CPA’s and attorneys who specialize in nonprofit organizations routinely charge $2,500–$5,000 for preparation of IRS Form 1023 applications for small organizations, and $6,000-$15,000 for more complex ventures.
The following two firms used to post public quotes on the order of $2-3k in 2018 (it seems they’ve taken down the public quotes):
Interesting. This came from chats I had with an attorney. That said, they were based in SF, so maybe their prices were higher. I also asked how much it would cost to do “everything”, which I think meant more than strictly file the IRS Form 1023. I believe there’s a lot of work that could be done by either yourself or the attorney, and I would hope that in many cases we could generally lean more on the attorney for that work.
Fiscal sponsorship can be very helpful for new groups!
Though regarding attorney fees:
Where are you getting this from? Attorney fees are on the order of $2-5k.
https://nonprofitelite.com/how-much-will-it-cost-to-get-501c3-tax-exempt-2/
The following two firms used to post public quotes on the order of $2-3k in 2018 (it seems they’ve taken down the public quotes):
https://www.501c3.org/501c3-services/start-a-501c3-nonprofit/
https://www.harborcompliance.com/nonprofit
Starting a non-profit includes non-trivial amounts of other kinds of work though.
Interesting. This came from chats I had with an attorney. That said, they were based in SF, so maybe their prices were higher. I also asked how much it would cost to do “everything”, which I think meant more than strictly file the IRS Form 1023. I believe there’s a lot of work that could be done by either yourself or the attorney, and I would hope that in many cases we could generally lean more on the attorney for that work.