I hope it is alright if I write in Englisch (please feel free to answer in Dutch) I can read and speak it fluently - just my writing is still quite bad and I am afraid that I can't really express my question if I would write it in Dutch. So, please bare with me and my excuse for the 'moeite' :)
This is the situation:
1) I have a VOF together with my partner where we are giving advice to NGOs, public institutions, universities, and other agencies on positive social change. That means that we advise on communication, marketing, we give workshops, trainings, develop creative concepts of how positive social change can be achieved including the people's needs and wants etc. Consultancy actually.
2) Next to that we have an NGO (Stichting) where we aim to initiate bottom-up initiatives ourselves (organise events, festivals et.c) and support them in becoming more successful and reach the goal they want to reach, here we also offer trainings, workshops but also financial support.
They are similar as in they both aim to support positive social change. They are different in that the VOF aims to 'facilitate' social change and the Stichting aims to 'initiate' and support.
My first question:
I heard that if we get funding for the Stichting (for an event or festival) we are able to hire our own VOF for project management support or create concept development (as long as we also hire other people and as long as the Stichting is not the only income of the VOF). Is that right?
Secondly:
What is important for us is that our VOF stands as a social enterprise not just with the causes we support but also with the financial structure we have. That is why we would like to move 20% of every income we have towards our Stichting. 1st question - do you thnk we should make the structures of both 'rechtsformen' official in writing and have it signed by somebody to make sure it is legal what we do?
this is where the next tricky situation comes in.
Via our Stichting we pay a coworking space for 'space'. However, the same coworking space is also hiring our VOF for consultancy and other tasks. We then (according to our internal regulation) give 20% of the money given by the coworking space back to the Stichting which uses it to pay the coworking space again. Do you see how this could look weird to others?
I do not want to get in any legal trouble here... We mean honest business and work for a good cause - so I don't want to screw that up by doing something that is not legal :/
The reason why we have both Stichting and VOF is that we want to commit 100% to social change. Yet, with a Stichting alone we won't be able to pay ourselves salary and hence can never commit ourselves 100% to the cause. Therefore, we only focus on 'initiation and support' with our Stichting. Apply for funding to run projects etc. With the VOF we then offer specific professional service that help 'facilitate' social change, also we develop products like 'online platforms', and 'toolkits'.
Also (and this is tricky question Nr. 3) on our future online platform (that will serve as a crowdsourcing platform for citizen initiatives) which will be run by the VOF, the Stichting will play an important part. Where the VOF is facilitating and building the platform the Stichting will make sure that the projects that are created on the platform get the necessary funding (if they need any).
So, our work is very much intertwined and I am not sure if the 'overheid' maybe sees trouble in that.
Is there anybody who can maybe advice on this situation? Also I heard that there is the option to run a 'VOF onder Stichting' (right now they are two separated entities) - would it make sense to bring them together and if so, how do you do that and why would that be advisable?
Sorry agian for writing all in Englisch and especially for making it such a long one!
Sandrina
Sandrina
Good evening,
I hope it is alright if I write in Englisch (please feel free to answer in Dutch) I can read and speak it fluently - just my writing is still quite bad and I am afraid that I can't really express my question if I would write it in Dutch. So, please bare with me and my excuse for the 'moeite' :)
This is the situation:
1) I have a VOF together with my partner where we are giving advice to NGOs, public institutions, universities, and other agencies on positive social change. That means that we advise on communication, marketing, we give workshops, trainings, develop creative concepts of how positive social change can be achieved including the people's needs and wants etc. Consultancy actually.
2) Next to that we have an NGO (Stichting) where we aim to initiate bottom-up initiatives ourselves (organise events, festivals et.c) and support them in becoming more successful and reach the goal they want to reach, here we also offer trainings, workshops but also financial support.
They are similar as in they both aim to support positive social change. They are different in that the VOF aims to 'facilitate' social change and the Stichting aims to 'initiate' and support.
My first question:
I heard that if we get funding for the Stichting (for an event or festival) we are able to hire our own VOF for project management support or create concept development (as long as we also hire other people and as long as the Stichting is not the only income of the VOF). Is that right?
Secondly:
What is important for us is that our VOF stands as a social enterprise not just with the causes we support but also with the financial structure we have. That is why we would like to move 20% of every income we have towards our Stichting. 1st question - do you thnk we should make the structures of both 'rechtsformen' official in writing and have it signed by somebody to make sure it is legal what we do?
this is where the next tricky situation comes in.
Via our Stichting we pay a coworking space for 'space'. However, the same coworking space is also hiring our VOF for consultancy and other tasks. We then (according to our internal regulation) give 20% of the money given by the coworking space back to the Stichting which uses it to pay the coworking space again. Do you see how this could look weird to others?
I do not want to get in any legal trouble here... We mean honest business and work for a good cause - so I don't want to screw that up by doing something that is not legal :/
The reason why we have both Stichting and VOF is that we want to commit 100% to social change. Yet, with a Stichting alone we won't be able to pay ourselves salary and hence can never commit ourselves 100% to the cause. Therefore, we only focus on 'initiation and support' with our Stichting. Apply for funding to run projects etc. With the VOF we then offer specific professional service that help 'facilitate' social change, also we develop products like 'online platforms', and 'toolkits'.
Also (and this is tricky question Nr. 3) on our future online platform (that will serve as a crowdsourcing platform for citizen initiatives) which will be run by the VOF, the Stichting will play an important part. Where the VOF is facilitating and building the platform the Stichting will make sure that the projects that are created on the platform get the necessary funding (if they need any).
So, our work is very much intertwined and I am not sure if the 'overheid' maybe sees trouble in that.
Is there anybody who can maybe advice on this situation? Also I heard that there is the option to run a 'VOF onder Stichting' (right now they are two separated entities) - would it make sense to bring them together and if so, how do you do that and why would that be advisable?
Sorry agian for writing all in Englisch and especially for making it such a long one!
Thank you already for helping us :)
Looking forward hearing from you.
All the best,
Sandrina
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