[jason75]

As someone who runs a 501(c)4 political non-profit, here's my personal recommendations (this is my personal opinion, and is not related to or endorsed by my organization):

Organization Activities:

1. There's always a tension between "educational" and "advocacy". In my personal experience, "educational" sounds nice, fluffy, and non-threatening and gets absolutely nothing done. Poker and poker players are under attack, and need to be organized to support advocacy (there is some education that comes with that). But the primary purpose should be advocacy.

2. What kind of advocacy? The most effective political organizations run three basic operations: 1) grassroots organizing and basebuilding, 2) "top-down" coalitional and lobbying work, and most importantly 3) FUNDRAISING.

3. Let's talk more about Fundraising: This is the most important thing the organization will do in it's first several years of existence. Outreach activities, lobbying, just having an office and a telephone take MONEY. It's often hard for folks who don't do advocacy to realize how much money it takes. It takes a lot more than you think. So start thinking about how you're going to go from $0 to $100,000 to $500,000 to $1,000,000.

4. Organizational materials: People who run ineffective organizations love to sit around and write a lot of detailed "information" for their website, pamphelts, etc . . . Here's the reality: If you have a simple mission statement ("Keep poker legal"), then the people who need to read all that stuff before they decide whether or not to support you (and we're talking donations here, baby) are bullshitters who are wasting your time. There's far too many supportive people you could be contacting instead of wasting your time on activities to give non-supporters information. Follow the KISS rule (keep it simple stupid). A simple mission statement, a brief "about us", and a short description of your political activities are all you need to get started.

Organizational Structure:
1. Hire an attorney to figure out what the structure will look like. Don't try to do this yourselves, the legal rammifications are far too great and the law far too incomprehensible for non-attorneys to do. I've got a great referral for you. He's relatively cheap, very respected, and specializes in elections law and political organizations. The setup will cost you about $3500 flat fee. PM me and I'll send you his contact info and whom to tell him sent you. He's in San Francisco, but you should just need a fax machine if you want to get started. If you're outside of CA, he can recommend you to other attorneys.

Again with the Fundraising: Ok, if you get that far, you now need to come up with a fundraising plan to put this organization together. Who do you know who has contacts in the poker world? Are you a fundraiser (if you're not sure, then you're not)? Do you know wealthy poker players who would give to this? Draw up a plan to raise $25,000 (who you're going to ask for how much) . . . remember to aim high on the asks so you settle into the range you need (and find a couple of nice surprises to offset the "call me back in 6 months" rejections).

Ok, I'll stop there for now.