Tips

I love Ohio registration for its simplicity and generosity.  They accept the Unified Registration Statement, and that’s a big help.  Many states do.  But they go further to make it easy.  Ohio doesn’t require its own financial disclosure form.  They accept your IRS form 990 or 990EZ.  Plus, their fees are based on your nonprofit’s [...]

Georgia is a tough one.  To register there, you have to submit a Control Persons form for every person who directly or indirectly manages your nonprofit.  That’s essentially every officer–and board member.  The form requires disclosure of each person’s birthdate and social security number.  Then it gets notarized.  If you can, the best way to [...]

November 8, 2010 — There’s a recent enforcement action, from just last month. New Jersey authorities fined an individual administrator $17,500 because Ray of Hope was an unregistered charity when it operated there between 2005 and 2009. This case is noteworthy because a former volunteer used the charity’s name to commit fraud unrelated to registration [...]

October 12, 2010 — After figuring out where you need to register (i.e. where you solicit), the next step is to look at where you’re exempt. You don’t want to do more registrations than necessary. Exemptions–in states that have them–come in lots of stripes. The most common are education; religion; healthcare; and small nonprofits raising [...]