I fail to see ANY advantage to not being a non-profit other than perhaps slightly less paperwork. I don't know of any national car club of significant size that's not set up as a non-profit.

Since we are a club and our mission is clearly not for the financial gain of any of our members, it should be a slam-dunk to pass muster in filing as a non-profit and the tax benefits can be huge and the tax penalties of not doing it can be huge.

If there is something prohibitive in the setting up of a non-profit, I plan to find out and make sure that the cost and work of maintaining it are not prohibitive.

Also, in terms of hiring people, that's not a problem either. The Corvair Society of America is a non-profit, and while mostly volunteer-run, we have a consulting company that includes an editor for the magazine and a club secretary. The main thing about a non-profit is that it's not set up for the financial gain of any one of our members. If our income exceeds our expenses by too far a margin (a problem we are not likely to have) we will need to make sure we find something related to the club's mission to spend it on (a good problem to have).

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/five-reasons-incorporate-nonprofit-association-30266.html

Once it goes legal non profit is the way to go. It allows easy tax free savings for long term goals.

Smart money is to have an outside audit, attorney on some type of retainer, and cover your butt on ANYTHING legal.

I'm all behind Cityhawk being the President of this club, as well as anyone else that wants to be on the board of directors. But we would need people to step up to take the positions.

I'm all behind this club, but long term I have other priorities. I'll help when I can, but we need a few people with motivation similar to that of Cityhawk before things can really move along much.

Is anyone else even interested?

Stated earlier by Cityhawk:

"If our income exceeds our expenses by too far a margin (a problem we are not likely to have) we will need to make sure we find something related to the club's mission to spend it on (a good problem to have)."


This is easy to remedy in most cases. If structured properly, it simply takes a vote of the BOD to move the excess funds from operating accounts to long term reserves. In some cases those long term reserves have to be specified to the intent of funds, etc, but there is some flexibility.

Also keep in mind that there are many cases where contributions to non profits are not tax deductible, and this varies with structure and intent. As an example, most HOA's are non profit, but the dues can't be deducted on taxes.