## Facts

- Beginning in 1982, the Arvada, Colorado Kiwanis Club operated “Ginny’s Kids,” a project that held raffles to raise money to send children with life-threatening illnesses on dream vacations.
- In 1988, the club formed the Kiwanis Club of Arvada Foundation, a tax-exempt charitable organization that had authority to raise and spend money in the name of Ginny’s Kids.
- In 1996, some foundation members sought to use Ginny’s Kids funds for purposes other than the dream-vacation mission.
- Opponents of that change formed Ginny’s Kids International, Inc. (GKI) as a separate charitable organization to continue the original Ginny’s Kids purpose.
- The foundation transferred all Ginny’s Kids funds in its bank accounts to GKI and amended its bylaws to remove references to Ginny’s Kids.
- The foundation continued operating as a charitable organization for other purposes.
- In 1998, GKI applied to the Colorado Secretary of State for a bingo-raffle license.
- The Secretary denied the application because GKI had not been in existence for five years as required by Colorado’s bingo-raffle licensing statute.
- An administrative-law judge upheld the denial, and GKI appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether GKI could satisfy the statutory five-year existence requirement for a bingo-raffle license by treating itself as the foundation’s successor and counting the foundation’s years of existence together with its own.
2. Whether GKI could satisfy the five-year requirement by counting the years the Ginny’s Kids project operated before GKI’s incorporation.

## Decision

- The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the administrative decision and the Secretary of State’s denial of GKI’s bingo-raffle license.
- The court held that the five-year “in existence” requirement applies to the applicant organization as a legal entity, and GKI—formed in 1996—did not meet that requirement when it applied in 1998.
- The court rejected GKI’s successor argument because the transfer of Ginny’s Kids funds and responsibilities to GKI did not make GKI the same organization as the foundation for purposes of the licensing statute, particularly where the foundation continued to exist and operate.
- The court also rejected counting the pre-incorporation history of the Ginny’s Kids project as a substitute for the applicant corporation’s own existence.

## Legal Principles

- A statutory “years in existence” requirement for a bingo-raffle license is measured by the duration of the applicant entity’s legal existence, not the length of time a charitable mission or project has been carried out.
- An entity formed to continue a predecessor’s activities generally cannot add the predecessor’s years to satisfy an age requirement absent a legal event that makes the applicant the same organization for statutory purposes.
- A transfer of assets or program responsibilities, standing alone, does not permit “tacking” of existence time when the transferor entity remains in operation.

## Conclusion

The court upheld denial of GKI’s bingo-raffle license because the statute required the applicant organization itself to have existed for five years, and GKI could not satisfy that requirement by claiming the foundation’s longevity or the earlier history of the Ginny’s Kids project.


Ginny's Kids International, Inc. v. Office of Secretary of State, 29 P.3d 333 (2000)