I did it myself last year.

It was a long process. The 1023 application is detailed, and requires a lot of support statements. You also have state applications to worry about. In CA, I had to file with the Secretary of State, The Registry of Charitable Trusts, and had to file an application for tax exemption.

I'm sure legalzoom has a package to file the 1023 application for you for a few hundred dollars, but you'll still have to provide all the supporting statements like bylaws, conflict of interest policy, specific purpose statement, projected income/budget, program descriptions, related party disclosures, and whatever else may apply.

I would have a competent person from the organization do it over a cheap service. The cheap service will have you do most of the legwork yourself anyway, and then just file the application for you.

There are a lot of good people back here, though. Maybe somebody knows a good firm that handles this stuff for small organizations. Best of luck.