Course Description
1. Sole Proprietorships, LLCs, Corporations, And More!
Objectives
- Treat your creative practice as a business and treat it with care.
- Believe in your practice as a legitimate business, regardless of business entity.
- Protect yourself from the liability of your business.
- Understand the goals for your business in relation to working with others, risk, and management.
• List four common considerations when forming a business entity and briefly explain them.
• Understand the default business entity you have without filing.
• List a few considerations when you choose a name for your business and conduct a simple trademark search for your business name.
• List three professionals you need when running a business.
• List the four most common business entities.
• Describe what a sole proprietorship is along with protections, simplicity, costs, and longevity (pros and cons).
• Research whether you need a DBA (Doing Business As or a Business Certificate) in your jurisdiction.
• Explain what risk mitigation you may perform if you have a sole proprietorship.
• Describe what general partnership is along with protections, simplicity, costs, and longevity (pros and cons). Explain what risk mitigation you may need if you have one.
• Differentiate between limited partnerships and limited liability partnership and who might choose each. Briefly explain registration, costs, and tax implications.
• Explain what passthrough taxation entails.
• Describe the hallmark of a corporation.
• Explain corporate shareholders, board members, and officers, and their roles in governance.
• Describe the complexity of the corporate structure.
• Describe C-corporations, S-Corporations, Benefit Corporations, and Nonprofit Corporations, with a few potential pros and cons, including taxation and eligibility requirements for each.
• Explain what “Piercing the Corporate Veil” or “Disregarding the Corporate Form” means.
• List some of the official rules involved in running a corporation.
• Contrast flexibility of nonprofit corporations vs for-profit corporations.
• Summarize general pros and cons of filing as a corporation in terms of protections, simplicity, costs, and longevity.
• Describe what Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) are, along with protections, simplicity, costs, and longevity (pros and cons).
• Differentiate between a Member Managed LLC and a Manager Managed LLC.
• Evaluate the goals for your business in terms of business entities.
• Choose a business entity, even if it is to remain a sole proprietorship.
2. Nonprofits And Fiscal Sponsorships
Objectives
- Choose mission-aligned partners in all aspects of your business.
- Decide whether nonprofit corporation status or fiscal sponsorship is a good fit for your business.
- Utilize diverse fundraising options, depending on your mission and the intentions of a project.
• Define fiscal sponsorship/fiscal agency and list who is eligible for fiscal sponsorship.
• Explain the two common models of fiscal sponsorship with their pros and cons.
• Explain a good fit between a business entity and a fiscal sponsor and how you research mission alignment.
• Describe why a nonprofit corporation might need fiscal sponsorship.
• Explain a nonprofit corporation with its key features.
• Define tax exemption and what it means for nonprofit organizations and their donors.
• Recognize that there are differences between the many types of 501c organizations.
• Recognize the difference between being a nonprofit corporation and being tax exempt and the timeline to be both; explain tax exemption eligibility.
• List a few questions to ask yourself to decide whether a nonprofit corporation is right for your practice. List several pros and cons of being a nonprofit.
• Recognize the ability to file for several business entities at a time, but the difficulty in running a nonprofit entity and for-profit entity at the same time.
• Define conflict of interest.
• Recognize nonprofits can earn a profit and explain some ways the proceeds can be allocated.