The science blog archive Rogue Scholar started the process of becoming a German non-profit organization in 2026. This blog post summarizes the reasoning and the main steps needed to achieve this.
Two weeks ago, I published a self-assessment of how Rogue Scholar adheres to the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI). Major gaps were identified in the areas of governance and sustainability. To address these gaps, a major step forward would be to start a non-profit membership organization. The need to take this step at some point was obvious to me since I launched Rogue Scholar in April 2023. With the basic service operating and on a good path forward with 50,000 science blog posts archived by the end of the year, the time has arrived to make this step.
Starting a non-profit membership organization in Germany means starting a Verein, or registered association. The steps involved to formally register the association are clearly laid out and mainly involve the following:
- at least seven founding members,
- drafting statutes (Satzung),
- founding general assembly with members approving statutes and electing a founding board,
- registration at a local court,
- registration for charitable status with the tax authorities.
It helps that I have worked for non-profit organizations most of my professional life. Not only public universities, but also a non-profit publisher (PLOS), and two membership organizations (ORCID and DataCite), with the latter also being a German Verein. Interestingly, Research Organization Registry (ROR), an initiative that I helped launch in early 2019, is not a membership organization.
Running a non-profit organization in Germany requires more paperwork compared to, for example, Belgium or the Netherlands, mainly to obtain and keep charitable status. This means a good amount of work for the founding board, especially the president and treasurer.
One important question is the rights and responsibilities of members. As individuals or groups of people, rather than formal organizations, run many science blogs, membership has to be open to all legal entities, individuals and organizations. Membership fees should differentiate between individuals and organizations, and include at least two tiers for small and large organizations, for example:
- individual 25 EUR/year
- small organization 250 EUR/year
- supporting organization 2500 EUR/year
Rogue Scholar is a Diamond Open Access infrastructure with no fees to readers or authors. This means that membership can't be a requirement for a science blog to be archived in Rogue Scholar, but rather that membership comes with other benefits. Members not only help support a unique open scholarly infrastructure but also have a say in the governance of the organization via the general assembly, participation in the board, and potentially working groups going forward.
For Rogue Scholar to achieve sustainability, membership fees are an important element. Two other aspects are also important:
- Volunteer labor, particularly in the areas of outreach, support, and software development, becomes easier once Rogue Scholar has formal members
- Grant funding, which becomes easier once Rogue Scholar obtains charitable status
Please use Slack, email, Mastodon, or Bluesky if you have any questions or comments regarding Rogue Scholar becoming a non-profit membership organization.
References
- Fenner, M. (2025, October 20). Rogue Scholar follows the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI). Front Matter. https://doi.org/10.53731/m65a8-6sm21
- POSI Adopters. (2025). The Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure v2.0. https://doi.org/10.14454/G8WV-VM65
- Fenner, M. (2023, April 4). The Rogue Scholar is now open for business. Front Matter. https://doi.org/10.53731/z9v2s-bh329
- California Digital Library, DataCite, Crossref, & Digital Science (United Kingdom). (2018). The ROR of the crowd: Get involved!. https://doi.org/10.71938/SNA1-ZC49
