( About the Conrad Weiser Community Association )
So, what is CWCA and what can it do for me?
The Conrad Weiser Community Association (CWCA) offers local youth sports clubs (and potentially other, community service organizations) a legal corporate framework for protection and support, by allowing them to share our official corporate name and government-approved tax-exempt status. Member Clubs enjoy the collective support and shared resources of a larger enterprise, while still maintaining complete autonomy over the management of their coaches, teams, players and volunteers. CWCA Member Clubs control their own registration process and handle their own fund-raising; they also have access to user-friendly web-based tools for collecting member data, registration fees, and club/team/player management functions. For a small fee of $3 per player per year, CWCA handles financial reporting. CWCA Members also share information about fundraising and player, coach or parental concerns in order to mitigate risk of conflicts that may cross over between different youth sports clubs in the Conrad Weiser Area School District and the surrounding community.
WHAT CWCA WILL DO FOR ME & MY CLUB:
- Share 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
- Share Registration, Communication, and Data Management Tools.
- Offer you a helping hand: Collective brainstorming and shared non-profit experience.
- Give you access to other member-clubs' contact lists for promotional and event advertising.
- Ensure compliance with Pennsylvania and Federal Tax Filing requirements
- Provide a permanent mailing address through our shared p.o. box.
- Share our annual Berks County Small Games of Chance License
- Share information between member clubs to help you maintain your own club
- Provide online resources and private repositories for your electronic records and files (minutes, financial records, etc.)
- Share equipment, facilities and other resources where ever possible.
WHAT CWCA WON'T DO FOR ME & MY CLUB:
- Tell you how to run your club
- bog you down with unnecessary paperwork and legal or accounting fees
- overwhelm you with too many meetings during the year (we only meet semi-monthly or 6 times a year for general business reporting)
Joining CWCA is easy: Just contact us and come to a few meetings so we can get to know each other. Representatives from each member club will vote to accept or reject new membership organizations, but all of us agree that more members is better than less, so long as we all agree to follow our by-laws and try to contribute to each others' mutual success through community good will and cooperation.
AFTER I JOIN, THEN WHAT?
- your club must send one representative to each semi-monthly meeting (that is, only 6 per year)
- your club must provide its own monthly meeting minutes & financial records for archiving and reporting to the State
- your club must pay the annual "head tax" to CWCA, payable in October or 4th quarter of our fiscal year
- your club must abide by the CWCA by-laws as well as your own standards and protocols
One key benefit of joining CWCA is having help to manage your registration data and online club documentation. Organizations who join the CWCA can build on existing web applications* to collect, store, and process all kinds of important data for your club: Event Registration; Surveys; Promotional Emails to Specific Clubs as well as the general membership email list, over 1200 contacts (and growing!) to reach out to new potential members and attendees at your fundraising events; Financial Data for easy access, auditing, and year-to-year planning. When you become a CWCA member, even the smallest clubs can have much of what they need to start working like a larger more established enterprise. This is particularly helpful with transfers of knowledge to new board members and key volunteers in your club.
Join Us! To get started, visit our CONTACT PAGE to reach out and start a dialog that could take your community service group to the next level.
* Customized Web Applications are not included in the annual head tax and can be custom-built to your liking and budgetary needs. Contact Tony Wirebach, CWCA Webmaster, to find out more.
