Important Contribution Update Haiti Awake, Inc. was formed as a North Carolina non-profit corporation in December of 2014. Haiti Awake filed for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in early March 2015. When this application is approved, then exempt status will be granted retroactive to the date of formation (that is December 2014 for Haiti Awake). This means that gifts made to Haiti Awake starting in 2015 will be tax deductible unless the IRS denies Haiti Awake's application for exempt status. This is the IRS's policy since a vast majority of the 70,000 applications a year are approved, because our country encourages charitable activity and giving, and because the IRS is aware that it can take several months for an application to be approved. Since our application was made in early 2015 and the current processing time is approximately 6 months, we expect to have our exemption approved before the end of 2015. In the extremely unlikely event that the IRS denies Haiti Awake's application for exempt status, then Haiti Awake will inform donors who have made gifts. This policy of retroactive application is available from the IRS in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2013-2, Section 11 (http://www.irs.gov/irb/2013-02_IRB/ar07.html#d0e1098). This is great news for those of you who have been waiting for the tax exempt application to make donations.