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I'm new to the discussion forum so please be patient with me. I'm a new president of our PTO and we are a very small school. There are only 124 students. We are wanting to make some bylaws since there aren't any. Could you please e-mail me a copy of your constitution and bylaws so I may look at them. Thanks! This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Keep in mind that if you plan to incorporate, your organizing instrument will be the Articles of Incorporation instead of the constitution.
This is rather like the car title versus the user manual. The manual (e.g., bylaws) is the routine document to which most people refer. They can usually find it pretty easily. The title (e.g., organizing instrument) is often forgotten except when needed for specific situations.
The Articles of Incorporation are usually a bare bones template provided by your state. For instance for Texas, it includes:
Article 1—Corporate Name
Article 2—Registered Agent and Registered Office
Article 3—Management
Article 4—Organizational Structure
Article 5-Duration (Perpetual)
Article 6—Purpose
Supplemental/Addendums
**Be sure to include an IRS-approved dissolution clause and any other IRS needed info as it will save you time later.
If you plan to incorporate, you want to do that first before filing for the 501(c)(3) as you'd have to refile (and pay the $500 again) if you do it in the wrong order.
So, I'd suggest you either start with incorporation or - if for some reason you aren't doing that - make your constitution/charter/articles of organization pretty lean to parallel an Articles of Incorporation. Put all the "meat" in the bylaws. Then if you do incorporate later, it will be an easier transition.
Note - we are not incorporated (because we already did our 501c3 and don't want to re-file), and we do have a robust constitution as well as bylaws. Email me if you want to see it.
Our PTO has been in existence informally for several decades. We're in the process of writing bylaws and filing tax-exempt forms. We'd like to see samples of other PTO constitutions/organizing documents. We've been able to find lots of bylaws but no sample constitutions. Help!!!
