There will be an important meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 27th at the Library at 6PM before the Candidates Forum. Please arrive on time!
Members will be asked to vote on an important matter that your Board of Directors recommends membership approve to convert our organization from a non-tax-deductible organization, a 501(c)(4), to a 501(c)(3), which would be tax-deductible. Below is more of an explanation and we have listed the documents you were mailed physically in August.
Please attend the meeting on 9/27/16. In order to pass this we need a quorum of one-third of our membership which is 19.
The following is the content of the letter sent to you. Also see the documents listed below. They are the ones that need to be changed to allow the conversion.
Dear League Members,
We ask that you are sure to attend our September 27th meeting at 6PM at the Douglas County Library, 1409 Diamond Lake Blvd, Roseburg, as we need your approval to convert our organization from a 501c4 status to a 501c3 status. As we are now a c4, donations are not tax-deductible. If we convert to a c3, both donations and member dues would be tax exempt.
Also, the state League is encouraging us to sign on as a local League, as they are submitting paperwork to the IRS to convert 7 other local Leagues.
As a 501c3 there are limitations to “lobbying” according to the IRS, but our organization does not come close to the ceiling which is 20% of our expenses in a year or averaged over a four-year period. Usually, we do education or advocacy, which we can do with no limits. Advocacy is speaking up about issues. Lobbying has to do with advising people to vote in a specific way regarding specific ballot measures. Rarely, do we do that. And when we do, it usually doesn’t cost anything or not very much. If we convert, we will have to track how much we spend on lobbying each year and report to the IRS once a year. This is part of the treasurer’s job.
We will take four votes:
- One to suspend the rules to allow this membership meeting to proceed.
- One to approve the overall plan of converting from a 501c4 to a 501c3.
- One to approve the new bylaws. We added language from the national League regarding Article II Purposes and Policies, and 501c3 language that has been reviewed by a 501c3 attorney (by the state League), and a change to the dates we can hold annual meetings (Article VII, Section 2).
- And a final vote to accept the new Articles of Incorporation.
Here are the related documents as PDFs:
•Letter to Members regarding 501c3 Conversion
• LWVUV Bylaws Proposal
• LWVUV Bylaws Draft Revision 8-11-16 with 501c3-language
• Draft LWVUV Articles of Incorporation 8-11-16
• Articles of Incorporation from 1989
These docs were mailed to each member at their physical mailing address in August 2016.
Any Questions? Please contact Jenny Carloni at jennifer.carloni at gmail.com or 541-672-1914 or Robin Wisdom at rwisdom at jeffnet.org or 541-672-6982.
League of Women Voters of the Umpqua Valley 