John's column this morning brought some questions that I was asking last month to the fore. On April 12th, I realized that in spite of the DirectEmployer's Association very public trumpeting of their non-profit status, they never claim to be a 501(c) organization. (Check out their About Us page.) / e& S2 Z. c/ C% \" B6 \
I put in a call to their PR firm to try to find out why, and got the following response via email, confirming they are in fact not a federal non-profit:
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DirectEmployers is incorporated in the state of Indiana as a non-profit corporation and is currently in the process of applying for a 501(c) 6 non-exempt status. 5 U9 i% \: p  r5 ?: P# A& y4 L  a

(501(c)6 status is the section of the federal tax code for nonprofit associations.) 7 m( I2 V) D) L0 k
This confused me, because DirectEmployers has been around since October 2001, which means that it has had nearly six years to do this application (In my experience, the application process is a simple one. We submitted the ERE Foundation's 501(c)3 application through our accountant, and it only took a few hundred dollars from beginning to end.)
2 Q0 h; ?0 }$ Q9 UAt the time, I dropped the subject because I did not understand why an organization would choose to become a non-profit in the state of Indiana, but not be recognized by the Federal governement.
$ {! |& n  A' t6 v5 b- A3 }! a2 {  e0 HJohn's column presents one possible reason (though definitely not the only one) why DirectEmployers is not already recognized by the IRS as a 501(c) organization. I hope that there is a better one - one that presents them in a better light.
. X. K/ N2 Q7 @" t9 R8 ZGiven that a tremendous part of DirectEmployers brand and marketing is dependant on being nonprofit, and that they are now attempting to partner with the government's State Workforce Agencies to create a successor to America's Job Bank, they need to be above reproach on issues of governance. 6 \% W: R. x. F4 f: H
This all begs several questions, which I hope that my friends* Chad and Bill at DirectEmployers can shed some light on.
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• Why is DirectEmployers not a 501(c) organization after almost six years?
• Your PR firm said that the application was in process a month and a half ago. Keeping in mind that it is a process that typically takes hours, and not months, what stage is the application process in?

* Apparently the implied closeness of my relationship with Chad and Bill begged the question of why I did not contact them directly - see Carl and Bob's comments below. I did not mean to imply that we were close - only to describe our professional relationship in a friendly way.

I've tried to be pretty transparent about my thought process in the post. I did not have any communications with John about this or DirectEmployers in any way before writing the post, although I did send him an email to let him know that the post was up after the fact. I sent a similar courtesy email to Chad at DirectEmployers.1 J- x! r. L- b0 a$ g, L5 _

6 A& m4 _/ Q8 h+ y- {% [) cTo be clear, I did check my facts. I contacted DirectEmployer's PR firm, The Steven Style Group, which seems to me to be a pretty reasonable way to find out definitively what their legal structure is. Steven said that he would check with DirectEmployers and then responded to me via email and definitively stated that they are not a 501(c) oganization.% g! [. |- @. Q6 z9 k! |
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As I said in the post, I think that with DirectEmployers repeatedly touting their non-profit status in their marketing, and vying to run the successor to America's Job Bank, that this is more than an academic question, and deserves to be publicly addressed.

As I stated earlier, I picked up the phone and called the principle at their PR agency to get a definitive answer on their legal status. I received a confirmation from their designated press contact. Short of walking you into the IRS office and asking to see the paerwork together, I am not sure how I can convince you further.
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DirectEmployers employs a PR firm just for cases like this, and I am not sure why the information in my post is less valid for having come from DirectEmployer's spokesperson.
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+ i4 H, ?7 c/ Y! V/ t# g( O# \I am confused as to why you think that I would have any agenda beyond what I have stated in my post, but I can assure you that it is not the case.