If you are a 501c3, you can support a position but not a party/candidate as long as it falls within your stated mission (if you are a PTA, as long as there is a resolution adopted by the membership to support something like this) and you don't spend a large part of your time doing it.
However, this would not include donating money to a group that supports it or fundraising for it. If it falls within your mission, you can encourage your members to support it, contact legislators/elected officials and urge them to vote for it etc. Before doing this, bring it to your membership first to form a united position. Bring it to a vote first then take it from there.
For clarity, contact your state's ethics committee, located at the state house. They can tell you what is and isn't allowed. I believe you will find that the answer is "no."
Without even getting into the legality part of it I would really be careful about attaching your pto name to any sort of publicity about this. you may not know exactly how all of your members actually feel and the end result is that polticis can get pretty ugly and tear apart even the best of us!
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Hi. I hope someone can offer some advice on this topic. As with many schools, our school board is going to put a levy on the ballot in November. We have tried twice and failed...we hope the third time is a charm...but unlikely.
We have a group that has been formed to publicize and get the word out about the need for the levy. This group will obviously need money in order to put out signs, mailings, etc.
They have asked the districts 5 PTO's to help them raise funds. I know that as a non profit group we are not able to write them a check for a political contribution. My questions is can we sponsors fund raisers under the PTO name that supports a political group?
Some of the PTO members including myself are concerned about attaching the PTO name to any of these fundraisers. One we don't want to hurt our other fundraising efforts throughout the year, two we don't want to allienate folks from participating in PTO sponsored events. We agree that we can as parents offer to help this group raise funds as "Parents for XYZ".
Sorry for the length. Any advice will be very helpful.
