[Data-modeling] Non-profits, once more with feeling

Jeff Prucher jeff at metaweb.com
Fri Aug 8 22:01:56 UTC 2008 

The UK and Canada definitely have their own classification systems; I
imagine most places do. It occurs to me that we could do what they did in
the business domain for "industry" -- there's one type ("Industry") that
includes both free-form user-entered (or Wikipedia-extracted) topics like
"Oil" and also the NAICS industry hierarchy. And I think there are plans to
load other industrial taxonomies. So we could have a "Sector" type that
included NTEE-CC and other standard taxonomies as well as free-form topics.
The problem with this, though, is that as Tim points out, the NTEE stuff is
really non-profit specific but there might be other types of organizations
that have a sector.

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com 
> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of 
> Kirrily Robert
> Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 2:01 PM
> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Non-profits, once more with feeling
> 
> NTEE-CC seems to be US-only.  Do we have any thoughts on 
> making it internationally applicable?
> 
> K.
> 
> On Aug 8, 2008, at 12:39 PM, Tim Kientzle wrote:
> 
> > I was indeed thinking of putting "sector" on "organization", but 
> > that's clearly inappropriate for existing taxonomies with 
> restricted 
> > application.  It would make sense for the NTEE-CC property to be 
> > associated with the "non-profit" tag, although I would 
> suggest being 
> > more specific with the property name: "NTEE-CC sector" rather than 
> > just "non-profit sector."
> >
> > Whether it makes sense to separate "endowment" properties depends a 
> > lot on the data at the other end of that link.  If there are 
> > endowments that fund a variety of types of entities, then putting 
> > "endowment" on an "Endowed Entity" type does simplify cross-domain 
> > queries.  I can't say I know enough about endowments to be sure.
> >
> > Tim
> >
> >
> > On Aug 8, 2008, at 11:34 AM, Jeff Prucher wrote:
> >
> >> I like Faye's suggestion, too, and I'm looking into other 
> countries 
> >> to see what kind of patterns there are.  And thanks for 
> catching the 
> >> duplicate "geographic scope" property on organization.
> >>
> >> In terms of sector, are you proposing that it go on 
> "organization", 
> >> instead?
> >> It's sort of the organizational equivalent to "industry", 
> so I could 
> >> imagine it going there.  (That said, taxonomies like the 
> NTEE-CC are 
> >> explicitly for non-profits, so linking to them from another type 
> >> might be semantically weird, assuming of course that they have 
> >> compatible licenses.) In terms of endowments, what type would you 
> >> propose putting that property on?
> >> "Endowed
> >> entity"?  I guess I don't see how the having an 
> "endowment" property 
> >> on the "College/University" type precludes an "endowment" property 
> >> being on "Non-profit organization".
> >>
> >> Jeff
> >>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
> >>> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Tim 
> >>> Kientzle
> >>> Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 6:09 PM
> >>> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
> >>> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Non-profits, once more with feeling
> >>>
> >>> Faye makes a good point.  It seems quite possible that the only 
> >>> property of "non-profit" would be the tax framework under 
> which it's 
> >>> recognized (e.g., "US Government 501(c)(3)").  Every 
> other property 
> >>> of your proposed "non-profit" type applies to things 
> other than non-
> >>> profits:  Harvard has an endowment, the Organization type already 
> >>> has a "Geographic scope," and there are philanthropic and/or 
> >>> charitable organizations that are not non-profit but to 
> which your 
> >>> "non-profit sector" classification would still apply.
> >>>
> >>> Tim
> >>>
> >>> On Aug 7, 2008, at 5:15 PM, Faye Li wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Technically a non-profit is just an organization that's not 
> >>>> commercially motivated. :)
> >>>>
> >>>> Legally though, the term has very specific definitions 
> in the US, 
> >>>> state-defined definitions, actually, which means a CA-based
> >>> nonprofit
> >>>> may very well not qualify as a "non-proft" under say, 
> Montana state 
> >>>> law. To sort through the state-to-state discrepancy the 
> IRS has the 
> >>>> final say on nationally recognized non-profit 
> organizations through 
> >>>> section 501(c) codes. There are over a million
> >>>> (!) of them registered with the IRS today. Even 1% of that
> >>> data will
> >>>> make a nice chunk in Freebase. :)
> >>>>
> >>>> But that's besides the point, which is: a non-profit has a
> >>> privileged
> >>>> status which has to be qualified by the system that
> >>> recognizes it as a
> >>>> non-profit, much as a protected site needs to specify the
> >>> park system
> >>>> under which it is protected. Without that data, or at least
> >>> a property
> >>>> to input that data, the claim of being a non-profit 
> becomes...well, 
> >>>> unqualified, and legally weak.
> >>>>
> >>>> Kirrily, I'll have to check out your charities domain. :)
> >>>>
> >>>> -- Faye
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Kirrily Robert wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Not all non-profits take donations.  However, I have 
> been modeling 
> >>>>> charities in a domain of my own (/user/skud/charities) and
> >>> I've got
> >>>>> properties for religious affiliation as well as geographical 
> >>>>> focus.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> K.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Aug 7, 2008, at 3:27 PM, Alexander Marks wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> How about a Religious Affiliation property? Applies to any 
> >>>>>> organization, I guess, but seems especially relevant for
> >>> those that
> >>>>>> take donations.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Al
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>>>> From: "Jeff Prucher" <jeff at metaweb.com>
> >>>>>> To: "Freebase data modeling mailing list"
> >>>>>> <data-modeling at freebase.com
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2008 9:24:29 PM (GMT) Europe/London
> >>>>>> Subject: [Data-modeling] Non-profits, once more with feeling
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I sent a note about this a couple weeks ago, and received no 
> >>>>>> responses. I'm figuring that either things are slow 
> because it's 
> >>>>>> summer (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway) or that nobody
> >>> cares much
> >>>>>> about this schema one way or another.  Just in case it's
> >>> the former,
> >>>>>> I'm reposting my non-profit organization schema to
> >>> sandbox; if it's
> >>>>>> for the latter reason, I'll go ahead and upload the 
> schema at my 
> >>>>>> leisure. :)
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>> 
> https://sandbox.freebase.com/type/view/organization/non_profit_organ
> >>>>>> ization
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It's pretty basic; it includes the types Organization 
> (to get the 
> >>>>>> board members and parent/child organizations, among other
> >>> things),
> >>>>>> and Employer.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Jeff Prucher
> >>>>>> Type Librarian & Ontologist
> >>>>>> Metaweb Technologies, Inc.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> Data-modeling mailing list
> >>>>>> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> >>>>>> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> Data-modeling mailing list
> >>>>>> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> >>>>>> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Data-modeling mailing list
> >>>> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> >>>> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Data-modeling mailing list
> >>> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> >>> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Data-modeling mailing list
> >> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> >> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Data-modeling mailing list
> > Data-modeling at freebase.com
> > http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
> 
> --
> Kirrily Robert
> Freebase Community Director
> kirrily at metaweb.com
> http://freebase.com/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Data-modeling mailing list
> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
>

More information about the Data-modeling mailing list