First off, I might get a second oppinion.  Find out for yourself because I could be mis-informed, but I was under the impression that organizations that make less than $25,000 per year are NOT required to file a 990, I also heard that number is going up.  Maybe that is why your CPA is trying to push you over that number because they do help with grants.
 
You should be able to pull most 501(c)(3) non-profit's 990 forms.  They are in the public domain.  So you can see exactly how other people do it.  There is also a recommended value for volunteer hours(http://www.independentsector.org/programs/research/volunteer_time.html) that some federal agency comes up with.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Morrison
Executive Director
Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective
2312 S. West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
w: 801-328-2453
c: 801-688-0183
f: 801-466-3856
www.slcbikecollective.org

Get Addicted to Crank!
http://www.slcbikecollective.org/crank/

The mission of the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Bicycle Collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households.


On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Boson Au <instructions@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone.... Boson from Baltimore's Velocipede bike project here.

we're in the midst of calculating our taxes (for the first time........) and we do have an accountant who is graciously helping us out for next to nothing.

anyways, he asked about how much profit we make and we got a little caught off guard;  besides the random part/bike we sell (for peanuts) we really don't make profit.  We are entirely volunteer-run, so we don't need to pay wages.  Our landlord is letting us use the place for a song, so beyond utilities and some non-recyclable parts (ie: brake cables) we don't really have much "costs"

as for profits: While we do sell some used parts and bikes (of which we def. have records of)  the primary way our bikes leave the shop is via the build-a-bike program.  A volunteer gives us 3 hrs, and we give them a bike/frame in need of work.  they then spend time at the shop fixing it.  no money is exchanged.

The accountant, not accustomed to this sort of "business" suggest that we consider coming up with something to represent the volunteer hours people give to enroll in the build-a-bike program, after all, they do get a bike out of it.


I wanna ask the other collectives out there, how do you handle this?

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