The Brony Thank You Fund®

A meeting of the board of directors was held via Skype on Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 at 9PM.  Attending were Sabrina Alberghetti, Monica Carlino and James Turner.

Prior notice having been given as per the bylaws, Mr. Turner moved to amend the bylaws as follows:

Article II, Section 1.  Amend by replacing the number 5 with 6, so that it shall read:

Admittedly, 501(c)(3) Celebration doesn't really roll off the tongue, but we're still pretty durn excited about finally getting our tax-exempt status! To create an appropriately celebratory mood, we consulted an expert on the subject, and Pinkie Pie responded "PARTIES! PRESENTS!"

Alas, we can't invite you all to a party, the Fund headquaters is a little small for that. But we can definitely get down with the idea of presents! We've reached into our big bag of goodies, and have a few major ones we'd like to share with our May donors.

Since the first day that the Brony Thank You Fund had a web page, we've had verbage under our donation button that read:

The Brony Thank You Fund, Incorporated has applied to the United States Internal Revenue Service for registration as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity.  If this application is granted, all donations to the Fund will become retroactively tax-deductible to the extent permissible by law.

If you look on the front page of our web site today, you'll see a very different message:

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, nor a tax specialist.  Please consult a professional for more specific advice.

Here's a little brainteaser to start (or end) your day:

It's been a while since I've given a general update on the Fund, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to update everypony on how things are going.  The whole Las Pegasus debacle sucked up a lot of time, because although it wasn't officially a Fund project, we were heavily involved in a civilian capacity in the relief auction planning and execution.  Thankfully, we're on the other side of that mess, and can refocus on the bigger picture again.

In an effort to work better with the regional fan groups and conventions, the Brony Thank You Fund is putting out a call for volunteers willing to act as regional directors for the Fund in the following geographic areas:

Not much to look at, but here's our first tax filing with the IRS.  Because we took in less than $50,000 last year, we get to use the ultra-short form.

I know that reading balance sheets is probably not on your top fun activities for a holiday weekend, but as the end of the year rolls around, we'd like to let you know what happened to all the money you donated this year.  One of the things we hope sets the Fund apart from other brony charities is that we operate totally transparently, which is to say that our books are open and we don't try to hide any of the details of what we've been up to.

We're a small group of people, and there are a lot of Pony Cons upcoming in 2013.  We can't make them all, but we'd like to have a presence at as many of them as we can.  If you'd be willing to man our table during the public vendor hours, talk about the Fund, take donations and sell our merch, we're willing to cover up to $200 in expenses (receipts required) for you to attend.  That can be convention memberships, hotel rooms, or travel costs.  We're a charity, so obviously we'd like to avoid paying out money unless we have to.