Product Description

Most organizations trying to gain legal nonprofit status don't have the money to pay a lawyer thousands of dollars for help. Fortunately, they don't have to.

How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation in California includes complete instructions for obtaining federal 501(c)(3) tax-exemption and for qualifying for public charity status with the IRS. It also provides:

*line-by-line instructions for completing your application
*instructions and completed sample clauses for preparing articles of incorporation
*ready-to-use bylaws for membership and non-membership nonprofits
*ready-to-use minutes for the organizational meeting
*sheets with California's specific legal and tax requirements

The 10th edition provides several new and revised forms as tear-outs and on CD-ROM, and is completely updated to provide the latest rules and regulations. It also shows you how to register your nonprofit for only $30.

This book is also available as a corporate records binder. Look up The California Nonprofit Corporation Kit for more details.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #451104 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
A useful resource to help you get underway. -- Entrepreneur magazine

If you’re thinking of forming a nonprofit corporation in California, you’ll find this handbook invaluable. -- MacUser

About the Author
Attorney Anthony Mancuso is a corporations expert and author of Nolo's bestselling corporate law series. He is the author of How to Form Your Own Corporation for California, New York, Florida and Texas; How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation (National and California Editions); The Corporate Minutes Book; California Incorporator (software) and co-author of Nolo's Partnership Maker (software) and How to Create a Buy-Sell Agreement & Control the Destiny of Your Small Business. His books and software have shown over a quarter of a million businesses and organizations how to incorporate.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Step by Step Guide to Forming Your Non-Profit
This book is an excellent step by step guide for starting your non-profit corporation in California. The author does a lot of hand holding, which is especially helpful when it comes to filing your 1023 with the IRS which establishes your tax exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization.

So here is what you will get out of the book:

1)Should you form a non-profit or a regular business?
He discusses the advantages and disadvanges of a non-profit.

2)501(c)(3)- What is it, do you qualify?
He goes in to detail on if your organization's purpose and activities qualifies you as a 501(c)(3) non-profit with all of its tax advantages. This is a key and important consideration. He also goes into the detail about the structure of your organization- the directors, officers, and how officer's/director's salaries and family affliations might affect non-profit status. He gives plenty of examples, which I found very helpful.

(3)Step by Step filing of articles of incorporation with the State of California.
He gives sample articles of incorporation for "public benefit corporations", which a general category as well as religious corporations. He give plenty of information on how to modify these articles to your individual needs.

(4)Step by Step creation of Bylaws. Again, discussion of each point in the bylaws with suggestions for modification to suit your needs.

(5)Filing for tax exempt status with the State of California and the IRS. This is potentially the most daunting part of the process, but I found that he takes you through it slowly, step by step, to make it as painless as possible although I am sure it is still a somewhat painful process.

(6)Finally he takes you through how to keep corporate records, and conducting your first board of directors meetings.

All of the forms, sample bylaws, articles of incorporation, IRS instructions, etc. are found on the CD rom that comes with the book.

What the book doesn't provide:

--Some practical and common questions did remain unanswered. For example, Lets say you pour seed money into a non-profit corporation, from your own pocket, to pay for travel, meetings, conferences and other promotional activity. Is this tax deductable to you?

--Doesn't offer very much guidance of where there are free university and other resources for new non-profits. This would have been very helpful.

Perhaps both of these like that are beyond the scope of the book.

If you are looking for a book that will give you an very good understanding the structure of a non-profit corporation and a practical step by step guide of how to form one and fill out the proper paperwork, I highly recommend this book.

Esential for staring a nonprofit organization
I am working with a group in Sacramento to start a nonprofit French cultural group and school. Others suggested this jewel from Nolo press and it has been extrodinary. Initially, I checked it out from the library and found it so useful, I am purchasing it. The CD ROM provides all form letters and forms essential to register the organization. From state tax exemption, to federal tax exemption, to establishing a name and reduced tarriff postage, it's all there. They also provide step by step instructions to completing the dizzying federal tax exemption forms which will reduce days of your prep time. I strongly recommend this book!

Does What an Attorney Does For LOTS Less Money
If you go to an attorney to get him to set up a corporation, he will ask you a bunch of questions, write down the answers and get his secretary or paralegal to type these answers into their standard corporation form on their word processor. She will then press the print button and you get billed for a thousand dollars or so.

Anthony Mancuso is a corporations corporations attorney licensed to practice law in California. He decided to take his standard corporate form and put it out in the form of a book. In the book he will ask you a bunch of questions, taking the time to point out the alternatives (that a lawer probably doesn't do unless asked. You then take his standard corporation form (supplied on a CD) and fill in the answers. Files these with the appropriate offices and you have a corporation for only the filing fees the state charges.

The forms used here have been used thousands of time to form California corporations. This is the eleventh edition of this book, it reflects the latest changes in California law. Non-profits never have any money. Doing this work yourself will literally save the corporation hundreds of dollars that your organization probably doesn't have.