subject: Purpose And Role Of State Charitable Solicitation Requirements [print this page] Every state has made some rules for the registration of charitable solicitations. A charitable organization functioning in a particular state has to meet state charitable solicitation requirements for smooth functioning of their organization. It is important to register with state agency because they have some purpose of these state charitable solicitation requirements. The most important purpose is to protect the public who is donating money for charitable. Charitable organizations are established to provide help to a specific group of people or a community at large. To fulfill the state charitable solicitation requirements was made necessary for registration as to provide tax benefits to the donors. Therefore, an agency or a department was created in every state to regulate charitable organizations and were asked to first register and then submit their annual reports with the same.
Every state has laid down certain requirements to register a charitable organization with them and every state has different notions for registration. Charitable organizations who receive multiple state solicitations have to fill a unified registration statement which helps them to receive solicitations from different states. Most organizations do not have any knowledge about the purpose of registration and its requirements. Charitable organizations that do not fulfill state charitable solicitation requirements and register on time have to face fines and penalties and even state agencies may stop them from operating till they fulfill all the requirements.
A charitable organization has to fill Form 990 for charitable solicitation registration and renewal. Your charitable organization may be visited by any official from Charitable solicitation department and can impose fine if found non-compliance with their rules and regulations. The main purpose of state charitable solicitation requirements is to provide tax benefit to the donors. The donors only get a tax benefit and do not receive any other goods or services in return. Donors receive appreciation and do not get any monetary return from donations made to charitable.
Many charitable organizations take help from web to display their activities outside their home states and collecting funds. Due to increasing publicity of charitable activities government of some states has laid down certain out of state charitable solicitation requirement that are to be fulfilled by all the charitable organizations in order to collects fund from out of state agencies. All charitable organizations should check these rules and regulations before demanding any funds from out of state agencies to remain legal. These days most charitable organization are making use of internet to raise out of state funds and it is required that they should register themselves with the state and should comply with all the rules and regulations laid down by any particular state to carry out its activities through internet to collect out of state funds. Since it is a fresh idea to solicit funds through internet thus it will take time to formulate strict laws for soliciting out state funds through internet.
Some important points that should be noticed by state authorities in regard to out of state charitable solicitation requirements include initial registration, annual reporting, points which must be or must not be state on solicitation, reporting major activities in advance, reporting engagement of any professional solicitor etc. These requirements are necessary to check fraudulent charitable solicitations. Sometimes government fails to check these fraudulent solicitations due to lack of interest. Thus, anti fraud laws should be applicable to check these fraudulent activities.
