Tag Archives: nonprofit

Harrison foundation names executive director

James, Barbara (retouched)
Barbara James

Harrison Medical Center Foundation has selected Barbara James to serve as the organization’s executive director.

James joined the foundation on July 11, according to a news release.

Her primary focus will be raising money for Harrison Medical Center, including the new Silverdale hospital campus.

“Barbara will be a vital member of our Harrison Medical Center Foundation team,” David Schultz, market president of the CHI Franciscan Peninsula Region said in the release.

“We are excited that she has agreed to lead the Harrison Foundation team as we embark on a major fundraising campaign for the hospital.”

James has more than 25 years of leadership experience with public and private organizations, supporting social and child services, education and health care.

She most recently served as director of philanthropy for the Franciscan Foundation, where she led $3.5 million capital campaign for an upgrade of the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma.

James replaces former foundation director Stephanie Cline, who now works with MultiCare.

Fundraiser launched for West Sound CoderDojo

CodeDojo_17743908_ver1.0_640_480Last Saturday I sat in on the first meeting of West Sound CoderDojo.

The group was organized by West Sound Technology Association to offer computer programming classes to kids and their parents, as part of the global CoderDojo movement. 

The Saturday classes are free for participants and staffed by volunteers, but of course they cost money to host.

CoderDojo meetings require large gathering spaces with Wi-Fi connectivity, and the group tries to provide loaner laptops for kids who don’t have them.

West Sound CoderDojo just launched a GoFundMe campaign to help fund their courses. The group is hoping to raise $10,000. The campaign is posted here.

Creating a nonprofit just got easier

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If you’ve been procrastinating on registering a charity as a nonprofit, your dilly-dallying is now justified.

The Internal Revenue Service just announced a streamlined process for applying for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The new Form 1023-EZ cuts the standard Form 1023 from 26 pages to three pages.

Up to 70 percent of charities qualify to use the EZ form, according to an IRS news release. Most groups with $50,000 or less in gross receipts and less than $250,000 in assets will be eligible.

The idea behind the form is to free up resources dedicated to approving small, simple charities, so more resources can be dedicated to reviewing larger, more complex organizations. The IRS has a backlog of about 60,000 501(c)(3) applications, with wait times of up to nine months.

“Previously, all of these groups went through the same lengthy application process — regardless of size,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in the release. “It didn’t matter if you were a small soccer or gardening club or a major research organization. This process created needlessly long delays for groups, which didn’t help the groups, the taxpaying public or the IRS.”

The Form 1023-EZ must be filed through pay.gov with a $400 user fee. Download this PDF for full details.

Photo: Lisa Horn of West Sound Wildlife Shelter releases a bald eagle. (Brad Camp / Olympic Photo Group)

Bainbridge art museum logged 80k visits in first year

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Bainbridge Island Museum of Art celebrates its first anniversary this week.

It was a busy first year for the new Winslow Way institution. The free museum logged roughly 80,000 visits (about 6,600 a month) since opening, according to staff. Here are some more factoids from BIMA’s first year in existence:

  • blog.bima2Visitors came from Bainbridge Island, greater Kitsap county, Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, and from all corners of the world — Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe and more.
  • The museum hosted more than 46 groups for formal tours, including Horizon House, the National League of Cities, Leadership Kitsap, and Docents from Bellevue Arts Museum, Museum of Northwest Art, and Seattle Art Museum Supporters.
  • More than 477 school-aged children visited the museum from Bainbridge Island, Bremerton, Port Ludlow, Port Townsend, Sequim, and Silverdale.
  • More than 100 BIMA volunteers contributed time.

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