Texas booster club bylaws: what to include and why

Last updated 2026-07-25

What are booster club bylaws, and does Texas require them?

Bylaws are the internal rulebook for your booster club: who can vote, how officers get elected, how money moves, and what happens if the club folds. Texas doesn't hand you a bylaws template or require you to file bylaws with any state office. But if your booster club is incorporated as a Texas nonprofit corporation, state law requires you to have them and keep them accessible. Texas Business Organizations Code Chapter 22 governs nonprofit corporations, and Section 22.102 requires the board of directors to adopt initial bylaws "for the regulation and management of the affairs of the corporation" unless the certificate of formation already sets those rules ^[1]. Once adopted, Section 3.151 requires the corporation to keep its bylaws (and other governing documents) at its registered office or principal place of business in Texas, available for inspection ^[2]. If your club is an unincorporated association (many small booster clubs are), Texas doesn't have a parallel statute forcing you to write bylaws. That said, no serious bank, school district, or the IRS is going to treat you as a real organization without them. Most school districts now require a booster club to show its bylaws before it gets approved to fundraise under the school's name, per University Interscholastic League and local district booster club policies (check your district's specific requirement).

Why do bylaws matter for IRS tax-exempt status?

When you apply for federal tax exemption on Form 1023 or Form 1023-EZ, the IRS wants to see governing documents, and bylaws are part of that picture even though the legal test is really about your certificate of formation (articles of incorporation). The IRS instructions for Form 1023 direct applicants to attach "a copy of your bylaws, if applicable" along with your articles of incorporation ^[3]. The exemption itself hinges on organizational and operational tests under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3): your organizing document has to limit your purposes to exempt purposes and include a dissolution clause dedicating assets to another exempt organization or government body upon dissolution ^[4]. Bylaws alone can't fix a defective articles of incorporation, but well-written bylaws that mirror those requirements make your application read cleaner and give your board a document to actually follow day to day. A lot of booster clubs skip this step and operate for years on a handshake and a shared spreadsheet. That works until a treasurer quits with no notice, a parent disputes how concession money got spent, or the IRS auto-revokes your exemption for missing three years of 990 tax form filings. Bylaws won't prevent every problem, but they give you a document to point to when someone asks "who decided that?"

What sections should Texas booster club bylaws include?

There's no legally mandated table of contents, but functional booster club bylaws in Texas typically cover: - Name, purpose, and affiliation with the school or program

• Membership: who qualifies (parents, guardians, students), dues if any, and voting rights
• Board and officers: president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and their specific duties
• Meetings: frequency, quorum, how notice gets given
• Elections: nomination process, term limits, removal for cause
• Financial controls: who can sign checks, dual-signature thresholds, budget approval process, financial reporting to members
• Committees: fundraising, concessions, event-specific
• Amendment procedure: how bylaws get changed and by what vote
• Dissolution clause: where assets go if the club ends
• Conflict of interest policy (increasingly expected by the IRS and by school districts) The dissolution clause deserves special attention. Under Section 501(c)(3), your assets on dissolution must go to another exempt organization or a government entity, never distributed to members or officers ^[4]. Get this wrong and it can hold up your exemption application or cause trouble years later when the club disbands and someone wants to just split the leftover concession stand cash.

What does a treasurer do in a booster club?

The treasurer is the officer responsible for the club's money: tracking it, reporting on it, and making sure it gets spent the way the board and bylaws say it can. In a booster club, that means recording every dollar from concessions, spirit wear sales, car washes, and sponsorships, then reconciling it against bank statements and reporting a clear picture to the board every meeting. Specifically, what a club treasurer does usually includes: maintaining the checkbook or bank ledger, depositing cash promptly (never sitting on it in someone's car for a week), paying approved invoices, filing the club's annual IRS return (Form 990-N, 990-EZ, or 990 depending on revenue), and preparing a budget-to-actual report for parents at least once a season. Many bylaws also require the treasurer to hand over a full financial packet to an incoming treasurer or to an audit committee at year end. A good bylaws section for the treasurer spells out signature authority (does the treasurer alone sign checks, or does anything over $500 need a second signature?), reporting frequency, and what records get handed off at the end of a term. Skipping this detail is one of the most common reasons booster clubs end up with a financial mess when a treasurer leaves mid-year. If you're building this section from scratch, our treasurer basics hub walks through the reporting side in more depth.

What is a treasurer, and what do treasurers do more broadly?

A treasurer is the officer or volunteer legally and functionally responsible for an organization's money: receiving it, safeguarding it, spending it according to approved budgets, and reporting on it accurately to the board and members. That definition holds whether you're talking about a booster club, a PTO, a homeowners association, or a national nonprofit; the scale changes, the job doesn't. What treasurers do, in practice, breaks into four buckets: bookkeeping (recording transactions), controls (making sure no single person can move money without a check on them), reporting (giving the board numbers they can trust), and compliance (filing the right tax forms on time, keeping required records). For a volunteer booster club treasurer, this is usually a part-time, unpaid role squeezed between a day job and kids' practices, which is exactly why bylaws that clearly define the job matter: nobody has time to reinvent the process every season. Most booster club bylaws should also require an incoming/outgoing treasurer handoff meeting and a written turnover checklist. Our handoff and audits coverage goes deeper on what that packet should contain if your bylaws don't already spell it out.

What is Form 990, and does a booster club have to file it?

Normally $50,000 or less	Form 990-N (e-Postcard)
Less than $200,000 and total assets less than $500,000	Form 990-EZ (or full 990)
$200,000 or more, or assets $500,000 or more	Form 990	Source: IRS, "Annual Filing and Forms" [6] Most small booster clubs land in the 990n category. But the number that trips people up isn't the filing threshold, it's the missed-filing penalty: if you don't file any required return or notice for three consecutive years, the IRS automatically revokes your tax-exempt status, per Internal Revenue Code Section 6033(j) [7]. This is the single most common way booster clubs lose their exemption, and it happens quietly; you find out when a bank or a grantor asks for a determination letter that no longer applies. Your bylaws should require the treasurer to confirm the filing every year and report the confirmation to the board in writing. It's a two-minute agenda item that prevents a multi-month reinstatement headache. For the mechanics of filing, see our irs form 990 and 990 tax form guides.

Form 990 is the annual information return the IRS requires most tax-exempt organizations to file, reporting revenue, expenses, and activities so the IRS and public can see how the organization operates. "Certain tax-exempt organizations must file this form annually," the IRS states in its Form 990 instructions overview ^[5]. Booster clubs recognized as 501(c)(3) organizations generally fall into this filing requirement unless they're a church or a few other narrow exceptions. Which version you file depends on gross receipts. The IRS breaks it down roughly like this: | Annual gross receipts | Which form to file |

How should bylaws set up financial controls and signature authority?

Bylaws should name who can sign checks, what dollar threshold triggers a second signature, and who approves the budget before spending happens. Vague language like "the treasurer manages the funds" isn't a control, it's an invitation for exactly one person to have unchecked access to the bank account. A workable clause usually says something like: two officer signatures required for any check or transfer over a stated dollar amount (many clubs use $500, some use $250), no officer may sign a check payable to themselves, the treasurer presents a written financial report at every regular meeting, and an outside reviewer (a non-officer parent, another club's treasurer, or a hired bookkeeper) reviews the books at least once a year. None of this is required by Texas statute for an unincorporated club, but it is the kind of internal control language that shows up in nonprofit governance guidance and that school districts increasingly ask to see before approving a booster club's fundraising status. Our financial controls coverage has sample language for dual-signature thresholds and cash-handling procedures if your current bylaws are silent on this.

How do you write a dissolution clause for a Texas booster club?

A dissolution clause states what happens to the club's remaining assets if the club shuts down, and for a 501(c)(3) organization it must direct those assets to another tax-exempt organization or a government entity, never to individual members. This isn't optional language; it's a requirement baked into the federal tax code for exempt status. Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) requires that upon dissolution, assets be distributed for exempt purposes, and the IRS's own compliance guidance for exempt organizations lists an acceptable dissolution provision as one that directs remaining assets to "another section 501(c)(3) organization, or to a Federal, state, or local government for a public purpose" ^[4]. If your booster club dissolves and there's $3,000 left in the concession fund, that money needs to go to the school district's activity fund, another booster club, or a similar exempt nonprofit, spelled out in your bylaws or articles ahead of time, not decided in a hallway vote the week the club closes. If you're incorporated in Texas, this dissolution language belongs primarily in your certificate of formation, but repeating it in your bylaws for clarity doesn't hurt and helps board members who never read the certificate of formation actually know the rule.

How do membership, voting, and quorum rules typically work?

Membership rules define who gets a vote in the club, and for most booster clubs that means parents or guardians of participating students, sometimes coaches or staff as non-voting members, and occasionally students themselves for older programs. Bylaws should state whether membership requires paying dues, whether one vote is per family or per adult, and how someone becomes or stops being a member. Quorum, the minimum number of members who must be present to conduct official business, needs a specific number or percentage, not a vague "a reasonable number." Many small booster clubs set quorum at a flat number (say, 10 members) or a percentage of paid membership (say, 25%), whichever produces a workable meeting size for their actual attendance patterns. If quorum is set too high for a club that struggles to get five parents to a meeting, you'll spend years unable to conduct official business, which becomes its own governance problem. Voting procedures should also cover how officers are elected (slate vote, nomination floor, secret ballot) and what happens with a tie. None of this is glamorous, but a booster club that skips these details tends to relitigate its own process every single meeting.

How do you amend booster club bylaws once they're adopted?

Bylaws should include their own amendment procedure: what vote threshold is required (commonly two-thirds of members present, or a majority of the full board depending on the club's structure), how much advance notice members get before a vote on changes, and who can propose an amendment. Without this clause, changing your own bylaws becomes a chicken-and-egg problem: what rule do you follow to change the rules? A typical clause reads something like: "These bylaws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at a regular meeting, provided that written notice of the proposed amendment was given at least 14 days in advance." The exact numbers are yours to set. What matters is that the threshold and notice period are specific enough that nobody can argue about them later. If your booster club is incorporated in Texas, keep in mind that some structural changes (like changing the corporate purpose) may also require an amendment to your certificate of formation filed with the Texas Secretary of State, which is a separate process from a bylaws amendment.

Where do you file or register booster club bylaws in Texas?

You don't file bylaws with any Texas state office; they're an internal governance document, not a public filing. What you do file with the Texas Secretary of State, if you incorporate, is a certificate of formation under Texas Business Organizations Code Chapter 22 ^[1]. Bylaws then get adopted by the board and kept on file at the registered office as required by Section 3.151 ^[2]. Separately, if your booster club plans to solicit charitable donations or run a raffle, check whether your specific activity triggers registration with the Texas Attorney General's office, since charitable solicitation and raffle rules are handled at the state level and change periodically; confirm current requirements with the Texas Attorney General's charitable organization pages before you run any fundraiser that involves a raffle or public solicitation. And if your booster club is or wants to be a federally tax-exempt 501(c)(3), you'll separately apply to the IRS using Form 1023 or 1023-EZ, attaching your bylaws and articles as part of that application ^[3]. Filing with the state and applying for federal exemption are two different processes with two different agencies; a lot of new treasurers assume incorporating in Texas automatically makes them tax-exempt federally, and it doesn't.

Where do you find a Texas booster club bylaws template or sample?

There's no official state-issued booster club bylaws template in Texas; the state doesn't publish one because bylaws aren't a state filing. What exists instead are sample bylaws circulated by school districts, state PTA/PTO affiliates, and nonprofit support organizations, which you'd adapt to your specific club, sport, and school relationship. A workable starting outline covers name and purpose, membership and voting, officer roles and duties (treasurer duties especially detailed), meeting and quorum rules, financial controls and signature authority, committee structure, amendment procedure, and a dissolution clause matching Section 501(c)(3) requirements ^[4]. Don't just copy another club's bylaws wholesale; sports differ, school relationships differ, and a template written for a football booster club with a six-figure budget doesn't fit a swim club running two fundraisers a year. If you'd rather not build this from a blank page, BoosterLedger's treasurer kit builder puts together a $99 one-time, state-personalized treasurer kit that includes governance and financial-control templates suited to Texas booster clubs, alongside the recordkeeping tools your treasurer actually needs day to day. It's a starting document either way, not a substitute for review by your board or, for anything with real legal weight, an actual attorney.

What happens if a booster club never writes bylaws or lets them go stale?

Nothing happens immediately, and that's exactly the problem. A booster club without bylaws (or with bylaws nobody has looked at in eight years) runs fine right up until there's a dispute: a treasurer who won't hand over the checkbook, a coach who wants fundraising money spent a certain way, a parent group that wants to recall an officer, or a school district asking for governance documents before approving next season's fundraisers. Stale bylaws also tend to have stale numbers: dues amounts nobody's charged in years, a dissolution clause naming a school program that no longer exists, or officer titles that don't match how the club actually runs. Review your bylaws at least once a year, ideally at the same meeting where you review the treasurer's annual report and confirm the year's IRS filing got done. If your bylaws are silent on a real problem you just had, that's your cue to amend them before you forget the details.

Frequently asked questions

What does a treasurer do in a booster club?

A booster club treasurer tracks all incoming money (concessions, sponsorships, dues), pays approved bills, reconciles the bank account monthly, files the annual IRS return (990-N, 990-EZ, or 990 depending on revenue), and reports finances to the board regularly. Good bylaws also require the treasurer to hand off complete records to their successor at the end of their term.

What is a treasurer?

A treasurer is the officer responsible for an organization's money: receiving, safeguarding, spending according to approved budgets, and reporting accurately to the board. In a volunteer booster club, it's typically an unpaid, part-time role, but the responsibilities (accurate records, timely filings, transparent reporting) are the same as in any larger nonprofit.

What do treasurers do differently in a PTO versus a sports booster club?

The core job is the same (bookkeeping, controls, reporting, filings), but PTOs often handle broader school-wide fundraising and grants to multiple programs, while sports booster clubs usually track one team's concessions, spirit wear, and sponsorships. Bylaws should reflect whichever funding sources and spending categories your specific club actually has.

What is Form 990?

Form 990 is the IRS's annual information return for tax-exempt organizations, reporting revenue, expenses, and activities. The IRS states that "certain tax-exempt organizations must file this form annually" and offers three versions (990-N, 990-EZ, full 990) based on gross receipts and total assets, per IRS filing threshold guidance.

What is a 990 tax form and who has to file it?

It's the informational tax return most 501(c)(3) organizations, including booster clubs, must file yearly to keep their tax-exempt status. Small clubs under $50,000 in gross receipts typically file the simple 990-N e-Postcard; larger clubs file the 990-EZ or full 990 depending on revenue and assets.

What is the 990 used for by the IRS and the public?

The IRS uses Form 990 to monitor whether tax-exempt organizations still operate within their exempt purpose and to spot compliance issues. The public can also view most 990s, since they're generally available for public inspection, which is why board members should expect their club's finances to be somewhat transparent.

Does Texas require booster clubs to have written bylaws?

Only if the club is incorporated as a Texas nonprofit corporation, in which case Texas Business Organizations Code Section 22.102 requires the board to adopt bylaws, and Section 3.151 requires keeping them at the registered office. Unincorporated booster clubs aren't legally required to have bylaws under Texas statute, but school districts and banks typically expect them anyway.

Do Texas booster club bylaws need to be filed with the state?

No. Bylaws are an internal governance document; Texas doesn't have a filing process for them. What does get filed with the Texas Secretary of State, if the club incorporates, is a certificate of formation under Texas Business Organizations Code Chapter 22.

What must be in a dissolution clause for a Texas booster club?

The dissolution clause must direct any remaining assets to another 501(c)(3) organization or to a government entity for a public purpose, never to individual members or officers. This requirement comes from Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) and IRS compliance guidance for exempt organizations.

Who should have signature authority on a booster club bank account?

Bylaws should name at least two officers with signature authority and require a second signature above a set dollar threshold (many clubs use $250 to $500). No officer should be allowed to sign a check payable to themselves. This isn't a Texas statutory requirement, it's a basic financial control most auditors and school districts expect to see.

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

The IRS automatically revokes the organization's tax-exempt status if it fails to file a required return or notice for three consecutive years, under Internal Revenue Code Section 6033(j). Reinstatement requires a new exemption application and can take months, so bylaws should require the treasurer to confirm each year's filing to the board in writing.

Can a booster club change its bylaws whenever it wants?

Only according to the amendment procedure the bylaws themselves establish, typically a stated vote threshold (often two-thirds of members present) and a minimum advance notice period for proposed changes. Without a defined amendment clause, a club has no clear, agreed-upon way to change its own rules.

Is a booster club bylaws template the same as a legal requirement?

No. A template is a starting draft; Texas doesn't mandate specific bylaws content beyond requiring incorporated nonprofits to adopt bylaws under Section 22.102. Content like officer duties, financial controls, and dissolution language should match IRS exemption requirements and your club's actual practices, ideally reviewed by your board and, for legal certainty, an attorney.

Sources

1. Texas Business Organizations Code: Texas nonprofit corporations' boards must adopt initial bylaws under Section 22.102
2. Texas Business Organizations Code: Corporations must keep bylaws and governing documents at the registered office under Section 3.151
3. IRS, Instructions for Form 1023: Form 1023 applicants must attach bylaws, if applicable, along with articles of incorporation
4. IRS, Exemption Requirements - 501(c)(3) Organizations: 501(c)(3) organizing documents must limit purposes to exempt purposes and dedicate assets to exempt purposes on dissolution
5. IRS, About Form 990: Certain tax-exempt organizations must file Form 990 annually
6. IRS, Annual Filing and Forms: Filing thresholds for Form 990-N, 990-EZ, and full Form 990 based on gross receipts and assets
7. IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption: Organizations that fail to file required returns for three consecutive years automatically lose tax-exempt status under IRC Section 6033(j)