Hi,

I am a board member of an association in NY. The association has existed for more than 10 years, but had been "dormant" since 2002. A couple of people got together, started meeting again, and it's up and running now, but with none of the old people or board members to help out. Ok, so all of us who are doing this work now have no experience in this area, so we pretty much don't know what we need to do. We want to obtain copies of all the legal paperwork we need to have on file, but we're not sure where to get it or how to start that process. In fact, we're not even sure exactly what we need to have. It's a small association that doesn't make much money. Members (less than 50) only pay $20 a year, and any other income comes from fundraisers such as a bake sale, or a book fair, so it's not much either. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

A couple of sources of information: you might start with the nonprofit association for your state:

Council of Community Services of New York State
Contact: Doug Sauer, Executive Director
272 Broadway
Albany, NY 12210
Phone: (518) 434-9194, Fax: (518) 434-0392
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: CCSNYS - The Council of Community Services of New York State, Inc (http://www.ccsnys.org)

You'll need to find your 501(c)(3) form exempting you from taxes. Another great source of help in getting going again is SCORE (http://www.score.org/index.html), which is a volunteer association of retired executives. There are many SCORE chapters around New York State