Time for an update on the new nonprofit. We've had some good news and some bad news. After all the drama around sending in the application for our 501(c)3 tax exempt status, the IRS wrote me a week or so ago informing me that I can't use the EZ form. They're refunding my money, and I have to start again from scratch using the long form application. So after 4 months of work and waiting, we're right back where we started from.
I'd like to tell you that it's all fine, and that there's a funny side to this comedy of errors, but I can't. I was really gut punched when I got the news. It's not that I'm so shocked or discouraged by the process, which is a bit excessive, or even that it took four months and several letters to determine that I couldn't use one form over another. Perhaps I was a little discouraged by all that, but the worst part for me was that the long form is indeed really, really long. I feared that, if I couldn't fill out the short, three page EZ application form properly, how in the world could I fill out the 28 page long form? I estimate that the probability of my making mistakes on that form are 100%. And if that's not bad enough, the long form application is exponentially more expensive to submit than the EZ form.
So that is the bad news. The good news is that, confronted with the likelihood of error and further delay, and the brain numbing exercise of answering questions I have only a rudimentary understanding of, I've called in some support. I found an online service called UpCounsel, where you put out a request for bids from attorneys. I wrote up my proposal, and waited. Now when you do a similar sort of request for bank lenders, or plumbers, there is always a flood of responses over days and days to your request. As is turns out, after a couple of days, I only had one response from a lawyer in San Diego who works with nonprofits. Luckily, I really like Dean, so I hired him to help. I sent him all of the paperwork, all of the documents, all of the rejection letters, and now the emails have gone quiet. I'm guessing that means that Dean has what he needs, and can get to work making sense of our business plan. Although I may not understand the process completely when it is done, I still feel that hiring a professional to help with the application will save us a whole lot of time and headaches later on. While we're in no particular hurry, I do think that we can lose momentum with our potential donors if we take too long to get rolling. I'm also hopeful that Dean will be able to spot any inconsistencies or problems in the way we're organized. I suppose there's always the chance that, if we present ourselves badly, the IRS could deny granting us the tax exempt status altogether. That would be terrible. So I feel very good about hiring a lawyer to help.
In other news, I have been writing to artists, museums, and galleries in Romania letting them know about the new nonprofit, and asking for their input and suggestions. I have created a short survey on the website, and hope that we can get some hard data on what it is working artists in Romania actually want and need. If you'd like to help out, the survey can be found at https://www.aripaarte.org/artist-survey.
Additionally, Bogdan and I have booked our flights to Romania in August, and will be heading east for 3 weeks. Hopefully that will give us enough lead time to make some appointments, contact some local artists, and arrange for some interviews to make the trip super productive as well as enjoyable. Sadly, we will miss the first contemporary art fair launching this month in Bucharest. It would have been great to have been there for the event, and perhaps even have an information booth there. The timing was too short, and honestly, before we get the whole tax exemption phase organized, it seems premature to me. Next year we'll do all of that. We should get prepared enough to have some branding, some swag, and some printed materials to not only explain who we are and what we do, but also to make us look professional and legitimate. There are so many companies out there that take advantage of artists. We don't want to be perceived as one of them.
I have already noticed a rather cool response from the people I've sent letters to. Most do not answer at all, but some of the younger artists have written back. I think that's ok though, because at least they've seen our name and logo. I've read that someone has to see your company at least three times before they remember you. This round of emails can count as the first time they have seen us. If we reach out now, do some advertising over the year, and show up at the Bucharest art fair next year, we might start to gain some recognition. Our other secret weapon is that Bogdan used to work as a TV Producer, and he knows a lot of celebrities in Romania. We haven't tried to play that card as of yet, but some celebrity endorsement could gain us a lot of traction.
So still we wait, though with a bit of renewed hope and direction. Fingers crossed that Dean will be able to get us sorted quickly, and that we won't have any additional false starts in the process. I'll keep you posted, and thanks for your support.
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