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We have reason to celebrate! Our application to the IRS for 501(c)3 tax free status has been submitted online. Well, this is actually the second attempt at submitting paperwork to the IRS, but this time is different. As you may recall, I submitted the short form application back in February of this year, but after some consideration, the IRS returned the paperwork. Come to find out, we were not eligible to submit our application using the short form, and were asked to start the process again using the long version.
I was super concerned that my misstep had already cost us months of waiting, so I contacted an attorney to help us fill out the new form. As it turns out, that was well worth the effort, as the attorney was able to help us reorganize ourselves to make our application even stronger. That meant restructuring the administrative team a bit, and becoming much more granular in describing precisely how we are organizing the nonprofit. His help has been invaluable in the process.
The result of all of this additional effort and expense was that we now have a much more complete application being submitted for consideration. Additionally, I have learned so much about our plans, and am so much better prepared to move forward. I really feel like I understand the plan much more now that we had to work through all the details. Yes we have been delayed, but we are much better off now than if we had tried to make all of these decisions after the nonprofit was approved. So yes, it was worth every bit of the extra time and effort we spent.
Unfortunately, though we are thrilled to have completed the application, and are celebrating the end of the six month delay, we are now settling back into waiting. There is a chance that, since we were required to start the process over, the IRS may inspect our application more closely the second time around. We are confident that our planning is sound, and our paperwork is in order. I have no doubt at all that the process will be successful, and that the tax-free status will be granted... but there is no telling how long we may need to wait until our petition is processed.
We are not sitting idle however. I am already searching for grant opportunities, building budgets, planning programs, and creating informational and marketing materials. The website is up, we are building SEO, and starting to reach out to individuals and organizations in the Romanian art world. We are not only looking for collaborative and networking opportunities, but we are also trying to gather survey and focus group data that will help us determine how to create programing and services that are most helpful to the needs of working artists in or from Romania. We will be flying to Bucharest in a couple of weeks, so perhaps by the time we return with a newly gathered list of artists looking to work with our new nonprofit, we may have the tax free status approved. That way we can be ready to start immediately to get the help and support to artists just as soon as we can raise funds as a tax free charity.
So again we wait. But we certainly are preparing everything possible to be ready for the day our 501(c)3 status is granted.
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