Post by Mark on Oct 2, 2009 0:16:27 GMT -8
Admittedly, whenever I see a spreadsheet, my eyes glaze over and scenes of "Looney Tunes" commence to circle around in my head. My wife handles pretty much all the financials of my home. I haven’t balanced the check-book in nearly 20 years. If sharing a mathematical equation with me, you’ve completely lost my interest if the first sentence has more than five words in it or if any factor involves a two-digit number or greater. If I had to do my own taxes, my inclination would be to toss my year-end statement to the accountant and ask them just how much to write the check for. I’m just not interested in the details.
I write songs that are intended for worship. I sing. I tell stories. I teach. Every once in a while there’s somebody that for some reason seems interested in giving me money. With almost ten children, a wife and mother-in-law, plus untold and undeclared critters that happen to come in under the care or curiosity of various children, such offers are difficult to pass up. According to Federal Poverty Standards, I could make more than twice the amount I annually bring home and still be considered desperately impoverished.
Recently someone suggested that I should incorporate as a not-for-profit organization. I stared at him blankly. What exactly is that? "Not for profit" seems to me to be an organization established for the purpose of something other than making money. That certainly doesn’t fit my description at all. I’m all about making money. I’m just not very good at it. The truth is, most "not-for-profits" I know about spend most of their time asking for (and getting) money. These people in the business of not making a profit, in many cases, have monthly personal expense account that doubles my annual grocery bill. It all seems perfectly backwards to my non-mathematical brain.
The truth is that people who want me to become "not-for-profit" are more interested in their tax exemption (what they are not paying to the Federal Government) than they are in helping support my "ministry" (feeding my family and their critters). They would like to see that I have funds available to produce more (and better) worship and educational materials; but they would prefer to channel the funds as opposed to provide them. At the same time, there are plenty of hard working Americans as excited about my getting supported through tax dollars as I am about the National Endowment for the Arts.
The bottom line is that I would be pleased as punch to have folks contribute money to help me do the thing I love to do: worshipping Adonai and giving tools to others in order to help them find more meaningful worship… but pay your taxes.
