Company

In 2016 we incorporated the PyCon UK Society Limited. so now we have a distinct independent legal entity.

Limited By Guarantee

IANAL etc. but expect everyone you deal with officially (mostly banks) to assume “Ltd.” -> “Limited by Share Capital”. We do not have share capital, we’re Limited By Guarantee.

Non-Profit

In formal legal terms, we’re a straight-forward vanilla company. There’s nothing special in our articles, we’re not a charity, we don’t have anything like a Community Interest Company asset lock.

Just being a legal entity is a dramatic improvement over what we were, involving a fair bit of paperwork. Any further improvements can come later.

However in spirit we’re non-profit; nobody’s drawing any kind of salary, the goal is for all money to be spent on “the promotion of Python in the UK” etc., and this is enough to count for e.g. a Barclays Community account.

TL;DR: We’re non-profit in spirit but not in law; be clear if asked, because “in spirit” is often good enough.