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Okay, so I found the NLnet project page you alluded to and I've also checked Github and various pages on join-lemmy.org, but I haven't found anything that actually says how the project is organized from a tax perspective. I don't doubt @dessalines@lemmy.ml et al.'s egalitarian intent, but is it actually a an official non-profit organization (e.g. 501(c)3 or the equivalent in whatever country the project is incorporated in), or have they not yet bothered to do the paperwork to form a business entity separate from themselves as individuals, or what?
On the website: Stichting NLnet is a recognised philantropic non-profit foundation according to the Netherlands Tax Authority (Belastingdienst). Here is a link to NLnet's Articles of Association, which is in Dutch.
To be honest, I'm definitely not interested in this enough to do anymore research than that, but you're welcome to run it through Google Translate and see if you find anything. And report back if you like. I'm not well versed in European (specifically Dutch) non-profit space to have an opinion on this. If it was American, that's a different story.
I do see that the the NLnet Discovery Fund is itself funded by the EU's Horizon Europe program (formally Horizon 2020). Here is some details on that.
The way I'm reading it is that NLnet gave the developers of Lemmy a grant, but unless I'm mistaken, that doesn't usually mean that the developers are working for NLnet. Does NLnet manage the project funds directly (e.g. paying the developers a wage, acting as the recipient for web donations, etc.) or did it just disburse the grant to some other tax entity (e.g. what your "articles of association" link calls a "stichting," I guess?) that actually represents the Lemmy project?
Honestly, I'm only just kind of idly curious myself. I could probably find out simply by messaging the devs and asking, but it's probably not worth bothering them. I suspect that, if they haven't already, they'll create a proper non-profit foundation later.
Grant recipients don't necessarily need to file as foundation. For example, college students receive grants.
It's very possible NLnet manages funds that pay recipients as 1099-equivilent contractors. At which point, all Lemmy has to do is document that their grant money is used to sustain the mission to the Foundation.
Fun to speculate, but again - I don't really care enough about this to dive much deeper, lol.
Right, in other words, they receive it as business income for their sole proprietorship (or general partnership, or incorporated business entity), not as wages as an employee of the entity that awarded the grant. Point is, whatever the entity is, it would be separate from NLnet and therefore not necessarily a non-profit just because NLnet is.
Also, if the Lemmy devs are still acting as an unincorporated sole proprietorship or general partnership (with all the donations and such being treated as personal income and with no separation between business assets and personal assets), then the fact that the project is hockey-sticking right now means it's probably about time to get serious and incorporate, both to protect themselves legally by separating their personal and business finances, and so that they can apply to be an official non-profit entity and make donations tax-deductible.