Windfall!

We have received an unexpected windfall from a friend of a friend who wished to donate. I won't give his name, but he looked like Santa Claus! :)

By windfall, I do mean that this was truly unexpected. The first I knew the man was when he called about 20 minutes before arriving with a check. But he knew a friend of mine, a friend I had met through a church friend of mine, so that is how he had heard of us. He said he liked not only our mission, but that we don't have salaries or admin costs the way that other non-profits often have. Costs that tend to eat up the charitable donation and mean that less actually gets to the people who need help.

Given that it was unexpected, and that other things we desire are already on track to be acquired in the normal course of time, we are setting that sum aside, to go towards applying for our 501(c)3 exemption. A thing that the donor brought up as being desirable to have.

True, we almost immediately could think of plenty of other things to use it for, but really, we've waited long enough on this. It's time.

We will still need an additional $300 for the application fee, and at a given point, we'll still have to pay for a CPA to go over the application with us - the application being a couple of dozen pages long, with about 30 pages of instructions!

But this is sure a big push ahead!

So tomorrow I'll be at Brookens Library, starting the laborious process of the paperwork, so there'll be something for the CPA to review!

This is rather exciting, as not only will it allow donations to us to be declarable on a donor's taxes as a deduction, but it will aid us in accessing food programs to aid the guests of the sober living home!