Providing Lesotho's Children with Keys to the World

This is the story of our efforts to end the vicious cycle of poverty, disease, inadequate education, and early death
in a remote rural community in Lesotho, Africa, by providing quality education and life skills
to the young children there. Join us on our journey ...

Monday, July 7, 2014

Filing For Tax-Exempt Status

IRS Makes Applying for Tax-exempt Status Easier for Small Organizations
 
The Internal Revenue Service today introduced a new, shorter application form, Form 1023-EZ, to help small charities apply for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status more easily. Most organizations with annual gross receipts of $50,000 or less and assets of $250,000 or less are eligible.

The change will allow the IRS to speed the approval process for smaller groups and free up resources to review applications from larger, more complex organizations while reducing the application backlog. 

The new 1023-EZ form must be filed on 
www.pay.gov
, accompanied by a $400 user fee. The instructions include an eligibility checklist that organizations must complete before filing the form.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Laptops to Lesotho Elects New Board Member

Henk Boshoff was recently elected as a new director of Laptops to Lesotho.  Henk is a tech company owner from Pretoria, South Africa.  He is a strong supporter of the Laptops to Lesotho philosophy and approach.

Henk and his engineers will be getting involved in getting the servers at Kokobe and Nohana up and running.  He will also work with training those involved with using the servers.  This alone has the potential to vastly improve the effectiveness of the project by making computer use at the schools easier and more productive.

In addition, he is very interested in seeing L2L expand. His advice will be invaluable in choosing the best hardware and software options.  He has worked with the Linux open source operating system, Edubuntu, and would handle installation of it and any educational software to the computers.

Affordable internet access at the schools is something he would like to see happen.  Another interest is finding ways to develop entrepreneurial endeavors with community members and students using laptops and internet communications to establish local businesses.

Welcome to Laptops to Lesotho.