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The Mozilla Corporation (which employs many developers and has revenue deals with partners like Google) is a for-profit company, owned entirely by the non-profi
by mbrubeck 17y ago
The Mozilla Corporation (which employs many developers and has revenue deals with partners like Google) is a for-profit company, owned entirely by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.
This lets Mozilla have a taxable, revenue-generating entity that is not subject to various restrictions on activity of non-profits. But because the sole owner is a charitable non-profit, the corporation can act in altruistic (i.e. non-profit-maximizing) ways without compromising its "shareholder" interests.
I thought this was a neat legal hack because it uses existing legal structures in an unusual way, and lets Mozilla use the best parts of the non-profit and for-profit structures as needed.
- morisy 17y agoI once worked for a for-profit student newspaper that had a non-profit landlord, which existed almost solely to lease space at a discount to the for-profit company and support that for-profit's "educational" mission. It saved thousands annually on property tax, while leaving the for-profit paper completely free to do whatever it wanted. Editorial endorsements, for example, are a legally murky area for non-profits (though the IRS traditionally lets newspapers slide) but completely fine for for-profits.