colorisnteverything wrote:
ddranch wrote:
colorisnteverything wrote:
That is a really bare bones 990. When I was in a nonprofit class last year, we were far more detailed in the fake 501(c)(3) paperwork we set up. I don't think there's anything suspicious necessarily in the 990 but it's pretty bare. The section O is WAY more simplistic than almost any I've seen for a legit charity in the past.

Also, depending on the state, you *can* have family members on the board. However, they all should have to fill out conflict of interest information and I was told it was a "red flag" at least when it comes to grant funding.

I'm comparing this to service orgs, though, which are a pretty different type of organization altogether. So I'm not sure how "normal" that is. Running a nonprofit is really hard and really stressful.
I think it would be very hard to meet all the requirements.

If I could ask you to look at the paperwork from another angle for a moment and if you wanted to shelter as much of your normal expenses on horses and create a big tax write off what would the paperwork look like?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "very hard to meet the requirements".  A lot of animal rescue orgs (legitimate ones) DO meet these requirements, so that's what I meant.  It can.  Here is one from an organization I used to volunteer with:

Note the donations, different grant, and other information filled in.  Also note the board of directors notes, etc.  This is what the 990s I have seen quite often look like for legit orgs.

Here's a Humane Society in the same county/city:

Looks more legitimate.  Itemizing programs, donations, etc. is really important and most organizations that ARE legitimate will do so.  When you look through a 990, you want to see that they are actually DOING programming not just taking in money and claiming a loss.  The charity in question looks suspect based on the 990,as I said before.  It's not necessarily bad or good (although it seems to jive with what you've found out that they are fishy) based on that alone but I wouldn't want to donate to them based on how little I actually see going on there.

It just seems to me that if I really wanted to run a rescue and do the most good I would want to reach out to the community with drives for sponsors and education programs to involve the local horses and their owners as much as I could.

I would want advertising and signs and volunteers.
I would want to involve local vets and maybe a farrier or two.

This place is just set up as a tax write off and ships in horses out of the Bay Area for "retirement" and everyone pays board.