foundation growing

The Brandon Kraft Foundation is slowly getting more and more off the ground. Form 1023, the IRS form to be formally declared a non-profit entity, is a long, painful form to fill out. Thankfully, the IRS revised it in November giving a much more user-friendly form for me to use. I don’t know if I would ever get the old one done- it had all these references to tax law and asked questions about if you apply under that provision or not but it never explained anywhere what was actually the provision. For example, if would ask something like (just making this up):

Does your organization meet any of the following provisions?
1708(c)2
1708(d)1
1708(e)3
1751(a)4
1752(b)5
If you selected none, please attach an explanation.

Thankfully, they ask all the same questions but they explain what they’re asking for. The problem is now not figuring out what they’re asking but simply writing out what they want. The biggest roadblock now is the lack of a formal budget. The form requests a projected three-year budget (for an organization that is so ‘young’) and frankly, your guess is as good as mine on what kind of donations the Foundation will be able to pull in over the next three years and to what programs we would expand.
In July, when I filed the original articles of incorporation with the Texas Secretary of State’s office, I made one extremely important blunder: I did not include certain provisions about our chartiable purpose that the IRS requires. I was somewhat impulsive on getting it started, what can I say? After learning that lesson, today I filed the proper amendments with the Secretary of State’s office.
I am really looking forward to seeing where this all goes. Stay tuned for more updates…