For-profit social enterprise versus non-profit?

[aschleicher311]

Hello!

So, I am in the ground phase of starting a business and I am really struggling with how I should structure it. Here's a little info on my idea: I am an independent author and I use a self-publishing (vanity press style) company to publish my work. I want to utilize a portion of profits from book sales to be gifted to individuals in need. Where I'm struggling is deciding whether this should be structured as a cross-compensation social enterprise or as a non-profit.

Some questions and concerns I keep throwing around are:

- If social enterprise - could my for-profit business be my books/merchandise? Might this pose a legal issue with the publishing company?
- If social enterprise - Could I legally make a business out of my books/merchandise and not owe anything to the publishing company?
- If social enterprise - Can I even legally produce merchandise directly derived from my books?
- If I did a separate non-profit, would I then take a cut of profits from book/merchandise sales and donate the rest to my non-profit? I don't even know if that is ethical? I can't afford to not take any profit/salary for myself from the sales of my book!
- If I did a separate non-profit entity, can the non-profit legally be developed based off of one of my books and have no financial or other business-related responsibility to the publishing company?

I can't seem to be able to focus in on this as there are multiple aspects to consider with the added entity of the publishing company in the mix.

Any thoughts/experience would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you!!

[Harold Mansfield]

You're over thinking it. Set up a regular for profit company just like the rest of the free world, and then set up with your accountant that 10% (or whatever percentage) of your profits go to certain causes. That's it.

No need to get into the legal complication of non profit. Keep it simple. If you get so big and have so much extra cash laying around that you need to start a foundation, cross that bridge when you get to it.