You do not have a complete list of what your organization is legally required to do. Filings, registrations, renewals, and reports live in scattered heads and folders, so deadlines slip and you find out only when a letter arrives.
This work builds the one thing that prevents most compliance failures: a complete catalogue of every obligation you owe, to whom and by when, and a living calendar that keeps them met, with a named owner and a reminder on each. It is not legal advice about which obligations apply to you; where that is genuinely unclear, it sends you to confirm with your state, your funder, or a professional rather than guessing. And it is not a one-time list you make and forget; the value is a calendar that is maintained and actually watched. Use this if you cannot produce a complete list of your filings, registrations, and reports and their deadlines. If you already run a maintained calendar and your trouble is a specific area, go to the guide your diagnostic named.
You cannot track what you have not listed. Work through the categories: your annual return to the taxing authority, your corporate registration and annual report, charitable registrations in the places you fundraise, licenses and permits for your programs, insurance renewals, grant and contract reports, and required policy reviews. For each, note to whom it is owed and roughly when. For anything you are not sure applies or are unsure of the timing, confirm it with the agency, the funder, or a professional rather than guessing.
Open the Obligations Inventory →A list is not a system. Put each obligation on a calendar by its due date, and add a preparation date well ahead of each deadline so work starts in time. For each, note where the rule comes from and what proof of completion looks like, the confirmation number, the stamped filing, so a met obligation can be shown, not just claimed.
Open the Compliance Calendar →A calendar no one is responsible for still fails. Name the person responsible for each obligation, and a backup, so no filing depends on one person's memory or presence. Set automatic reminders ahead of each deadline, and put a standing review of the calendar on a regular rhythm, with the board treasurer seeing status at least a few times a year.
That is a governance gap, because the board carries legal responsibility for the organization's compliance. Continue building the calendar, and route the oversight question to board governance and development. This is a route, not a stop.
If the calendar reveals an obligation you have already missed, or one whose rules you genuinely cannot pin down, get a nonprofit accountant or an attorney to confirm your exposure and the fix. Tracking the obligation is yours; interpreting a rule you cannot find and cleaning up a lapse are a professional's. The guide tells you plainly when you have reached that line.
You can produce, on request, a complete list of what you owe and when. Every obligation has an owner and a reminder. And you are meeting deadlines because the system caught them, not because someone happened to remember.
Most leaders move from here to Protect Your Tax-Exempt Standing, because the annual return is usually the highest-stakes item the calendar surfaces. Related: Register and Adopt the Policies You Are Required to Have and Find and Manage Your Risks.