On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 10:11 AM, Ed lawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The hard part of the process is not the "legal" part, but the > organizational and planning work needed to have the information and > projections needed to complete the application.
Indeed, and that's really I'm talking about: I don't think any of us have a clue what to do. I certainly don't. I've read through some of the IRS documentation, but it's already been established that the IRS isn't necessarily the best resource for our purposes. Oh, sure, if we follow their guidance we'll be completely legal, but it won't necessarily be the best outcome for us. For example, the IRS docs led me to believe we wouldn't qualify as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, while people with actual experience with this stuff say we should definitely try for it and have a reasonable chance of getting it. After all, the IRS's mission is to collect revenue; one goal of a non-profit is to keep them from doing so. I know a few people who know accounting of various sorts, and I've asked them, but none of them are familiar with non-profit aspects. So me, personally -- I got nuttin. If we lacked any other resources, I would advise the next thing to do would be to begin collecting funds to pay for consultation with an experienced professional. Fortunately, I don't think we're that resource-poor. A couple people have stepped forward, saying they know people with experience who might be able to help. I haven't heard back from them since then, though. I guess I should be following up with them to see if they have followed up with the people they know. Hmmm, I'll do that. -- Ben _______________________________________________ gnhlug-org mailing list gnhlug-org@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-org/
