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the first steps for a nonprofit dream

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Some years ago, I worked with a very specific community – I prefer not to say which one nor where it was – that wanted its own cultural center. The community members envisioned a place where they and their families could celebrate their unique culture, host activities that could help address the needs of community members (job training, skills development, counseling, etc.), host events that could educate people about their culture’s history and challenges, offer low-cost childcare for pre-K children, offer after-school activities for teen members of their community, offer activities for elders in their community, offer legal clinics, and on and on.

The challenge I faced in trying to help this community reach their goal is that, in talking about the community center, they wanted to focus only on what the building would look like. They wanted to talk about the kinds of rooms it would have, how it would look on the outside, the murals that would be drawn inside, etc. They even spent time talking about what the logo would look like. And, indeed, those conversations were important, but what was so much more important in starting to talk about the center was their answering these questions:

  • What documented data do we have that shows who makes up our community, in terms of their ages, their backgrounds, their most critical needs and their desires regarding the programs offered via a cultural center? What data do we still need to gather and how might we gather that information?
  • What programs might we launch at first, and which might we want to have later? What data do we have that shows we are prioritizing our initial programming correctly?
  • How do we envision the staffing for our initial programs – by volunteers? If so, what tasks might these volunteers do? Could the tasks be divided into different roles: leadership roles, one-time group activities, short-term individual roles, online volunteering, university classwork, etc.? And what might the costs be to involve such volunteers (recruitment, screening, support, etc.)? Or will we staff these initial programs by paid employees or consultants? If so, what might these roles look and what would the costs be?
  • What will the decision-making and leadership of the center look like? How will the board of directors be chosen? How long will each member serve? How will their fiscal responsibilities and other oversight responsibilities be defined? Will there also be an advisory board?
  • What could we do in terms of programming without our own physical space? Could we leverage church fellowship halls, library meeting rooms, other cultural centers, arts spaces and other existing facilities to offer our own programming until we get a physical space of our own?
  • What would success look like in the first year of our operations? How would we collect data that proves our success?
  • How much would all of the above cost for the first two-five years?
  • What would we need to have in place to get fiscal sponsorship or become an independent nonprofit, and how would we get those things in place? What would the timeline look like?
  • When would we be ready to start accepting financial donations for our efforts and what avenues could we accept those donations (how would we accept and track checks, online donations, even cash donations)?

Altogether, the answers to these questions create both a business plan and all of the information a group needs for a funding proposal. All of these activities create a cultural center without anything having to wait for a building to be built or a rented and, at the same time, make funding an actual building all the more attractive.

Sadly, the cultural center, as a building, didn’t happen, and efforts to offer these programs in other spaces have come and gone over the years. I think community members still dream of a magical mega donor descending into the area and offering them millions of dollars to make this happen.

I think about this situation frequently as I am asked by so many people, “How do I start the nonprofit of my dreams?” The steps are all neatly listed in my blog, but the reality is that it’s messy in execution. None of these steps are easy, but I regularly see new nonprofits flourish after diligently completing each.

If you have an idea for a new organization, a new program or a new project, I recommend you have a look at this UNESCO project planning tool. It’s developed for youth and the projects they want to undertake, but it’s something that a lot of adults could use as well. This can be a good tool to use in a group exercise with the core leadership of your effort to establish a new program or organization.

Also helpful is this free NGO Capacity Assessment Supporting Tool. It can be used to identify an NGO’s strengths and weaknesses and help to establish a unified, coherent vision of what an NGO can be. The tool provides a step-by-step way to map where an organization is and can help those working with the NGO, including consultants, board members, employees, volunteers, clients, and others, to decide which functional areas need to be strengthened and how to go about to strengthen them. Share the results of your using this tool in your funding proposals – even on your web site. The tool was compiled by Europe Foundation (EPF) in the country of Georgia, and is based on various resources, including USAID – an NGO Capacity Assessment Supporting Tool from USAID (2000), the NGO Sustainability Index 2004-2008, the Civil Society Index (2009) from CIVICUS, and Peace Corps/Slovakia NGO Characteristics Assessment for Recommended Development (NGO CARD) 1996-1997.

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