Charitable registration-so you can fundraise in all the states

If you are soliciting funds in any state, you must comply with their solicitation laws. This means filling out annual forms that vary by state. There are vendors that do this for organizations, but our experience is that the vendors are expensive and not at all reliable (we found out that our vendor, Labyrinth, Inc., had charged us for 3 years of registrations in one state but the state had no record of our registration--but perhaps they have fixed this problem). For a list of vendors who provide this service try the Chronical of Philanthropy's website.

About 35 states require charitable registrations. If you have a website that is accessible for the 50 states and ask for online contributions, you are technically supposed to be registered in all those that require it.

I don’t know what the laws are for soliciting membership dues across the country, but can find out from some of my membership colleagues.

George in my office does our state registrations… he can be reached at operations@undp-usa.org or 202-558-7104. Once he is back in the office I will get the sites that he visits and post them here.