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)


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