I do have a letter of sorts from the district, and I have been communicating with the head controller for our district regarding this situation. However, I still was turned down for the donation as this airline requires the letter from the IRS. She did offer to call the airlines charitable giving office and find out what was the reason for the denial, if that kind of information will be made available to her. She said that sometimes her involvement sometimes overcomes some of those barriers that companies have. Anyway, thanks for the responses so far. I appreciate it.

Schools are generally automatically non-profit; they don't get determination letters, as far as I know. Many PTOs do have their own bank accounts, and probably the airline's accountants are concerned because many PTOs haven't gotten their determination letter as they should.

In our district, any donations to the schools have to be approved by the town school committee (I guess to prevent donations with unacceptable restrictions, or from strange organizations that the town doesn't want to do business with). You might check with the superintendent's office to see if they have a policy and/or acknowledgement letter for such donations.

Ok. Thanks for the reply. I guess I really should have stated that we do not have our own bank account. All funds go through our school secretary. So, I have no idea what the specifics are. I do know that the school lets me use their federal tax ID for donations from a national company. I talked with the controler for our school and she said that was ok. Still, if a company asks for the declaration letter from the IRS stating we are a federal non profit, I can't provide it and we lose out on donations as a result. If our school is already a federal non profit, then could that also be a reason why we run our funds through the school?

Is your bank account set up using the school's tax id number? If so, then you're a commitee of the school operating at its pleasure and probably eligible to ask for donations under their name. If your PTO has its own tax id number, and banks under that number, and you have never filed form 1023 for 501c3 status, then your group is not a federal charity and you can't suggest to your donors that their donations might be tax-deductible.

This is all very new to me, as I have recently taken over our PTO when our president stepped down in early October. I was our vice president, but didn't have a lot of time to learn like I would have liked. Now I am learning on the run, so forgive me if I ask somewhat obvious questions.

I have a question that has come up due to requesting donations for our school bingo night. This event has become a huge night and I wanted to find some very good prizes to give away over the course of the evening. One of the airlines wanted our federal letter declaring us a federal non profit. I have the letter that the district provides, which is just a statement providing our non profit ID number, and most of the time that will work. However, are we really a federal non profit if we operate under our schools umbrella? Or would our group need to go through the process to be federal non profit as well? I would appreciate any assistance anyone might be able to give.