From grassroot initiative to a legitimate organization

When I created Conference2Classroom I was optimistic and hopeful that the idea would be well received by its intended users - experts attending conferences and host classrooms to match them with - and from the broader community. It's been a rewarding (albeit very short!) journey so far as people have gotten involved and registered, or gotten in touch with thoughtful feedback and questions. In this process it has very quickly become apparent is that this initiative will grow, and as it grows it will become necessary to legitimize it as a legal business structure.

This morning I spoke with some legal help to better understand the differences between a not-for-profit organization and a charity. This was the first of what will surely be a few discussions before I move forward with the best option for Conference2Classroom to grow and develop in the future.

This week saw the first activity we have enabled, there are many more we are working on facilitating, and new registrations coming in everyday. For our first activity we deliberately sought a classroom that was near to the conference our participating expert was attending. That said, the underlying idea of Conference2Classroom is to mobilize experts to share their knowledge and inspire the next generation. The next generation is a large and important group of people.

​Many of the people are in classrooms in urban areas near where conferences are typically held, and many that we strive to reach are in remote, rural and indigenous communities that may not typically have the same access. We hope to reach these classrooms too and facilitate activities in these places. And that means we will need to mobilize future participating experts to these communities. But moving people takes money. And before too long we will be seeking funding through sponsors and donors to enable us to do this. Operating as a grassroots initiative will not be enough to achieve our goals. And today we took the first steps in becoming a legitimate legal organization.