Booster Club

[kidzmom3]

I am not a gymastics parent, but I found your site while doing a websearch on trying to start a booster club for an all star cheer team. We would like to work the concession stand at our local football stadium, they offer this fundraiser for non-profit groups. Since the Cheer Team is technically for profit, how do you go about creating this non-profit entity? Do you have to file the 501c or could you just call yourself a booster club? I know you tried to answer that in the above post, but i am still slightly confused. Thanks for your help. Also, we run our program out of a gymnastics gym and I know they have an organization, they are sometimes a little down on the cheer program (2 separate owners, we rent space)
should I contact them and ask for help in creating our own booster club?

Thank you Kidzmom3

[margymmom]

Thanks for the great information. I have a similar question. If your booster club is a 501 (c) 3 and the donated money is pooled to pay for meet fees, team leos, etc., is my contribution deductible on my personal income taxes? My gym says yes, my accountant says maybe the portion that goes to meet fees would be deductible. We have never claimed this deduction because my husband thinks it is unethical. Any thoughts?

Also, for our booster club, we pay the estimated yearly amount up front (in installments) and there are several fundraising opportunities available (such as selling Sally Foster, cookie dough, etc). Each parent can choose to participate or not participate. I usually just pay my money, but some parents offset their entire booster donation with fundraising. Another nice fundraiser we have is a used leotard sale- an easy way to generate money and to get rid of small leos.