Charitable organizations that operate bingo as a fundraiser used the new Charitable License Management Portal to seek licenses for 2020. The new system is designed to be more intuitive and enable speedier communications between the bingo community and the Charitable Law Section and responded well to more than 1,400 organizations that attempted to renew their bingo licenses before the end of 2019.
All licensees were notified of the system changes prior to the bingo application period. Various resources, including webinars, were developed to walk applicants through all the changes. Unlike the prior bingo system, licensees can easily go back into the system to make changes to volunteer lists, for instance, or to make amendments to the time and location of bingo activities.
The bingo staff in Columbus and site inspectors around the state were on hand to respond to questions and many organizational representatives noted that the new system was a solid improvement. The new system also reduced the time previously needed to process the requests for renewed licenses.
Going forward, licensees will have access to prior applications filed with the office which will enable them to track trends in their bingo operations.