Reinstated!

To all of you in our community:

The Carl Brandon Society’s Steering Committee is very happy to announce that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has reinstated our organization as an official 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, tax- exempt group–and furthermore that this nonprofit status has been made retroactive to the date it was first revoked, back in 2013. Donations to us are now itemizable for those past years as well as for all years going forward.

Although we’ve been presenting our Octavia E. Butler Scholarships during this temporary revocation period, and also have been actively pursuing the selection of winners of the Kindred and Parallax literary awards, you may have noticed a lull in our fundraising activities. Now that we can safely guarantee the 501 (c) 3 classification applies to us and all your gifts to us, please feel free to help us out!

Of course this great news inspires us to put more energy into our many programs–the Scholarships, the awards, the panels and parties and online discussions and all the other work the Carl Brandon Society carries out to support the presence of POC in the fantastic genres. It also sharpens our commitment to preventing the unfortunate miscommunications that originally caused the temporary revocation of our nonprofit status. To that end we expect to put together annual reports on what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and where we stand financially and in terms of our programmatic goals. Look for the first of these reports by February 2018.

Last but indubitably not least, we want to thank you, our supporters, who have stood by us collectively and individually as we performed the necessary bureaucratic gyrations to achieve reinstatement. You are a powerful force for change, and your persistence and loyalty to our cause is what keeps us going.

Sincerely yours,
Nisi Shawl, Candra K. Gill, Victor J. Raymond, Victoria Elizabeth Garcia, K. Tempest Bradford, Lisa Bolekaja
Steering Committee of the Carl Brandon Society

Tax Status Update

We have received confirmation that our outstanding tax returns and our reinstatement paperwork (form 1023, which requests retroactive reinstatement of our official non-profit status) were delivered to the IRS. We will post an update when the paperwork is processed. We thank everyone for their patience and support.

-The Carl Brandon Society Steering Committee

Announcing Con or Bust, Inc.!

The Carl Brandon Society is happy and excited to announce that the independent program we’ve been the fiscal agent for so many years, Con or Bust, is now officially a separate non-profit corporation! Support for the Con or Bust cause while it was under our aegis has been overwhelming, and we hope you continue to donate funds, auction items, memberships, and other helpful things now that it’s out on its own.

Con or Bust, whose mission is to increase the presence of POC at science fiction conventions by providing the financial means to attend them, began as a gleam in Kate Nepveu’s eye. Seeking an alternative to operating out of her personal checking account, she asked us to be the program’s fiscal sponsors. This meant that we accepted donations on its behalf and disbursed its grants. The CBS and Con or Bust missions are very much aligned, and for a long time we absorbed all the costs (PayPal fees, postage, etc.) of running the program. But with time it has become clear that Con or Bust can hold its own. We’re proud to have been involved in this stage of its growth, and look forward to all of us benefiting from its work for many years to come.

Meanwhile, we’ve stepped up our efforts in other areas: we’ll be presenting two Octavia E. Butler Scholarships this summer, and announcing four literary award winners this fall, with another four to be chosen and announced by January 2017. We’ve just completed the final IRS documents in our quest for nonprofit status reinstatement. Details about these efforts and accomplishments are forthcoming soon. Additional new programs are under consideration; we’ll keep you posted on those, too.

Thank you for helping us change the world!

-The Carl Brandon Society Steering Committee