Is your club actually a nonprofit?

First, check what you already are — 5 minutes

• Booster club? Look yourselves up in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search. Check two lists: "Pub 78" (donors can deduct) and the auto-revocation list. The IRS automatically revokes any nonprofit that misses its annual filing three years running, and this is how booster clubs quietly die — plenty of clubs collecting donations right now are technically revoked and don't know it.
• PTA? You're likely already covered under your state PTA's group exemption — you may be a 501(c)(3) without ever having filed anything yourself. One email to your state PTA office confirms it and gets you the EIN details.
• Raising for the school itself? Donations made directly to a public school or district are generally deductible anyway — gifts to a government entity for public purposes. If the money lands in the school's own account, you may not need a separate nonprofit at all. Ask the district's business office.

If your status lapsed

A revoked club can usually get status back retroactively. Small organizations that were eligible for the postcard filing can often use the streamlined path: file Form 1023-EZ within 15 months of revocation and ask for retroactive reinstatement. If it's been longer, it's still fixable — just more paperwork, and the point where an hour with a nonprofit-savvy accountant pays for itself.

Starting from scratch — the whole path

1. Incorporate as a nonprofit corporation in your state. Usually a simple online filing with your state's corporations office, typically $40–$100. One thing matters more than everything else: your articles must include the IRS's required purpose and dissolution clauses (the IRS publishes the exact suggested language — copy it verbatim). Missing clauses are the #1 reason applications bounce.
2. Get an EIN at irs.gov — free, ten minutes, weekdays. Never pay a site that charges for this.
3. Adopt bylaws and a conflict-of-interest policy, and seat a board of at least three people who mostly aren't related to each other. Template bylaws for booster clubs are everywhere; keep it simple.
4. File Form 1023-EZ on pay.gov — $275. Nearly every booster club qualifies for the EZ version (projected receipts of $50,000 or less per year and assets under $250,000 — the eligibility worksheet in the instructions takes five minutes). Approval typically lands in a few weeks.
5. Every year after: file the 990-N "e-postcard." Free, online, about ten minutes, for groups under $50,000 in receipts. Put it on the calendar with a co-organizer as backup — three missed years is how clubs end up back at step one. Some states also have their own charity registration; check yours once.

Total cost for a typical club: the state filing fee plus $275, and an afternoon of effort. What it buys: deductible receipts for donors, eligibility for employer gift-matching (which doubles donations), grant eligibility, and the verified badge on your Fair Raise page — drawn live from IRS records, so donors know it's real.

Two money-hygiene rules that protect your status

• The money lives in the club's bank account, opened with the club's EIN — never in a parent's or coach's personal account. (This is also exactly what Stripe's "organization" route expects when you connect your bank.)
• Fundraise for the team, not for individual families' obligations. The IRS has revoked booster clubs for crediting fundraising against specific families' dues in proportion to what each family raised. Cheering on your top fundraisers is fine; running private benefit accounts is not. If your club does per-family credits today, that's worth a conversation with a professional.

Where Fair Raise fits

Once your club has its status, put the EIN on your fundraiser (there's a field for it) — we check it against IRS records automatically and your page shows the verified-nonprofit line with the deductibility note donors are looking for. No status yet? You can still fundraise today; the badge just waits until the IRS record exists. Questions: hello@fairraise.org.