When you're first starting a non profit, getting your community to take notice and care about your
mission enough to show up and support your cause can feel like a big challenge, but it doesn't have
to be! Today I'm excited to take my camera out to new places and spaces and talk to someone who's
done an amazing job building up a community and getting his community to show up even though his
non-profit is just barely a year old. So in this video we're gonna have a little chat with the
Great Raleigh Cleanup and its founder, Preston, to learn how can a new non-profit just starting
out build community. Welcome or welcome back to my channel, once again this is Amber Melanie Smith,
I'm a non-profit founder and executive director and also a social impact youtuber.
I love making these videos here on YouTube to help folks who are starting a non-profit
or social enterprise or making a difference in some other way. I hope you find that this video
is helpful or interesting, you give it a like and subscribe to my channel for more content like this
don't be afraid to check out my website FounderToFullTime.com for resources if you are
starting a non-profit. And let's get into this! I encountered the Great Raleigh Cleanup and its
founder Preston accidentally through Instagram in 2021. I noticed almost immediately how engaged the
organization's followers were how many people i saw in photos participating in his events
when i realized his organization was just starting out i was surprised at how much traction he was
getting in what seemed like a short time now in 2022 Preston has over 800 volunteers partnerships
with numerous other non-profits and events and programs that span over multiple areas
of this city his volunteer projects fill up weeks in advance with waiting lists in place
i wanted to get a first-hand look at what Preston is doing ask him some questions and see what we
can learn about his approach to help others who are starting up their nonprofits or social impact
projects all right let's start with who are you what is this organization and why did you
start it. I am Preston Ross, I am the founder and executive director of the Great Raleigh Cleanup.
I am a Raleigh resident of 22 years and Raleigh is a place I'm passionate about and during the
pandemic I noticed that it was becoming heavily littered and something needed to be done about it
so one day i walked out with my dog and i picked up some trash and then i invited some other people
to do it and it kept growing and then kept growing and turned into a non-profit i became an executive
director and here we are 50,000 pounds of trash later (wow!) less than a year and a half. Wow, so
I've told you before I think that you are killing it in terms of building up support and building up
community especially at this early stage in your sort of non-profit existence yeah how are you
doing it what are some of the things that you're doing what strategies or tips do you have for
others who might be building up their nonprofit from the ground up um i think we just honestly
we're just trying to build a team a community of people who want to see Raleigh you know with
less trash i mean i think people are passionate about what we're doing and how we do it because
they have the same mission the same goal the same vision as us as a 100 litter-free Raleigh and we
are actively working as hard as we can to get there and you know when you do something like
this when people leave they feel good about the work they've done it's an instant impact
you know two hours we you can tell the impact that we've had and you know you can see it in
the photos that we post or videos and so forth so i think people appreciate being a part of
that i heard you say something at the beginning of that that really caught my attention because it's
something Ive advised other nonprofits to do and you're just kind of intuitively doing it and
that is you have a very clear concrete mission and vision you said a hundred percent litter free city
right absolutely that's so clear you can visualize it it's it's short it's succinct
so i think that that's a really great piece of advice and something awesome that you're doing
yeah and i mean whether we get there or not we're gonna do everything we can to work towards it and
and you know that's gonna always be our mission that's gonna be our goal and we're gonna keep
working towards it yeah and you know you've got these t-shirts everyone out here is wearing the
shirts you talked about making people feel like part of a team like how do you do that
i don't know come back come back
okay i will say Preston is known for humility also
all right it's endearing
all right so i was watching you all at the end, you did your group huddle and i noticed
that you did something you said something in particular okay do you remember what you said
it was about thank you thank you yeah well yes that's important also but you also talked about
the impact you talked about how many pounds did you say did you all collect today i think probably
over 2,000. I can almost guarantee we're over 2,000 with everything but that doesn't that's
not just trash that's recyclables that's clothes we're going to try to clean up um there's a dog
crate that we found a tent that we're going to try to salvage so it's a two thousand pounds of stuff
a lot of that is the trash though so you're gonna take that dog crate to a local shelter
i am i am Saving Grace is gonna get that dog crazy well you know you talk about those the number of
pounds at every project don't you i usually do that's one of the ways that we kind of measure our
impact i mean that's kind of just for me to just a tracking system but you can look and see that i
mean if you had seen this place two hours ago i mean it's just night and day difference so yeah
but i think when you tell people what their impact is right after they're they're working with you
it makes a big difference yeah and we'll and we'll get the exact numbers we'll have those probably by
this afternoon at some point but that is something that we have a lot of volunteers that if i don't
share the weight they'll reach out to me say hey what is the weight we picked up they always want
to be a part of the highest pick the you know the heaviest pickup or the most impactful pickup so um
it's just something that we use to track but it's also something that i like to share with the crew
one thing i've noticed that you do a lot on your social media but i also just saw an example of
it just a second ago when you talked about taking the dog crate to one of the local shelters yeah is
you kind of picked up on the fact that the social good community the non-profit community is
all interconnected yeah and you you talk about other non-profits on your social media quite a
bit yeah talk more about that why do you do that well it's just before i became a
non-profit before i got into circle i did not know about all of these amazing organizations
and then when you just find out what they're doing and what they're trying to do it's just
it's breathtaking and support their mission if they support us whether they support us or not we
just it's necessary i have to support them because they're you know you said i was humble but in all
honesty we're just picking up trash they're saving people's lives and helping people through trauma
and giving kids clothes and it's just like man when you find out about it's like the least i can
do is show you some support on social media that seems to be just the beginning of it yeah but what
you're doing in in doing that is you're building community you know like those non-profits all the
non-profits in any community in your community in our community, Preston's community you know
like they are all the work is interconnected and you know like litter where are we right now
we're we're not at a normal litter cleanup site aren't we no no this was a special one this is a
an abandoned homeless camp cleanup that we did today so this is the first time we've
specifically set out to clean up uh um a camp that was for the unhoused so it was it was it was a big
deal for us today this was our first time it's something we're gonna kind of continue but um
yeah we we enjoyed being able to have an impact in this way but my point in bringing that up is
it's all connected yeah you know it's true every issue is connected to every other issue
absolutely you definitely see that when we came out here there was you know there's
litter and there's cans and bottles and there's also baby toys and infant clothes
and it's like heartbreaking and so it's like if there's an organization that's gonna help kids or
do anything so that people don't have to live in this situation
man i can give you a repost on social media or 20 bucks a month that's like the baseline honestly
all right so you've you've built up such a great thing here and you know you know i think that but
uh what's one piece of advice that you would have for someone else anywhere around the country
around the world starting up a non-profit or just a social impact project have a have a wish have a
desire create a mission and just stick to it just be consistent don't give up if it gets hard don't
give up to get slow don't give up if you feel like you aren't having an impact don't give up because
at some point you're ultimately gonna push through and it's gonna all be worth it so just like keep
going hard times good times enjoy them push through them but just like don't whatever your
mission is whatever your desire is whatever is the change that you want to see just don't give up
thanks Preston you got it i'd love to hear what you thought of this do you think that you might
be able to use some of Preston's strategies to build up community support for your organization
share in the comments below as i mentioned before if you are starting a non-profit check out my
website FounderToFullTime.com for some resources and trainings that might be able to help you out
i also send out a newsletter about once a month with resources for folks starting a non-profit
or just making a difference in the world in some other way and final thing of course don't
forget to check out my Facebook group Change the World or Bust, we've got folks in there from all
around the world making an impact sharing their stories and getting encouragement from each other
once again this is Amber Melanie Smith, I hope that you enjoyed this and i'll see you next time!