SCIENCE

The Supreme Council Initiating and Empowering Nerdy and Cool Events.

There was a comment in a staff meeting about us being a non-profit.
“We’re not a non-profit”
“Well, a not-for-profit, then.”
Same thing. “We’re not a not-for-profit.”

The terms “non-profit” and “not-for-profit” are interchangeable. The latter is the most correct form to use because not-for-profits CAN have quite a bit of profit.

Not-for-profits have employees and pay employees. Those that run the companies are about on-par with the CEOs of for-profit companies.

Just because you’re a not-for-profit doesn’t mean you don’t make any profit, and just because you’re a for-profit company, doesn’t mean you have to make a profit, either.

SCIENCE, LLC is a FOR-profit company. We’re an LLC. There is no such thing as a not-for-profit LLC. Not-for-profits are, by definition, CORPORATIONS, and thus, not LLCs.

Do we pay people? No. Do we pay ourselves? Not really. I say not really, because I have a 10k investment in the company that I make interest on. I occasionally get checks on this amount so my investment is down to about 6k, but it goes up and down depending on how much personal money I spend on the convention.

Additionally, the company writes checks to Nathan and myself every year to cover the tax liability that owning the company creates. Here’s how that works – say that we were each going to get a refund of $200 before the company money. Once we add the company money to our personal tax returns, we now owe $900. The company will cut each of us a check for $1100 to cover the company’s tax liability. This is a little oversimplified, but is pretty much the process.

So, no, it doesn’t really pay us, the owners.

Will it ever? Probably not.

Why aren’t we a not-for-profit corporation? Because rules. The rules and hoops that I would have to jump through for us to be a not-for-profit is annoying to me. The books are harder, we’ll be audited regularly, and if we break away from our purpose at all, then we would be disallowed any benefit that being a not-for-profit would bring. The benefits just didn’t outweigh the cost for me.

I am the bookkeeper and the accountant. I’m the most important person when it comes to the decision of what company to be and how to do the books. I’m NOT doing non-profit books. I did that in college and I decided then that it just wasn’t worth it for the convention.

Additionally, SCIENCE, LLC was started as an event planning company. You know what that means? It means that we can plan your party if you want us to. We originally wanted to make it our living but after losing jobs and actually trying to make a go at it, I realised that I just didn’t have the passion for it that I do for the convention itself. I’ve given up on it ever being something we make a living at and have moved on to other ventures.

Every con, I do get a glimmer of “I wish I could do this for a living,” but it fades quickly. I can’t.

I’m working on a photography business, PictureNV, LLC, now. We’re in our third year and still not profiting. In another year or so we’re likely to shut down if we can’t make it work. I’ve got much higher hopes for this, and just need to put the effort in – I truly feel that I haven’t put in the sales effort necessary.

Anyway.

SCIENCE – not a not-for-profit, but not a greedy company, either. Money we make gets put right back into the company for the con. We’re not paying ourselves and we’re not likely to ever pay ourselves, either.