A non-profit can accept donations without a 501(c)(3) status, it only means the donations are not tax exempt for the donor if the 501(c)(3) status is not given (and maybe the organization will have to pay taxes if it does not spend the donations on some valid expense within its purpose). As well any determination letter is usually valid retroactively from the date the organization came into existence so if any tax payments are sent to the IRS to make sure the organization is not penalized the money is refunded when the exemption is recognized. See IRS Pub. 557 at page 4, col. 3 (Rev. May, 2003). This is true if 1023 is filed within a 15 month period from formation (page 17). In any case if the organization has a clear exempt purpose and does not receive more than $5,000 in income per year. See IRS Pub. 557 at page 18, col. 2. The word foundation does not refer to the use of this word in the organization's name, 'foundation' is a term of art used in tax law to distinguish public charities from organizations that are private foundations that fail the public charity support test (page 27) or are a 509(a)(1) organization (page 30) and most likely your organization is a "publicly supported organization" under that category (page 31-34). Therefore you "foundation" does not necessarily have have to apply to the IRS for exempt status if it is not endowed by an individual but receives wide public support. You can start receiving donations right away in such a case. Unless, of course, the reason for starting this not for profit organization is to obtain an excess benefit. If you don't believe me (and why should you believe me, I am only a not-for-profit organization lawyer, why would I know anything?) you can check this by looking at the IRS publication http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p557.pdf It does not seem to me to be intelligent to assume that you cannot accept donations when there are indications you possibly can. (this is not a solicited legal opinion, if you wish a legal opinion, please contact my office as I have previously stated I would be willing to do pro bono work for your folks). Good luck. alex756 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher Mahan" <chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com> To: <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org> Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 7:54 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] World domination. Step one

Alex R. wrote: Very generous of you! :-) -- --cprompt