Hi friends, 

I'm a volunteer at Recycle-A-Bike here in Providence, RI. We are in the middle of applying for 501c3 status and have hit a few road blocks. I was wondering if any folks have applied for 501c3 or are also in the middle of it, and can offer some advice. Basically, my questions are:

- Do any 501c3 shops also have a volunteer point system? At RAB, we award volunteers "points" for putting in time, and they can later cash these points in for used parts or time in the shop. We don't want to get rid of this system, but the IRS finds this problematic for 501c3.

- Do any shops sell bikes as a 501c3? Have shops set up both models- such as a for-profit bike shop to sell bikes and an affiliated non-profit to run community programs? So far bike sales keep us sustainable, so we really want to keep this up as a nonprofit. 

Thanks for any insight! Sorry if a similar email was already sent out by another RAB person...we're all trying to collect as much info as we can.

cheers,

Mary