Dear Rad Ops: Multi-Entity Infrastructure, w/ Le Tim Ly

In this episode, Sha Grogan-Brown talks with guest Le Tim Ly, Chief Operating Officer of Center for Empowered Politics about how building “multi-entity infrastructure” can improve the resilience of organizations.

While the Left faces many crises in these times, underpinning everything is the vulnerability of the operations and infrastructure of our organizations. So many groups have chosen to establish non-profit organizations as the entity for their organizing, and now this administration is targeting the tax status of two primary forms of non-profit organizations – known as 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4). Our movement has had critiques of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex for decades. We know this is not the ideal structure for our long term work. Yet the majority of Left organizations are currently dependent on non-profit structure and on philanthropy for the operations of their projects. We’re in a time which calls on us to be nimble and pivot many aspects of our operations.

With this context in mind, Dear Rad Ops received this question: My organization is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and we are worried about being attacked by the current administration. What other options do we have for our organizational structure in case we lose our c3 tax status?

Resources from this episode

Organizations providing support for exploring multi-entity infrastructure:

Definition List of organizational entities

• Organizations providing support for exploring multi-entity infrastructure:

Center for Empowered Politics

Movement Politics Accelerator

Power & Protect Operations Network

New Left Accelerator

Want to go deeper on the difference between 501c3, 501c4 and PAC? Listen to this episode of Rules of the Game podcast, comparing tax-exempt organizations.