If your club wants to do things like open a bank account or enter into contracts with vendors, the first thing you’ll need to do is set up your club as an incorporated entity. If the procrastinator in you wants to bury yourself under the covers after hearing that — don’t do it! Setting up your club as an unincorporated nonprofit is actually pretty straightforward. This guide will walk you through how to painlessly set up your own unincorporated nonprofit association in no time.
Sound like too much work already? Luckily you can get incorporated with Crowded without the stress and for only 95$ ! See how it works here
Whenever two or more people begin working together on a common goal, they’ve formed an unincorporated association.
In order to open a bank account and conduct other business for your club, you’ll need to put your goals down in writing, lay out your club rules, and have at least two club members sign them (such as your club treasurer and secretary). These are your club bylaws and they’re required to officially be recognized as an unincorporated nonprofit association.
The good news is that you don’t need a lawyer to write your bylaws — there are plenty of examples you can find online, or, you can use our free bylaws template to create your own.
We also hate acronyms that leave us scratching our heads, but this one is easy. EIN stands for Employer Identification Number (also known as your Federal Tax Identification Number). It’s a nine-digit number assigned to your club by the IRS so that they can identify you for tax purposes (as a nonprofit, you’ll be exempt from paying federal income taxes).
You’ll need an EIN to get your tax-exempt status as a nonprofit, open a bank account, and conduct business on behalf of your club. Luckily, the IRS has a free online EIN assistant that can set you up in five minutes. Heads up, make sure you choose “view additional types, including tax-exempt and governmental organizations” when filling out the application.
Once you complete the form, you’ll have the option to receive a PDF with your EIN identification number. Make sure to save this PDF and have it handy for when you want to open your bank account.
This is where we come into the picture. We’ll help you get your Crowded banking account set up in minutes and then show you how easy it is to manage all of your club finances on the Crowded app that we built exclusively for member clubs.
Spoiler alert: you’ll be able to quickly set up payment requests (such as dues payments), conveniently see all of your member’s payment statuses, and best of all — you’ll be able to issue out virtual Visa® debit cards to your members for club expenses. And that’s just the highlight reel.
Want to learn more? Click here!
Originally published at https://www.bankingcrowded.com on May 10, 2022.
