Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Incorporation

[David Thomasson (dthomass]

To get useful ideas, locally, people can also go to other non-profit
groups in their area. Co-ops of all kinds, as well as non-profit arts
groups, museums, and charities of all kinds will have useful ideas
in their stuff. In the past I've been able to collect these documents
from friends and friends of friends. Additionally most of us 
know people who live in other communities of some sort or other.
Personal requests to our friends and friends of friends is an excellent way to
get access to a selection of documents and ideas. I'd suggest
expanding the document collection, by anyone, beyond formal
incorporation documents to include mission statements, philosophies,
problem resolution mechanisms, etc. in use by groups. Particularly 
useful anytime you can get it is a series of documents for the same 
group that shows the revisions they made over the years as their 
needs changed and they sought to improve their formal statements. It's
an excellent way to avoid repeating mistakes made by other groups. If
you can combine this with talking to people who've been involved in
the changes you'll benefit even more. The knowledge gained by going
through incorporation is incredibly valuable to anyone about to go 
through it.

I'd like to suggest that in addition to collecting documents, it would
be really helpful to have a contact list of people knowledgeable about
incorporation. That way people could get in touch with people near
them, in their legal zone, etc. and share ideas and knowledge. I've
found that doing this before crafting the document saves a lot of time
and hassle and leads to a better finished document as well as a
smoother incorporation process. Dave.