mdmprez described our experience pretty closely. people tried to amke it sound like it was the hardest thing in the world to do, but it wasn't really. We came up with simple bylaws one of our members did the paperwork for getting us a non-profit number and everything is fine. All I remember is that we were paying something like 500 dollars to PTA every year and when we wanted to leave they kept saying that we wouldn't have their tax exempt status. Well, it cost us about $50 to get that.