Association News
Sept 1997
We Are Officially Tax Exempt!!
Finally! After almost a year we have received the Internal Revenue Service's approval of our organization's
status as a non-profit, tax exempt group. We applied for status under section 501 (c) (3) figuring that it would be
easier to attain that more general status than one as a military association under section 501 (c) (19). As it turned
out, the IRS agreed that we really should be carried as a military association.
Why belabor the issue of our tax-exempt status -- the reason is that it now allows us to apply for discounted
postal rates for the Journal, to gain state tax and county tax exempt status, and to reduce costs in everything we do.
For example, this action will reduce the cost of publishing and sending the Journal, from $1700 to $1000 per issue.
It also allows members to donate money or material to the organization and get a tax credit for their
efforts.Membership Renewals Coming Back In Record Numbers
One of the results of the Association being more than a year old is that we have been sending out renewal
notices to our original one-year members. We sent approximately 40 renewal notices in May, 30 in June, 40 in July,
and more than 60 this month. We thought that our renewal rate was pretty good -- 36 from May, 28 from June and
so far, 29 from July -- until we spoke with some of the membership heads of other national professional
associations. Apparently, we are DOING FANTASTICALLY! These other gentlemen stated that we must have a
very devoted following to get renewals in those large percentages. So, first, a THANK YOU to you the
membership of FAOA is in order.
How could this renewal effort be even better?
Two ideas come to mind immediately -- first, if you are renewing and believe in the FAOA, renew for more
than one year. The work involved in processing renewals and sending out multiple renewal notices is significant for
our tiny staff of volunteers, to say nothing of the cost of sending the mailers out again and again. Remember its
your money we're spending. Second, if you think that the association is good enough to rejoin, then send us some
names of your friends that might not be members yet. One of the few ways that we can grow is through word of
mouth and personal recommendations. This is especially true of our retired membership -- we are totally reliant on
you to get new retired members in the organization.
New Sections in the Journal
The FAO Association is getting ready to
welcome its first Navy FAO members and as of the
next issue will add a NAVY FAO NOTES segment.
Also you may have noticed that we continue to
experiment with new segments and drop old ideas --
if there are some you really like let us
know!
1997, Foreign
Area Officer Association
Springfield,
Virginia
Maintained by LTC Steve
Gotowicki
http://www.faoa.org