Last night will be remembered as a key moment in ICBIE history, because it marks the foundation of a permanent Roman committee, comprising a substantial number of determined friends that will operate an Italian office. We met for dinner, gathered around a big table on Pina Madonna’s terrace, discussing the nuts and bolts of our new mission.
Pina described our current situation: although she established an Italian fiscal account for the ICBIE a year ago, we still cannot function as a bona fide non-profit association without having a physical office space and a telephone, operating with fixed office hours. So we have decided to actively pursue a search, so that by September we can begin to function, taking turns in manning the office.
The advantages are twofold:
- As a bona fide non-profit association, we can apply for grants and benefit from the Italian tax system, where donors can write-off their gifts or assign us 5/1000ths of their Italian tax payments.
- As a stable committee, we can plan an articulated series of events, informing the wider public of ICBIE’s noble mission and organizing fund-raisers.
We also discussed the status of ICBIE’s websites, and we agreed to help integrate icbie.com (the official website) with the new icbie.net blog, using a consistent format throughout.
The evening ended with a chorus of thanks to Pina and Gianfranco for the hospitality and the wonderful dinner.
