Table of Contents

What if we close FoAM vzw?

To clarify: in the question above “to close FoAM vzw” means discontinuing the legal entity of the 'vereniging zonder winst' (non profit association). There are linked issues of applying for funding, keeping the studio, having a collective and management responsibilities, but for for the sake of clarity of this conversation, these issues are kept separate. We focus only on whether or not it makes sense to keep the legal entity of a VZW open. Note that this discussion IS NOT about stopping the existence of FoAM as the collective, nor its activities. It is about what to do with the current legal entity from 2017 onwards.

Associations

To warm up for the conversation we looked at the individuals’ thoughts and feelings that arise when we ask the question “what if we close FoAM vzw”. The result was a clear dichotomy:

Aside from this dichotomy one of the associations was: Why?. Upon further inquiry the question was: why close a legal entity that could be useful to the members and their potential projects. The answer is another question: “who wants to carry the legal and financial responsibility for FoAM vzw post 2017?” This question opens a whole other Pandora's box of issues which are not directly relevant to the question “what if we close FoAM vzw”, but it is a question worth coming back to closer to the end of 2016.

Early in the discussion we talked about an in-between solution that isn’t as drastic as complete closure: a hibernating vzw: we can officially put the organisation to 'sleep' which minimises legal requirements. For example, if we have no activities in 2017, the VZW is 'asleep', and then in if there are new activities in 2018 it is quite simple to 'activate' the vzw again (or so we presume, this is to be verified).

Known, presumed and unknown

What do we know for sure? What can we safely presume? What do we not know about closing FoAM as a vzw?

Known
Presumed
Unknown

Conclusion

Keeping the legal entity of FoAM vzw is a separate issue from:

If the question is whether or not to keep the legal entity in existence, the answer became simple: yes we should. Taking into account all the pros and cons, we decided that closing the vzw would take quite a bit of effort and might prematurely close some doors to prospective funding and collaborations. Whether we keep the VZW active or in hibernation post 2016 depends on the developments in the next year (e.g. lab_for_rituals, follow-up of future_fabulators, as well as on the needs of members (e.g. catering, workshops)). It might become more relevant to explore how to realise FoAM's original business plan consisting of an ecology of organisations where the VZW is fed by its for-profit spin-offs.

The conclusion of the conversation is:
WE KEEP THE LEGAL ENTITY FoAM VZW (until further notice)

In order to address the unsustainable elements of the current structure (among others: heavy operational and governance overhead) we have to find out: