You must file every year (even if it's just the short form indicated above) or you'll lose the chance to be a 501(c)(3) before you even start.

Of course occasionally you must face the fact that if you can't raise the money to file, perhaps there's simply not enough interest in your area of preservation. It sucks, but it is what it is.

Or, there's interest, but the wrong "leadership" and business plans (or a lack thereof).

If an experienced operator or preservationist or team--say just to pick some random folks, the Roanoke or C.P. Huntington NRHS Chapters, Bennett Levin, or a group with ties to the Grand Canyon or Napa Valley commercial operations--were to step forward with a well-reasoned proposal and business plan involving occasional operation and leases, they would garner more attention and serious interest than you would.

Any proposal like this--from building a replica Pacific steamer to saving an entire rail corridor for preservation--involves salesmanship and more salesmanship. Someone has to talk people--usually many of them--into contributing "the price of a pint a week" or the cost of taking a property of the tax rolls and making it a public liability, or whatever is being proposed. And the "angels" with big-dollars to contribute didn't become "the 1%" by wasting money on unsound proposals.

A person or maybe a team of persons with this quality is the most valuable preservation asset that any organization can have. You can literally start with nothing and end up with an entire railroad.

People who THINK they have the above qualities but don't are literally the most poisonous thing to a non-profit. They can take an entire railroad to ashes and leave a string of bitter volunteers, ruined and scrapped equipment, and enough badwill to sabotage some rather earnest efforts to salvage the ruins.

I don't clame to be the best person for the job buy I am the one who steped up. All someone would have to do is convince the board to remove me and it would be done. But untill then I am the one doing it.