Our team is in the process of trying to establish itself as a 510©3 not for profit organization in order to facilitate the acceptance of donations and tax free purchases. Has anyone out there gone through this for their team and might have a copy of their bylaws to share with us to get things rolling? Any other advice about the 510©3 process would be appreciated.
Have you contacted FIRST about this yet? Make sure it’s OK if you do this. I’m just an pessimist like that. 
Our team gets 501©3 designation through our schools designation. It is a lot easier to do this than to become a seperate entity. But I don’t know your connection with your school or a school. Good luck.
*Originally posted by robohyo *
**Our team gets 501(c)3 designation through our schools designation. It is a lot easier to do this than to become a seperate entity. But I don’t know your connection with your school or a school. Good luck. **
This is typically the easiest way to go. Standard procedure would be going to your student government or the vice principal in charge of student groups and they should know what you’re talking about since many other clubs probably have done the same. Then they should be able to give you the special number that you give to companies to get a tax break.
*Originally posted by robohyo *
**Our team gets 501(c)3 designation through our schools designation. It is a lot easier to do this than to become a seperate entity. But I don’t know your connection with your school or a school. Good luck. **
The same is true for our team. Most businesses will just use the school’s Tax ID number. All of our team’s funds are run through the school’s Robotics Club account. If you are working with multiple schools maybe you can get one of the schools to act as the “main” club. We do not get to buy things tax exempt though. Clubs and activities in NYS are subject taxes, but the donation is still tax exempt & a donation for corporations.
We go through the Rochester Community Schools foundation, the district’s 501©3. They take all the money for all three teams in our district, and keep it in an account that we can draw from using our teacher’s RCS credit card. If your school or school district has a foundation of some sort, which chances are, they do, that’s a whole lot easier to set up than trying to become a 501©3 yourselves.
Ralph,
We are in the process of getting 501©(3) exemption right now, but we created a Non-Profit Corporation first. You really have 2 practical choices when creating your team as an entity: (1) Non-Profit Corporation or (2) an Association. There are subtle differences, but we chose the non-profit route because we wanted to be an actual corporation completely separate from the school system. I have to tell you that the differences were too subtle for me to tell, but our team lawyer (a friend of my family) advised we go the Non-Profit corporation route, so we did. You apply for non-profit corp. status with your respective state and most have the forms and instructions online. I can give you a copy of our bylaws and articles of incorporation when I get them back from the lawyer. If you want to go the association route, then I think Chatsworth High School Team 22 has already successfully gotten their 501©(3) exemption as an association.
I am assuming you already downloaded IRS form 1023 (Application for recognition of exemption) and are plunking through the pages of instructions. But if not, then you can also get that from www.irs.gov
We got 501©(3) exemption so the school system had no control over our funds. Our team mentors were paying thousands of dollars for items and waiting 8-12 weeks to get reimbursed from the school account and we decided it was better to control our own funds. We currently use our school system’s 501©(3) exemption, but not for long.
I hope this helps,
Paul
*Originally posted by robohyo *
**Our team gets 501(c)3 designation through our schools designation. It is a lot easier to do this than to become a seperate entity. But I don’t know your connection with your school or a school. Good luck. **
tho this is a good solution for some people its not always good for all… our school will not allow us to to much in the way of fund raising… they basically just make sure we can get enough for competition fees and then it kind ends… Its really restricting and with our team wanting to grow as much as we do its nearly impossible under school restrictions so funding wise we have decided to split
This summer we are applying for a 501(c) I am however not involved with it at all. However what I’ve been told is its not hard to do but there is a lot of paper work
Your best bet is contacting FIRST and see what they have to say… and then if you have any friends who are accountants ask them If I can find any other information for you I will pm you
I completely understand the problems a team might have by being affiliated with the schools financially. We were a NASA grant team this year but our district would does not allow grant money to be placed into a club account but puts it into a general account. This means that if we didn’t spend the money by a certain date it wouldn’t roll over. We had plenty of expenses and didn’t have a problem with that but had others. The district wanted us to put the money we got from businesses in the general fund instead of the club account because of the large amount of money we brought in for being a club. But our mentor, a small business owner, convince our districts financial officer against it.
As you can see we were generally a financial mess this year. Partly the districts fault and we understand a lot of the fault was ours. We have set up a new financial plan to solve our problems for this year. But I can understand how nice financial freedom would be. Again good luck. Consider all the options carefully and then make the best choice for your personal situation. But still remember that keeping good records is still way more helpful to you financial than becoming an independent corporation.
Our school funding is also quite restrictive, although they usually pay for what we need. We also have a parent booster club, which has a 501©3 designation. That helps sometimes.
Thanks to everyone providing some good advice on this subject. JosephM & Stud Man Dan - FIRST provided no help on this matter other than saying I should go to Chief Delphi.
Paul - I would appreciate a copy of your bylaws when they are available. Yes we are starting down the non profit corp route now.
In general we have kids from a number of schools from different districts and some home schoolers on the team. We get no funding from any school. Having funds flow from a public school to kids from different districts and home schoolers is not easy at times.
Again, thanks to everyone and I appreaciate all the comments.
Anybody have info on this regarding Canadian law?
I am sure you can look at some of your government sites for information. The Institute on Governance at www.iog.ca offers advice on how to organize non profit organizations.
Ralph Lambert
365 is just starting to look into trying to get this designation. Since we are not affiliated with a school, it’s going to be difficult. Any help is appreciated! Copies of the application (or non-proprietary parts thereof), required by-laws, etc. would help. We are currently trying to identify a lawyer also.
Any advise from those of you who have gone this? Did you register as a public charity or private foundation? What was the key step that got you the designation?
Carol –
We are going through the process now. First you need to get an Employer Identification Number (EIN) using form SS-4. Then, you file articles of incorporation per your state’s regulations. In that form we were classified as a public benefit corporation. We needed bylaws for this step. The bylaws need to indicate that you have a board of directors and you keep minutes. Send me an e-mail at [email protected] and I will send you our bylaws. There are samples of bylaws on the web if you search for sample bylaws for non-profit or not for profit corporations. When you get those back you can file with the IRS. You need forms 8718 and 1023. You will need your bylaws and income /expense info from the past and for the future.
We are now filing out the 1023 form.
If you are not affliated with a school how to get through the FIRST registration stuff without identifying a high school partner?
Ralph
RAPTAR, the 501c3 corporation we founded, is our “backing”
We are an all home school team, so just about the only way we can do funding/sponsorship is with a 501c3. I will talk to my mom (the chairman of the board) and get a copy of our bylaws. We’re in the process of updating our Constitution/bylaws though. I remember we had a board meeting, and it lasted for about 2 hours, just reading the bylaws. Heh…It’s not your average read…
Thanks for the offers to help. If anyone has by-laws or other infothat wouldn’t mind sharing with us, my email is now active so you can send it me to.
Or if you’re going to the Duel tomorrow feel free to bring it with you to our pit.
This is what’s great about FIRST - all the cooperation and assistance among teams.
84, aka Chuck 84, is also in search of info to help with this set up. If you’re willing to share from your experience, we’d be very grateful…
Thanks Lots!
PS: We’ll also be at the Duel.
I wish we were at the duel 
We almost signed up…
Didn’t have enough time though
I think a digitized version of our bylaws will be uploaded to our website (RAPTAR.org), which we are in the process of re-modelling, so nothing will be there just yet.
I’ll post back when it’s up.
Here are the steps we are taking to get the 501©3 designation for our team.
- file form SS-4 to get an employer identification number
- file the proper form from your state to register your articles of incorporation
- file forms 1023 and 8718 with the IRS
- file with the state again to get the letter you need for tax free purchases
Along the way you need to create some bylaws that indicate you have at least three directors, the board of directors has meetings and minutes are kept and that you keep financial records. If you write to me at [email protected] I will send you a copy of our bylaws. You can search the web for sample bylaws for non-profit organizations and you will find several examples as well.
Once this process is completed you will have to submit annual reports to the state and I guess to the IRS also.
We are now just in the process of completing the IRS form 1023 so I can keep you updated on how it all worked out.
I have been told that you should expect this to take about 6 months to complete depending on how lucky you are to get timely responses from the state and feds and how quickly you get the forms filled out. The steps need to be completed in serial fashion.
Ralph