Burning Man's Backers Take Nonprofit Route .

[Dover]

Source: WSJ

The group behind Burning Man, the giant annual arts festival in the Nevada desert, is poised to turn itself into a nonprofit, which the famously quirky operation thinks suits its ethos. Nonprofit status also could help the group better raise and spend funds than the limited-liability corporate setup it now uses.

But creating a nonprofit amid a weak economy may be no picnic. So Burning Man's organizers say they are taking cues from the lessons learned at the Black Rock Arts Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit adjunct to the festival that was formed in 2001.

For the past 14 years, the Burning Man festival has been managed by a San Francisco legal entity known as Black Rock City LLC. In August—the same month this year's festival took place with about 50,000 participants in northwestern Nevada—the group announced it would form a nonprofit called Burning Man Project that may become the parent organization of both the annual event and some of its related offshoots.

A nonprofit organization would better gel with Burning Man's stated principles such as "gifting" and "decommodification," said Freddy Hahne, an artist who journeys to the festival every year under the pseudonym Dr. Really? and is board president of the Black Rock Arts Foundation.


Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577016044112970000.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. Have to wonder if they are going to continue to claim rights to all media taken during the event

[Xithras]

6. I'm on the fence about that one.

On one hand, as a photographer, I believe that we should have a right to photograph and publish what we want, especially on public lands.

On the other hand, as a person who has been to Burning Man more than once, I understand that for many people, it's an opportunity to lose their inhibitions and allow personality traits to emerge that they normally keep buried. I understand that many Burning Man participants have been horrified when photos of them at the festival later found their way onto the Internet, and into the hands of their friends, families, and co-workers. The free spirited nature of Burning Man is largely dependent on the idea that nobody is judged for their method of expression, and that "what happens on the playa, stays on the playa". If Burning Man participants have to police their behaviors because they're afraid that their escapism will be revealed in their real life, or that they will end up on some "girls gone wild" type of website, then the nature and free spiritedness of the festival itself would change.

IMO, it's lose-lose argument, but I do tend to fall a little more solidly onto the side of keeping cameras out.

[Lucky Luciano]

2. Went to Burning Man my last year living in California.

LOVED it!!

If I went again, my wife would promptly divorce me because I told her what went on! Too bad...would live to go again dice so many of my friends still go.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Someday, I'm going to take my kid to see this.

Hope it's still around when he's old enough.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

4. With a name like Lucky Luciano, I would think you would know enough to "dummy up".. LOL

Tony "The Big Tuna" Acardo used to show his underlings a Marlin he had mounted over his fireplace. See that fish?, he would say, if he kept his big mouth shut he wouldn't be on that wall.}(

[MrsBrady]

5. the Kerrville Folk Festival was able to turn into a 501c3

after it was sold in 2003ish or around something like that, the new owner nearly ruined it.
but people rallied together and gave money to save it. Now it's a thriving 501c3.
Some things just are not meant to be corporate run. They support a music foundation now.
So much the better.

I've never been to Burning Man, but I'm glad they are gonna make it non profit.

If they need a lesson on how to do it, they should ask the KFF people.