Event:2015/11/09 Fundraising

Omni Fundraising Meeting Monday November 9, 2015

Who's here?

• yar, laura, karissa, leon, marcus, rob, josh

Kenneth Rainin Foundation

• We got $10k from them last november but nobody remembers how we got it, who asked for it, who had the contact
• it's even mentioned in this article about us http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/radically-sharing-temescal/Content?oid=4172033&showFullText=true
• Laura sent an email to fundraising and discuss asking if anyone remembers anything about this.
  • laura is awesome

broccoli

• Matt had a long phone conversation with broccoli, has new ideas
• "yay matt's back" "i haven't even left yet"
• he second-guesses us a lot, assuming we're doing too much work and it's painful, uncomfortable, damaging. matt had to reaffirm that this process is comfortable for us. that was good.
• Matt said he still needs to meditate on it
• Matt doesn't think it's the only model
• Matt: broccoli is accepting the role of the bad guy, but says if we want to access a loan from him, we have to do it this way. because of 1 simple hangup - BACLT fee may increase in the future. he doesn't like that. iceberg charges nobody anything forever. Matt outlined that working with BACLT has been lucrative, and not splitting land with them has a harder time building relationship where we both have stakeholdership. but we talked about ways that could be funged. not like there's a best option. maybe we should weigh pluses & minuses with his plan. maybe we value splitting ownership between 2 entities (won't be doing that in this model - it's all owned by one org). and to get this $1M loan with $11k/mo payment (or lower if we play cards right, could be overestimation) that could be... #1 ... wait explain proposal
• make LLC that buys & owns the building. LLC owned by iceberg, which does nothing, has no staff, just owns property and is 501c3 np. owns 2 buildings in iceland, and 1 apt complex in the iceland (SF). maybe also brassica building idk.
• trick that gives us power: board is designated by omni. we could have our whole board on it, plus one person from iceberg, probably broccoli, plus anyone else we want - rick? anyone we want to have stakeholdership in the future over entity that owns htis building. not that different from other model IMO other than subtleties.
• also, if we can't work this out, he's willing to donate something. who knows how big, not $1M
• joe: would they be a collective?
  • matt: even simpler than that. it'd be a board.
  • talk about what it means to be a collective
  • but someone must be a director, secretary, treasurer
• it's not a mortgage. it's capital cost.
• what control does iceberg have over the LLC? could it sell us to anyone else?
• broccoli sees this as his own implementation of the land trust idea
• laura thinks 5% is high - interest rates are ~0 right now, so pegging to CPI is bad - or does he mean interest rates?
• omni's board is kinda pretend, but this needs to be legit and people need to be comfortable being on a legit board.
• maybe we should own the building and iceberg own the land?
  • it's not consistent with what broccoli wants. his ideology is against debt, pretty much universally. he's on EFF board, has 2 requirements: don't ever be in debt, don't be in long term contracts - they are effectively debt. makes it "competitional"?
  • rob: don't be in debt to anyone but me
• matt: iceberg instead of BACLT forgoes long-term relationships with large communities. it's a risk.
  • splitting capital makes it harder to mortgage
  • just because you're working with more orgs, doesn't make it easier or harder
  • jesse thinks there's only 2 sustainable models - split it, or a nonprofit just owns their own building and has a healthy culture & community. long haul, womens building.
  • maybe broccoli and jesse need to sit down and have a long conversation
• yar just wants us to be able to renegotiate in a few years
  • matt: any np can own this LLC. we just have to convince iceberg to give it to another np.
  • rob is concerned that the LLC isn't a np
  • how much autonomy does the company have?
  • he doesn't want to be the bad guy, concerned about image, so if we pressured him to transfer the property he probably would to wash his hands
• why not just form the LLC and then show up and ask him for the money?
• concern that people on the LLC board would have more power or status than other collective members
• the state requires you to at least pretend you have hierarchy. we already have president, secretary, treasurer
• joe wants a timeline for this
• president: mia; secretary: jenny; treasurer: matt g
  • https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Event:2015/07/30_2nd_Annual_Board_Meeting
• yar is very confused about the math. never mind.

events

• Updates on those proposed fundraisng events
• Joe: there is a lot of traffic on the FNB email about 12/12 and 2/14 events
• arthur's on it

Other

• Joe contacted John Nady who used to own Omni about helping us> hasn't gotten a reply.