Kentucky Charity Registration and Paid Fundraisers: Filing, Fees, Contracts, Bonds, and Reports

Direct answer: three registrations, and they are not interchangeable

Kentucky puts three separate registrations in front of a charity that raises money with outside help, and the most expensive mistakes in this area come from treating any one of them as covering the others.

The charity registers itself with the Attorney General before it solicits. If it hires someone to plan or manage the campaign without asking donors for money, that person registers as a fundraising consultant and files the contract in advance. If it hires someone who does the asking, or who touches the money, that person registers as a professional solicitor, which is a heavier system with its own fee, bond, campaign filing, disclosure duties, and financial report.

A paid fundraiser's filing does not satisfy the charity's own registration, and the charity's registration does not authorize an unregistered fundraiser to work. Both sides of the engagement carry their own duties at the same time.

These are structured research notes on current Kentucky official sources, not legal advice. Where an arrangement sits near the consultant and solicitor line, or involves a party the statute did not contemplate, the Attorney General's Charity Registration unit is the office that can classify it.

The charity's own registration: free, and still required

A charitable organization required by the IRS to file Form 990 and soliciting contributions in Kentucky, or a newly formed charity that has not yet filed a Form 990, registers with the Attorney General before any solicitation. There is no filing fee.

What goes in is the most recent Form 990 or, where none has been filed yet, a notice of intent on the prescribed registration statement, together with the Articles, bylaws, and IRS determination letter. Holding a Kentucky Certificate of Authority does not replace this, and forming a Kentucky corporation does not either.

The absence of a fee is the practical trap. Organizations reason that a registration with no charge attached cannot be a real requirement, or they look for a payment step, do not find one, and conclude the filing does not apply to them. Unregistered solicitation is enforcement exposure whether or not money changed hands at the registration counter.

Four exemptions, and none of the ones you expect

KRS 367.660 exempts four categories, and they are narrow. Certain solicitations limited to members and their families. Religious organizations soliciting for religious purposes. Qualifying educational institutions soliciting listed constituencies for established programs. Approved local student or parent groups soliciting for campus activities.

That is the list. The statute has no general small charity exemption, no hospital exemption, no governmental exemption, no fraternal exemption, no exemption for charities that use no paid fundraiser, and no exemption for organizations that take no public contributions. Several of those exist in neighbouring states, which is how they get imported into a Kentucky analysis where they do not belong.

Reliance on an exemption should be reviewed whenever the underlying facts change, because the fit is to the exact statutory description rather than to the organization's general character.

Chapters, branches, and affiliates are a related question rather than an exemption. Each files separately, or supplies its information to a parent that files a consolidated notice covering Kentucky activities, and the Attorney General may require a separate notice for any affiliate. A consolidated filing covers the charity registration only. It does not merge corporate, tax, gaming, alcohol, employment, or local obligations.

How the filing physically goes in

Kentucky currently accepts mailed registration materials and PDF files delivered on a CD or a thumb drive. The Attorney General states that electronic submission is not available, so an emailed package is not a filing.

Two practical points follow. Do not include Schedule B with the public registration copy. And confirm delivery and keep a complete copy of what was sent, because with a mailed filing and no fee receipt there is otherwise no record on the organization's side that anything arrived.

Staying registered: the annual filing follows the federal return

Annual maintenance is tied to the federal return rather than to a Kentucky calendar date. File the applicable Form 990, 990-EZ, 990-PF, or 990-N with the Attorney General at the same time it is filed with the IRS. Where no Form 990 is filed at all, file a new notice of intent instead.

A notice of intent expires on December 31, so an organization relying on one has to renew it rather than assume it carries forward.

On extensions, the Attorney General FAQ states that a federal Form 8868 need not be filed with the Attorney General. That is not the same as a Kentucky extension: the Kentucky copy is due when the return is actually filed federally, so a federal extension moves both dates together rather than excusing the Kentucky filing.

Letting the annual filing lapse leaves the registration incomplete and the notice expired, which is the state a charity is often in when it discovers the problem during a grant application or a due diligence request.

Out-of-state charities

A charity formed outside Kentucky registers on the basis of its solicitation and its federal Form 990 status. Whether it holds a Kentucky Certificate of Authority is a different question with a different answer.

Foreign corporate authority is its own filing, Form FBE, at $90, and it is triggered by transacting business rather than by soliciting. An organization can owe charity registration and not corporate authority, or owe both, and completing only one leaves it either unregistered to solicit or unauthorized to conduct business.

Corporate authority, charity registration, tax, employment, and local duties are screened separately for an out-of-state charity, in the same way they are for a Kentucky one.

Consultant or solicitor: the line is asking and touching

Two questions decide which paid fundraiser system applies. Does this person directly solicit contributions? Does this person receive, control, or have access to contributions?

A fundraising consultant plans, advises, manages, or prepares a campaign and answers no to both. A professional solicitor answers yes to either. Compensation tied to the amount raised is a further signal that pushes an arrangement toward the solicitor definition.

The classification is not cosmetic. It changes the registration fee from $50 to $300, adds a $25,000 bond, adds a campaign level filing, adds donor disclosures during the ask, and adds a financial report afterwards. Getting it wrong in one direction imposes costs the law did not require. Getting it wrong in the other omits a bond and a set of donor protections, which is the version regulators care about.

Classify before the engagement is signed, not after the campaign starts.

The consultant: $50, background costs, and a contract fourteen days ahead

A fundraising consultant obtains Attorney General approval before any activity. Registration costs $50 plus $25 for each required background investigation, expires on December 31, and is renewed for a new calendar year when services continue into it.

The contract is the part with a hard deadline. It must be written, signed by the required charity officials, and state the services, compensation, budget, and campaign terms, and it is filed with the Attorney General at least 14 calendar days before services begin. Calendar days, not business days. A campaign that starts on a handshake and papers the contract later has already missed this.

Changes to registration information are reported within the statutory period, and a material amendment to the contract should be screened for refiling and for its own timing. Registration as a consultant does not authorize soliciting or holding contributions: doing either changes the classification and the duties that come with it.

The solicitor: $300, a $25,000 bond, and a campaign of its own

A professional solicitor registers and obtains approval before soliciting. The registration fee is $300, each required background investigation costs $25, and the solicitor maintains a $25,000 bond throughout. The bond is security for donors and the Commonwealth rather than a filing charge, so budgeting for it as a fee understates what is involved.

Registration expires December 31 and is renewed for continuing activity, exactly as the consultant registration is.

Each campaign then needs its own paperwork on top of the registration. The solicitor and the charity sign a written contract carrying the statutory terms, and the campaign or promotion registration is filed before solicitation begins. The two sides should align on dates, methods, compensation, deposits, custody of funds, disclosures, and cancellation before anything goes out, because a mismatch between the contract and what actually happens surfaces later in the financial report.

A consultant contract cannot stand in for a solicitor promotion filing. They are different filings answering different questions.

Disclosures during the ask, and the report afterwards

Professional solicitors and their agents identify the solicitor and the charitable purpose or organization at the point KRS 367.668 requires, and avoid misleading statements about the solicitor's status or about how the funds will be used. This is a live obligation during every covered solicitation rather than a one time filing, which makes the script, the training, and the monitoring records part of compliance.

Missing or misleading disclosures support Consumer Protection Act enforcement, donor complaints, and suspension of the campaign.

The campaign financial report is due within 90 days after the campaign is completed. For a campaign running longer than a year, a report is due within 90 days after each annual anniversary rather than only at the end. The Attorney General may require an audit.

Cancelling a campaign, or swapping one consultant or solicitor for another, does not erase the reporting obligation for the activity already conducted.

Your own officers, employees, and volunteers

The statutory professional fundraising definitions exclude bona fide officers, salaried employees, and volunteers acting for their own charitable organization under the stated conditions. A development director who works for the charity and asks for gifts on its behalf is not a professional solicitor by virtue of asking.

The exclusion has edges. Compensation structure, work performed for another charity, outside business status, and access to funds can each change the result, and independent contractors, telemarketers, and employees of a fundraising business are analysed separately rather than assumed to be inside the exclusion.

The cost of getting this wrong runs both ways. Registering staff who fall inside the exclusion buys fees and background investigations the law did not require. Treating a contractor as staff because it is convenient omits a registration, a bond, a contract filing, and a report.

Checklist

For the charity: confirm whether one of the four KRS 367.660 exemptions actually describes your solicitation; if not, register with the Attorney General before the first ask, with the most recent Form 990 or a notice of intent plus the Articles, bylaws, and determination letter; send it by mail or approved media and keep proof; then file the Form 990 with the Attorney General each year when it goes to the IRS, or renew the notice of intent before it expires on December 31; and check separately whether foreign corporate authority is triggered.

For an engagement with a paid fundraiser: decide the classification first, by asking whether the person solicits and whether the person can touch contributions; for a consultant, confirm the registration is current and file the written contract at least 14 calendar days before work starts; for a solicitor, confirm the registration, the $25,000 bond, the written contract, and the Promotion Registration Statement are all in place before solicitation begins, brief the disclosure requirements, and calendar the financial report for 90 days after completion or after each annual anniversary.

The complete Kentucky guide carries these requirements as individual facts with their applicability lines, agencies, deadlines, fees, forms, consequences, exceptions, and direct official source links, alongside the rest of the Kentucky compliance picture from formation through dissolution. The Kentucky overview article covers that wider lifecycle.