NPO Connect - Other public entities

@Arancha Lattanzio Hello again. It is my understanding that government entities will need to use the “add organization” link to start their application. I'm pretty sure that won't add them to the NPO database - because they are not an NPO. It's my hope that after one application is started/processed, the government entity will show on the early screen that shows previously used organizations. If that screen truly pulls from previous applications, then it should.

@Arancha Lattanzio
Agree! I was researching this just last week before I saw your post. I found multiple references that say something similar to:

Public schools and public colleges or universities – Public schools are a unit of government, so they don’t apply for 501(c)(3) status. Interesting thing about them, though, is that they often qualify to receive tax-deductible contributions from the public as if they were 501(c)(3).

and

Governments are not nonprofit organizations; they are sovereign entities with authority over all other organizations, including nonprofits, and are funded by taxes rather than donations or grants.

So we're going with the idea that a public school is not a 501(c)(3), but it can be considered a nonprofit. That's why we figured they are included in the NPO database but governments are not. For coding purposes though, we still flag them as local government. Obviously I'm not an expert, that's simply where we landed on the logic.

@Arancha Lattanzio and others please vote on this idea to turn off NPO Connect if the funder desires. We also struggle with government organizations as well as churches.