A nonprofit may be a great model for you and I love nonprofits.
It’s been traditionally difficult for open source software organizations to get recognized as a 503c nonprofit (which allows people to make tax deductible donations). Things may have changed, but the IRS has struggled to decide if FOSS is truly volunteer work or is more of a tax shelter. A nonprofit can also be more overhead in terms of structure (you need a board), record keeping & accounting than an LLC (but not much more than a C-Corp).
Unless you’re operating model depends on donations, it might be worth staying an LLC for a while.
Check with a lawyer, accountant, or Stripe Atlas for real guidance. It’s been a while since I looked at firming a company.
It’s been traditionally difficult for open source software organizations to get recognized as a 503c nonprofit (which allows people to make tax deductible donations). Things may have changed, but the IRS has struggled to decide if FOSS is truly volunteer work or is more of a tax shelter. A nonprofit can also be more overhead in terms of structure (you need a board), record keeping & accounting than an LLC (but not much more than a C-Corp).
Unless you’re operating model depends on donations, it might be worth staying an LLC for a while.
Check with a lawyer, accountant, or Stripe Atlas for real guidance. It’s been a while since I looked at firming a company.