Starting a nonprofit organization with your reptiles

Ok so this was brought up at work today as we were discussing this ridiculous pet ban that is flying through the WV house right now.... nonprofit groups are exempt from a lot of these laws, so somebody asked if we could legitimately qualify as a non-profit group since we do a lot of public outreach and education with our animals.

I looked it up, and a site called "SNPO: Starting a Non-profit organization" defines a non-profit organization as this - "The difference between nonprofit and for-profit organizations is that nonprofits use their profits to advance their programs, while for-profits distribute their profits to their owners or stockholders."

It seems to me that people like us would possibly be able to pull this off if any profits we made from breeding/selling and our programs went back to the food, heat, new animals for the projects, and equipment for the programs themselves (we do a multimedia thing involving live animals, video projector, screen, etc...).

However, the other half of my brain says there's not a chance that could actually happen.

If any of you have any input on this, please let me know.

I used to work for a large non-profit and the only difference between a for profit and non-profit is the non-profits don't pay taxes and can't have stockholders to raise money for the company. I don't see any reason why you couldn't set up a non-profit, just make sure to carefully dot your i's and cross your t's on the paperwork. Make doubly sure you submit everything to the IRS each year or you can lose your non-profit status.

Lastly, don't forget to set a salary for yourself. Just because it's a non-profit doesn't mean you're expected to eat ramen noodles every night. Most execs at decent sized non-profits make 6 figures (many make 7).

I'm interested in doing it so I can keep my animals "the legal way" (how sick is it that I even have to word it that way?)

My main question is this.... can a couple of people start a nonprofit without having a board of directors and all that stuff? I'm not interested in bringing in outsiders to help us run our little program here.

Do you know of anywhere I could further my understanding of how to go about this if we are able to proceed? I've searched Google, but beyond that if you have any specifics in mind I'd like to hear them.

Thanks!

I don't really know much about the details of forming a non-profit, just that I've worked for one and it's very similar to a business. I believe you do have to have a board of directors but that you can choose them and can initially write certain conditions to keep it running as you desire.

There are a couple reasonably priced books on Amazon that seem helpful

How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation by Mancuso

Starting & Building a Nonprofit: A Practical Guide by Pakroo

Both are published by Nolo which I've found to be a great company for informational books.

Considering the salaries of the heads of most non-profits, you definitely wouldn't need to even act like you had nothing. And if you did "make a profit" you could always donate it to USARK... hahaha....

Seriously, you should talk to a lawyer about the possibility. You should also check to see that a nonprofit would be exempt from the laws you're worried about. Most non-profits still have to follow all relevant laws, they just don't get taxed.