Starting a nonprofit can be a complicated and overwhelming endeavor! I get questions from
people all the time about the process to start a non-profit, fundraising, recruiting board members,
and more. So, in this video, I wanted to share some of my insights around four of
the top questions I get from my audience here about starting a non-profit. Questions like, how
much does it cost to start a non-profit? Can you pay yourself as a non-profit founder? How do you
get people to donate to your organization, and how can you recruit really great board members? That's
what we're going to talk about in this video. Welcome or welcome back! My name is Amber Melanie
Smith. I'm a non-profit founder and executive director of the nonprofit that I started. I'm
here on YouTube making videos to help other folks starting out either on a non-profit journey or
some other kind of social impact journey, so I hope that you find this video helpful and useful
don't forget to give it a like and subscribe to my channel for more content like this.
I also have a website, FounderToFullTime.com, where I have some additional resources for
people starting a nonprofit organization. So I hope you can check that out! All right before i
jump too deep into these four questions and some of my thoughts around them i do want to provide a
quick disclaimer and that is that there's a lot of nuance around the answers to these questions that
i'm going to put forth and i really encourage you to do your own research or even check out some of
the other videos that i have here on my channel that might go deeper into some of these topics
every organization mission situation and community is a little bit different so the
feedback that i'm gonna provide for these four questions is just going to be general and you
should definitely think about what is going on in your specific situation and how things
might possibly be different based on that all right let's get into these that first question
that i mentioned before was how much does it cost to start a non-profit and for this one i'm going
to be specifically talking about the costs for united states based organizations things might be
a little bit different in other countries and regions so the answer here can vary a little
bit and honestly depends in part on your comfort level completing your own paperwork filing your
own registration paperwork to get your official non-profit status and whether or not you are
investing in some additional typical startup costs that might come with starting a non-profit
at this particular stage let's talk about the low end if you are planning to start up no frills no
extras just the basics to get registered as a non-profit we're talking about just filing the
paperwork yourself not hiring a lawyer to support that process not having a website right away or
investing in the design or domain costs and not doing any program activities for which it would be
a smart idea to carry insurance at the beginning if all of those things are true we're probably
talking about a couple hundred dollars and that is for the filing fees for your particular locality
your state and also the federal paperwork that goes with it you also possibly have some
charitable solicitation license fees that you'd be looking at as well so on the other hand if you are
looking to invest in some important infrastructure right in the beginning and you are getting
an attorney's support on that filing and the paperwork um you're talking about investing in a
website at the beginning possibly getting some of that insurance to cover yourself and protect you
from liability at the beginning um maybe even investing in some specific equipment or something
then we're talking about a few thousand to several thousand dollars depending on the particulars
around your organization's mission and program activities i have a couple of other videos where i
go into more depth about startup costs the one in particular that i would direct you to is startup
expenses for non-profits so be sure to check that out and i go a little bit more line by line
at some of the specific costs you could expect question number two that i mentioned before is
can you pay yourself as a non-profit founder and this is one that i hear quite often and there's a
little bit of nuance that seems like the word of the day uh to this one as well so the reason that
this one's a little bit more complicated goes back to how nonprofits are legally structured in the
united states so at least when an organization is starting out most likely the founder or founders
of the organization are also voting board members of the organization board members can enact and
utilize policies that allow them to reimburse themselves from the organization's bank account
for reasonable expenses that they they spent their own money on or use their own credit card on
for organization expenses that are part of the organization's mission and approved budget but
if you're talking about paying a founder as a paid staff member presumably in this case the executive
director you're talking about something that's a little bit more complex because of conflict of
interest rules surrounding non-profits a founder as a presumably at this point as a board member
cannot vote to hire themselves as a paid staff member the rest of the board would need to vote
to hire that person as the paid executive director and at that point if they were to vote for that
person to become a paid executive director at the very least they would lose their ability to vote
on any policy or budget situation or anything that would impact their own staff position
or their annual compensation so in summary the board of directors votes whether or not to hire
a person the founder included as a paid executive director or staff person and they also vote on
what that person's compensation should be so as a founder the answer is you can work as a paid
staff person for the organization you just can't vote for yourself to be that paid staff person the
rest of the board has to be okay with and vote you into that position and then decide what the
organization can afford to pay you as a salary i talk a bit more about this topic in my other video
called you can get paid for non-profit work but there's a catch so be sure to check that out for
a little bit more detail on this particular thing and if you're interested in some of the different
roles a founder of an organization can play in a non-profit check out my video possible roles for a
non-profit founder go figure question number three a very important one how do you get people to
donate to your non-profit organization many people and organizations are trying to figure out how to
build out a sustainable fundraising strategy for their organization so how to get money coming in
and continuously coming in over time so i do want to clarify because i think that this is often a
misconception there are many ways for a non-profit organization to bring in revenue that are not
just donations in fact a strong and healthy fundraising strategy often includes many diverse
sources of revenue so nonprofits could be bringing in money through donations yes and major
gifts but also through grants through sponsorships through events and also through one of my favorite
earned income but if we're talking specifically about getting donations into your non-profit
these are contributions made by individuals and groups in your community to your cause there are
a couple of basic steps the first step is you've got to grow your audience for your organization
so that you have a lot of potential people in your pool in in the group of people that you're
talking to regularly who might donate to your organization knowing that not everyone's gonna
donate and not everyone's gonna donate all the time you have to have a wide range of people
that could be potential donors step two is to build relationships with this the people in your
audience invite them to events where you don't ask them for money send them updates send them
your newsletter keep in contact with them because people will rarely donate to an organization with
whom they don't have a relationship and haven't built any trust with yet third is making the ask
through a compelling fundraising message and campaign and fourth is very important and that
is thanking your donors after they give and stay in touch with them year round in my video how to
start raising money step by step i go into a lot more detail on these different steps as well so i
hope you check that out and find it helpful and for more detail about how to create that really
compelling fundraising message that i alluded to you can check out my video convincing others to
support your nonprofit fourth and finally today how do you recruit good board members for your
organization i think there's an important question to ask yourself and your fellow leaders in the
organization before you can even start recruiting good board members and that is what does the right
board member look like for you and here's what i mean by that in order to recruit great board
members who align with the vision and the values and are going to help push your mission forward
you first have to know what skills you need on the board so you need to be thinking one to
three years ahead depending on the length of your organization's board term and be thinking what are
the skill sets we need a board member to have for the next couple of years of the organization what
are the big things we need to work on in order to really push our mission forward over the next
couple of years is it someone with fundraising skills as someone with technology skills is it
someone with marketing skills but just be thinking about these skills before you can even identify
who could be a good board member and as part of this you need to assess the skills of those
who are currently supporting leadership in the organization where are the gaps do you
already have a lot of people with one skill but you don't have anyone with another skill just
be making sure that you're looking at what your organization needs over the next couple of years
within the context of the leadership you already have in place so that you know what those gaps are
at this point you presumably know what the gaps are what the skills you need on your
board for the next couple of years are so you're going to write a detailed board of directors
job description you're going to include the skill sets that you're looking for
examples of the types of activities they're going to be involved in and your general expectations of
a board member including time commitment how long is the board term how many hours of board service
would they be expected to contribute each month or each quarter when are your regular meetings
all of these things will help possible candidates decide if they think they're the right fit for you
which will hopefully lead them to apply and at that point you can go through your board interview
process or screening process to determine who is going to be joining your board of directors i know
what you're thinking amber do you have another video that goes into more detail about this
i sure do audience that video is starting a non-profit how to recruit a board of directors
step by step i hope that you check that out and find some additional insights there
i would love to hear from you what are some of the other big questions on your mind about the process
of starting a non-profit that maybe i didn't cover in this video leave those in the comments below
and as i mentioned before if you're in the process or would like to undertake the process of starting
a non-profit or even developing a sustainable fundraising plan i've got some great online
trainings at my website FounderToFullTime.com so check those out and see if they might be a good
fit for you one more thing actually two more things i lied one is i have a newsletter for
change makers and non-profit leaders you can find the link to subscribe to that in my description
and comments i send out opportunities that i come across periodically helpful articles and insights
and it's just a lot of great resources for folks in this social impact and non-profit space the
final thing for real this time is i have a great facebook group called change the world
change the world or bust and it has gosh like 3,000 people in it from all around
the world at this point um amazing folks all trying to make an impact in their own
special niche areas and i just encourage you to come over and join us over there and be
part of that conversation so change the world or bust i hope to see you there once again my
name is Amber Melanie Smith and i hope to see you next time! thank you so much, bye!