I would like to ask about registration process of NGO/Non profit organizations in USA.
What are the prerequisites?
Are there any exceptions when registration can be refused etc.
There are various reasons why i ask for that.
In Slovakia, there are various “civic associacions” (official term for NGO or non profit organization) in Slovakia.
Common goal of many of these organizations is attacking the secularism. Its somehow effective given the fact that many current politicians were active during communist regime.
They have chairman, and board of directors, but memberbase is invisible. They usually publish few short reports from events they prepare, but in general they dont publish articles or books on topic they want to cover. No activity you could call a “think tank”. Their webpages looks deserted.
In some cases i suspect that many of those organizations serve only purpose - certain people can call themselves chairman or vice-chairman.
I would like to ask about registration process of NGO/Non profit organizations in USA. What are the prerequisites? Are there any exceptions when registration can be refused etc. There are various reasons why i ask for that. In Slovakia, there are various "civic associacions" (official term for NGO or non profit organization) in Slovakia. Common goal of many of these organizations is attacking the secularism. Its somehow effective given the fact that many current politicians were active during communist regime. They have chairman, and board of directors, but memberbase is invisible. They usually publish few short reports from events they prepare, but in general they dont publish articles or books on topic they want to cover. No activity you could call a "think tank". Their webpages looks deserted. In some cases i suspect that many of those organizations serve only purpose - certain people can call themselves chairman or vice-chairman.Yes, there are specific requirements. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/requirements-start-non-profit-organization-487.html The idea is that "non-for-profit" status is granted when the intent is to provide a public service, without a profit motive. It is true that this concept has been subverted to serve purposes for which it was never designed. I worked for a large non-profit corp. and each month I had to present the financial status of the corporation to our board of directors which consisted of several prominent citizens who were paid a "stipend" for attending. For very large projects such as building housing for the elderly, only a small fixed percentage could be used for administrative purposes and also depended on the corporation's "in-kind" contribution such as cars, trucks, computers, desks, etc. The idea is to provide maximum resources to the corporate goals, without the profit incentive. IMO, this is how our medical system should be administered. It's crazy that an insurance company should make a profit on someone's illness. It's macabre.
Before 1989 (during communism) every hospital and clinic was driven by the government. There was only one insurance company which was also driven by the government.
It did work to some extent, depending how good was eastern block doing in economical terms. After the revolution there came private hospitals, clinics and we have more than one health insurance companies.
But there is one aspect - health insurance is mandatory. Each citizen has to pay % of his salary or fixed minimum in case he is unemployed, if you are registered as a “seeker of new job” state will pay it for you. You have to be unemployed for many months to not
If you want, you can pay extra for better care on a private clinic. But anyway, medics, doctors and nurses are underpaid and overloaded. Just about 30-40 kilometers away from Bratislava, they can earn more than 2x of their current salary. On other hand, medical services is affordable and available for everyone, even when the quality may vary.
Regarding topic i started…
a) There are official Church communities.
Those are registered by the Conference of Bishops in Slovakia, and are official christian communities.
b) There are non-profit organizations with religious activity.
To become a registered religion in Slovakia, you need 20 000 believers to be officially recognized. The limit was much lower years back, but certain small religious sects (with declared membership under 200 people) took the oportunity. The disadvantage is that certain quite important religions are not officially recognized - buddhism, islam as they have about 5000 members. As so they officially cannot perform marriages.
Status of non-profit organization here is then misused by those religious groups which call themselves “christian”, but are not accepted by the officially recognized as “official church community” by catholic church, protestants, or evangelicals. The only option is to form a nonprofit organization, which is also used by some well known sects like scientologists.
In my work as an activist i had to carefully recognize “who is who”. Apparently, the protesters against metal culture have one thing incommon. They are not members of “official church communities”, but are members and representatives of religious non-profit organizations. So far i found only one with real member base, they have active membership and they do publish book and do really nice job in conserving one old abandoned monastery. Those have no idea about secularism and they want everyone to live like a christian. Their “law awareness” (not sure about proper english term) is low, as one of their activity is direct violation of our voting campaing laws. They are pesky, but thats about it.
The other, and more important group are either “nonprofit organizations” which cover certain religious sects or bogus NPOs without membership (but a lot of petitioning), and a lot of political activity - at least on the internet, and social media. They use truly magnificent names for their NPOs and they may give impression they are in important position within society, which is quite away from the truth. In one case i found unregistered organization, which is kinda strange.
Since 2018 the laws for non-profit organizations became bit more strict. NPOs have to declare some membership and some activity over year, else they might be automatically disbanded. So i hope no new NPOs will appear from thin air, writing an open letter to minister of culture, but without any real backing of the citizens.
Offler said, The other, and more important group are either “nonprofit organizations" which cover certain religious sects or bogus NPOs without membership (but a lot of petitioning), and a lot of political activity - at least on the internet, and social media. They use truly magnificent names for their NPOs and they may give impression they are in important position within society, which is quite away from the truth. In one case i found unregistered organization, which is kinda strange.yes the more morey, the the greater the temptation to apply "creative" financial practises, to skim some from the top. In my day, not a single penny could be spent on political activity. We were even forbidden to do volunteer work for the corp. All of it went to its intended projects, the project itself was advertised and offered for bids, by qualified and reputable suppliers and contractors. Does this procedure even exist anymore?
Asked for cooperation “Center for prevention of sects” in Slovakia. (“Sect” in our language has negative connotation). I have to correct my previous statement. Even when there is few unregistered religions societies, some “new” christian churces in Slovakia, there was involvement mainly from two groups.
- Koinonia John the Baptist
As in other countries, this group is part of catholic church. They specialize in catholic evangelism in new ways. Spreading the word of god, speaking in tongues, “forming” the young. When i was reading the report i had to recall movie “Jesus Camp”. And yet I still have to finish watching that movie, it was making me sick.
They seem to have particular interest in politics. From what i checked, only few people from this society succeeded in latest elections to self-governing regions. On this level they advocate strict conservativism. - ZKSM, project Christian in Politics
This is christian youth organization. No forming, just ordinary camps. Yet they have one official project called “Christian in politics”. Even when their approach breaks secularit approach in our country and they called voters to decide depending on “spiritual level”, they have not done anything illegal, yet. In 2017 our voting campaing laws changed and they cannot tell people to distribute candidate flyers in churches anymore.
Both organizations have tendencies to bend laws in order to fit christian view. Such as “we are going to ban music festival because its satanic”. I dont think they succeed, but i have to be prepared for the eventuality.
Asked for cooperation "Center for prevention of sects" in Slovakia. ("Sect" in our language has negative connotation). I have to correct my previous statement. Even when there is few unregistered religions societies, some "new" christian churces in Slovakia, there was involvement mainly from two groups. 1. Koinonia John the Baptist As in other countries, this group is part of catholic church. They specialize in catholic evangelism in new ways. Spreading the word of god, speaking in tongues, "forming" the young. When i was reading the report i had to recall movie "Jesus Camp". And yet I still have to finish watching that movie, it was making me sick. They seem to have particular interest in politics. From what i checked, only few people from this society succeeded in latest elections to self-governing regions. On this level they advocate strict conservativism. 2. ZKSM, project Christian in Politics This is christian youth organization. No forming, just ordinary camps. Yet they have one official project called "Christian in politics". Even when their approach breaks secularit approach in our country and they called voters to decide depending on "spiritual level", they have not done anything illegal, yet. In 2017 our voting campaing laws changed and they cannot tell people to distribute candidate flyers in churches anymore. Both organizations have tendencies to bend laws in order to fit christian view. Such as "we are going to ban music festival because its satanic". I dont think they succeed, but i have to be prepared for the eventuality.This is why in the US we have the "Establishment Clause".
This is a two way street. If Congress was predominantly religious, it would still be restricted by this Constitutional Amendment.
That would be almost impossible to make in work in former Czechoslovakia (both countries). It is paradox, because churches have been forcibly made part of the state during communism. Even when the main goal was to supress their activity or misuse it for spying on its own citizens. Other goal was very similar as had Henry VIII - seizing the property, but most of it was returned to its original owners.
After fall of communism, churches were de-facto part of the state and receiving money from the government for over 25 years. To these days, conservatives and members of the clergy are not eager to separate state and religion.
Luckily we have a clause in “Law of state service”. MPs and state servants have to follow principle of neutrality - which means they are oficially bound to not take sides when acting in office.
A step in the right direction. Our Constitution is founded on the principle that all persons are equal and are endowed with certain unalianable rights: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
While this sounds vague, it has the implication that “health” is a state of “life” and therefore health care should be guaranteed e when need arises. I have no objection to a single payer healthcare insurance system, as long as the insurer is a non-profit entity.
Well our prime minister attempted to force health insurance companies to declare zero profit.
It would not work for multiple reasons.
- Inflation
Fact that funds are profiting keeps the pace with inflation, so money paid today will be able to pay health services tomorrow. - Insurance companies in general are in the business for the money.
3.There might be difference between real profit and declaration of profit/loss in the books.
Those steps might motivate existing insurance companies to leave the market altogether. As far I know, hospitals in USA are declaring costs for health services with … ridiculously high margins (Adam Ruins Everything - I dont have better source sry.) In our country its used 200% margin on any sort of CT machines…