[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

Individual non-profit status for a team is very expensive and very time consuming.

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

Not so. There is an electronic application for smaller organizations (under $50000 income per year) that costs only $400, and we had our approval in one week (to the day).

It's too bad this streamlined application wasn't available in 2010 when Team 980, a SoCal community team, filed for non-profit exemption status. Still, filing the complete IRS Form 1023 wasn't really all that difficult. The filing fee then was $750, which is well worth the benefits gained with 501(c)(3) status. We had to go through the process of becoming incorporated in the State of California in order to file. We also registered as a Charitable Trust with the California Attorney General''s office. We posted our 501(c)(3) formation documents on our website: FRC Team 980 501(c)(3) Formation Documents

Originally Posted by Jimmy Nichols

Do you still have to deal with Annual audits and tax filings?

Besides the very simple on-line annual filing of 990N "IRS e-postcard" and FTB199N (California e-postcard), we also electronically file (biennially) a of Statement of Information (SI-100) to the California Secretary of State. Finally, we file an annual renewal (RRF-1) for our California charitable trust.

The overhead of filings is minimal compared to the benefit our team gains with non-profit status:
We've found many grants require non-profit status. Team 980 receives software donations (i.e. Microsoft Windows, Office) and discounts through http://www.techsoup.org/. We use Google Apps for Non-profits and Paypal to manage our operations. Finally, we receive donations, many through Piggybackr, because of our tax-exempt status.