Free to use, copy and adapt
Nine documents for the people who run the band
A treasurer handover that survives the handover. Donor letters that satisfy the federal rules. A filing calendar that names the failure which quietly ends an ensemble. Three handbooks that settle who decides what.
Each one comes as a PDF to print and a Word file to change. Put your own ensemble's name on them, delete the parts that do not apply, and hand them to whoever takes the job after you. Nothing in them requires our software, and there is no sign-up page hidden at the back.
We ask for an address because we would rather know who is looking, and because it lets us send the link again when somebody loses it. That is the whole reason. One email, and only from us. If you would rather not give an address at all, write to letterc@rehearsalletter.com and we will send the lot back to you.
All nine are open
Every document below will download now, in either format. The links keep working for a month, on any device, and a copy is on its way to your inbox.
The library
Nine documents, forty-eight pages
Written for a volunteer board of a community band, orchestra or chorus. Every federal rule cited in them is linked to the IRS page it comes from, so you can check us rather than trust us. None of it is legal or tax advice.
Six pages
The treasurer handover
Everything the outgoing treasurer knows and has never written down: the accounts, the logins, the filings, the recurring payments nobody remembers agreeing to. Worked through by both people, in one sitting, and signed at the end.
Seven pages
Donor acknowledgment letters
The substantiation rules in plain English — the $250 threshold, the $75 quid pro quo disclosure, the sentence the IRS actually requires — and seven letters that satisfy them: cash, in kind, quid pro quo, memorial, sponsorship, year-end summary and the correction you send when the first one was wrong.
Five pages
The nonprofit filing calendar
Which 990 your ensemble owes and when it is due, what an extension does and does not cover, the state filings you have to go and find, and the three consecutive missed years that revoke an exemption automatically, with no warning letter.
Four pages
The annual board calendar — July start
A month-by-month plan for a board whose fiscal year ends on 30 June, which is most of them. What has to happen, the month it has to happen in, and the officer who is holding it.
Four pages
The annual board calendar — January start
The same year rebuilt rather than relabeled, for an ensemble on a calendar fiscal year. Officers take office in January, the payroll forms fall in the same month, and the handover lands in the middle of a season instead of between two.
Six pages
The board member's handbook
For the person who has just said yes without being told what the job is. The three duties, what a meeting is for, how to read a budget you did not write, conflicts of interest, and the difference between governing an ensemble and helping it.
Five pages
The section leader's handbook
What the job is, what it is not, and how to say the hard things to somebody you sit next to every week. Seating, sectionals, attendance, part assignments, and the conversations that belong to the director instead.
Five pages
The musician's handbook
A template to adapt and hand to a new player on their first night. Attendance and what counts as notice, dues and what happens if they are hard to pay, music and what is owed back, concert dress, and how a complaint is raised.
These are the documents we kept rebuilding for one ensemble after another, so we stopped rebuilding them. They are yours. There is no watermark, no attribution requirement and no expiry on the documents themselves.
Before you use them
What these are, and what they are not
Not advice, and not a trial
We are an ensemble portal, not a law firm and not an accountant. These documents describe the federal rules as the IRS publishes them and link to every page they draw on, but a board that is unsure about its own filing position should ask somebody who can be held to the answer.
They are also not a sample, a teaser or a locked version of anything. There is no second half you pay for. Nine documents, both formats, and that is the end of it.
Why we wrote them
Every ensemble we have worked with rebuilds these from nothing, badly, at the worst possible moment — usually the week a treasurer resigns. The work is identical from one band to the next, so doing it once and giving it away costs us very little and saves a volunteer a weekend.
Some of it stops being paperwork once records live in one place. Donor acknowledgments, audience counts and concert programs are generated from the roster and the gift ledger inside the portal — the tour shows how. The rest of these will still be useful to you whichever system you end up running.
Next step
See it with your own ensemble's name on it
Half an hour, no obligation. We'll walk your board through a working deployment and tell you plainly whether Rehearsal Letter fits how your ensemble already runs. Pick a time that suits you — evenings and Saturdays included.