A More Complete Picture of ONE Spark Financials

[fieldafm]

save One Spark, but to restore public trust and grow the event into one of the premier entrepreneurial/creative industry empowerment events in the country.

Myself, along with thousands of others in town would welcome Theresa into any new role she would choose to take on because she is an incredibly effective person.

I am also firmly in the camp that I don't think One Spark needs 'saving'. Joe Sampson is also a highly effective person.

[Tacachale]

save One Spark, but to restore public trust and grow the event into one of the premier entrepreneurial/creative industry empowerment events in the country.

Myself, along with thousands of others in town would welcome Theresa into any new role she would choose to take on because she is an incredibly effective person.

I am also firmly in the camp that I don't think One Spark needs 'saving'. Joe Sampson is also a highly effective person.

Here here.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

One Spark Inc as the parent company,

KYN as the incubator, (investing for returns)

Co Work Jax as the office space rentals to the new startups, (making profit through soliciting work space to startups)

and One Spark Holdings (their own version of Lemonis' Profit.)

This is how it's done, isn't it?  Non-Profits have always been extremely profitable to the people willing to start them.  I mean, how many different LLCs (not non-profits) was Audra Wallace listed as a primary for?  He was playing the same game, only using tax-payer money to do it. 

Control the funding through your primary job.  Create the businesses to spend the funding.  Make lots of money up until the point you become unsustainable and then close down one LLC and move on to the next. 

The key to this setup, as well as any business no matter how 'shady' the setup, is performance. 

I'll still stand by my statement regarding the reason for the finances being pulled. 

Edit:

Here's the thread that I was reminded of:  http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,19358.msg342467.html#msg342467

[AuditoreEnterprise]

One Spark Inc as the parent company,

KYN as the incubator, (investing for returns)

Co Work Jax as the office space rentals to the new startups, (making profit through soliciting work space to startups)

and One Spark Holdings (their own version of Lemonis' Profit.)

This is how it's done, isn't it?  Non-Profits have always been extremely profitable to the people willing to start them.  I mean, how many different LLCs (not non-profits) was Audra Wallace listed as a primary for?  He was playing the same game, only using tax-payer money to do it. 

Control the funding through your primary job.  Create the businesses to spend the funding.  Make lots of money up until the point you become unsustainable and then close down one LLC and move on to the next. 

The key to this setup, as well as any business no matter how 'shady' the setup, is performance. 

I'll still stand by my statement regarding the reason for the finances being pulled. 

Edit:

Here's the thread that I was reminded of:  http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,19358.msg342467.html#msg342467

That is how holding corporations are ran yes... Non-Profits are not traditionally run that way. The model looks to have been based off of this:



Now that model is the typical holding company structure.



Now granted the second is much more in depth, but for the sake of making a point that is what the companies I listed were intended for. Now the roadblock comes in the form of taxation. How can you maximize investors money and minimize the taxes you pay out. Simple you abandon that structure create separate entities and simply make the donations to your own non-profit from a separate LLC, then at the end of the year claim your donation to your own company as a tax write-off. Big difference in this and Aundra Wallace was I didn't see the same intent to create organization as there was here.

Now to clarify what I said so that it can't be misunderstood is I hope there was nothing shady going on... Not that there was something sketchy happening. There has been a lot of people in history do a lot of time over money mismanagement. I would hope they clear up the issue that Khan accused KYN of because from the list of companies it does look like they were all connected in some way that's all other than that I love one spark

[bill]

The red censor continues to defend his agenda and someone that clearly fits into his idea of that vision. Backing a grafter and robber of peoples hopes, sad.

[Orphean]

Little late to the party but the problem with any of these numbers ignores how the Rivas crew works.   Yes, they paid money to this or that organization for some service or product but there's no details (as far as I can tell here) to show WHO the money was paid to.  Having been a little too up close to how the Rivas group works, I can tell you that the graft was not in outright stealing money but that fees were being paid to groups close to Rivas.  That's how the money flows.  Have a close look at "experts" tied to Kyn or the people with One Spark and Cowork and you'd be hard pressed to find an "expert" among them.   The money was flowing to friends and associates and not at all to businesses or people who could provide the best services at the best price.  The entire festival was run in the same way ER runs other groups he's attached to...give the veneer of offering a product/service but keep the money between friends who are generally grossly underqualified in the position they're holding and turn out a product that is less interested in being successful than it is in paying the principles involved.  A festival that has no gate revenues is a perfect target.  You can fall back on feel good claims because you threw a party that was largely free and who doesn't love a free party?  One Spark is staffed by former college kids who were party throwers.  One Spark was that.  There were no qualifiers that were to be used to determine success going forward except 'boy everyone had fun'...most of all the people making money and winning deals that really had no purpose winning those deals.  Kyn?  offer the startups some support with designers and developers etc...who are the designers and developers?  Experts? no...People who don't have to win the work...just people who have "ok" skills but who know Rivas and his ilk.  The entire One Spark and Kyn episodes are successful only if you consider them to be the grafting model of Silicon Valley success.  You get together a few people who can pitch a product with no real ability to produce what they claim, and the claims are always grand, and based on the funding the grafters will pay themselves handsomely while making half assed efforts to actually create a viable, self funding entity.  People have been played and it's very sad.