dilemma

here's the thing. i don't want kaleidoscope to be a 501(c)3. if you don't know, that's a tax-exemption status that pretty much any organization has to have if it wants to get any grants. most organizations, certainly most arts organizations, cannot exist without grants.
kaleidoscope could sure use some grants. in fact, i found one on monday that kaleidoscope seemed to be eligible for--as long as it was a non-profit 501(3). the grant application was due on thursday. it had to either be postmarked by a u.s. post office or dropped off at the grant-giver's office by closing hours. i made the decision to take the plunge into non-profit status and apply for the grant.
working furiously with a good friend at my side (thanks) and other outside support, i got estimates, crunched numbers, created a budget, wrote a mission statement, a vision statement, a history, a (perfectly) 75 word description of the project to be funded as a well as a (much longer) detailed description. i put together a good board and answered a ridiculous number of questions--over and over. the good friend by my side put together photographs and videos, printed out pages and pages of application and calendar (two years worth of calendar!)
i missed the deadline. not by much. a few hours, probably when all is said and done, because though we had answered all the questions and assembled all the documentation a mere half-hour after the last post office closed (what major city doesn't have a post office open till midnight?), we had not made the requisite 10 copies! i don't think we'd made the digital copy either.
so yeah, i missed the deadline by a couple of hours.
telling myself that the work wouldn't be in vain i decided to do some work on getting the rest of my non-profit ducks in a row for next time. i got on the computer that i'm writing this on right now. just a few minutes ago (right before i started writing this blog) i googled "501(c)3" to check out exactly what the rules said--especially about politics. while checking out the rules, this is what i found:

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.  Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

i found it on the irs site
http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=163395,00.html

and that brings me back to why i really don't want to be a 501(c)3.
i've been telling anybody who asked why kaleidoscope wasn't a non-profit that i didn't like restrictions, that i didn't want to do the paperwork, that people generally didn't give enough to take it off their taxes anyway. but grants give enough money to want to take it off taxes and if i really didn't want to do the paperwork i wouldn't have sat here for two and a half days doing the paperwork.
i really don't like restrictions though.
and this particular restriction really pisses me off.
kaleidoscope is already a de facto non-profit. not just because it is it not earning any profit but because it functions as a non-profit. it is a non-discriminatory service to the general community providing access to a panoply of the arts and educational resources; it is a service to the artistic community providing opportunities not always available through business for profit.
of course i can personally endorse any candidate i choose. but kaleidoscope would not be serving its community responsibly if it could not speak out about a candidate that was a proponent of non-discrimination, or the arts, or education or any of the issues important to kaleidoscope's community.
there's a poster on kaleidoscope's memory wall right now of ralph nader and matt gonzalez from the 2008 presidential campaign. there's a beautiful poster in support of the revolutions of the peoples of egypt, lybia and tunisia. i'm not going to take them down.
i may do the whole non-profit thing anyway, though. kaleidoscope sure could use some funding. but i promise i won't take the posters down.
update: kaleidoscope free speech zone is now a non-profit