starting a poultry club

[Guest]

Please comment on your experiences when you started a local club. Discussions with several local people indicate a need.

Thank You in advance,
Greg S in NE Arkansas

[Anne Foley]

1. Decide if you want a social club with many meetings or a business club with only a couple meetings.
2. Give individuals their own area of responsibility that are to be reviewed after the annual show.  Don\'t micro-manage competent people.
3. Get non-profit status.
4. Enthusiastically seek new members-even if they don\'t own purebred chickens.  Most clubs suffer from lack of help because they only want certain \"types\" of members.  You don\'t have to be a breeder of champions to put shavings in a cage or organize awards.

[John]

Get non-profit status.

What are the pros and cons?  What status - 501c3 or something else?

[Anne Foley]

501 (c) 5 is for labor, agricultural and horticultural organizations is what is most appropriate.  The common 501 (c) 3 is for schools, churches or other charities.  (c) 3 has one great advantage and that is that all donations are tax deductible on the donor\'s federal income tax.  That is not the case with 501 (c) 5 organizations.  The main \"cons\" are that it is a paperwork chore to get non-profit status accomplished.  However, if you can follow directions, you can get through it.  Others (including me) would be happy to provide paperwork that can be used as a template.  Also, there is a filing fee.  I think it is around $50-$100.  If you try for 501(c)3 first and get denied, you will have to pay again to try for 501(c)5.  On the \"pro\" side, we now have access to grants (we already got a nice one), county services (we are getting a group of corrections people to clean up and tear down), have tax exempt status from the state for all our purchases, get free listing in the yearly local non-profit Christmas wish list, have no taxes or annual filing, and can get approved for legal gambling fundraisers (ie. bingo, etc.) if we want it.  Overall, I feel that it legitimizes our organization.

[John]

Our local show club is a LLC.  We looked into the 501c3, but knew our club didn\'t fit the criteria and it looked like we would need a lawyer to apply.  The 501c5 may be very helpful.  Please email your template and any other pointers.
Thanks,

[Mike Gilbert]

The American Bantam Association tried years ago to obtain 501(c)3 status and was turned down.   I doubt much has changed since then.    Even for nonprofits, there is a tax filing if the organization has enough \"unrelated business income.\"
I printed off the application forms for a client just yesterday, and the form itself ran about 28 pages while the instructions were another 33 pages.   Not all the questions apply, of course, but it is still quite a chore to fill out.   The IRS also wants a number of attachments to the application.   The last time I checked, we were not even incorporated or registered with a state, and that would be the first step.   If I remember correctly, it is Form 1023 (?) and can be printed off the IRS\'s website under Forms & Publications.

[Anne Foley]

Go to www.irs.gov and download Publication 557 (general information).  Don\'t bother printing out the whole thing.  Chapter 4 deals with other Section 501 (c) organizations.  Look for 501 (c) 5  in Chapt. 4 (p. 46 when we did it in 2003).  Then download and print Form 8718 (fee schedule) and Form 1024 (actual application).  Form 1024 will require financial and activity information.  If you are interested, I can only send this regular mail as it was not done on the computer. Sales tax exemption will require an additional form and will vary from state to state.  You don\'t need a lawyer to do any of it.  I checked the filing fee and it was $150 for us in 2003.  Sorry for the underestimate.

[John]

Thanks for all the info.  We just put on our annual show this past weekend and have a ton of paper work to do, so I\'ll check into it when things let up.

[Anne Foley]

As a non-profit with 501(c)5 status, we are \"only required to fill out Form 990 (Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax) if gross receipts each year are normally more than $25,000\".  In other words, we don\'t have to worry about it.  I don\'t see anything about \"unrelated business income\".  That may be something that applies to 501(c)3.