Victor Pitts speaks with Sandra K. Brooks and Angela Seifer Stuber
03/28/2007 - Victor Pitts
Victor Pitts fills in for a vacationing Monte and welcomes Sandra K. Brooks and Angela Seifer Stuber Sandra is a certified public accountant (CPA) located in California. After graduating as the Most Outstanding Student of the School of Business and Economics at California State University, Ms. Brooks worked at Ernst & Young, one of the Big 5 international CPA firms. There she obtained accounting and auditing expertise, working with Fortune 500 companies and start ups alike. Angela has over ten years nonprofit capacity building experience. Prior to joining Grassroots, Angela served as the Executive Director of the Ohio Community Computing Network. She is a nationally recognized nonprofit technology expert and has received a number of honors including the John Glenn Social Capital & Midwest Community Networking Awards.
[Commercials]
Victor Hello everyone. Welcome to this week’s show of Domain Masters, where you learn to be the master of your domain. My name’s Victor Pitts; I’m returning guest host for tonight. Monte Cahn, your regular host, is finally enjoying some well-deserved vacation time.
We have a great line up for the show tonight. During the bottom half of the show we have Angela Stuber. Angela’s the executive director of GrassRoots.org. She’s a nationally recognized non-profit technology expert and will provide some good insight to non-profit organizational use of the Internet and how Grass Roots helps individuals and profit-driven organizations with expertise and the technology industry and find places where they can donate their time and money.
Our first guest tonight is Sandra K. Brooks. She’s the author of DomainTaxGuide.com, which is an appropriate topic for this time of the year in the U.S. as we work on our tax returns. Miss Brooks has been a domainer since 1998. She’s a certified public accountant and according to Miss Brooks, few domainers have a clue on how to manage their domain business with regards to taxes. So we’ll have Miss Brooks to help us understand this necessary evil a bit better.
Again, our first guest will be joining us right after we do a brief commercial break. So we’re going to break at this time and pay some bills and we’ll be right back to Domain Masters, so please do stay tuned.
[Commercials]
Victor Welcome back to this week’s show of Domain Masters. Again, I’m Victor Pitts. I’m the vice president of sales and client services over at Moniker and I’m the returning guest host for tonight, as Monte Cahn enjoys a well-deserved family vacation.
As I mentioned, we have a great line up tonight for both of our guests. Tax time creates headaches for domain name owners, especially those with large portfolios. Sure, we know we need to report parking income on our tax returns but how do we account for purchases and registrations and sales? If you ask your CPA you’ll probably get a blank stare. Sandra K. Brooks is a certified public accountant located in California. After graduating “Most Outstanding Student” of the School of Business and Economics at California State University, Miss Brooks works for Ernst and Young, one of the Big 5 International CPA firms. There she obtained accounting and auditing experience and worked for Fortune 500 companies and start-ups alike. Since then, Miss Brooks has worked as the chief financial officer and board member of several corporations, on the Internet and in the service industries. Under her leadership, these companies have transformed from start-ups to successful ongoing businesses and acquisitions. Miss Brooks has also managed her own tax and accounting practice for nine years, consulting for individual and corporate clients and industries, such as advertising, e-commerce, entertainment and staffing. Sandy or . . . can I call you Sandy? Are you on the line?
Sandra: Sure. Sandy’s great; thank you.
Victor Okay. Sandy, I understand you’ve been in the domain business since 1998. I’d like to welcome you tonight to Domain Masters and ask you a few questions about, you know, how you got in the business to begin with and let’s home in on some of the things specific about the domain industry as it pertains to taxes. So, I’ll start with the first question – how did you get interested in domain taxes?
Sandra: Well, as you just said, I’ve been in domaining since 1998. Actaully, my husband’s the domainer and I have . . . well, I had my tax practice and I’m involved in other businesses. I’ve been dabbling in domains with him. And he’s a member of a couple of domain boards. And I’ve advised others on domain taxation in addition to preparing our own domain business taxes over the years. And on these boards there occasionally comes up questions related to domain taxation. And, so, my husband has asked me questions and I’ve helped to post some answers. And, back in December, just this past December, there was one such post and it made me think there really is a desperate need for a domain taxation guide, because there were a lot of answers that came up that were very contradictory. And, there’s a lot of bad tax advice out there on the Internet and I just thought it was really due for this industry. And, so it was just back in December that I decided to write it, which is a little late for this tax season. If I had thought about it earlier, I would have liked to have had it out in the fall. So I did spend the better part of January researching and analyzing and writing the guide.
Victor Right. Is the domain industry, being that it’s a virtual property oftentimes here compared to real estate, which has its own tax implications, but is the domain industry, I mean, is it much different from other industries from a tax perspective?
Sandra: Well, it is. It’s very unique in that . . . it’s unique in one aspect and that is that there’s no guidance out there. The IRS does not mention the domaining industry, certainly, and domains in general; Internet domain names are not mentioned anywhere in the IRS tax code. And I only found one reference in all of the IRS literature to domain names and that was on an e-commerce audit guide for their auditors; I stumbled across that. And it was just a very quick mention of Internet domain names and like I say, it doesn’t have anything to do with the domaining industry, which is very different from how you handle domain names if you’re an offline industry or an e-commerce industry.
Victor Right.
Sandra: . . . [inaudible] . . .
Victor What are some of the areas that you get into in the book; some things that domainers should be considering?
Sandra: Right. I do spend a good deal of time thoroughly analyzing domain name expenses and expenditures and how they’re handled. And I, like I say, spend a lot of time analyzing that a lot, a lot of the theory behind it and references to tax code and how it applies to the domaining industry. And so, you know, it’s based on whether . . you know, I kind of break them out . . . break domainers out into three different groups – whether you’re a domain dealer, a domain monetizer or domain developer. You do handle your domain expenditures and your domain sales differently and that will depend on if you expense your domain name costs as a com or whether you depreciate them or amortize them or record them as inventory.
Victor It’s amazing. As you say, most people just don’t know how to do it and they would just treat it as an expense and write it off but it may not be in their best interst to do it that way.
Sandra: No, it isn’t. It seems like it is at the time because it does reduce your tax burden in that year but it can cause problems in the future when you go to sell a domain name and can’t get the capital gains, favorable tax rates and things like that. So it’s very important to analyze the industry and to analyze your business and determine what you’re really doing with your domaining business and how you should go about your . . . preparing your tax returns. And the guide was written to help domainers whether they prepare their own tax returns from scratch, whether they use a tax program or whether they use a tax preparer.
Victor Okay. Uhm, with the, you know, escalating prices of some of the domains within the industry and within the growth of the aftermarket, uhm, you know, people are paying, you know, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars for a portfolio. How is this having an impact on . . . from an accounting perspective versus the person who has a mixed portfolio, let’s say, doing some, uhm, developing some sites, some small domain names, they’re paying retail type prices – how does it change things once they start dabbling in the more expensive names?
Sandra: Well, uhm, it does change things in that, uhm, you know, if you’re just buying domains at the registration fee, at the current year’s registration fee, ah, then you can go ahead and expense and still get your favorite capital gains treatment later, because that’s just the registration fee for the year. When you’re buying at aftermarket rates, that’s when things do change and that’s when you really need to come up with a tax strategy. And like I say, there’s no guidance from the IRS specifically for this industry. And so you really do need to analyze; you need to . . . I’ve come up with very strong conclusions on how I think you should record your domain purchases and I’ve put that in the book, but it is still a gray area and so, you know, the most important thing is to make sure that you are consistent from year to year, which is sometimes tough for domainers who have been in the industry for a awhile and they haven’t been doing things quite the right way. And, so, they need to consider going back and amending some tax returns so that they can get favorable tax treatment in the future and be consistent.
Victor Within the accounting profession, are there . . . is it changing now as a result of some of these new technologies on the Internet and domain names in terms of some of the training and so forth coming out of the business schools on this? Or is this something that you just develop as you go? Or is there actually some difference, some add-ons in the certification now for an accountant to deal with intellectual property and that type of thing?
Sandra: You know, there’s no . . . there have been no changes so far, but I imagine there will be in the coming years. Just as there probably won’t be any tax law changes to the code specifically related to the domaining industry. There will be some references coming up related to e-commerce and Internet domain names in general and then there’ll be some, unfortunately, some audits and tax court cases that will determine how future domainers and future people in e-commerce will treat domains.
Victor Okay. Do you do anything with setting up offshore businesses and how their tax situation considerations there?
Sandra: No; I personally shy away from that. I think that it’s only for a select few and I know that it makes sense for some domainers. I believe that you should be making a lot of money domaining in order to consider that. You also have to consider the fact that you need to be mobile yourself and will probably need to move. And then you also want to make sure that you get the right adviser, get the right attorney to work with and pay that person what they’re asking for because there are a lot of shady organizations out there that are trying to get your money and will not be looking out for your best interests.
Victor Right.
Sandra: So I personally, like I say, shy away from that. I think it’s not for most people but it is for some people.
Victor Right. Is there any need for an advocacy or lobbying organization in regards to tax laws for domainers?
Sandra: I believe there will be a need for that. Right now, I think it might still be a little premature just because of the fact that there is no . . . there are no references to our industry with the IRS. So right now it is a gray area and it is kind of open to interpretation and any reasonable policy that you have for the recording of your domain name expenses and income will be looked at, you know, will be looked at with the fact that they don’t have any guidance out. So as long as you’re reasonable, you’re consistent and you document your plan and your policy, I think its best that you don’t have that advocacy right now. But I do believe there will be a need for it in the future.
Victor And do you see domains being equated with assets?
Sandra: Well, yes, I believe domains are assets. And I know that there are people out there that don’t believe that they’re assets. They don’t believe that you really own them. But definitely, I do go through the analysis to make a strong case for that in my guide as well.
Victor Okay, fantastic. And how can someone find you guys? Where’s it located at?
Sandra: It’s at DomainTaxGuide.com.
Victor Okay . . .
Sandra: And you can purchase it online there as an e-book and it’s $79.
Victor Fantastic. So it’s a download .pdf after that’s gone through the cart and made the purchase?
Sandra: Yes, it is.
Victor Fantastic. Is it available to them immediately? Or is it emailed, like, overnight?
Sandra: It’s emailed within 24 hours; usually much sooner than that.
Victor Okay. Are there any updates or anything to the book after you get it?
Sandra: Yes. I include quarterly updates in that and haven’t done my first update yet but we’ll be coming out in April. And I do expect that to be a significant source of information for everyone who’s read my book and who’s purchased the book, because I do believe that as we do some things, some tax court cases, everyone will need to be kept abreast of what’s going on in the industry. And I do also, in the guide, it’s more than just talking about domain names themselves. It’s talking about setting up your business. A lot of people who are in the domaining industry are brand new to business in general and so it’s all the decisions of whether to incorporate or not, corporations vs. LLCs and cash method versus accrual method and recordkeeping and everything as it relates to the domaining industry.
Victor Sandy, is this your first book that you’ve written?
Sandra: This is my first book. But actually since then, I’ve written another book and it’s the “Internet Tax Guide” and it basically is for e-commerce industry.
Victor And is that one complete already?
Sandra: It is.
Victor And where can you find that?
Sandra: InternetTaxGuide.com
Victor Okay. Great domain name, too.
Sandra: Thank you.
Victor Alright. Is there anything else that you can tell us that perhaps people should know and give them a good reason, other than the things that we talked about, that they should research and learn more about taxation as it pertains to the domain name? A reason to go buy this book and download it because it would have it all there at their fingertips – what would be the three reasons, if you will, that someone should learn more and go buy that book?
Sandra: Okay. Well, I think one reason is that you are responsible for the accuracy of your tax returns. That sounds very obvious but I’m sure some of your listeners out there have gone to their accountants and brought either a shoebox full of receipts or a Quicken printout and had very little discussion and come back in a week or so and find a tax return and put it in the mail. And I know that because I’ve had a lot of clients do that over the years myself and these are smart business people who would spend hours reviewing and negotiating and revising a contract and would never think of signing their name to a check without verifying the amount on the check, but for some reason, with taxes, people think that they just need to sign it and get out in the mail and really, you could be paying too much or too little and both are dangerous and it’s just important for you to know what’s going on with your own taxes. And likewise, tax experts are not experts in your industry and so if you’re using a tax preparer, you and your tax preparer are a team and you need to teach them all about the industry. And, I know that most tax preparer’s in the country have never even heard of the domaining industry and many of them that have really don’t know too much about it and so, since the domainers are the experts in their industry, they need to teach their accountants and be a team with their accountants so that they can come up with a goal for their tax planning.
Victor Alright, [inaudible] . . .
Sandra: And I think the final thing is that there are absolutely no rules in the U.S. Tax Code, like I said, related to domains so just make sure that you come up with some conclusions with how you want to treat it and make sure it’s reasonable, consistent and document your policy.
Victor Fantastic. Well, Sandy, I definitely appreciate that you joined us tonight on Domain Masters and sharing with us a little insight to taxation, how it affects the domain industry, things that people should be considering and you’ve definitely given us plenty of good food for thought. I’d like to encourage everybody to learn more about this subject if you are in the domain business. If you are making part of your living off of domain names, whether it be monetizing them, or developing them, or using them, you know, as a dealer, you’re selling them, you’re investing in them, then you really need . . . you owe it to yourself to make sure that you get it right and that you don’t leave any money on the table from a tax perspective. So learn more, get some more information. I’ve heard good things . . . .
Sandra: Thank you for having me, Victor. I appreciate it.
Victor Absolutely, I’ve heard good things about the Tax Guide and some of the comments that I’ve heard is that it’s easy to read despite being written by an accountant, so you know, great on that, Sandy, and again, thank you again for being on Domain Masters here tonight and sharing with us some very pertinent information for this time of year.
Sandra: Great. Thank you very much.
Victor Okay, folks, we’re going to take a quick commercial break and when we come back we’re going to be joined by Angela Stuber, who is the executive director of GrassRoots.org and tell you a little bit more about Angela when we return from the commercial. So, we’ll pay some bills and we’ll be right back.
[Commercials]
Victor Welcome back, everyone, to Domain Masters, where you learn to be the master of your domain. Again, I’m Victor Pitts. I’m vice president of sales and client services at Moniker, returning guest host tonight for Monte Cahn, who’s on vacation (in case you joined us late; I did announce that earlier). We have a great line up tonight. In the earlier part of the show, we had Sandra Brooks who’s the author of TheDomainTaxGuide.com; gave us some great tips on why we should be looking closer at the tax laws in how it pertains to domain names and how to go about accounting for that and doing it the right way. So go check out DomainTaxGuide.com; is one possible location for some additional information.
Our next guest I’m going to bring in is Angela Stuber, who is the executive director of GrassRoots.org. And, Angela has over 10 years non-profit capacity building experience. Prior to joining GrassRoots.org, Angela served as executive director of the Ohio Community Computing Network. She’s a nationally recognized non-profit technology expert and has received numerous honors, including the John Glenn Social Capital & Midwest Community Networking Awards.
Angela currently serves on several voluntary boards, including International Advisor Council to the Public Interest Registry (that’s the PIR.org folks, the ones responsible . . . the registry responsible for .org). Also, with OCCN and CTCNet. When she’s not on the road, Angela’s quite comfy working on her office space donated by StrawMen in Columbus, Ohio. Her professional life being of the “do-good” sorts, Angela’s personal life also has a twist to it. I don’t want to say [inaudible] twist to it, in the classroom of course – Angela is a black belt in Taekwondo and an orange belt in [inaudible] – is it . . . ?
Angela: [inaudible]
Victor Okay. Alright, welcome aboard, Angela.
Angela: Thank you, Victor. I’m doing great, thanks for having me.
Victor Well, good; I appreciate you being part of Domain Masters. Go ahead and start right into it. Just tell us a little bit about the background for GrassRoots.org – who they are, what it’s all about.
Angela: Sure. GrassRoots.org has been around for four years. I’ve only been there since August. GrassRoots, the whole idea is we want to utilize the Internet to initiate social change. It’s this great tool (we all know that, right?) but the trick to it is that not everyone has equal access to those tools. And so GrassRoots whole purpose is to make sure that everyone can access the Internet fully. And that means that we can access the tools that are available there and this is all a “Web 2.0” kind of thing. So GrassRoots is working on both the individual level and the non-profit level. We want to make sure that individuals get to where they need to go, as far as finding the organizations that they’re interested in that they also want to get involved in. But we also want to get involved on the non-profit level, which is helping the non-profits utilize the Internet, the organize themselves, to promote themselves, to promote their issues.
Victor What are some of the specific ways GrassRoots helps an individual?
Angela: An individual is about utilizing our domain name, so you all recognize the value of a domain name and for us, it’s . . . we have a good number of domain names that have been donated to GrassRoots, or the use of them has even been donated. So for us it’s making sure that we have good content on [inaudible] and we’re developing partnerships with organizations who can help us develop that great content. If someone just ends up at, you know, Homeless.org, for example, they’re a good chance that they’re going to get there. If they . . . through organic means or just by typing it in . . . and if they end up there, we want to make sure that there’s good content there so they can find the information that they were looking for. So for instance, making sure that we can get them where they need to go.
Victor Okay. And how does GrassRoots help the non-profit organization?
Angela: For the non-profit organizations, its about developing the tools themselves. So we want to help organizations to help promote themselves but also organize themselves online. The smaller non-profits don’t have tech staff; they don’t have dedicated IT servers, those types of things. But a lot of them recognize the need and the importance of them. So if we can help them get there, then they will be able to promote their own services and not spend as much time on the day-to-day kind of stuff. We would be amazed at how many people are still using Excel or Access or things like that to manage their data. So we want to encourage a little bit more creative solutions to managing your data . . .
Victor Right.
Angela: . . . some constituency management solutions using a more online kinds of ideas and any idea of using a content management system to get all of your Web presence up. A lot of non-profits will find a volunteer to create a website for them and that volunteer goes away and by golly, there’s nobody to change the data on their website . . .
Victor Right.
Angela: And it’s a recurring problem, so we have a couple of solutions in the works right now that we’re very excited about. So we’ll be able to create toolboxes on the fly for non-profits that have all of these tools in there and they will easily be able to set up these items for themselves. And that’s the trick; if its not easy, it’s not going to happen. [laughs]
Victor [laughs] . . .[inaudible] . . .
Angela: We have to deal with reality, right? And that’s reality.
Victor . . . [inaudible] you mention a lot of services that you provide people to hook them up with and everything from, you know, hosting to, you know, some website to assistance, domain names – and who are some of the partners who are working with and jointly providing some of those service?
Angela: We start with the domain name, of course, because if they don’t have a domain name they can’t very well move forward. So, Moniker is our partner for the domain name. Moniker gives us the first year domain name free for a non-profit that comes through GrassRoots. The purpose of that partnership is that GrassRoots.org will legitimize the fact that they are really a 501(c)3 or they are working on getting their 501(c)3. And then Moniker will give them that first year domain registration for free. And then Tierra.net will give them the web hosting for free. And then as we’re setting up our newest project with the Drupal Hosting, then that will be out of Main.org. And then, so we have . . . the cutting part about GrassRoots.org is that we have multiple partners – we have StrongTech and Convas and we have folks all over the country that are doing all these great things Saas Advantage down in North Carolina. And the great thing is that we don’t feel like we’re doing this by ourselves.
Victor Right, right.
Angela: We’ve had tremendous success in finding for-profit partners who want to donate their services. A company called Web Targeted is helping us with a search engine optimization project. I thought that was awesome. So in that one, the language that they helped develop with us is very easy to understand, so that someone who has somewhat of an understanding about the Internet but they’re not, you know, IT specific because they wear six other hats at their organization, they can understand it and then if they have a question, we have a form that we’re setting up that is monitored by these consultants, professional consultants, and then after that we’re giving away 8 hours a month of free consultation [inaudible].
Victor Do you find that for-profit organizations are open and willing to assist in your cause?
Angela: I do. I’ve been very pleased. And I think the trick is that we are asking the small to medium sized companies. I think the big guys have always been asked; people always go ask Google and Yahoo! and those guys to ask for assistance. And so we’re going to the smaller folks, and they’re like, yes, sure; nobody’s ever asked us before. Part of it is because it’s this growing new field. And there are not a whole lot of players in it right now in the non-profit arena. I mean, there are a good number but we’re still all developing, we’re still figuring out where we’re at and what we’re doing. So, as the for-profit world figures out how they want to be of assistance, the non-profit world needs to be ready to engage with them and so that’s what we’re out doing now, is chatting with the for-profit world to figure how it is that they want to get involved in these different projects. And it’s very exciting. It’s sometimes also challenging, because if we have a developer, for example, at a company and they have their other needs; they have their needs that they need to develop for their own internal [inaudible] . . .
Victor What would see is maybe the motivating reasons that a for-profit company would want to be involved? What is in it for them in the long run?
Angela: I think many of them come to us initially because they want to give back; they simply want to give back. But what I find fascinating is that it ends up benefiting them; like, it comes around. And it benefits their business because they develop all these other relationships with the other folks that we’re doing these different partnerships with, so then they develop relationships with the guy who’s doing it, [inaudible] with the guy who’s doing the volunteer stuff [laughs] and you know, it kind of all comes around. And then they end up – it ends up helping them in the long term but it’s not . . . they didn’t expect them when they come on. . .
Victor Right.
Angela: . . . that’s not why they started this. They didn’t start chatting with me and say, yes, I’ll help you, because they were expecting that in return. They came on and said, yes, I’ll help you because they wanted to seriously help; they wanted to give back to the community, and they didn’t . . . they weren’t sure how to do that. And they were able, by having a conversation with us, they were able to find a way to do that.
Victor Alright. I’ve heard some mention about your e-advocacy program; can you tell me just a little bit about what that is?
Angela: Sure. This is going to be a part of the Drupal project that we’re setting up. Our timing was perfect and it was completely accidental, that Democracy in Action is another national non-profit and they are setting up a . . . they already had an e-advocacy program and they’ve recently decided to set up a revised version that is available for free and so what they did in the process of that is created a Drupal module and we’re setting up this Drupal system that’s going to be free for non-profits. We’re able to stick this module inside of what we’re setting up. Its also going to be the first time that being able to send out mass emails is going to be able to so easily available to a small non-profit. We’re very excited about that idea.
Victor Fantastic. I’ve heard you mention the Drupal project a few times. So is Drupal a company organization or just the name of the project itself?
Angela: That’s a good point; I should clarify. Drupal is an open-source software and this is what . . . there’s a newer version that has come out that’s going to make it doable for us to do on such a grand scale. Everything that GrassRoots does we have to be very careful about making sure that we can sustain it, ‘cause we, you know, fundraising is always hard and keeping up my own staff and making sure that we can provide support for all these; it’s a challenge for us. We have to be very careful about that.
Victor Hm-mm.
Angela: So there’s a new version that recently came out that’s going to allow us to set this up for everyone and be able to do an upgrade and all that type of thing without massive data overload and to keep all the clients happy and to keep everything running smoothly.
Victor Okay. And with the Drupal system, once it’s in, will the non-profit’s website run on your servers and . . .
Angela: Right, yeah. Well, it’s not necessarily us; we have all these partners, so that particularly one is going to be on Main.org in Texas; it’s being set up by the Chicago Technology Cooperative. So it’s all these different partners that do these things with us in cooperation with us. There are pieces of it that we need to do in-house and that we need to coordinate in-house, but we are very fortunate that we don’t have to keep it all in house.
Victor [laughs] I’ve also seen mention of your online event registration project. What is that?
Angela: That one we’re also very excited about. At the moment, if a non-profit wants to create an online event registration system for whatever they’re doing – a training, a fundraiser, whatever it might be, they have to either hire somebody to set something up or they pay a pretty good amount of money to utilize someone’s system to [inaudible] . . . And so for this we’re setting up (it’s being developed by a for-profit partner, again – that one’s being developed by StrongTech in Columbus, Ohio) – everything is going to be customizable. They can say which field they want, that they need to know [inaudible] vegetarian meal or if they’re looking for somebody that has something like voting skills that they can [inaudible] [laughs] . . . you never know what it is that they’re going to want and so that at non-profit we’re going to be able to customize that. And the exciting thing is that we’re are going to be able to take credit cards for that non-profit and then return those funds back to the non-profit.
Victor Fantastic. Fantastic. You’re also supporting organizations with SEO and templates and consulting as well. You provide those kinds of services?
Angela: Yes. Right . . . we’re developing that one. That one should actually be on next week. That one’s very exciting because it’s been another for-profit partnership. So that’s the one where the content is available for everyone to see and then the forums are available for everyone to post to and then the consultants actually respond to the forum. And then to get the free 8 hours of hosting . . . or not hosting, of the . . .
Victor Consultation.
Angela: Right. That’s when the folks need . . . we need to make sure that they’re a 501(c)3.
Victor Right.
Angela: So its at that point that we will have them undergo . . . it’s not a huge procedure, we just . . . show us your 501(c)3 status from the IRS; and then once they do that, we’ll be able to put them through our application process to give them their . . .
Victor Now once they are in there, is it for one year at a time? Do they need to renew? Or is it just the first year?
Angela: No, once you’re in, you’re in.
Victor Pardon me?
Angela: Once you’re in, you’re in.
Victor Oh, okay. Once you’re in, you’re in. Okay.
Angela: Yeah; because after that we’re developing relationships with folks and figuring out . . . we’re able to [inaudible]
Victor Right. And what is the volunteer management program?
Angela: Volunteer Management Application is one that we’re doing a relationship with SalesForce and VolunteerMatch.org and a for-profit, SAAS Advantage down in North Carolina, that is going to be an application for SalesForce; it will be free. And we’re going to put it on the AppExchange. Sales Force is offered to non-profits for free . . .
Victor Wow.
Angela: . . .which is awesome, yes. And they go . . . actually, they go through a similar process that we do. They just want to make sure that someone’s a legitimate non-profit and that you’re not violating any human rights. As long as that’s the situation, you’re good to go. They will give you your free account at that point its just a matter of making sure that everything is in there and you can customize it to the way you want it to. There’s a non-profit version. But what we saw was a need (we’re always going out there looking for the need), there was a need for volunteer management. And to make sure that the non-profits don’t . . . aren’t having to input any more data than is really necessary. And VolunteerMatch is this tremendous online application right now where folks can go on and volunteer for different services that they think that they might want to and then it matches them up with non-profits and this way we’ll be able to download that data directly into someone’s SalesForce system . . .
Victor Excellent.
Angela: [inaudible] it’s all about [inaudible] . . .
Victor Some of the names that you mentioned earlier, like Homeless.org, Se[inaudible].com – are these names that were donated to GrassRoots?
Angela: They were, yes. We’ve been very fortunate that the founder of GrassRoots.org had the foresight to gather some really great domains. We have [inaudible].org, [inaudible].com, things like that. And so right now we are utilizing those domains to work . . . in working with partners to develop them more fully.
Victor Does GrassRoots.org receptive to having additional donations of domain names?
Angela: We are, actually, and . . .
Victor And is it a tax donation? I mean, is there a tax benefit?
Angela: It is, yes. We just check out the value and then we’re able to provide a letter to the donor regarding the donation.
Victor Fantastic. So who should they be contacting if they want to make a donation to GrassRoots? Who would they be contacting?
Angela: They can send an email to info@grassroots.org. And there’s also . . . if they want to talk about . . . that would be the email address to send information to regarding a domain name donation or if they want to get involved regarding in kind donation, services, that type of thing, development work. . .
Victor Hm-mm.
Angela: . . . many of these projects. Or if it’s a cash donation, they can just go to the GrassRoots.org website and there is a donation section where you can donate online.
Victor Okay. What kind of services is it that you could use some assistance with as well? You know, like the SEO work or like that type of thing . . .
Angela: Right. Yeah. My expectation is that once this SEO goes public, the consultants that we have that are on this project are going to be hugely overwhelmed and those 8 hours a month are going to be completely inadequate because it is going to be an extremely popular project. So, if there are additional SEO folks out there who would like to get involved in this, we would love to add a few more consultants to that project.
Victor And again, they would contact info@grassroots.org?
Angela: Yes, yes. Yes. And we will put them in contact with our staff person working on that and the folks over at Web[inaudible] . . .
Victor And regarding your relationship with the Public Interest Registry, I know that there’s a movement there to get, you know, non-profit organizations to use the .ORG extension, which is something that, you know, in the original concept of the domain names back in the early nineties, it’s what it was supposed to be anyway. But, is that something that you’re involved in and coaching them or advocating .ORG names to non-profit organizations that are just getting started out?
Angela: I am. We very much encourage them to use the .ORG name and we also are involved in the Protector.org campaign that the public Internet registry is organizing right now. A lot of non-profits have a variety of folks that administer their programs and do the day to day kind of paperwork at the organization. So it is not unheard of for an organization to accidentally not renew their domain. So we have been participating in the Protector.org campaign to encourage them to be much more careful about that, because it is a valuable resource and need to view it as such and come up with proper procedure to make sure it gets renewed.
Victor What’s the long term goals of GrassRoots?
Angela: Long term goals is 10,000 non-profits; we would like to be serving that many and we would like to be saving each of them $10,000 a year and I think we’re well on our way. The services that we are developing in house and with our partners will get us there very quickly. And once these services are out the door and become public, I think we’re going to get [inaudible] . . . . [laughs]
Victor Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, we love your organization and we love being a part of it and being able to contribute. I’m going to jump out of the domain thing and I got to ask you a little bit about your personal life, is I see this person doing this good to, you know, help organizations get their feet on the ground and accomplish the good that they’re working on and on the other hand, I see that you’re involved in Taekwondo and other martial arts and tell us a little bit about that.
Angela: It’s a great confidence builder, Victor. I figure if I can get out there and fight with the guys, then certainly I can save the world, right?
Victor [laughs]
Angela: [laughs]
Victor Well, yeah, I guess you could. I guess you’ve got to be careful. What is the . . . I’m familiar with Taekwondo; my kids took it for awhile. But is the other one that you’re involved with?
Angela: Krav Maga is the fighting system of the Israeli military.
Victor Oh, wow. Wow.
Angela: So it’s a little more intense.
Victor How did you get involved with this? Was this a confidence builder and you just decided this was the thing to do and you stuck with it?
Angela: It was completely by chance. I had just finished testing for my black belt and I was somewhat had lost interest in Taekwondo, which tends to happen after one trains intensely; you know, after the end of the 3 ½ - 4 years to get my black belt. And so at that point I was kind of looking for something else I wanted to get into. And coincidentally, at the Taekwondo school, where I was attending, they started up this Krav course just at that perfect timing. So, it was a new challenge and I jumped right in and it turns out I really like it.
Victor Oh, wow. Now, is it using hands, feet; what is the uniqueness about it?
Angela: It’s street fighting.
Victor Oh. So were does the orange belt sitting in terms of the hierarchy of [inaudible] . . .
Angela: Actually, we need to update the bio ‘cause it’s a green belt now. I’ve tested twice, and I’ll be testing again in a few, ah, three or four weeks. So, it’s a little bit . . . its more about self defense, so its more about getting yourself out of a situation and getting away from that situation; but also making sure that whoever was to harm you can not harm you.
Victor Right. Don’t do it again. [laughs] That’s fantastic. Uhm, what would you like to say to our listening audience out there and just kind of summary of GrassRoots and what they should be telling their friend who are maybe in non-profit organizations, people who are looking for, you know, services such as you would find at Homeless.org and SexualAbuse.com, just [inaudible], where . . . what’s next? What would you tell people that you need to do?
Angela: I guess in summary I would just suggest that they check out the website. There’s plenty of information on there. There’s information on my blog about what it is that we’ve been working on that they want to check into some of that. And, that we really would like to get even more folks involved. We love the fact that we have all these public types of partnerships going on. And that we’re not working [inaudible] by ourselves; that we are out there and that our staff is spread across the country and we really like that we [inaudible] involved in different projects. And if it’s not us that they’re getting involved in, that they find that local non-profit or the one that is in their particular interest and if they don’t have one, to contact us and we will help them find the issue or the non-profit that they can be donating their time to, because we definitely want to see the online community be engaged in the way that they prefer to be engaged. Because that’s what we’re finding, is that they really want to; is just needs a little bit of encouragement, a little bit of guidance.
Victor Well, we know the website or the domain for the main website, GrassRoots.org; but you mentioned your blog. How can people access your blog.
Angela: It’s just Blog.GrassRoots.org.
Victor Okay.
Angela: So, pretty simple; and there’s basic information about GrassRoots also on the GrassRoots site; just click on the “About” button. They can see, like the mission and there’s a board of directors list if they want information like that. There’s a staff list; you can see a picture of all the staff. It’s a very creative staff [inaudible].
Victor And, just to remind everyone, if you have any donations, there’s a donation of a domain name for a good cause, or if you want to donate your services, if you have particular skills that could help a non-profit organization out, you’ve heard the type of services that are provided, but it can’t be done without the assistance of, you know, the community out there and so if you have services, something you’d like to donate, you can contact info@grassroots.org. Again, info@grassroots.org. Angela, again, I’d like to thank you on behalf of Domain Masters and Monte Cahn, our CEO (who normally hosts the show) for being on our show tonight. We, again, enjoy working with GrassRoots; definitely, [inaudible] the program and take our hats off to you for the services and the organization that you are providing.
Angela: Thank you so much, Victor.
Victor Well, alright. Well, folks, its been a great show here tonight. We’ve had a couple of outstanding guests on – Sandra K. Brooks, author of “Domain Tax Guide” in the first part of the program talking about domain ta . . . ah, the tax laws as it pertains to the domain industry. And in the second half of the show we had Angela Stuber and she’s the executive director of GrassRoots.org. And I’d like to thank both of those guests for being on the show tonight. Before we adjourn for the evening I’d like to also leave you, the listening audience, with a little bit more information of where you can go for continuing your education on the domain industry and the things that the domain industry comes into contact with it that can affect you and your life and the business that you have or that you’re doing online. There’s a couple of great sites to go to for news. News and things that are happening on the Internet day after day. One that you’ve heard Monte mention many times, he’s had the editor of DNJournal on his radio program. It’s a great resource for everybody to have on their computer and to visit it frequently. It’s DNJournal.com. And DNJournal, besides keeping tabs of domain sales as they’re confirmed and released publicly to community, letting you see how the industry is changing throughout the year and they have an archival that goes back several years. You can see domain sales of various extensions throughout this time. But they also have a news location where . . . called “News Briefs and Lowdown.” And they have a couple of articles that you’d probably want to take a peek at – one is “Class Action Suit Launched Against RegisterFly and ICANN” and you can read about that at DNJournal.com. They also have an article on “Government Advisors Discuss the XXX Name.” It’s back again, they’re talking about it and you might want to take a peek and see what’s going on with XXX name. And then another site to look at is DomainWire; DomainWire.com. And they have an announcement of the four millionth .info domain name registered occurred lasted month, according to the registry. So, there’s a wealth of other information on there, too; but that’s three little pieces that I wanted to pull out and leave you with.
I again thank everyone for listening in to Domain Masters. Next week Monte Cahn will be back at the regularly scheduled time, appearing on each Wednesday at 7:00 o’clock Eastern U.S. and Monte will be back next. So I do thank you again for tuning in to Domain Masters. I thank both my guests, both Sandra as well as Angela for being on tonight’s show. And tune in next Wednesday at 7:00 o’clock for Domain Masters where you learn to be the master of your domain. Have a good night, folks.
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