Illinois has a “Safe Haven” law. For those who don’t know, this means that a mother can leaver her newborn baby, within 48 hours (maybe it’s 72 hours) of its birth, at a police station, fire station or hospital, no questions asked.
This law isn’t very well-publicized. That fact was brought to the Springfield community’s attention rather horribly a couple of weeks ago when an abandoned dead baby was found by a dog in a town just down the road from here. The local media speculated that this tragedy might have been averted had the mother known about our Safe Haven law.
I want to print up tens of thousands of posters advertising our Safe Haven law and put one in every cafeteria in every middle school, high school and college in Illinois. Then, I’m going to put one in every welfare office and every hospital waiting room. Then, I’m going to put more… someplace else.
Anyway, this will obviously cost tens of thousands of dollars and require hundreds of man-hours, so I’m not going to do it by myself.
So, how does one go about starting a charity (or whatever you want to call my little crusade)?
First, get some money together. Next, find a lawyer to help you with the incorporation papers, usually for free (lotsa nice lawyers out there.) I can’t remember exactly how you do it, but the IRS determines where you fit into their categories as a tax deductible charity. Your free lawyer can help you there, too or maybe a free tax accountant. Somewhere in there it is good to recruit some people to help out and be the board of directors but I 'm not sure that is essential. Between the incorporation and the IRS, you’re all set to raise money and do your good work.
OK, this is vastly oversimplified but it’s the bare bones of how I got going on a charity.
It depends on the state, but you can do charitable work without getting declared a nonprofit; it just means that any donations are not tax-deductible. States usually require some sort of registration, but the fees can be nominal. Contact the office of the Secretary of State; they usually handle this.
And before you get started, ask around in schools to see if they’ll let you do this. Many might have rules against outside organizations putting up posters on school property, no matter how good the cause.
I had a long post written out explaining the incorporation process, documentation, etc. that you’d need to work out with the IRS, and then I hit the wrong key and it vanished forever. Here’s the IRS web page that deals with charitable organizations. This page explains what you need to do to qualify, how to apply for tax-exempt status, etc.
But their process is a huge pain in the ass. For something like this, I’d find an existing non-profit that you’re comfortable with (maybe one that you’ve volunteered with in the past?), and pitch the idea to them. If they go for it, you can start soliciting donations tomorrow, using their already established federal ID number and infrastructure. They might also have a network of volunteers or contacts who could help with publicity, too.
Yeah, you need to find a friendly local lawyer. Not only for the IRS tax issues, but because Illinois regulates charities, mainly to minimize scams. It’s not really my area, but I believe they are regulated by the attorney general.
You’re project doesn’t seem to br all that terribly expensive a concept. And the first thing I would do is establish what my fundraising goals are by devloping an operating plan and budget. And then you can decide the best route to raise the budget.
And there are several routes to look at. For instance, if you are an artist you can pursue getting funding for the creation and distribution of an educational program as an arts project. Or rather than becoming a charity, you can identify charities already active in that area, and pitch your plans to them. They fund it.
And/or you could start a website to solicit funds, and you don’t have to be a tax-exempt charity to do so. Being all registered with the IRS and the state of Illinois does have some advantages; but also disadvantages, including a whole lot of recordkeeping and oversight by a board of directors.
Let’s say you’re talking about – what? – 5,000? 10,000? cafeterias, ERs, waiting rooms, etc. Unless you’re a graphic artist yourself, you’ll proably pay a few grand to one to lay out the poster. If you consider you’re job done by putting them in the mail to a mailing list you assemble from various professional associations, then you can probably do the whole thing for under 50k.
Unfortunately that will result in about 9950 of the posters ending up in a dumpster. Convincing all these places to allow your message up on their walls will be a FAR more expensive task than producing the message. Anything put up in my hospital by an outside group needs approval by a vice-president. Something like that, arriving out of the blue and not spoken for by someone known to the hospital, has about a 0 chance of getting in our lobbies. I share an open desk/reception area with two others, and the hospital has designated our desk as a drop-off location, as Wisconsin has a similar law. AFAIK, this is not posted anywhere publicly, but we do have a procedures binder if someone drops a baby on us.
How do you see yourself personally active in this project? Creating posters, making presentations to school boards?
I dunno - I haven’t thought that far ahead. I honestly don’t see this taking off at all. It looks like too much work, and even if I did pull it off I don’t think I’d have the patience to try to convince every principal at every public school in Illinois to let met put up my poster. But it’s a nice thought, I suppose…
It would be a daunting task for you to set up your own charity, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something about your idea. I found this listing of Illinois child welfare agencies, or you could call the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services or the Illinois Department of Public Health and talk to them about it. Another resource might be the United Way of Illinois. They may know of a group that might be able to make an effort to get the word out. If nothing else, maybe you can get an established agency or charity working on the idea - I don’t know how you feel about them, but it sounds like a natural cause for an anti-abortion/pro-adoption group, for instance.
You may not be able to do this alone, but I’ll bet there’s someone out there who would be happy to have your help in accomplishing it. If you’re willing to make an effort to do this, don’t give up without checking out the resources that already exist!
Thanks. Now that I think about it, I may go the United Way route. Maybe they’ll work with me-- perhaps they’ll put up the money and much of the effort if I do some of the ground work; say, design some posters, set up a web site, etc.
I also live in Illinois and have thought about this too. It’s so sad that people still abandon their babies in garbage cans, or kill them because they’re so terrified someone will find out they were pregnant. I agree that this is most likely due to this law not being widely known in Illinois. Unfortunately I have no advice about how to get your organization started, but it sounds like you’ve gotten some pretty good advice here already. I wish you the best of luck!