Community Foundation for Oak Park

Activity Committees

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The membership in the Community Foundation's activity committees consists of more than 1,700 volunteers. While almost all donate money in the form of dues, many also donate their time.

According to the Independent Sector, services performed by volunteers of non-profit organizations are worth $18.77 per hour. If each of our member-volunteers averages only 2 hours of service per year, the Foundation delivers almost $64,000 in unpaid services to the community of Oak Park. Of course, many of our volunteers provide more than 2 hours each week.

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Activity committees have been established by the Community Foundation's Board of Trustees (in accord with Article V, Section 3, of the by-laws) to organize volunteers within the community of Oak Park for service in meeting specific needs. Without having each group individually incorporate and obtain tax-exempt status, human and fiscal resources are not diverted away from these committee's goals.

Activity committees do not exist as distinct legal entities but are merely standing committees of the Community Foundation. As such, the committees are included within the Foundation's 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and are thus eligible to receive charitable donations that may be itemized deductions on donors' tax returns.

Each committee is self-governing under the supervision of the Foundation's Board of Trustees, each with its own by-laws, officers, and members. Periodic reports on the committees' activities are presented to the Board of Trustees. The Foundation's Treasurer oversees the committees' fiscal affairs to ensure they operate in a manner consistent with a tax-exempt charity.

At the present, the following activity committees operate in Oak Park under the authority of the Community Foundation:

Oak Park Community Garden operates a community garden in Oak Park on the north-west corner of Kanan and Sunnycrest. Activities also include seed and plant exchanges and field trips to public gardens in southern California.

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Note: Under California law, the Oak Park Neighborhood School Parent Advisory Board, the Medea Creek Middle School Parent-Faculty Club, and the Oak Park High School Parent-Faculty Club are recognized as the equivalents of PTAs chartered by the California Congress of Parents, Teachers, and Students.
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Oak Park Neighborhood School Parent Advisory Board supports the pre-school operated by the Oak Park Unified School District, partially with grants from the tobacco tax (Proposition 10).
Medea Creek Middle School Parent-Faculty Club organizes volunteers in support of the education programs at Medea Creek Middle School.
Oak Park High School Parent-Faculty Club organizes volunteers in support of the education programs at Oak Park High School.
Oak Park Performing Arts Alliance supports the visual and performing arts curricula and activities throughout the Oak Park Unified School District, with current emphasis directed towards Oak Park High School. By doing so, the Alliance hopes to contribute to the cultural opportunities of the entire Oak Park community.
Oak Park High School Grad Night Committee plans and conducts a safe, chaperoned party for the graduating seniors of Oak Park High School.
Friends of the Oak Park Library supports the operation of the Oak Park Library, a unique facility that is both a public library and a high school library.

If you would like to volunteer for any of these activity committees, visit our Contacts page.

The by-laws of each activity committee is available in the form of a PDF file from the Community Foundation's Webmaster.

Why Form an Activity Committee?

The Community Foundation is not in the business of creating a non-profit empire in Oak Park. While we do entertain requests from groups to establish activity committees, we also encourage such groups to consider alternatives. Although the Foundation does assume certain administrative burdens that an independent organization would have to handle on its own, we also impose some requirements on our activity committees.

Each activity committee is required to:

have elected officers
meet periodically (with meeting minutes taken and then approved at the next meeting)
provide the Foundation with copies of approved minutes
submit all by-law revisions to the Foundation's Board of Trustees for approval
make all expenditures via a checking account, with all checks signed by two officers
allow the Foundation's Treasurer to review the committee's financial records
abide by Foundation policies, annually certifying that certain policies are indeed being followed
pay a portion of the Foundation's annual liability insurance premium

For its activity committees, the Community Foundation:

provides a corporate existence
provides documentation to reassure donors that their donations to a committee may indeed be itemized as charitable contributions when filing income tax returns
maintains liability insurance, not only for the organization but also for all committee officers and volunteers
files all necessary reports with the IRS, the California Secretary of State's Corporations Section, and the California Attorney General's Registry of Charitable Trusts
maintains non-profit status with the U.S. Postal Service so that committees may use a discounted postage rate for bulk mailing

The Foundation's policies also provide a process that an activity committee may use to become an independent charitable organization, no longer affiliated with the Community Foundation. The process ensures that federal and state laws governing the use of charitable funds are not violated. Under those same laws, Foundation policies require that, when an activity committee dissolves, the Foundation receives all remaining funds in the committee's treasury. Customarily, those funds are then used for a purpose very similar to that of the former committee.

Last updated 14 February 2008

Contacts • Webmaster

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Community Foundation for Oak Park • P. O. Box 291 • Agoura, CA 91376-0291

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