X-Message-Number: 6546 Date: 17 Jul 96 00:10:59 EDT From: Paul Wakfer <> Subject: 501(c)3 Orgs *can* Invest From reading Thomas Donaldson's messages I get the impression that he believes that non-profit 501(c)3 organizations which give tax deductible receipts for donations cannot then use those funds to purchase shares in a for-profit corporation. And I believe that Bob Ettinger may also have this misconception. At least that is how I interpret the following item from his "Prometheus Problems" message: >1. A couple of days ago Paul asked whether the Immortalist Society would >refuse, pending the annual meeting in September, to accept a member's >Prometheus pledge (to be bundled with others). The answer is that, yes, we >would have to refuse until then at least--mainly because of the serious >possible legal problems arising from the connection of a 501(c)3 >organization with a for-profit corporation. However, I am certain that this is wrong. Not only can non-profit charitable organizations own such shares, they may also wholly own for-profit subsidiaries. What they cannot do however is to make *overall* profit from these shares or subsidiaries. They must donate or use all such profit for charitable or scientific research purposes. This is also why Brian Wowk's ideas for Technology Credits which I have integrated into the Prometheus parameters is so valuable. And I just realized that an even better modification of the way I presented it in my other post is for the company to trade shares from the organizations for the purpose of purchasing technology not at the original price but at the current market price if that is higher than the original. In that way the non-profit cryonics org does not have to show any profit on the shares at all or at least such profit is immediately negated by costs. BTW, in case, Thomas and others do not realize it, I have specifically only talked of donations going to the Immortalist Society (IS) and it making share purchases and *not* Cryonics Institute (CI), because only IS has 501(c)3 charitable status. Bob will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that while CI is a non-profit organization, it does not have 501(c)3 status. So to summarize, yes, the cryonics organizations could just *donate* the donation which they receive, and for which they issue tax deductible receipts, to the corporation which executes the Prometheus Project, but in my book that would be a poor use of the funds. Much better for them to buy shares in the corporation and be able to use these to purchase technology beneficial to their patients or to reap future share benefits. Moreover, I still believe that it is also only fair that if at all possible they allow the donors of the money which they use to buy the shares to be the proxy for those shares at shareholders meetings (if the donor wants to, of course). After all the donor's purpose in making the donation is to vastly enhance the chance of his or her life being vastly extended (and this is even more so for donors than for share purchasers, since donors can't get any monetary gain), so the least that should be done for him or her is to give him or her the opportunity to help guide and effect that purpose by his or her own hand. -- Paul -- !!!!! REVERSIBLE BRAIN CRYOPRESERVATION *CAN* BE ACHIEVED IN 10 YEARS !!!!! Paul Wakfer email: Voice/Fax: Pager: US: 1220 E Washington St #24, Colton, CA 92324 909-481-4433 800-805-2870 Canada: 238 Davenport Rd #240, Toronto, ON M5R 1J6 416-968-6291 416-446-9461 (currently in Canada) Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6546