Initial Charitable Solicitation Registration

Currently, forty states have laws that govern charitable solicitation activities. These laws define charitable organizations, what form of solicitation triggers state registration, what organizations are exempt from charitable registration, what forms must be filed, to what office initial registrations must be submitted, due dates, if corporate registration is required, applicable fees, charitable registration renewals, and much more. Bottom line, no matter what state or states your charity plans to solicit in, you are required to comply with state-specific charitable registration regulations. Failure to comply could result in severe penalties and fees costing thousands of dollars.

Most nonprofit organizations rely on volunteers and inexperienced personnel to manage their charitable state registrations. While some states have adopted the Unified Registration Statement, which attempted to standardize charitable registrations between states to make it easier to register and manage multi-state charitable registration, most declined to adopt the URS instead sticking with their state-specific laws. To make charitable solicitation registration even more complicated, state laws, forms, and so on are always changing – hence the reason why some nonprofits fail to register.

Registering to solicit in some states is quite easy and straightforward, while in others, it can be quite complicated. Take for example the state of Massachusetts, which has four separate forms for in-state and out-of-state entities depending on if they are registering before or after their initial fiscal year-end. Some states require nonprofits to file additional forms when working with third parties such as professional fundraisers or when engaged in commercial co-venture agreements.