501(c)(3)
Live Historic
A proposal to operate as a public charity described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code
This is the working proposal a board adopts and keeps. It is not an Internal Revenue Service determination letter, and it does not invent an employer identification number.
Download the proposal1. Name and form
The name is Live Historic. The organization is formed as a nonprofit corporation for charitable and educational purposes. It has no owners. No person holds stock in it. Membership in the public desk is not a property right and is not sold.
2. Exempt purpose
The purpose is exclusively charitable and educational within the meaning of section 501(c)(3). Live Historic teaches households how to judge the stories they admit in an evening, by a published measure called the Living Meter, at no charge. The work is offered to any house. It is not organized for profit, and no part of its net earnings may inure to a private person.
3. The need
The shelves a family opens are built to hold attention. They are not built to ask whether a story is fit to keep. A private opinion does not travel from one room to the next. A house needs one number it can share before the play button, a score for each person rather than a blur called the family, and a next step small enough to do in a single week.
4. The program
The program is the desk, and it is free. Any person may ask for a Living Meter on a story. A house may join, mark the titles already playing on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, or Prime Video, and see a score for each person named by a parent. The desk does not take a streaming password. Once a week it names one title to leave and one title to put in its place. A house may ask to be told when a new release lands on a shelf it has linked. Teaching pages explain the eight measures and the research the practice rests on. None of this is locked behind a fee, a gift, or a subscription.
5. How the number is made
Eight measures are scored from 0 to 10: industry, household, piety, courage, republic, temperance, truth, and stewardship. They are added, divided by eight, and multiplied by ten. That is the Living Meter, from 0 to 100. A person's number is the mean of the titles on that person's shelf. The house number is the mean of the people. A kept evening is a title at 70 or above. The meter is a household practice. It is not a medical test and it does not diagnose anyone.
6. The research the practice rests on
The practice uses findings that have authors, and it does not invent a percentage those studies did not earn. Albert Bandura's social learning research showed that people copy conduct they see rewarded, including on a screen. George Gerbner's cultivation studies found that a heavy viewing diet slowly changes what feels normal. The published effects are often modest. Research on parental mediation, including the work of Amy Nathanson, finds that talking with a child about a story changes what the child carries out of the room. Wendy Wood and David Neal's habit research shows that a cue kept in the same hour becomes automatic, which is why the number is offered before the play button. Studies that merely count hours of screen do not speak with one voice. The charity does not take a side in that fight. It scores the story.
7. Who is served
Any household may use the desk. Parents choosing for children are the particular public the program is built for. A child is not given an account, an email, or a password. A parent writes the child's name and the titles. The service does not discriminate by race, color, or national origin. There is no price, so there is no scholarship to apply for.
8. What the charity will not do
Live Historic will not participate or intervene in a political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office. It will not carry on propaganda, or otherwise attempt to influence legislation, as a substantial part of its activities. It will not let any part of its net earnings inure to the benefit of a founder, a director, an officer, or any private person. It will not sell, rent, trade, or give the household record to a streamer, an advertiser, a data broker, or another house. It will not ask for a streaming password. It will not present the Living Meter as a diagnosis.
9. Governance
A board of at least three directors holds the purpose. A majority of the directors are not paid by the charity and are not related to one another by blood or marriage. Directors serve fixed terms and may be replaced by a vote of the remaining directors. The board meets at least twice a year, and it keeps minutes. The board, not a single founder, appoints officers, adopts the budget, and is the only body that may authorize pay.
10. Conflict of interest
A director or officer who has a financial interest in a matter discloses it before discussion and leaves the room for the debate and the vote. The remaining disinterested directors decide whether the arrangement is fair, in writing, and whether a better arrangement is available from someone with no tie to the board. The policy is signed each year. A gift from a director does not buy a vote.
11. Money
The charity is supported by contributions. There is no subscription, no advertising sale, and no sale of household data. Spending is the desk itself: the cost of keeping it available, the work of measuring new titles, and the teaching pages. No insider may be paid, reimbursed, or lent money except as the disinterested directors approve in writing, and only for work the charity actually needs. This proposal does not publish invented totals. The board adopts a budget when real gifts are known. No person may borrow in the charity's name without a recorded vote.
12. Privacy, as a program rule
The names, the shelves, and the scores a house enters stay on that house's device. They are not an asset of the charity. They are not listed on a balance sheet and they are not offered in a partnership. A question sent so that Annie can answer is not added to a family file and is not sold. A house may erase its record. The public privacy page is the long form of this rule, and the board may tighten it. The board may not loosen it so that the record can be sold.
13. If the work ends
On dissolution, after debts are paid, the remaining assets go to another organization described in section 501(c)(3) and organized for an educational purpose. They do not return to the founders, the directors, the officers, or a donor. The board records the recipient in the minutes before the assets move.
14. Before anyone is told a gift is deductible
The minute book holds the articles of incorporation, and those articles state the exempt purpose and the dissolution clause in this proposal. It holds the bylaws, the signed conflict-of-interest policy, and the application for recognition of exemption on Form 1023 or Form 1023-EZ, as the facts allow. It holds the state charitable registration wherever the charity asks for gifts. Until a determination letter is in that book, the board, the site, and any letter do not tell a donor that a gift is deductible.
15. Adoption
The board adopts this proposal by a recorded vote. The vote, the date, and the names of the directors present are written in the minutes. An amendment requires the same vote. No amendment may add a private owner, a fee for the desk, a sale of the household record, or a campaign for a candidate.