Currently, it's organized as an L3C -- the "low-profit limited liability company" is on the books in ~10 states, and is defined by putting 501c3-like social mission into an LLC charter ahead of profit. What this means is that it's basically organized as close as our legal system allows to a hybrid right now, and retains the optionality to take either path for as long as it's kept this way.
Background: A long time ago in a part of the bay area far far away, I started a niche blog network about environmental issues called Green Options Media. After a while, it was acquired by a social entrepreneurship incubator called Virgance, and then mostly spun back out to me earlier this year. I've nursed its 11 sites mostly back to health from disrepair, while implementing what I believe to be sustainable, scalable structures for organic growth.
Over the last few months of re-bootstrapping, I've confirmed my most important hypotheses, hit breakeven, and am ready to look at raising money to scale more quickly.
The million dollar question: is an altruistic content play (i.e. the bastard child of ProPublica and teh Cheezburger network) better served, both for short-term purposes of fundraising and for the long-term, by the for-profit or non-profit world?
I wouldn't ask here if I thought there was one clear right answer, but I've always been rabidly pro-entrepreneurship since I saw firsthand the ineffectiveness and utter lack of financial independence of environmental nonprofits in DC.
There are many, many angles to consider and I would love to take the conversation offsite to any other venue if it's more useful, but I couldn't think of a better place to get the conversation started than HN. I'm not much of a hacker myself, but I'm a firm believer in the wisdom of hacker culture. So, discuss?
