We’re not a normal church. We’re not a normal non-profit. We’re not a normal community. You might be surprised how much harder that makes everything. We were certainly surprised.
This post explores some of the problems we’ve had in trying to be the service-related organization that we want to be.
No Building? No Book? No Dogma? No Church
When we first applied to the IRS to become a non-profit, we tried to be classified as a church – or, more precisely, a convention of churches – rather than as a religious organization. Our structure and goals align more realistically with those classifications than with just a ‘religious organization.’ But, the individual churches that we aim to serve – all the solitaries and small groups with Pagan practices – probably could not get ‘church’ status themselves, so we definitely couldn’t. Without a dedicated building and a dedicated set of prescriptive beliefs and an associated tome of holy writ, the term ‘church’ could not apply. Saying that we want to give people in our religious community the infrastructure of a church, but without telling them what to do, wasn’t enough. So, the IRS said “You can qualify as a religious organization”, and we said “ok”.
This is possibly the reason we are listed, in the official database of these things, as having had our nonprofit status revoked before we even got it. We don’t know this for certain. Other than a straight up mistake, this is the only plausible explanation that we can imagine. We said “We think we are a church”, and they said “No, but you are a religious organization”. And, possibly, for that, we now have this stain on our reputation. Great. It’s not as if Pagans are seen as something virtuous by most folks, even without bureaucratic smears.
Even if a lawsuit isn’t malicious by motivation, it could take only one to cause us big trouble.
By the way, the IRS did date our status restoration to the same date it had been revoked, but they would not remove the revocation. And, we had to tell them about the mistake. It was there for years. We didn’t know about it, and no one said anything to us. Of course, we never got a letter or such because… the status was never revoked. The only letter even remotely like that was the initial one saying that we did not qualify as a church. But, we didn’t have any status yet at that point. See this post for more about that.
Organized Religion
Not that being a religious organization is a great thing, though calling us organized might be a stretch in any case.
In the majority of non-tax-related situations where being a nonprofit might be an advantage, those advantages are specifically denied to religious organizations (often also to churches). I first noticed this when I tried to get us a lower-cost subscription to an online SaaS provider (I will not tell the name because there is no reason to single them out among the many). I found that the nonprofit price does not apply to religious organizations. Then, I found that most grant opportunities are not available to religious organizations.
No one will tell me why.
My best guess is that it is somehow related to the fact that the federal government is not allowed to provide funds to religious organizations (and churches, or anyone else, really) for religious purposes. They can provide funds to anyone, including religious orgs and churches, for non-religious purposes (feeding the poor, etc.).
But, that restriction is on the government, not everyone else. So why? Possibly, it is fear of having to prove to the government that no aid of any sort, that might be associated with a tax-cut or government funds, might have been used for a religious purpose. We can understand this. We always err on the side of extreme caution with legal matters. We won’t even hold raffles. Even if there is every chance we would win in court, we could not afford to go to court. That is, we would not be able to afford even to defend ourselves, so we avoid situations where we might need to.
This is why we desperately need insurance. Even if a lawsuit isn’t malicious by motivation, it could take only one to cause us big trouble.
With… Without…
We need to be able to use the land to make money. But, without insurance, we really can’t do that. AAP, the organization, rents the land from AllWays Lands and Grounds Association, LLC (the LLC). The latter comprises a small number of AAP members who were willing to risk a fair chunk of their retirement money to purchase the land for AAP to use. They can’t afford to lose the land because it is now part of their retirement strategy. Because of this, the LLC could not be a nonprofit organization1. So, the LLC members still have to pay some $3,000 a year in property taxes. They are willing to forgive AAP’s inability to pay rent, but they are struggling to keep things afloat at all.
In this situation, things start to reinforce each other. There is no insurance, so AAP cannot make money by renting to people who use the land, so AAP cannot afford to get a survey of the land ($20k), so AAP cannot sell trees, and AAP cannot put (many) structures on the property, etc. AAP needs insurance otherwise, too, to cover festivals, religious events and such.
We are in the process of creating a non-religious nonprofit organization, AllWays Sustainable Communities Initiative, Inc. (ASCII), to help with generation of the onsite community for our AllWays project. But, that entity may not be able to allow people to use the land for religious purposes, and that was the only reason we started all this. We will use ASCII, to build and manage the onsite community. The community will welcome all persons without prejudice. But AAP still needs to be able to get insurance for the religious spaces it wants to provide.
When You’re a Stranger…
Even those agencies (insurance, grants, SaaS, etc.) who are willing to do business with a religious organization aren’t sure what to do with us. We do strange things. We know that they feel that way about our activities because they tell us. This is somewhat understandable: an insurance agency will not know how to insure a business that is doing something entirely new. They simply do not know what their risks are. But, our activities are hardly shocking, and not all that much new.
Here is the list of activities that we gave:
- Weekly meetings, generally on Saturdays (networking and socializing and some business) and sometimes on Wednesdays (business). The Saturday meetings are in a public establishment (community center, pub, etc.). The Wednesday locations vary according to purpose.
- Athens Pagan Pride Day, one-day street festival, most years since 2008, on hiatus for 2024. Usually in downtown Athens since 2016. Vendors, public rituals, workshops, presentations, and non-amplified music. athensareapagans.org/appd
- Classes and workshops, irregular, several times a year. We don’t charge for these, but do solicit donations. Locations vary but are generally public spaces (library, community center, etc.).
- Community Garden, established 2017, but currently inactive. Two locations: the Vincent Dr. property and a private residence.
- Ritual observances, open to the public, usually 8 times a year. Generally held at the Vincent Dr, property or at a private residence.
- Parks, trails, natural spaces – publicized only on Pagan media (so far) but open to anyone who will sign our agreement for use of the space. Vincent Dr. property. The current agreement is in the attachments2.
- Referrals for ministerial services – we refer people seeking services such as weddings (handfastings), counseling etc. to members who offer such services, but the services are provided directly by the members.
- Internships – we offer training, primarily in technical subjects (ie. cloud computing infrastructure), in return for labor. Students are college age. They can receive course credit. Located at a private residence.
- Outreach, such as having tables and distributing literature at other events.
- Social media presence, mostly Facebook and YouTube.
- Fundraising: Vendor fees at Athens Pagan Pride Day, There, and at other events, we also offer small items for sale, and members often provide various psychic services such as tarot readings, for entertainment. These members usually donate some or all of their income from the services to AAP. We also accept donations online, in person, and via donation jars. We plan to start renting areas at the Vincent Dr. property for small functions.
- Information technology infrastructure, such as private cloud communications, website hosting, file sharing. Available to AAP members.
- Advanced directives: we keep a store of these for members who want us to do that.
I suppose I could see a few of those being cause for an increased premium. Possibly, they are concerned about data breaches or something. But, it’s hard for us to understand why those activities make us uninsurable.
One company would insure us, but specifically excluded pretty much any sort of mishap a person might have walking around in the woods, which is kind of the whole point of insurance here.
The companies are not required to insure us. There are no laws protecting us in this.
We are still looking for insurance. And grant opportunities. If you have any ideas, let us know. At every turn, things are significantly harder than they should be, and they’re hard enough already.
By Any Other Name
It’s hard not to see this as straightforward discrimination. The lack of information available on the subject doesn’t help. We are trying to see it differently. We tell ourselves all sorts of things. We know, for example, that lenders don’t like to give loans to churches because they will look terrible if they ever have to foreclose. This is understandable. Perhaps there is some very understandable reason for all these other situations where we are shut out or charged more. But, understandable or not, justifiable or not, it’s making our lives much more difficult.
Notes
- When a nonprofit business closes, its assets must be transferred to another nonprofit or they must be surrendered to the government. This is not an unreasonable law. It keeps people from creating nonprofits just so they can close them and reap any accumulated assets. But, the law meant that the persons who purchased the land needed to protect themselves in the event that AAP were to fold. That is, they could not risk losing the land. So, they purchased the land using a standard LLC. They can eventually get some non-trivial but non-extravagant benefits for having done that. But, mostly, so far, they’ve only gotten a lot more work and a lot more expense. It would be very nice if, at least, they weren’t scrambling every year to pay the taxes and find insurance, if anyone will insure any of us. ↩︎
- A draft version of the consent form can be viewed at this link. Please join the AllWays discussion list if you would like to have input on its form. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LDqPSjE2Pob-DwSiNdVvK_LmXqbEuF8aRqA_5aQHL64/edit?usp=sharing ↩︎