I would like to form a Parents Assoc. for my sons college baseball
team.  We would like to hold and reverse raffle at $50 perticket with
a total of $100 tickets sold , give a cash prize of $1000 and donate
the rest of the money to the team.  In order to do this what kind of
paperwork must I complete?  The Assoc. would be based in NC.

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Clarification of Question by gcbbdad-ga on 25 Aug 2003 19:03 PDT

I would like to form a Parents Assoc. for my sons college baseball
team.  We would like to hold a reverse raffle at $50 per ticket with
a total of 100 tickets sold , give a cash prize of $1000 and donate
the rest of the money to the team.  In order to do this what kind of
paperwork must I complete?  The Assoc. would be based in NC.

Hi there,

I have found the proper information concerning both aspects of your
question, running a legal raffle and forming an association.

Basically, you need to become a tax-exempt organization, as recognised
by the Department of Revenue. Once you have achieved that, you can run
the raffle.


Raffles
-------

The rules for running raffles in NC are:


a) It is lawful for any nonprofit organization or association,
recognized by the Department of Revenue as tax-exempt, to conduct
raffles.

b) A "raffle" means a game in which the prize is won by random drawing
of the name or number of one or more persons purchasing chances.

c) Raffles shall be limited to two per nonprofit organization per
year.

d) The maximum cash prize that may be offered or paid for any one
raffle is ten thousand dollars ($10,000) and if merchandise is used as
a prize, and it is not redeemable for cash, the maximum fair market
value of that prize may be fifty thousand dollars ($50,000). No real
property may be offered as a prize in a raffle. The total cash prizes
offered or paid by any nonprofit organization or association may not
exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000) in any calendar year. The total
fair market value of all prizes offered by any nonprofit organization
or association, either in cash or in merchandise that is not
redeemable for cash, may not exceed fifty thousand dollars ($50,000)
in any calendar year.

e) Raffles shall not be conducted in conjunction with bingo.

f)  No less than ninety percent (90%) of the net proceeds of a raffle
shall be
used by the nonprofit organization or association for charitable,
religious, educational, civic, or other nonprofit purposes. None of
the net proceeds of the raffle may be used to pay any person to
conduct the raffle, or to rent a building where the tickets are
received or sold or the drawing is conducted.

The full law (only slightly longer than what I copied above), can be
found at ther North Carolina General Assembly website:
http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Statutes/GeneralStatutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_14/GS_14-309.15.html



Association
-----------

The NC State University has a page of information on this topic - it
regards student organizations, but the same applies in your case:

Non-Profit Organizations
by Pamarah Gerace, Attorney at Law, Director, Student Legal Services
and Michael Wallace, Coordinator, Student Organization Resource
Center, NC State University
http://www.ncsu.edu/sorc/Non_Profit.html

The NC Secretary of State has prepared a PDF booklet that covers
everything you need to know about forming a non-profit organization:

Incorporating Your Non-Profit in North Carolina
http://www.secretary.state.nc.us/imaging/Storage/6131967.pdf
(it took a while to download)

If your computer doesn't have the Acrobat Reader (you need it to view
PDF files), you can download it here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html 



Search strategy: "north carolina" license raffle


Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga