The IMC Network and UC-IMC's Place Within It
What does "IMC" mean?
The Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media
outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings
of the truth. We work out love for, and are inspired by, people who
continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's
distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity.
For more about the IMC and its core principles, see the Indymedia
Documentation Project, from which the preceding language was taken.
People use "IMC" to mean different things at different times, and this
can be a potential source of confusion. Depending on context, it
could mean:
- any local IMC collective, in this case UC-IMC;
- the Global Indymedia network collective; or
- the entire collective of local IMC collectives, taken as a
whole.
How is the IMC network organized?
There are two ways to look at the
structure of the IMC network: the organizational structure and the
legal/fiscal structure. So much of the workings of the IMC
network on a day-to-day basis are related to the organizational
structure that many IMCistas are surprised to learn that there even is a legal/fiscal structure
alongside the organizational structure.
Why are there two simultaneous
structures, organizational and fiscal/legal?
Here is the rationale, as given when
UC-IMC first made the proposal to
the IMC-Finance working group (link):
My
concern is more how to balance the
desire for a democratic and
participatory process and the need for an efficient and legally
accountable financial structure (e.g. one that can pay necessary taxes,
knows how its money is being used, and is using legal accounting
proceedures). I am a big fan of devolving authority and hierachy
as
much as possible, however, I also believe that without accountability,
commons often are abused. I view our current conundrum as a
manifestation of this tension between the creation of an egalitarian
structure of financial decision-making and protecting the financial
common though minimal, though necessary, accountability. We're all
interested in seeing the Global IMC flourish. The question right now is
how to balance the desires of a heterogeneous group of people and
create a structure that incorporates both elements of this tension.)
What is the organizational
structure?
- Local Collectives --
Taken
from the FAQ:
"There are currently over one hundred and fifty Independent Media
Centers around the world. Each IMC is an autonomous group that has its
own mission statement, manages its own finances and makes its own
decisions through its own processes." Each IMC may have a variety
of
projects. For example, projects at UC-IMC include the print
newspaper The Public (i), a
radio news segment broadcast on WEFT, and the low-power FM station WRFU.
To learn more about each IMC, visit its web page.
- The Global Indymedia Network (aka
indymedia.org) -- Taken from the FAQ:
"indymedia.org" is an organization composed of independent media
activists from around the world who are working to coordinate
international independent media projects. The indymedia.org group
manages an international Indymedia page (http://www.indymedia.org) and
coordinates technical and editorial policy issues that affect all IMCs
that
are associated with the Indymedia network.
Click on image for a larger version 
This diagram isn't meant to
be all-encompassing, but to give a general idea of the flow between IMC
collectives, the projects associated with those collectives, and the
Global Indymedia network. For example, NYC-IMC has, along with
their Indymedia site, a print
newspaper called the IndyPendent. UC-IMC has a series of projects
along with this site.
How was this organizational
structure
decided on?
A considerable amount of
discussion was involved in the first years of the Indymedia project.
Documents about the founding of
Indymedia can be found here.
What is the legal/fiscal
structure, and
how was it decided on?
In a nutshell -- there's more
detail below -- it's like this. UC-IMC is a non-profit
organization under US tax law. UC-IMC extends this non-profit
status to some other organizations through a process known as fiscal sponsorship. Some of
the projects allied to
UC-IMC through this process are other IMC collectives (such as NYC and
Michigan).
Another project allied to UC-IMC in this way is the Global
Indymedia network itself.
Again, this diagram doesn't encompass the entire network, but is meant
to show the fiscal/legal relationship between UC-IMC, other IMC
collectives -- some, like NYC, fiscally allied with UC-IMC, some not --
and the
Global Indymedia network.
Therefore, in the strictly legal
sense -- that is, on paper -- UC-IMC
serves as the fiscal/legal headquarters of the Global Indymedia
Network.
This important distinction -- between the organizational
structure
and the fiscal/legal structure -- has been a source of confusion.
UC-IMC
makes no claim that it is organizationally
the headquarters of the Global Indymedia Network. Organizationally, we
are
simply one IMC collective among many.
What was that again?
UC-IMC makes no claim that it is organizationally
the headquarters
of the Global Indymedia Network. According to the consensus of
the IMC-Finance working group (as documented in the next section),
however, UC-IMC is -- on
paper -- currently the fiscal/legal headquarters of the Global
Indymedia Network. Financial donations made to the Global
Indymedia network, rather than to individual IMC collectives, are sent
to and disbursed by UC-IMC, as noted here on
the Global Indymedia site, indymedia.org.
How was the arrangement
between Global Indymedia Network and UC-IMC arrived at?
The process can be tracked by reading correspondence available on the
imc-finance working group list for 2001 and 2002; follow the links for
the details.
- The possibility of fiscal sponsorship by UC-IMC was first
suggested by Sascha Meinrath of UC-IMC in July, 2001 (link).
- This was part of a larger discussion of developing the
sustainability of the Indymedia movement (link).
- It was also proposed that Global Indymedia Network pursue 501(c)3
status itself (link).
- Discussion continued
and
continued.
- The UC-IMC collective approved the offer to fiscally sponsor
Global in December, 2001 (link).
- The original fiscal sponsor, Jam for Justice, withdrew its fiscal
sponsorship in February, 2002 (link).
- The official proposal was presented to imc-finance in late
February, 2002 (link)
and
approved in March, 2002 (link).
This arrangement does not imply that UC-IMC is in any way owner of the
Global Indymedia network, or Indymedia as a whole. Nor does UC-IMC have
any intention
or desire to change the fundamentally autonomous nature of the IMC
collectives. The autonomous media collective is the cornerstone
of
the IMC movement.
How do IMC collectives handle their finances?
There is no standard IMC model for handling finances, and such
decisions are left to the local collectives.
In the US, there are advantages to the tactic of either
- registering with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a
non-profit organization, or
- fiscally allying with another organization already recognized as
a non-profit.
If the IRS agrees that you are a non-profit organization, it grants
you something called 501(c)3 status. The
benefits of gaining this status include:
- Donations to that IMC collective, up to a certain limit, can be
deducted from your income at tax time.
- Bequests to the IMC collective, with certain restrictions, are
exempt from the estate tax.
- The collective itself is exempt from paying some taxes, such as
sales taxes on media supplies and equipment.
If
you fiscally ally with a 501(c)3, then the same benefits also apply.
The process of allying with a 501(c)3 is called "fiscal
sponsorship." This should not
be interpreted to mean the 501(c)3 organization somehow owns the
organizations fiscally allied with it in this way. Such ownership
of
one IMC collective by another would be against the autonomous spirit of
Indymedia.
When did the UC-IMC become a 501(c)3 organization?
UC-IMC has been a 501(c)3 organization since June, 2001.
The process of registering as a 501(c)3 organization involved,
among other things, the writing of bylaws, the election of officers,
and
interacting with the IRS.
Will UC-IMC hold this fiscal/legal
position permanently?
UC-IMC does not intend to hold
the fiscal sponsorship of Global Indymedia Network permanently, nor
should it. We actively encourage working toward
other solutions:
- That other US IMC collectives gain
501(c)3 status independent of UC-IMC and allow the fiscal sponsorship
of
Global to rotate among them; or
- That Global Indymedia
Network become a 501(c)3
itself.
Does UC-IMC have a fee for hosting the funds of fiscal allies?
Yes. This is not unique to UC-IMC; it's a standard operating
procedure for 501(c)3 organizations. We know of no 501(c)3
offering such a service for free. The fees are on a sliding scale
negotiated up front with the organization seeking to ally financially
with UC-IMC, and range from 5% upward. Money raised by this fee
currently covers only part of the expense of bookkeeping, auditing, and
filing costs involved and was not
used as a source of funding for purchase of the UC-IMC collective's
building. In effect UC-IMC is currently subsidizing the
accounting out of
our general operating funds.
What organizations is the UC-IMC fiscally allied with under 501(c)3?
We are in the process of putting this list together; it will appear
here shortly.
Sascha Meinrath, who
acted as treasurer
of UC-IMC for much of its existence, has
prepared the following materials about the IMC network and UC-IMC's
role
within it. Thanks to Sascha for providing these and the relevant
links to the imc-finance archive.
Sascha's paper (.rtf) here.
Sascha's PowerPoint here. |
