501(C)3 non profit status

[Col. Flagg]

17 minutes ago, blw2 said:

Sadly, i think it's the other way around from their perspective, at least to a degree.  The pastor likes and verbally supports scouting, and I believe he would echo the same sentiments that I did, but basically the general 'machine' of the church "staff" sort of treats us as you put it "renters"..... We always seemed to have a lower standing when compared to youth and other uses of the building.... and we certainly never had our own room.   I never really understood that... I've honestly thought it comes from the catholic tradition...."think the stereo typical nun in an old catholic school"....mean and strict.  It's just the way they are.  Like a drill sergeant.  Anyway, in our case the COR was never engaged so that may have been a factor.

I think "Catholic units" have it a bit harder in this regard. For Protestants, my Scouter friends seem to be more successful in selling the inclusion of non-church members joining the unit. The thought is that maybe they will join the church anyway...assuming they are Christians and Protestants. Most Catholic units I know want the members to be Catholic. A few have it as Catholic only whereas with others it is just a suggestion.

Ironically our strongest advocate for the unit is Jewish. Loves the troop, the church, the CO and is always volunteering to help. The COR said, "If only several of our Catholic members were that energetic." 

[David CO]

5 hours ago, Col. Flagg said:

 

Way back when, our Pack was hosted by a church that really treated us like a burden too. They never really liked the Pack and treated every request as if we were begging at their doorstep. Then the membership policy changed in 2013 they dropped both the Pack and the Troop that were there.

In our area most churches treat BSA units like we are any other group renting their facilities. Only the Catholic units are seen as an extension of the church's ministry.

I think all CO's should see scouting as an extension of their youth ministry/youth program. 

[Col. Flagg]

26 minutes ago, David CO said:

I think all CO's should see scouting as an extension of their youth ministry/youth program. 

Totally agree. I wish that was the case. It might make many of our current problems easier to deal with.

[Tampa Turtle]

We are a unit in a Methodist church and the pastor and the United Methodist Women (God bless them!) view as part of their (anemic) youth ministry. We invited him to a few meetings and holiday parties and makes a diplomatic appearance. He did a sterling job helping counseling the boys after a scout died. But, yes the church staff treats us like other groups 'renting' the space and we have had some mild hostility from pre-school staff that also uses the church property ( I think it is a little kids vs big kids thing) and the Methodist Men's club (who carp on us if we leave a hair out of place). 

On a side note we did invite the 70+ associate pastor to camp with us (he as an ex-scout and career military Chaplin). He came out camped with adults, avoided the boys, sneaked in some booze, and shared a tent with his girl friend (to our surprise since he drove himself). Of course it turns out neither had bothered to do the YPT (they both had been heavily vetted by the Methodist church for youth activities previously and thought they did not need it. (*sigh*) Another reason they stayed away from the youth. My experiment in adult association did not work out,

[Back Pack]

In our church the youth groups leave the common areas a shambles. When I was spl we got blamed a lot before I took over. We started taking before and after pictures of the meeting rooms and common areas just to show how clean we leave it. We sent them to the office manager to show her how well we were doing. Not one word of thanks. The youth groups were never told to be better either. This lasted the whole year. Half way through my term I also sent the reports to the head pastor. The committee chair didn’t like it but my sm supported me. The head pastor came to my last coh as spl to thank the troop and me for doing what we do. It didn’t change how the office staff treated us but we knew at least he appreciated our efforts. To this day the spls still send him the monthly pictures. 

[Eagledad]

21 minutes ago, Back Pack said:

In our church the youth groups leave the common areas a shambles. When I was spl we got blamed a lot before I took over. We started taking before and after pictures of the meeting rooms and common areas just to show how clean we leave it. We sent them to the office manager to show her how well we were doing. Not one word of thanks. The youth groups were never told to be better either. This lasted the whole year. Half way through my term I also sent the reports to the head pastor. The committee chair didn’t like it but my sm supported me. The head pastor came to my last coh as spl to thank the troop and me for doing what we do. It didn’t change how the office staff treated us but we knew at least he appreciated our efforts. To this day the spls still send him the monthly pictures. 

We had a similar situation. Long long story short, we asked the church to look into the matter instead of just blaming our scouts for all the damages they where finding. The committee was upset because the ceiling tiles were being pushed out of place in their 40 foot tall meeting center. I understood their problem, it was a difficult task to find a ladder tall enough to replace the tiles. Turns out the teen Sunday School class boys would compete in slamming balls on the floor hard enough to see if they could bounce them to the ceiling. The other problem was the mystery of ceiling tiles and lights getting torn up in another room. Mystery solved, the Girls Scouts where scrapping the ceiling with their flag poles during opening and closing ceremonies.

The church committee was quite embarrassed and never bothered us again, even when our scouts might have been responsible for damage.

Barry

Edited February 6, 2018 by Eagledad

[Timbuktu]

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I'm not the first one to resurrect it after a few years!

 

Compared with 20 years ago, it seems like a LOT more parents/adult volunteers are employed by Fortune 1000 companies who offer corporate giving options.

 

For the big employers in our area, it usually involves two aspects:

(1) Dollar-for-dollar matching (eg, if the employee donates $50 to a BSA council, then the company will also donate $50)

(2) Volunteer hours. Eg, if an employee volunteers for 5 hours, then the company will donate $50 to a cause of the employee's choice (even if it's not to the specific entity where the volunteering took place)

 

We're in a big council with several mega companies. Right now, a handful of troops appear on these websites because they're their own 501c3 (by whatever method; see above debates from several years ago) but most do not...even if their CO is a 501c3 church.

 

Our council does NOT publicize this except it's buried on the website that if you log your volunteer hours, the council will give your unit a 10% credit at the trading post (eg, if one of your adult leaders logs 100hrs, the council would get $1,000 and then give your unit a $100 credit at the camp trading post).

 

Seems skeevy to me, but I understand councils would want a monopoly on this and I understand a lot of COs/churches, even if they bother registering for these companies (the one used by Kohl's, Boeing, etc is "Benevity.org"), wouldn't necessarily use those funds specifically for their scouting program. 

[InquisitiveScouter]

12 minutes ago, Timbuktu said:

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I'm not the first one to resurrect it after a few years!

 

Compared with 20 years ago, it seems like a LOT more parents/adult volunteers are employed by Fortune 1000 companies who offer corporate giving options.

 

For the big employers in our area, it usually involves two aspects:

(1) Dollar-for-dollar matching (eg, if the employee donates $50 to a BSA council, then the company will also donate $50)

(2) Volunteer hours. Eg, if an employee volunteers for 5 hours, then the company will donate $50 to a cause of the employee's choice (even if it's not to the specific entity where the volunteering took place)

 

We're in a big council with several mega companies. Right now, a handful of troops appear on these websites because they're their own 501c3 (by whatever method; see above debates from several years ago) but most do not...even if their CO is a 501c3 church.

 

Our council does NOT publicize this except it's buried on the website that if you log your volunteer hours, the council will give your unit a 10% credit at the trading post (eg, if one of your adult leaders logs 100hrs, the council would get $1,000 and then give your unit a $100 credit at the camp trading post).

 

Seems skeevy to me, but I understand councils would want a monopoly on this and I understand a lot of COs/churches, even if they bother registering for these companies (the one used by Kohl's, Boeing, etc is "Benevity.org"), wouldn't necessarily use those funds specifically for their scouting program. 

What the councils do not want you to know is that the corporations will make a donation to your Chartering Organization (CO) as well.  All you need is the Employer Identification Number (EIN) of your 501 (c)(3) CO.

As long as they are a registered non-profit, the company will (most likely) make the donation to them.  Have the employee check their company policies.  The donation then goes to your CO, specifically for your unit.

We asked our CO is we could do this, and were met with a resounding "Yes!!"  Some of our parents worked for a LARGE pharmaceuticals company.  They all took time off to volunteer with us, some even going to Summer Camp as additional adult leaders.  It was quite a windfall for the Troop.  You would have to follow up on each donation and make sure the money made its way through the CO to the unit.  I recommend you discuss this thoroughly with the Committee and CO.  Heck, even if you did a 50-50 split, you'd still get more for your unit program than if you let it go the council.

When our Council Finance guy found out about it (that is another story), he was livid, but there was not a thing they could do about it. (Ethically speaking, that is.  Unethically, though, they did take action to remove a person we had on District and Council Committees for "not supporting the council.")

[Timbuktu]

8 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

When our Council Finance guy found out about it (that is another story), he was livid, but there was not a thing they could do about it. (Ethically speaking, that is.  Unethically, though, they did take action to remove a person we had on District and Council Committees for "not supporting the council.")

That's exactly what I'm trying to game out ahead of time. Huge units have a benefit here even if they're anemic with popcorn (no SE is gonna pull the charter of a 40+ youth troop from a cornerstone CO unless it's horrendously egregious conduct)...but they could go tit-for-tat in other ways.

 

The absurd thing here is that I've been asking registered volunteers about this program for months and NONE of them are logging their hours. Most of these individuals would account for a couple thousand dollars a pop, but since the council is trying to maintain a monopoly without promoting it, the money never comes Scouting's way.

Units won't have the motivation to birddog these employees/volunteers if they're not going to benefit from the donation. And the council office doesn't even know these eligible employees are involved in Scouting.

The only people who are logging their hours seem to be ones who are in units that are independent 501c3 orgs

Edited February 25 by Timbuktu

[yknot]

4 hours ago, Timbuktu said:

 

The only people who are logging their hours seem to be ones who are in units that are independent 501c3 orgs

Part of the reason for that might be that many corporate giving programs exclude religious organizations unless it is a separate entity, like a food bank that serves the entire community. If your CO is a church for example many companies won't issue funds unless the scout unit has its own 501c3 and is open to the community at large, not just members of the church. 

[Timbuktu]

6 minutes ago, yknot said:

Part of the reason for that might be that many corporate giving programs exclude religious organizations unless it is a separate entity, like a food bank that serves the entire community. If your CO is a church for example many companies won't issue funds unless the scout unit has its own 501c3 and is open to the community at large, not just members of the church. 

(1) Didn't know that; that's good information

(2) ...but they're also not logging their hours even though our council is eligible.

[yknot]

1 hour ago, Timbuktu said:

(2) ...but they're also not logging their hours even though our council is eligible.

It just may mean they are volunteering somewhere else and donating the hours there or even to another charity if they choose. Many of these corporate giving programs are capped in some way. At least that's my understanding.

[Timbuktu]

31 minutes ago, yknot said:

It just may mean they are volunteering somewhere else and donating the hours there or even to another charity if they choose. Many of these corporate giving programs are capped in some way. At least that's my understanding.

The employees I’ve spoken with didn’t even know about the program. I wouldn’t have even known the council was aware had I not found a 2019 document buried on the website.

 

Of the three big F1000 employers in our area, the caps are $500/yr, $10k/yr, and $15k/yr *just* for the volunteer hours. All three have some astronomical dollar-for-dollar cap that I can’t imagine anybody hitting unless they’re about to retire.

 

One of our troops is a 501c3 and they use matching funds from the those three companies pretty consistently (apparently). Idk about the other troops that are registered.

 

It sounds like the best way to leverage this sort of thing is to be chartered by an American Legion or some other secular nonprofit who’d be willing to earmark most of the donations to Scouting.

[yknot]

12 hours ago, Timbuktu said:

The employees I’ve spoken with didn’t even know about the program. I wouldn’t have even known the council was aware had I not found a 2019 document buried on the website.

 

Of the three big F1000 employers in our area, the caps are $500/yr, $10k/yr, and $15k/yr *just* for the volunteer hours. All three have some astronomical dollar-for-dollar cap that I can’t imagine anybody hitting unless they’re about to retire.

 

One of our troops is a 501c3 and they use matching funds from the those three companies pretty consistently (apparently). Idk about the other troops that are registered.

 

It sounds like the best way to leverage this sort of thing is to be chartered by an American Legion or some other secular nonprofit who’d be willing to earmark most of the donations to Scouting.

Most of these programs are pretty well publicized to the employee and most of the council websites near me have a matching gifts/volunteer button with search tool for volunteers to find out if a company has one.  If your council isn't publicizing it, keep bringing it up at Roundtables and see what happens. Keep in mind some people like to keep their giving habits private, so saying they know nothing about it might be an easier way for them to say stay out of my stuff. 

[SNEScouter]

19 hours ago, Timbuktu said:

since the council is trying to maintain a monopoly without promoting it, the money never comes Scouting's way.

You seem to think that financial support of the council does not support "Scouting."  That's concerning.

BSA has lots of rules and guidelines about how units are to finance their operations, etc., and who can solicit funds from outside sources.  (Spoiler - the unit cannot solicit).  They're not perfect but they're the rules and simply circumventing them or flouting them isn't the answer IMHO.