Swanton booster club reverse raffle 2019: what treasurers can learn

Last updated 2026-08-14

what is the swanton booster club reverse raffle 2019 story about

People searching this phrase are usually trying to find out what happened with a specific booster club's reverse raffle fundraiser around 2019, often because a local news story or school district discussion mentioned it. There's no single, well-documented national case study with that exact name that has widely available primary source records (court filings, state charity office actions, or IRS enforcement documents) tied to it. If you're looking for the specific local story, your best bet is your local newspaper's archive or the school district's board meeting minutes from that year, not a national legal database. What we can do here is more useful for you anyway: use the reverse raffle format as a teaching example, and walk through exactly what a booster club treasurer needs to have in place before, during, and after any raffle fundraiser, whether it's a reverse raffle, a 50/50, or a straight ticket raffle. Reverse raffles (where the last ticket drawn wins, and tickets get eliminated round by round, often with an included dinner or event) are common with athletic boosters because they combine a banquet with a raffle draw. That combination is exactly where things go wrong: two revenue streams, two sets of paperwork, one treasurer who's usually a volunteer parent with a full-time job elsewhere. The honest answer to 'what happened in Swanton' is: confirm with your local newspaper archive and school district records for specifics. The honest answer to 'what should I do differently' is everything below.

what is a treasurer

A treasurer is the person legally and practically responsible for an organization's money: tracking it, depositing it, reporting on it, and making sure it gets used the way donors and members expect. In a booster club or PTO, the treasurer isn't just a bookkeeper. You're often the only line of defense between a well-meaning fundraiser and a mess that lands on the front page or triggers an IRS letter. Most booster clubs and PTOs are organized as nonprofit corporations under state law and, if they've gone through the process, recognized as tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) ^[1]. That tax-exempt status doesn't remove your reporting duties. It adds to them. The treasurer is usually the one who signs off on the annual information return, tracks restricted versus unrestricted funds (like a raffle prize fund versus general operating cash), and keeps records that would make sense to a stranger who has to take over next year. If you just inherited the treasurer role from someone who left no notes, you're not alone. This is extremely common in volunteer-run booster clubs, and it's exactly the situation this site is built for. Our treasurer basics hub has the full set of guides for exactly this situation.

what does a treasurer do

A booster club treasurer handles four core jobs: recordkeeping, banking, reporting, and internal controls. Recordkeeping means tracking every dollar in and out, tied to receipts or invoices, more than a bank balance. Banking means making deposits promptly (ideally within a few days of any cash event like a raffle), reconciling the bank statement monthly, and never letting cash sit in someone's car or kitchen drawer overnight. Reporting means filing whatever the IRS requires based on your gross receipts (more on this below), plus any state charity registration or raffle license renewal your state demands. Internal controls means making sure no single person has total control over money with zero oversight, which matters enormously at a cash-heavy event like a reverse raffle where thousands of dollars in ticket sales and 50/50 add-ons can move through a folding table in one evening. Concretely, for a reverse raffle night, the treasurer's job looks like this: assign two people to count cash at the door (never one), log every raffle ticket sold against a numbered roll, deposit proceeds within 48 to 72 hours, and keep a signed reconciliation sheet showing tickets sold, cash collected, and prizes awarded. If those numbers don't match, you want to know that Monday morning, not when someone asks about it in six months.

what do treasurers do differently for a raffle versus a bake sale

A bake sale doesn't usually need a state license. A raffle almost always does, because raffles are a form of gambling under state law, and most states carve out a narrow exception for nonprofit-run raffles with specific licensing, bonding, or reporting requirements attached. Ohio, where Swanton is located, requires charitable organizations to hold a license from the Ohio Attorney General's Charitable Law Section to conduct raffles, and organizations must meet criteria such as being a 501(c)(3), (c)(4), (c)(8), (c)(10), or (c)(19) organization that's been in continuous existence for at least two years ^[2]. Ohio also requires a percentage of raffle proceeds to go to the charitable purpose of the organization, not administrative costs or prizes alone, and organizations must file reports on raffle proceeds and disbursements ^[2]. This is the single most common compliance gap for booster clubs running their first reverse raffle: they assume that because the school district or booster club has run raffles informally for years, no license is needed. Confirm with your state charity office (in Ohio, the Attorney General's Charitable Law Section; in other states, the Secretary of State or a separate gaming commission) before you print a single ticket. See our full Form 990 guide for how raffle proceeds interact with your federal filing, too.

what is form 990

Form 990 is the annual information return that most tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS to report income, expenses, and activities. It's not an income tax return in the traditional sense, since 501(c)(3) organizations generally don't owe federal income tax on mission-related revenue, but it's how the IRS and the public track what a tax-exempt organization does with its money ^[3]. There are several versions, and which one your booster club files depends on gross receipts. Form 990-N (the e-Postcard) is for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less ^[4]. Form 990-EZ is available for organizations with gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000 ^[3]. Full Form 990 is required above those thresholds. Getting this wrong, or not filing at all, is the single biggest cause of the next problem: automatic revocation. If your booster club's reverse raffle and other fundraisers pull in more than $50,000 gross in a year, you're past the 990-N threshold and need to look seriously at whether 990-EZ or full 990 applies. Read our full breakdown on Form 990 and the specific e-Postcard rules under 990-N.

what is a 990 tax form (in plain terms)

Think of the 990 tax form as your booster club's public report card. It shows total revenue, total expenses, program spending versus administrative spending, and who's on your board. Anyone can look it up, including parents deciding whether to trust your club with their kid's fundraising money, and journalists or watchdog groups who cover nonprofit finances. The IRS publishes guidance on which form applies to your organization based on gross receipts and assets, and the thresholds matter because filing the wrong form (or not filing at all) can trigger the automatic revocation process described below ^[4]. For a small booster club that mostly runs bake sales, spirit wear sales, and one reverse raffle a year, 990-N is usually the right form, assuming gross receipts stay under $50,000. One wrinkle specific to raffles: gross receipts for filing threshold purposes generally include the full amount of raffle ticket sales, more than net proceeds after prizes. A reverse raffle that sells $60,000 in tickets and pays out $40,000 in prizes still counts as $60,000 in gross receipts for many reporting purposes, which can push a small club into 990-EZ territory even though the club only nets $20,000. Confirm the exact treatment with the IRS instructions for your specific form and, if in doubt, a tax professional, since this is exactly the kind of detail that trips up volunteer treasurers. More detail lives in our 990 tax form overview.

what does a club treasurer do when the club has fallen behind on filings

If your booster club hasn't filed a required 990-series return for three consecutive years, the IRS automatically revokes its tax-exempt status. This isn't a warning system with escalating letters; it's automatic under Internal Revenue Code Section 6033(j) ^[5]. The IRS maintains a public Tax Exempt Organization Search tool where you can check if your organization's status has already been revoked ^[6]. If you've just taken over as treasurer and discover the club's status was auto-revoked, don't panic, but do act. The IRS offers a streamlined retroactive reinstatement process for small organizations that qualify (generally those eligible to file Form 990-N or 990-EZ) if you apply within 15 months of the revocation date, using Form 1023 or 1023-EZ along with a reasonable cause statement . Miss that window and the process gets more expensive and more paperwork-heavy, though reinstatement (sometimes retroactive, sometimes not) is still generally possible. This is one of the most common 'oh no' moments for a new booster club treasurer: you check the IRS search tool expecting to find your club listed as exempt, and instead it says revoked. It happens because the person before you assumed the school district's tax-exempt status covered the booster club (it usually doesn't; booster clubs are typically separate legal entities) or just didn't know 990-N filing was required every single year, even with zero activity. Read more on the 990 tax form filing requirements and the 990-N e-Postcard specifically.

what does a treasurer do in a club (day to day versus event day)

Cash counting	Two unrelated people count together, sign a sheet	One person counts alone, verbally reports total
Ticket tracking	Numbered tickets logged against a manifest	Tickets sold from a roll, no log kept
Deposit timing	Within 48-72 hours, sealed bag with two signatures	Cash held at home 'until Monday'
Raffle license	Confirmed active before event, filed after	Assumed from prior years, never checked
990 impact	Gross receipts tracked for filing threshold	Nobody calculates gross receipts until tax time	The left column is maybe an extra 30 minutes of work per event. The right column is how booster clubs end up on the local news.

Day to day, a booster club treasurer's job is mostly quiet: reconciling the bank account monthly, paying invoices for uniforms or equipment, tracking budget versus actual spending for each team or program the club supports, and keeping receipts organized. Most months, this takes two to four hours. Event day, like a reverse raffle banquet, is a different animal entirely. You're managing ticket sales, cash and card payments, prize fulfillment, and often a 50/50 add-on raffle running simultaneously. The treasurer's real job on event day is control, not counting: making sure two people verify every cash count, making sure ticket stubs match cash collected, and making sure nothing gets 'settled up later' from memory. Here's a simple comparison of what a typical reverse raffle night looks like on paper versus how it often actually runs without controls: | Control | With proper controls | Without controls |

what does a treasurer of a club do about state raffle licensing specifically

Every state treats charitable raffles differently, and the rules genuinely vary enough that you cannot assume your neighboring state's process applies to you. Some states require a license from the attorney general's office, some from a state gaming or lottery commission, and some (a small number) don't regulate small charitable raffles at all below a certain prize threshold. In Ohio specifically, the Attorney General's Charitable Law Section requires organizations to apply for a raffle license, meet the multi-year existence requirement noted earlier, and file post-raffle reports detailing proceeds and how the money was used ^[2]. Other states route this through a Secretary of State charitable registration office or a dedicated gaming commission; a few require a separate local permit from the city or county on top of any state license. Before your booster club runs a reverse raffle for the first time, or takes over one that's been run informally for years, call your state's charity regulation office directly and ask three questions: do we need a raffle license, what's the application lead time, and what post-event reporting is required. Confirm with your state charity office because processing times can run anywhere from a couple weeks to several months depending on the state and the season.

how a reverse raffle format changes the money handling risk

A reverse raffle usually bundles a ticket price that includes dinner, drinks, and a chance to win, with the field of players shrinking round by round until one ticket remains. That structure means you're collecting substantial money up front, often $50 to $150 per ticket, weeks before the event, plus additional cash on the night itself from add-on games, silent auctions, or 50/50 drawings. That combination of pre-sold tickets and day-of cash is exactly where booster clubs run into trouble, because it creates two separate reconciliation problems instead of one. You need to reconcile pre-sold ticket revenue against your bank deposits from weeks before the event, and you need to reconcile day-of cash against tickets scanned or torn at the door. If those two reconciliations live in two different notebooks (or worse, nowhere), you have no way to catch a shortfall until it's too late to figure out where it happened. The fix isn't complicated, it's just discipline: one spreadsheet, updated the same week tickets go on sale, with running totals for tickets sold, cash received, checks received, and online payments if you use a platform. Reconcile it against the bank deposit every single week leading up to the event, more than after.

what should a new treasurer do in the first 30 days

First, pull the last three years of bank statements and match them against whatever filings (or lack of filings) exist. Second, check the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool to confirm your club's exempt status is still active ^[6]. Third, confirm your state raffle license (if you run raffles) and any state charity registration are current, not expired. Fourth, find out who has signing authority on the bank account and make sure it matches your actual current board, not people who left three years ago. This sounds obvious and gets skipped constantly. Fifth, if you're inheriting a mess, don't try to reconstruct five years of history from memory; document what you can verify, flag what you can't, and start clean controls going forward. A lot of new treasurers try to fix everything retroactively before they'll feel comfortable running the next event. That's backwards. Get this year's event right first, then work backward on cleanup as time allows. A $99 one-time State-Personalized Treasurer Kit can shortcut a lot of this by giving you state-specific raffle license checklists and 990 filing calendars built for your situation, rather than you piecing it together from a dozen government PDFs at 11pm.

what happens if the booster club skips the raffle license or the 990 filing

Skipping a required raffle license can range from a warning and required license application after the fact, up to fines or the raffle being deemed an illegal gambling operation under state law, depending on the state and how it's discovered. Skipping 990 filings for three straight years triggers automatic federal tax-exempt revocation under IRC 6033(j), no warning letter required ^[5]. Revocation means your booster club's income could become taxable, and donors' contributions may no longer be tax-deductible going forward, which matters a lot if parents write checks expecting a deduction. Reinstatement is possible, sometimes retroactive, through the process described in Revenue Procedure 2014-11 for smaller organizations , but it takes paperwork, a fee, and time you'd rather spend on the actual fundraiser. The honest, unglamorous truth: almost none of this is complicated in isolation. A 990-N takes maybe 15 minutes online once you know your login and gross receipts. A raffle license application in most states is a form and a modest fee. The problem is nobody teaches this to volunteer treasurers, and by the time you find out it's overdue, you're already behind.

Frequently asked questions

what does a treasurer do in a booster club or PTO

A booster club treasurer tracks all money in and out, makes bank deposits, reconciles statements monthly, files required IRS returns (like Form 990-N or 990-EZ), confirms state raffle or charity registrations are current, and sets up internal controls like two-person cash counts so no single volunteer controls funds unchecked.

what is a treasurer, in simple terms

A treasurer is the person responsible for an organization's money: recording it, banking it, reporting on it to the IRS and state regulators as required, and making sure it's spent the way the group and its donors expect. In a small nonprofit like a booster club, it's usually one volunteer wearing several hats.

what is form 990 and does every booster club have to file it

Form 990 is the annual information return tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS. Most booster clubs file the simplest version, Form 990-N, if gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less ^[4]. Larger clubs file 990-EZ or full 990 depending on gross receipts and total assets ^[3]. Filing some version is required annually regardless of size.

what is the 990 used for by outsiders

The 990 is public. Parents, donors, journalists, and watchdog groups can look up a booster club's 990 to see total revenue, expenses, and board members. It's essentially the organization's public financial report card, and its absence (or a revoked status) is a visible red flag to anyone checking.

what happened with the Swanton booster club reverse raffle in 2019 specifically

There isn't a widely documented, easily verifiable national case record tied to that exact search phrase with primary source details available here. If you're researching a specific local incident, check your local newspaper archive and school district board meeting minutes from that period for the actual details.

does my state require a license to run a charity raffle

Most states do, but the rules and the regulating agency vary widely. Ohio, for example, requires a license through the Attorney General's Charitable Law Section and imposes eligibility rules like two years of continuous organizational existence ^[2]. Confirm with your specific state's attorney general, gaming commission, or Secretary of State charity office before running any raffle.

what is Form 990-N and who has to file it

Form 990-N, also called the e-Postcard, is the shortest IRS annual filing, required for tax-exempt organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less ^[4]. It's filed electronically through the IRS website and asks for basic information like your organization's name, address, and confirmation that receipts are under the threshold.

what happens if a booster club doesn't file its 990 for three years

The IRS automatically revokes tax-exempt status after three consecutive years of not filing any required 990-series return, under Internal Revenue Code Section 6033(j) ^[5]. There's no warning letter for this; you have to check the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool yourself to find out ^[6].

how do we get our booster club's tax-exempt status back after auto-revocation

Small organizations eligible for 990-N or 990-EZ can often use a streamlined retroactive reinstatement process if they apply within 15 months of the revocation date, per Revenue Procedure 2014-11 ^[7]. This involves filing Form 1023 or 1023-EZ with a reasonable cause statement. Missing the window makes reinstatement more complex but usually still possible.

what's the difference between a reverse raffle and a regular raffle for licensing purposes

Most state raffle laws don't distinguish raffle formats (reverse, straight-ticket, calendar raffle) for licensing purposes; they regulate 'raffles' broadly as a form of authorized charitable gaming. What matters for licensing is usually your organization type, how long you've existed, and how proceeds are used, not the specific drawing mechanic. Confirm with your state charity office.

who should count cash at a booster club raffle event

Always at least two unrelated people, never one person alone, and never the same two people every single time if you can help it. Best practice is a documented count sheet signed by both counters, reconciled against ticket sales logs, with the total deposited within 48 to 72 hours.

does gross receipts from a raffle include the prize payout amount

Generally, gross receipts for IRS filing threshold purposes include the full amount collected from ticket sales, not the net after prizes are paid out. A raffle grossing $60,000 in ticket sales with $40,000 in prizes still generally counts as $60,000 gross for filing threshold purposes; confirm the specific treatment in your form's IRS instructions.

what does a club treasurer do differently right after taking over the role

Check the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool for current status, pull the last three years of bank statements, confirm state raffle and charity registrations are active, verify bank signing authority matches the current board, and set up monthly reconciliation going forward rather than trying to reconstruct years of missing history at once.

Sources

1. IRS, Exemption Requirements - 501(c)(3) Organizations: Booster clubs and PTOs are commonly organized and recognized as tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3)
2. IRS, Annual Exempt Organization Return: Which Forms to File: Form 990-EZ is available for organizations with gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000; full Form 990 is required above those thresholds
3. IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations - Form 990-N (e-Postcard): Form 990-N is for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less
4. 26 U.S.C. Section 6033(j), Internal Revenue Code: Tax-exempt status is automatically revoked after three consecutive years of failing to file a required annual return
5. IRS, Tax Exempt Organization Search: Organizations and the public can check current tax-exempt status and revocation history using the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool
6. IRS, Revenue Procedure 2014-11: Small organizations eligible for Form 990-N or 990-EZ can apply for streamlined retroactive reinstatement within 15 months of automatic revocation