Mounted search and rescue

[Una Smith <una@lanl.gov>]

On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 11:17:42AM -0800, Jorene@ceoates.com wrote:
>The local chapter of Red Cross last year came up with the great idea of 
>annually creating a "Local Heroes" calendar with photos of local law 
>enforcement, fire, medical, SAR, etc., and relation captions This year I 
>made a point of connecting with those creating the calendar and sent them to 
>our SAR web site to choose what they wanted, then I provided them with the 
>high resolution originals. We've already had some recruiting from the web 
>site, and I suspect we'll draw even more interest once the 2004 calendar is 
>out with several SAR "action" photos.
>
>Local SAR teams might investigate doing something like this as a fund 
>raiser, perhaps as a collaboration with others. Get sponsors up front to at 
>least cover initial expenses, do media releases identifying the sponsors, 
>etc., and get the calendars out to the public no later than November 1. If 
>set up as a tax deductible non-profit you can sell X cases of calendars to 
>local places like Wal*Mart and large grocery stores, where they'll take the 
>donation write-off and tuck a calendar into shopper's bags. Also have cases 
>of calendars at the sponsor locations to draw people in to that location to 
>buy a calendar for $10 or whatever. Another option is to put out stacks of 
>calendars at various stores with a "donations can" at the checkout line 
>where people can take a calendar and put $$ into that can - on the honor 
>system. ;)
>
>Any other suggestions for fund raising and recruiting?

*Provided* your MSAR unit is a properly registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit,
and there is an active United Way campaign in your community, you can
encourage everyone you know to donate to your unit through United Way.
This involves only writing your unit's name in on the United Way form
with your donation check.

Being properly registered is the problem for many SAR units.  Eg., in
New Mexico, it includes registering as a charity in a database run by
the office of the state's Attorney General.

And of course for historical reasons many MSAR units are not 501(c)(3)
but rather 501(c)(4) like many rescue squads, or even some other type
of 501(c)...  Apart from 501(c)(3) charities, only 501(c)(4) *rescue
squads* are entitled to the same tax benefits as 501(c)(3) charities.
Even so, funding middleman agences including United Way commonly deny
support to 501(c)(4) rescue squads.

        Una Smith
        Santa Fe County Sheriff's Posse, in New Mexico