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Hey Board,
My town band is and has been a not-for-profit corporation in Washington State for about 12 years. As the president of the board I've been looking into the legal requirements of what we are doing and that has produced some questions that I'm having difficulty getting answers for. The band makes around $10k/year, (yeah, not bad, really,) but I only recently found out that we have never applied for federal non-profit status. Its time we did this and I would like to hear from anyone who has recently been successful in the process to give me some guidance.
Chris.

I took care of the 501(3)c Federal and Indiana State paperwork for the community band I founded ten years ago. I'm sort of surprised you managed to get your state certification before you obtained your federal status. Indiana won't do anything until presented with Federal certification. There is a downloadable set of instructions and forms on the federal not-for-profit web site at http://www.irs.gov/charities/ You'll need to file for 1023 and include copies of your Articles of Association or by-laws. Here's the specific link to form 1023 and instructions... http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0, ... 22,00.html

The Yahoo Community Music Forum is also a wealth of information. http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/c-m/messages

Chriss2760 wrote:Hey Board,
My town band is and has been a not-for-profit corporation in Washington State for about 12 years. As the president of the board I've been looking into the legal requirements of what we are doing and that has produced some questions that I'm having difficulty getting answers for. The band makes around $10k/year, (yeah, not bad, really,) but I only recently found out that we have never applied for federal non-profit status. Its time we did this and I would like to hear from anyone who has recently been successful in the process to give me some guidance.
Chris.

Chris,

I'm the one that got the Seattle Tuba-Euphonium Conference it's 501(c)(3) status. It was a lot of work, but I found it fairly straight forward with the help of the book How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation by Nolo Press.

Thanks guys. That gives me some leads to chase.
Chris.