Eric,
The IRS fee for filing an application for non-profit determination varies with the average GROSS amount your organization fundraises each year. The fees are $150 for less than $10000 and $500 for more than $10000.
Hello! I'm hoping you're still here since it's been awhile since your last post. Anyway, we're thinking of signing our son up in this program once he starts middle school (2005-2006) and I was looking for input from someone who's actually using the program; you don't have an e-mail address listed, so this is the only way I can reach you. Also, I was wondering how the online PTO was going? As a 3 year veteran of elementary school PTA I can't imagine not being involved in something for our older son when he moves on. BTW-we are in FL. Thanks!
Thank you for the input. We ran into a slight snag early on. A few parents in our school (3) came out strongly aginst going forward with ANYTHING before we held elections. I tried to explain that we would have elections as soon as we figured out what positions we would need but well .......... so the deadline for elections is tonight and no one has put their name forword to run for any positions so basicly we lost a month because we had to sit on our hands to see what the election results would be lol.
We are having our third meeting tomorrow on line and I will be heading the committee to set up our by laws and such (and hpoefuly sucker someone else into doing it instead lol)
From what I am reading it will cost us $500 to have the paper work prosessed by the IRS. Is this true?
Though Dave has some interesting thoughs, I think your first thoughts should be to the fact that you're going to cross state boundaries. Like a company that has many branches, your organization is going to need some type of headquarters to base it's legal roots. Look into what the various states require for incorporation or association. Keep in mind that you can treat your organization like a business that has multiple branches, but your organizing document has to be written that way. Next you need to consider how you're going to handle federal recognition as a non-profit. The IRS is the best source of info for this.
Good Luck.
There are many links here for getting started on building a PTO what you need to do and many posts so sort through them and I think you will get the general idea (see useful resources).
I can think of a thousand things you are going to need to consider given how unique your situation is. Will you have your own dedicated servers? You of course have are thinking discussion boards and live chat rooms. How much band width will the school throw in? You will have a unique officer as well - the webmaster, systems manager, etc. A lot of your volunteers will probably run along the lines of people who can vreate web pages for you. If you are going to do fundraisers you will be thinking out of the box a lot - one item there is to determine as you are establishing yourselves how you plan to use any money raised that is not covered by the school's corporate budgets.
WOW this is exciting - I know you all are really going to get into this.
I am a family member of a Virtual School called Connections Academy which is based in Baltamore, Md. CA is active in 6 difrent states (Colorado, Arizona, Fla, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin)
We are in the prosess of creating a PTO (Connections Academy Family Association) The problem is ........... WHERE DO WE START!!! We have over 3000 familys involved in the program but so far only have 20 members (have been trying to get going for over a month)
Unlike the usual PTA/PTO where you are dealing with 1 city/School District 95% of what we will be doing will be done on line as a Virtual orginization. We have the basics for our mission statement and some ideas concerning by laws but because of the "Virtual" aspect to an extent we are "breaking new ground" and want to do it right.
Any ideas and thoughts on how we should go about setting up our PTO? Please help.
