Discover Our Musician Invoice Example for NPOs

Musician invoice example for NPOs

so what does it mean to be a 501c3 nonprofit what sets a 501c3 apart from other categories of nonprofits out there in a phrase charitable purpose [Music] hi i'm greg mcrae founder and ceo of foundation group and welcome to our 501c3 university channel we touched on this topic in some other recent videos but i promised then that we would be taking a detailed look at charitable purposes and here it is in order to qualify as a tax-exempt 501c3 organization a non-profit must exist for one or more exclusively charitable purposes unfortunately the irs gives us a list of those purposes in publication 557 they even give a few examples of nonprofits in each category and while the information in pub 557 is informative it's far from exhaustive and given that the examples they provide are so few it's often challenging for someone looking to start a new nonprofit to determine exactly where their idea fits in the list of purposes so let's look at each of these purposes in detail our first category is religious now the irs says that to qualify as a religious 501c3 a nonprofit has to satisfy two basic guidelines one that the particular religious beliefs of the organization are truly and sincerely held and two that the practices and rituals associated with the organization's religious belief or creed aren't illegal or contrary to clearly defined public policy as long as those two guidelines are met the religious exemption threshold is fairly easy to meet examples include churches conventions or associations of churches think denominations on that one parachurch religious ministries such as missions organizations evangelistic associations and integrated auxiliaries of churches like catholic charities plus institutions of religious instruction such as seminaries qualifying as a church has the added benefit of not having to file annual irs form 990. they're exempt from that but partially because of that benefit qualifying as a church requires a stricter standard than other religious purposes in addition to the two standards that i already mentioned the irs is going to require churches to demonstrate that you have a current membership or attendee group that meets at a regular place of worship at a regular publicized time another interesting tidbit we've had a number of clients over the years wanting to start online churches only to find out that the irs hasn't quite caught up with our cyber culture uncle sam is still very much in the brick and mortar mindset one more thing religious nonprofits that do not qualify as a church or related organization are not exempt from filing form 990. category 2 is scientific now the irs uses the term scientific here but it's really better understood as scientific research and what separates charitable scientific research from other similar work is the requirement that the nonprofit version must be carried on in the public interest specifically results of the research patents copyrights formulas processes they must be made available to the public without discrimination or favor of private interest for example if a scientific research non-profit is exploring say new treatments for leukemia its findings should be made publicly accessible also the research cannot be used for the private benefit of a person or a company you'll often see examples of this with university studies or other non-profit research groups who publish their findings in a medical journal or other publication this is very different from the commercial version of a drug company's research being used to create a patented drug for the exclusive use of that company other research topics exist well beyond medical they can run the gamut from economic modeling to agriculture to climate studies the key is that the research results are truly public next up is testing for public safety this one is a bit tricky for some people to grasp there's a common misconception that organizations that provide for public safety are what fits in this category when in actuality it is testing for public safety now this distinction is critical because most public safety non-profits well they qualify under 501c4 not 501c3 so what does testing for public safety mean well it's somewhat similar to the scientific research purpose i mentioned earlier to qualify as a 501c3 under this purpose a non-profit has to have as its primary mission the testing of finished products ingredients or other components for the safe use of the public now a great example of this is underwriters laboratory that's for you wayne literary organizations are the next category now literary purposes are generally confined to nonprofit bookstores or publishing activities but since these activities have obvious commercial equivalents it's necessary to demonstrate to the irs just how a particular operation furthers an exclusively charitable purpose and not a private profit motive examples can include religious publishing houses or college bookstores for example our next category is a huge catch-all educational non-profits now this is one of the broadest 501c3 purposes and captures a broad swath of possibilities specifically the irs says that to qualify as an educational charity it must exist for the instruction or training of individuals for the purpose of improving or developing their capabilities or to the instruction of the public on subjects useful to individuals and beneficial to the community here's some irs examples a primary or secondary school a college or a professional or trade school an organization whose activities consist of conducting public discussion groups forums lectures panels similar activities to that an organization that prevents a course of instruction by correspondence or through the use of television or radio a museum zoo planetarium symphony orchestra or other similar organizations other examples include some alumni associations children's sports leagues and even non-profit day cares there is a persistent myth that if a non-profit's mission is to educate the public on a certain topic it must be unbiased in its presentation in order to qualify as charitable unfortunately that's not remotely the case it is true that the irs requires public advocacy nonprofits too prove that they're not simply pushing unsupported propaganda or intentionally misleading people but having a bias or tilt to your message that's perfectly fine up next is fostering national or international amateur sports a sports oriented non-profits can be difficult to know how to categorize mainly because there's several possibilities purely recreational sports such as a church softball league they're going to be tagged as a 501c7 social club tax-exempt but not charitable also youth only sports groups such as little league baseball will they qualify for 501c3 status as educational not amateur sports so then what is an amateur sports charity the groups that qualify for the amateur sports purpose are those that foster serious competition on a larger scale at least at the regional level great examples of 501c3 amateur sports groups are those that feed into competitions like the olympic games such as usa cycling or usa volleyball qualifying groups do not have to rise to this level of competition but these examples clearly demonstrate the difference between serious amateur athletics and the local ymca swim club the irs even breaks down these groups into two subcategories ones that have a permanent training facility and ones that do not honestly it's never been clear to me after all these years of working with amateur sports groups exactly why the irs makes this distinction because after approval the irs doesn't treat them any differently we're getting closer to the end and our next to last category is prevention of cruelty to animals and children now most 501 c3s that work with kids they're going to qualify as educational not this purpose this category is restricted to those groups whose purpose is to work for children's safety or general welfare same is true for animal welfare we always joke that we're not sure why animals and children got lumped together accounted humor you know examples of such charities on the kids side include orphanages or maybe a program like casa for animals think animal shelters and rescues and endangered species habitat preservation groups for example our final category is charitable now i saved charitably to the end because this one confuses people as you know all 501c3 organizations well they're considered charitable so why is there a specified purpose category with the same name a good way to think about this purpose category is to imagine the word generally in front of charitable now this is a rollup category catching all the qualifying 501c3 purposes that don't neatly fit into one of the other examples examples of this group include benevolent giving groups grant making foundations charity hospitals groups that seek to lessen neighborhood tensions groups that work toward the elimination of prejudice and discrimination civil rights defense groups and many more examples we could list here well i hope this deeper look at how the irs defines charitable purpose has been helpful to you later on we'll take a few of these individually and we'll go into some more detail about what the irs expects of nonprofits applying for 501c3 status as one of these types as always if you liked this video please click on the like button youtube uses this to get this out to more people so we appreciate it if you would subscribe if you haven't already and hit the little bell icon to be notified of new content when we drop it thanks for watching and we'll see you next time [Music] you