Brainstorming a multi-stakeholder cooperative (like the French SCIC entity) for developing an open-source hardware battery. Different classes of members: paid staff researchers, fabricators, etc; end users, e.g. battery installers, utilities/electric co-ops, individual consumers; and a member class for contributors, e.g. academics, students, volunteers. Under the SCIC model it's one member one vote on governance decisions. If there is profit, 57.5% has to go back to the co-op reserves.
Edit: SCIC can't pay out dividends to the co-op members it turns out, and it's not clear where else any profit could go
@kirk Hi Kirk, I've checked and it seems to me that SCICs can pay dividends, with some limits: 57.5% minimum of benefits must be kept in the company coffers, the rest can be paid to shareholders (= members, holders of social shares) with a yield limit set by the TMO (average yield of French private company bonds, 3.37% is the last published rate).
Sources:
https://les-scop-paca.coop/scop-scic-quest-ce-que-cest/le-statut-scic
https://www.tresor.economie.gouv.fr/Articles/2018/07/27/taux-moyen-de-rendement-des-obligations-des-societes-privees-tmo
@kirk Shares ("parts sociales") stay the same value, like for most non-publically traded companies.
Non-profits can't compete with commercial services. Our food coop (non profit), don't sell to non-members to avoid getting on any one else turf. People investing time in a SCIC can be paid fairly. For a non profit the leaders must always be unpaid, even if there are employees with executive function in charge of day to day management. Because of the mandatory multi-shareholders-group structure of a SCIC, I think it's less susceptible to be taken over by a "clique" of likeminded people.
That's from the top of my head, but I think there are plenty of other significant differences.
@miermont ah this makes sense... I just read https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F31838
Well, we want to help manage the org and be paid, and would likely be seen as competing with private industry if we sold certain things, e.g. parts, materials, research tools to generate revenue for our R&D. But we want to involve non-salaried volunteers and users/suppliers also. So maybe SCIC does make more sense than a SCOP or nonprofit. Thanks for the help!
@miermont I should probably ask the founders at my grocery cooperative, which is a SCIC... But I know we don't have any profit 😅
@miermont ah yes thanks! I'm not sure how the share values are accounted for, or if they fluctuate. Regardless the point isn't to create shareholder value 😅 but I want to understand the tradeoffs vs. being a regular nonprofit/association. Profits reinvested into the SCIC are free from french corporate tax. So if you reinvest 100% of any profit back into the organization, which has a social mandate - I don't get how it's different from a nonprofit?