Our Journey
Getting it together...
Random Fandom Life started out with a question: Wouldn't it be nice to have a place where all fandoms could get together to do great things for the world?
Like so many great adventures, it's more fun when you have people to come along with you.
Through membership in Supernatural fandom Facebooks groups, Kearson Winchester, Brandy Melin, Jenny Hendrix, and Jaime Fitzpatrick found each other. Together they took on the challenge of starting a nonprofit corporation. Easier said than done.
Building blocks...
In truth, if you have enough people willing to sign on the dotted line, it's not that hard to start a regular corporation. But it's pretty much a 'they give you enough rope to hang yourself' situation. When you form a corporation, there comes with it a whole host of responsibilities, most of them involving paperwork and money.
Random Fandom Life, Inc. was incorporated in California on December 6, 2017. See Articles of Incorporation here.
Once we filed the Articles of Incorporation, we had to draft bylaws, and those bylaws are required to include very specific things for nonprofit entities. There are strict rules for nonprofits. And so began several weeks of back and forth and editing to get our bylaws completed. There were many late nights, as well as two board meetings (one of them short notice), in order to get everything drafted and approved. In the end we got it squared away. See Bylaws here. But we still weren't done.
Initially we were going to file the full IRS Form 1023 because we had an event planned within our first 3 years of operation that would have brought in over $50,000 in funds. In the end we decided it was quicker (and cheaper) to move the event out past the three year mark and file for our exemption immediately.
On May 4, 2018, the 1023-EZ for IRS exemption was filed.
Clearing a big hurdle...
Random Fandom Life was determined to be a public nonprofit corporation by the IRS on May 23, 2018. See IRS Determination Letter here.
Tagging all the bases...
Our next step was to get recognized by the state of California as a nonprofit organization. Our application was received by the California Franchise Tax Board on June 8, 2018 and we received notification on August 14, 2018 that our state exempt status would be recognized back to our formation date of December 6, 2017. See CA FTB Determination Letter.
