Care2boys I have a question, are you a 501(C)(3) corp? If so, you can get the IRS involved if they are violating the current by-laws.

I was having the same problems with the Board disregarding the by-laws such as having an Audit Committee submit a report annually, forming committees and chairpersons by the President without Board approval, bogus elections where dues paying members are not accounted for during elections which are held during an afterschool function, bogus budget approvals same as elections, the submitted budget doesn't balance, I could go on and on.

I contacted an IRS agent in regards to violating our by-laws and she stated that if the 501(C)(3) is not following its by-laws and/or Articles of Inc., it may change how it does business and may have its non-profit status stripped. This also includes poor accounting procedures, I don't even want to go there. The agent asked if I wanted to file an anomynous complaint and they would investigate it, but I told her I would try to work it out with the Board. The Board has tried to changed the way it does business due to the fact that there are more business people now involved. I also warned the Board that just because you have liability insurance, it doesn't cover everything and that they may be personally liable for their actions and/or inactions.

Oh yeah, the IRS agent also mentioned that anytime a 501(C)(3) amends its by-laws and/or Articles of Inc, a copy must be submitted to the IRS for approval to retain 501(C)(3) status.

Jon,

Yes any member can ask for a P&G or a modification, same as any memeber can ask for an ammendment to the charter (The process to ammend though is difficult delibertly so). P&Gs though can only be modified byt he baord, whereas the a Charter ammendment must first be approved by the board then ratified by the membership.

As an example: A Petty Cash policy is required to be established each year by the board. This is manditory from the Charter. During the course of the year it can be modified by request and approval of the board. Any member can cause this to be put on the agenda (I am charged with causing the agenda to be kept and I must place onto the agenda any topic any member brings to me). If the board approves it then the policy is changed to reflect the change if not it does not change.

Another example: The board shall establish membership dues (another Policy and Guideline) at the beginning of the school year. However, this can not be altered once established during the course of the school year. Again this is written into the charter, if the a member wanted the dues altered they would first have to seek an ammendment to the Charter and go through that process.

If this is sounding a lot like how the Federal Government is suppose to work - well you are right we spent a lot of time and work creating this process and we figured why not copy a good thing rather then re inventing the wheel, just modify it to work at a very local level [img]smile.gif[/img]

Dave, Are the P&G's only modified by the board or can any member recommend/request a change?

Jon,

Yes typically! But each state is different, here I can and do have a charter then establish policy and guidelines to do the operations. Think of the Charter as a constitution and the policy and guidleines as laws which can be modified and changed more easily than the constitution. In fact our charter requires a new board to review the P&G and approve them (or not or modify them). This accomlishes a couple of things. First off every member of the board has to read the P&Gs. Second it doesnt lock them into doing things the way we did them if they dont want to, provided they stay within the Charter. This solved the problem of continunity that a lot of PTOs dont have becuase no one reads what has gone before.

Care2boys, After rereading your posts, I'm concerned about a couple of things. First, your reference to "profit/loss" statements refers to a for profit organization. I don't think that the case, but that is the impression. If you have a desire to apply for non-profit status a lot has to change in your group. You need up-to-date budgets, expenditure tracking paperwork, bank statements, fund requests... It doesn't sound like any of this exists. Just to "take money from the cash register" and "not being able to see the ledger" are wicked bad situations.
Second, you need a working set of bylaws. If you need, I'll email you a copy of ours (I'm very proud of them [img]smile.gif[/img] )to give you something to compare. Let me know.

DaveP, Bylaws are necessary for the routine operation of an organization. The charter is the organizing document that lays out the broad objectives of an organization. A group can't even rely solely on Robert's Rules because there has to be something that states that. A good set of bylaws is essential. They need to be reviewed yearly at a minimum to see if changes are needed. I can't stress enough how important they are.