[Today: rest day, Yesterday: 3.4 miles on Watson Road]
I downloaded the IRS form 1023 (Application for Recognition of Exemption) and I am slowly making my way through it. I think there are a couple of implications of what I have seen so far:
1) I don’t think they will be happy with all of the board members being in one family. They don’t come out and say that, but they do ask. Seeing as how the only board members are myself and my wife, that is going to have to change. So we are on the look-out for some outside board members… unpaid, quarterly telephone board meetings… to keep an eye on the funds so that it doesn’t turn into a nepotistic fiefdom (I guess). But that means we will be asking someone else to buy into our project… which we did before through the fundraising I know, but this seems more like a commitment.
2) They ask a lot of questions about compensation and conflict of interest policies. Of which we have none, so far. Mostly because there has not been any compensation nor any interest to be conflicted! But we will need to come up with some of that and put it in the by-laws.
3) They want to see financials, and if you don’t have any history they want you to make up two years worth of projections. And if your projections show a gross income averaging over $10k per year they will double the “user fee” for processing the application!
It has been interesting where this project has taken us. And we aren’t even on the air yet! I do pretty well with projects that have a single-person scope. Now I have to go talk someone else into being as crazy about it as I am. Part of the “goal” of this whole exercise, beyond that I think it is a “good thing”, is to get out of my regular path a bit. We are definitely doing that!