We had our first real board meeting a couple of weeks ago and came away with a lengthy to-do list.
The list included a trip to the Small Business Development Center at Western Illinois University. Who would expect a university – in our current sociopolitical climate – to provide critical information totally free? It many ways, it's superior to taking a class. You get at least as much guidance from an hour-long meeting as you'd get in a three-hour course, and Ann Freiderich was both supportive and realistic.
"It'll take about six months to process your 501(c)3 application," she told me. "Everything moves very, very slowly."
She pointed us to resources and clarified some of the regulations 501s have to follow. For one thing, our dream of a democracy in its purest form has been crushed. It turns out, we have to name an executive director. That director must receive pay and cannot be on the board, so that rules out an in-name-only designation for the sake of paperwork.
That there were additional hurdles came as no surprise, but it does frustrate the process. In any case, we'll continue to move forward with the 2F Project one step at a time, making a little more progress every day. Until then, we will continue to operate as an unnamed club that requires neither dues nor any other obligations beyond caring for our fellow life forms.