Good news and bad news

I have good news and bad news. 

The good news is that we are officially a federally recognized, nonprofit organization! The IRS approved our application for 501(c)3 charitable organization status, just weeks after we submitted the paperwork. Since the application went in during tax season, we figured it would be months before the application was reviewed. 

Since our founding last year, we have operated as a nonprofit under fiscal sponsorship by the Athens County Foundation. Your membership and donation dollars actually go to the foundation, which puts them into a fund just for us. When we need an infusion of cash, we let the foundation know and they send the money to our bank account. They also handle donor acknowledgements so you can prove your donations to the IRS.

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We’re incredibly grateful to the foundation — Executive Director Kerry Pigman, Director of Program and Engagement Eleni Zulia, Program Director Dani Esperanza, Programs and Outreach Coordinator Shayne Lopez, and Finance and Administration Manager Cindy Strausbaugh — for their guidance and support over the last year. We truly could not have come this far without you. 

Among the various benefits of being a federally designated nonprofit is access to deeply discounted and even free software. That is good news … but it’s also the root of the bad news.

The bad news is that we had some snags in implementing a new email platform last week. If you sent something to our general accounts — info@athensindependent.com, obits@athensindependent.com, ads@athensindependent.com or opinion@athensindependent.com — we didn’t get it. 

I apologize for any inconvenience, confusion or upset this caused. (We were plenty confused and upset ourselves, lemme tell ya.) The problem (knock wood) has been resolved and we’re getting email to those accounts now, so keep those press releases, obituaries, letters and ad requests coming. We couldn’t have come this far without you, either!