COAAA has no paid staff. Every officer is a working CAA doing this around a clinical schedule, and the Academy runs on member dues and on gifts like yours. A donation goes to three things, and they are listed below so you can see exactly what you are paying for.
The Academy awards a scholarship to students enrolled in an accredited anesthesiologist assistant program. Colorado has two of them, and the cost of training is the main thing that keeps good candidates out of this profession. See the scholarship
Practice rights in this state are maintained rather than guaranteed. The Academy engages directly with lawmakers and regulatory agencies to protect and expand what CAAs are permitted to do in Colorado. This is the work that is invisible until it is needed.
The unglamorous half: the website, the state and federal filings, the meetings, the records. None of it is exciting and all of it is what keeps a nonprofit in good standing and able to act.
COAAA is a Colorado nonprofit corporation exempt under section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code. The IRS is direct about what that means for a donor: contributions to a 501(c)(6) organization are not deductible as charitable contributions on your federal income tax return.
They may instead qualify as a deduction if they are ordinary and necessary in the conduct of your business, and because part of what the Academy does is legislative advocacy, the portion attributable to lobbying is treated differently again.
We are anesthetists, not tax advisers, so please take your own advice rather than ours. The IRS sets out the general position here: Tax treatment of donations, 501(c)(6) organizations