Congratulations-you've decided to dedicate some time and effort to your lake!
If you are part of a lake community, your life encompasses some exceptional advantages.
Lake living also comes with some unique responsibilities. Dealing with the broad range
of issues and concerns that face our lakes can be an overwhelming task for an individual.
Working with an organized group that shares a common interest can make short work
out of the most difficult problems. Partners sharing objectives, knowledge, skills and
resources can make mole hills out of monumental issues.

WHY HAVE AN ORGANIZATION?

To develop a partnership with your lake neighbors.
To gain awareness of your neighbors' lake interests.
To develop a communications network for sharing lake news.
To raise awareness of lake issues-in the community.
To launch fund raising events and apply for grants.
To evolve a wise long-range lake management plan.
To act as a support group for members.
To focus the wide range of skills and know-how a lake group possesses.	
To gain strength in numbers. The group's opinions
   and needs can-be constructively  represented to
   local government officials or agencies.
To gather information  and present educational
   programs for your membership and those living near the lake.
To conduct data collecting on a broad range of lake concerns
  (water quality development, lake use conflicts).
To gain a historical perspective from-long-time residents.

THINGS LAKE ASSOCIATIONS CAN DO
Operate dams                                    Maintain lake access
Contract for aquatic plant removal              Buy and operate an aquatic harvester
Purchase sensitive areas such as wetlands       Improve Fish habitat and stock fish

Considerations:

If your lake has more than one land owner or  user, 
you will probably find a divergence in philosophy and
expectations toward how the lake should be used or managed.
If an organization is formed over only one issue the 
prospects for long term success may be limited.

An organization with the best chances of success:
Has an eye toward the future.
Recognizes a broad range of issues and requirements.
Anticipates unforeseen occurrences that could change the lake.
Balances the needs of today's lake community against the
possibilities of tomorrow's group that may be perceived as having a personal motive.


Organizing to
Protect Your Lake

Assuming responsibility for your lake is the first step;
the next is to multiply your efforts by those of your neighbors.
Lake associations formed by lakeside homeowners and other
residents offer a cooperative way to significantly protect your lake.
A formally organized group, bound by mutual goals, can be a
strong representative voice for your lake within your community and state.
To truly make a difference in the quality of your lake,
everyone in the lake community should participate - including the
marina operator and the owners of the bait shop and other businesses
that depend on the lake. Even nearby towns may have sufficient
stake in the lake that their Chambers of Commerce might
support your lake association.

	An informal gathering of neighbors is often the first step
in organizing an association. Focus on the nature of the lake's
present or potential problems: select the issue that will be the
most pertinent to the greatest number of residents, and discuss
the resources that are available to address it. The meeting should
end with a consensus on the pertinent issue and the need for an
association, along with a timetable and plan for organization.
Before adjourning, select a chair and secretary and ask for
volunteers to serve on a steering committee to draft bylaws
and nominate officers and directors.

The charter meeting

The charter meeting brings together the steering committee
and the lake community to decide if they want to form a
lake association. To organize this first general meeting,
the steering committee should:

Schedule it at a time convenient for most people in the
lake community. Select a central meeting place with adequate
seating and parking; if possible, tentatively reserve it for
a subsequent meeting. VFW halls, hotels, local restaurants,
church halls, and public buildings are possible meeting sites.
Compile a mailing list of all property owners, using municipal
maps and tax rolls. Put together a real campaign, focusing
on your pertinent issue: Announce the meeting and notify
residents by mail, telephone, and newspaper articles;
Follow up this publicity with door-to-door visits to
encourage a good turnout; and Distribute copies of the
proposed bylaws before the meeting, so that the community
will be fully informed.
Check to see if you need microphones or audiovisual equipment
such as videoplayers and slide or overhead projectors.
The size of the meeting facility and the number of people
you expect determine audiovisual needs.
Arrange for a welcome table with a sign-up sheet and name badges.
Arrange to serve simple refreshments after the meeting.
Members of the steering committee might agree to contribute
chips and punch or split the expense (perhaps the marina owner
could get you a good deal on soft drinks).

Your general meeting could proceed in the following way:

Call to order by temporary chair of meeting.
Present purpose of meeting and introduce steering committee.
Present report of organizing group's initial meeting(s).
Discuss/vote to adopt bylaws based on steering committee's
recommendations.
Elect officers according to bylaws.
President-elect chairs the meeting after the election.
Discuss association activities (keep brief).
Appoint committees and plan membership drive.
Establish a mailing address for the association.
This could be the president's or secretary's home
or office or a post office box.
Set a date and place for the next meeting and adjourn.

Parliamentary procedures: A set of rules to run meetings
can allow everyone to be heard and make decisions with a minimum
of confusion. Robert's Rules of Order are the basic guidelines
used by most organizations. This book is available in most bookstores
and your library.

 Guest speaker: Although not essential at the charter meeting,
the right speaker may be a draw. Choose your speaker carefully;
a representative from another lake association or a technical expert
who could speak briefly and answer questions about your pertinent
issue might be helpful. Local consultants, college professors and
other teachers, and representatives of state and federal agencies
may be well qualified as well as interested in speaking to your group.
Contact your speaker well in advance of the meeting so that the publicity
can describe the program. Above all, your speaker must understand the
importance of tailoring his/her presentation to the introductory nature
of the meeting.

 Sign-up sheet: You need to know who's interested in the association.
Have a sign-up sheet at the welcome table (where people will fill out name badges).
Ask for the following information: name, address, telephone number,
family composition, principal occupation(s), and specific interests
in the association or project. Encourage people to check off or write
in lake issues they consider important and committees they would be
interested in joining.

Legal and tax issues

Once you have decided to formally organize, you need to decide how to
set up the association according to local and federal law. The following
discussion is intended as a general overview of legal and tax issues for
organizing and operating a lake association, not as a complete description
of legal and tax regulations. Consult a tax accountant or attorney about
how to organize with the proper authorities. You may want to seek out lake
property owners who have this expertise or who could recommend legal and
tax professionals.


Stewardship versus profitability

Initial incorporation

You first need to prepare articles of incorporation and bylaws and
submit them to the proper authorities. These are legal documents and
should be tailored to the specific requirements of the governing authority.
The association typically incorporates in the state where its members reside.

IRS registration

Once you have incorporated, you should apply to the IRS for a tax
identification number. This is a very simple form that registers
the organization with the federal government in much the same way
as an individual is registered with a social security number.
At the same time, if you plan to be nonprofit, you may also apply
to the IRS for tax exempt status. This is a more difficult process
that often requires the help of an attorney or tax accountant.
After reviewing the materials submitted, the IRS normally sends a
provisional "exemption" letter confirming tax exempt status.
The exemption is usually good for five years, during which you
are normally required to file annual information returns. 

This is usually Form 990 and includes information on income,
receipts, contributions, disbursements, assets, liabilities,
and names and addresses of substantial contributors. Organizations
normally having gross receipts of $25,000 or less are exempt from
filing Form 990.

The state may also have similar, if often simpler, application and
reporting requirements. Washington, for example, has none because
it has no income tax. In most states, however, you must file with
the Secretary of State.

Contact your state department of revenue for specific information.

Accounting

Maintaining adequate financial records is essential for assuring
the success of your association. Remember - whether for-profit or
nonprofit, your organization is a business and should be run as
such. Except for a large association that employs a full-time
bookkeeper, an organization's treasurer normally "keeps the books."
This entails keeping a checkbook, recording all disbursements,
receipts, and miscellaneous transactions in a ledger, and maintaining
savings accounts or other investments.
Most nonprofit lake organizations follow five accounting principles
that differ from those used by most businesses:

Cash instead of accrual accounting: The association must decide
which accounting method to select. The simplest method - cash accounting
-records only cash transactions (just like a checkbook). Unpaid bills are
not recorded. In contrast, the accrual basis takes non-cash factors
(such as unpaid bills) into account and usually gives a more accurate
picture of an organization's financial condition. Because of its complexity,
it is often used only by medium and large organizations.

Fund accounting: This accounting concept separates cash and other
assets into categories according to the restrictions placed on their use.
For example, a lake organization may set up a fund to be used only for
periodic dredging of the lake sediments or emergency repair of the dam.
Commercial operations do not normally use this method, but it is essential
to the operation of most associations.

Treatment of fixed assets: This is how an organization records
its assets. For example, an asset can be depreciated over its useful
life or written off and then capitalized on the balance sheet. Each
situation must be examined and treated according to the method that
makes the most sense.

Transfers and appropriations: Transfers are frequently made
between funds, and appropriations are made from a fund for specific uses.
It is important that these transfers and appropriations are properly
treated and accurately recorded on financial statements.

Contributions and pledges: Rarely received by commercial operations,
this type of transaction is more common to lake associations. How it is
treated is often confusing, particularly for non-cash contributions.

The treasurer familiar with commercial financial accounting and reporting
should have no difficulty keeping the books of a lake association once
these five accounting principles are understood. 

 At the end of the association's fiscal year, the treasurer should
compile an annual financial report to be distributed to all members
-ideally, it should be part of an overall annual report of the
association's activities.

Lake districts

Some states, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Virginia, Washington,
and New York, have passed legislation to allow the formation of lake
improvement or management districts. This is a joint state-local
partnership that gives local lake property owners a strong organization
with legal authority to assume more comprehensive management of the lake
and powers to assess costs for projects that benefit the lake community.
In general, lake districts have the power to Make contracts,
Hold real estate, Disburse monies, Tax property within the district, and
Perform lake management activities, including studying and treating
lake problems, diverting or removing nutrients, dam maintenance, and dredging.

 Some states allow lake districts to seek sanitary powers from
town boards to provide such services as public sewers and water,
garbage removal, regulation of septic tanks, and storm water drainage.
In Washington, sewer districts (whether or not they actually construct
sewers) provide more flexibility for lake management than actual lake
management districts, which are difficult to establish. Residents and
property owners within a lake district vote on major decisions, including
the budget, at the district's annual meeting. Between meetings, the district
is governed by a board whose members are determined by the original legislation.
A lake district usually operates under a set of bylaws that establishes
procedures for the annual meeting and duties of the board.
 Districts may or may not have regulatory powers over the land or water;
if not, members can work with local authorities to enact ordinances.
If your state has enacted such legislation and you want to form a lake
district, put together a group to investigate the benefits and
responsibilities of such an organization and the actual steps in
activating a district. The next step is usually to draw up a map
of the proposed lake district and hold a meeting of the lake community
and county and state agencies. At this point, your group may be able to
form a lake district by voting to do so, or you may have to apply to a
county or state board.


Other public/private partnerships
Commissions or agencies: When a need obviously exists,
many cities and counties permit formation of commissions or agencies
to manage a lake. For example, a group of lake property owners in
Connecticut petitioned their city to become a city commission that 
would be an advisory board to the city council concerning the lake.
This commission has no taxing or police powers - but it does have
legal standing, local press coverage, city insurance, and access
to the city's copy machines, mailing services, and meeting rooms.
Plus a line item appropriation in the city budget to conduct lake
management activities.

Multi-town lake authority: Some states allow two (or more) towns
that border the same lake to form a lake authority that acts as an agent
for the towns on lake management issues and projects. The member towns
contribute to the authority's budget and interested lake residents
volunteer to serve on the authority's board.
Based on the same concept under which communities cooperate to maintain
fire departments and ambulance services, the lake authority could also
be applied to lakes that cut across state borders.

Informal partnerships: The many lake associations with no taxing
or regulatory authority usually work with their city/county governments
on an ad hoc basis to secure grants and other funds to solve lake problems.
 Forming a partnership with your local government even becoming a
quasi -governmental unit - can significantly strengthen your association.
It may also mean a trade-off between subjecting your organization to
governmental restrictions and retaining your freedom and flexibility
as an independent group.

Funding
How you pay your bills depends largely on what bills you decide to incur.
In other words, your association's goals and objectives will drive the budget
- which, in turn, will drive your funding structure. If yours is a publicly-owned
lake, the budget and financing for maintaining the lake itself have been set
by a government unit. But if you live on a private lake, your property owners
association is responsible for maintaining your lake.
Beyond this basic responsibility, however, your association - no matter
whether your lake is private or public - may choose to support many
community activities, some related to protecting the lake (such as monitoring)
and others purely social.
Lake associations use various funding mechanisms
           (limited only by members' creativity and legal restrictions):

Dues: set at a reasonable level - either flat rate
or prorated -and usually paid annually.

Property owner assessments: prorated shares for
major work, such as repairing a dam.

Taxes: some states permit local lake districts
to levy up to a certain rate to manage their lake.

Government grants: Over the past decade, more than
400 publicly-owned lakes have used state grants from EPA's
Clean Lakes Program to restore their lakes. Similar funds
are available through other federal agencies (the Corps of
Engineers, for example) and from state natural resource departments.

Foundations: Private foundations, particularly those
focused on environmental issues, often will assist financially
with a specific lake project.

Industry/corporations: The dominant business in your
nearby community may be interested in helping preserve the
recreational opportunities your lake offers, particularly
if the corporation sees the lake as beneficial to its employees.

Fundraisers: annual festivals, contests, boat races,
gigantic collective garage sales, formal benefits - your
association's treasury is limited only by your imagination.

Insurance

Lake associations usually try to carry two types of insurance:
directors' and officers' (commonly referred to as D&O) and liability.
Some states, such as Wisconsin, provide legal protection for directors
and officers of nonprofit organizations. Before completely relying
on state protection, find out exactly what it covers; you may want
supplemental policies.
(The Community Association Institute
1423 Powhatan St., Alexandria, VA 22314;
(703) 548-8600)
has outlined several provisions to look for when you're
considering a D&O policy:

Coverage of the volunteer: committee members,
review boards, etc.

Policy limit: do you or the company dictate the limit?

Defense and settlement: can you choose your own
defense counsel in the event of a claim?

Employee suits: are suits such as discrimination
and wrongful termination covered?

Libel and slander: does the policy cover association
publications and presentations by board members?

Nonmonetary defense: does the policy cover costs
associated with defending nonmonetary claims?

Warranty and severability: will misrepresentations by
previous board members void the policy?

Both because of the trend toward litigation today and the nature
of activities around a lake, insurance can be expensive and
difficult to obtain. For example, because the cost is so high,
lake associations generally do not carry insurance on dam breaks.
State laws control insurance carriers so you should contact your
local insurance agents - perhaps one belongs to your association
- for information on all aspects of insurance for your association
and its directors.