Re: Non-profit and Accountant

[Neil Frank <nfrank@mindspring.com>]

>He also again reminded me that we _really_ should be a "real" non-profit so
>that we can invest our money and make some interest on it, and so that we
>legally exist.  He said that there would be state forms that need to be
>prepared as well as federal.  I'm still thinking, a paid accountant (and,
>again, I'm _not_ suggesting Dave) might be the way to go.
>
>What do the rest of you think?

I think we should pay someone to make us non-profit (provided that this
status does not prevent us from selling books or plants to the membership),
put our $25K in some appropriate investment and use the interest to pay for
annual tax reports. If there are state forms to prepare, then I hope we can
find a State to "represent" us that will not require this. Regarding an
accountant to keep our monthly books, it sounds like it could cost 125 per
month. Together with annual tax statements, this means $2000 per year.
While this might still be justified and obviously the safe way to go, it
may warrant an increase in membership fees.... unless we can generate new
revenue from somewhere else (e.g. plants and books). Before we get a paid
professional to replace Bob, perhaps we should see if we can find a
volunteer treasurer.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Ideally, it should be someone we
personally know. If someone on the current MC does not volunteer, I suggest
we look at the people we know from the various geographic clusters of
AGAers (SF Bay area, Seattle/Vancouver, etc) who are not currently on the
MC. I did not include Boston ... we don't want AGA to become BGA :-). 

Neil