am supporting getting the info out including mistakes.

Stephen:  There is another 501c8 option that people might want to use it.

Occupy LA Mission Statement: The Resources Committee at Occupy LA is dedicated to the horizontal and participatory democracy of the General Assembly of Occupy LA. Our task is to organize the resources of Occupy LA in line with these principles. The Resources Committee collects, stores,  and handles both in-kind and monetary donations and distributes these resources as mandated by the General Assembly.

Occupy LA Membership: The Resources Committee has no restrictions on membership. If this policy changes we will inform the General Assembly.