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volunteer rewards - need some help please


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there is a leader who can get a $750 grant from his work for every so-many hours of volunteering (up to 2x per year). this money has to go to a registered non-profit org. because the pack is not recognized in this manner, the check went to council last spring. herein lies an issue.

 

the leader would obviously like the pack to benefit from this more than we did this past time. $1500/year would be a great help to our program and allow us to build some programs like a uniform closet etc.. for those scout families in need. i think he was rubbed the wrong way when a family friend of theirs wanted to bring their kids to scouts but couldnt afford the uniforms and books to get started. The DE was not too willing to help us out with an uniform and book for this scout saying that they **might** be able to help out. some would say to just have the pack pick up the costs however, we simply dont have the funds. his problem was that they had no problems taking the $750 check, but only might be able to help him out with a shirt.

 

in an ideal world our CO would give us a blank check to run a program, all parents would fight over volunteering for positions, and all that other stuff we dream of in our units :)

 

last spring, the check was sent to council and we had it applied to our FOS. he is obviously not obligated to fill out the paperwork for the grant and it doesnt sound like he wants to do this is we (as a pack) will not benefit from the money. i realize that the money is going somewhere in council and that can be considered us benefiting, but this does not help us pay any of the pack expenses.

 

i know he doesnt want 100% of the money to go to our pack (though it would be nice) but it would be nice for us to even be able to benefit some as a direct result. im afraid he will simply not fill out the paperwork and just let the money go elsewhere. either that or he fills it out so our CO would get a check and give it right back to us - with council cut completely out of the picture.

 

a few uniform shirts and books each semester would be nice so we can recruit some scouts that may not have the ~$100 to spend to get started.

 

thoughts??

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In most states, scout units are not legal entities. They are youth programs "chartered" (licensed) to the CO. That is why most units do not have IRS employer ID numbers to use for tax-exempt purposes. Is your CO a non=profit? Should be a simple matter for the check to be issued to the CO, as long as they agree to funnel it into the Pack treasury. If they are not, I think you're out of luck.

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It sounds like your DE doesn't quite understand the issue, or else is just a jerk. This is money that the council wouldn't otherwise get - essentially free cash, right? The DE doesn't have to lift a finger to get it. All you guys want is to divide it so some of the money goes to the pack. A 50-50 split does not sound unreasonable.

 

Try talking to your DE again and make sure he or she understands that the money may not be coming next time if the pack doesn't get a share of it. Don't pitch it as a threat, but just as a collegial, informational thing. $750 may not seem like a lot, but every little bit counts towards the DE's fundraising goals.

 

As a side note, that sounds like a great place to work! Can you give more details about his employer? :)

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I'm not sure how BSA works, but I had a similar situation with GS. In that case, the employer sent the check to council on behalf of our troop. Council then split the amount per our instructions and issued a check to the troop. Maybe your BSA council can do something similar?

 

Karen

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We also have a leader that works for a company that matches volunteer hours. Each year this person fills out the necessary paperwork and we have to submit our nonprofit tax info (which is our COs info). A $200 check is wrote to the CO. The CO then writes a check to the Pack.

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I'm not entirely sure why you can't get the check directly? I'm only going on our pack (and maybe in NJ it's different??) But checks written to our pack are signed by me as treasurer and deposited into our pack account- which uses the Council tax-exempt number that everyone uses.

 

If you were to write a check for a fundraiser, or donation, or payment for a campout, do you write it directly to the pack and the pack makes the 'big' check? Could the employer send the check directly to wherever your pack checking account is registered? maybe it's just a case of changing the addy the check is sent too...

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Eagle92 - I'm not sure what you mean. You can easily get a nonprofit's tax identification/employer identification number by checking out their IRS Form 990s, which are supposed to be made public upon request. I found my council's in about 45 seconds on Guidestar.org.

 

Whether you're allowed to use it is another question entirely.

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I don't know, maybe Jersey rules are different? The council gave us the tax id number. We needed it to open the pack checking account! Besides, it's on all the tax-exempt forms I request when we need to go shopping (but I really didn't pull it off of there, lol, I DID call council for it).

 

Our unit is chartered by the local home and school assn. The only people that have ever been signers on the bank accounts have been committee members in our pack- it sounds like this is an anomally???

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Our council will NOT allow us to use their number, since they don't own the unit. The SE even got PO'd when a well meaning volunteer accepted a donation of building materials and took it up to camp without his permission. Something about triggering a "tax event".

 

We have to use the CO's number, or not at all, since a unit is not a non=profit corporation. SOmeone asked, "why can't the unit receive the check directly"? That would be acceptable, however my assumption is that's not how the benefactor wants to do things.

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yes- the company's foundation will only give payments to those groups they recognize in the community. unfortunately - our pack is not one of the groups, but the council is. we are now looking to see if our CO (American Legion) is. we may run in to a similar situation since they may recognize the national legion but not the local post

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