When you're starting a non-profit, what are some of the things you can expect to have to do
in the first, second, and third years of growth? That's what I'm going to talk about in this video.
Welcome or welcome back to my channel! My name is Amber Melanie Smith and I'm a non-profit
founder and executive director of the nonprofit that I started. I make these videos here on
YouTube to help aspiring change makers - whether you're starting a non-profit or other some other
kind of social impact project - with tips and strategies to help you do just that. As always,
I hope that you find this video helpful! If you do, don't forget to give it a like, and subscribe
to my channel for more content like this. If you are looking for a little bit of extra help
and support I do have some trainings on my website FounderToFullTime.com. One covers the process of
starting a non-profit from your idea phase through doing your formal registration in the United
States, and the other training course is all about creating a sustainable fundraising plan for your
organization. So go check that out see if it's for you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Now before I get into what you might expect for years one two and three of your new non-profit
organization's growth i do want to offer a little bit of a disclaimer the scenario I'm going to
describe is of course an example only every non-profit is starting from a different place
essentially when they are getting started you might already have a board of directors in place
you might already have some funds that you've raised for your nonprofit project
you might be starting with absolutely nothing at all no money no board of directors nothing just an
idea and a dream in your heart so um just keep in mind that everyone starts from a different place
and that the example I'm going to be giving is one in is the scenario in which you would be starting
with basically nothing okay so all that said let's get into it i'm gonna break this down by year
and basically share some of the things that you would be doing each year of the three years that
i cited before what you might be expecting to do as part of your organization's launch and growth
let's start with year number one and the theme of year number one is validate and plan this year
should be the year where you are doing a heavy amount of research and relationship building and
making connections with experts in the field or the issue area that you plan to tackle with your
nonprofit so the first thing you want to do before you file any kind of paperwork is heavily research
the community problem or the community issue that your nonprofit is basically being formed
to tackle or solve whether that's food insecurity or improving education for youth or whatever your
issue might be as part of this another step is to scan your environment and figure out
what other non-profits in your community that you plan to serve are tackling the same issue
as you and in what ways your goal here should be to understand the landscape of other players in
the area but also try to connect to them and meet with them if possible to kind of learn more about
what they've been working on their approach and um whether there are areas that your new organization
could complement or support uh in the issue that they're already covering once you've done a bit of
research and talk to experts and other non-profit leaders tackling the same issue that you hope to
tackle in your area what's next is starting to formulate some ideas around how you're going to
achieve your goals as an organization specifically here i'm talking about your programming so what
are the day-to-day or month-to-month activities that you're going to be doing in order to work
towards your ultimate goal of tackling or solving x community problem so how will you tackle food
insecurity how will you help people experiencing homelessness etc this is also known as a theory
of change which is basically a step-by-step explanation of how your programs will lead to
the outcomes you desire for your mission and i'll probably get into this in some future video but
basically you want to start with the end outcome you want to think about okay what am i hoping
for here if i achieve my non-profit goals that will mean that in my community there's no more
youth hunger or every high schooler graduates from high school or you know some end outcome like that
and then you work it backwards to think through what are the steps and activities you need to
undertake in order to achieve that outcome in your community as part of year one you ideally
also want to do a small scale pilot test of some of the programming that you are thinking
through as part of your theory of change this is an important step because you want to be able to
test out what will work and what won't work with your program and you also want to be able to get
at least some preliminary feedback from your community and the people that you'll be serving
to make sure that your program is effective in meeting their needs rather than inadvertently
creating harm so at this point you've done your research you've developed your theory
of change and some ideas around the programming that you plan to offer now you can kind of come
back and start to think through a proper mission statement for your organization i do have another
video all about how to create craft a an effective mission statement so be sure to check that out
when you get to this step simultaneous to all of this going on or perhaps even at this stage
you're going to be starting to recruit your board of directors now of course in the united states
you need to have some board members in order to officially file as a non-profit organization
so depending on where you live be sure to look up the unique rules to your region as you get farther
into year one you're going to be wanting to work with that board of directors that you've recruited
to really get into a bit more detail about your plans for the organization in the form of writing
a business plan and this business plan is going to write out in like i said greater detail the
outline of your program concept but it's also going to cover other aspects of what you need
to do to be a success like how are you going to market your programs and how are you going to
raise the funds needed to cover the costs of your programs and the general day-to-day operations
of your organization if you're wondering how to create a non-profit business plan
you guessed it i have another video about that too be sure to check that out it will talk you through
the various steps and components that need to go in such a plan at this point you are gearing up to
file your official registration paperwork so in the united states this will cost a little bit of
money usually anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand depending on if you use legal
services or the complexity of the application you plan to submit but you will need to raise
that those funds before you can finish filing and then it will be a couple months probably
to hear back from the irs again if you're in the united states before you come an official 501c3
public charity non-profit organization okay so that's a brief broad overview of what you
might expect to be tackling in year one of the organization now let's talk about year two of
the organization and the theme of year two is building systems and supporters so when i say
that i'm talking about three things i'm talking about getting some impacts under your belt as an
organization so previously hopefully you tested out your program ideas at this point now you're
starting to roll out your programs a little bit more consistently or on a larger scale so you want
to be getting those programs out there running them effectively and then tracking your impacts
so that you have essentially something to show your public and your supporters that you are
operating as an effective organization working towards your mission so getting impacts under your
belt and then building out systems to make sure that you are a strong and resilient non-profit
organization so some of the infrastructure and policy development that you need to make sure
that you're you've got all of your ducks in a row there and then building your base of supporters so
reaching out to the community gathering people who are interested in your cause and engaging
them throughout the year and again creating more systems to keep those supporters and followers
engaged throughout the year so that they will hopefully one day when you need them to donate
or volunteer to support your cause so let's go back to that first part of what i said and talk a
little bit more in detail when you are continuing to roll out your programs important thing that
you need to do is make sure you have feedback systems in place so that you can be making sure
that your programming is having the desired impact and effect on the community so you might establish
surveys that you ask of the people that you are serving maybe once a quarter or whatever
is appropriate for you you want to be tracking things like how many people or animals or um
that you're serving or if you're doing an environmental organization whatever
pounds of litter trees planted etc. so you want to be tracking those outputs as much as possible
and then you want to be collecting anecdotes and stories from the people and the communities that
you're serving that are testimonials about the work your organization is doing this is really
critical at this early stage in your growth because it provides evidence to current and
future funders and supporters that you're doing a good job and deserve funding now a little bit more
about setting up systems and infrastructure for your organization a strong nonprofit needs a lot
of infrastructure to run smoothly and efficiently and especially to be resilient in the face of a
disaster or emergency so just some of the things you're going to need to have in place are you need
to be using healthy accounting practices you need to have policies written for your organization
like a like conflict of interest policy an i.t or cyber security policy especially in today's age
you need policies in place that will basically guide your organization's team members on how
to behave and protect your organization if a problem comes up other things you want to be
developing at this point other processes include how you recruit volunteers how you
train and onboard volunteers how you appreciate and recognize your volunteers same for donors
you want to have donor management systems in place you might consider a CRM software to
track all of your donor relationships and making sure that you are appreciating them thanking them
when they donate and that you have all of those systems written out so that the people on your
team know how to function and how to take care of those activities for your organization's
operations the third part of what i mentioned here was about growing your supporter base so this is
all about community outreach if you are doing an amazing job but nobody knows about your cause well
that's very sad and you need people to know about your cause so that they can potentially donate
and volunteer and spread the word and support your organization in all of these wonderful ways
so as you're doing community outreach which could include things like hosting events or
doing public speaking engagements or sending out newsletters or speaking at local civic clubs etc
you want to be giving people an opportunity to opt in to your mailing list or to stay in contact with
them in some way and then you want to keep them engaged throughout the year by saying hello to
them now and then inviting them to things coming up sharing news sharing impact throughout the year
etc in year two or perhaps even earlier you're also going to be inviting some of these supporters
to contribute financially to your organization and growing your revenue sources and your funding
streams here if you've done a really good job at this and you are bringing in enough revenue to
meet your budget needs for the organization you might also perhaps be in a position where you
could consider hiring your first paid staff member for your nonprofit at around this year to mark as
well but again a lot of factors go into hiring paid staff so every organization is going to be
different something just that you need to consider and plan in advance for all right so years one and
two you're talking about setting up systems and infrastructure and validating your programs and
and getting great feedback from your community year three is all about financial sustainability
so by year three you should have a lot of wonderful impacts from your programs
that you can share with your community and with funders you also are hopefully bringing in some
donations and from various sources your donors maybe even you've gotten lucky and gotten some
grants here and there or corporate sponsors year three is all about deepening and scaling those
uh programs and your financial systems so that you can be bringing in more money to grow your impact
as an organization so what you do in year three is you take all of your wonderful impacts and the
stories that you've been collecting and hopefully some lovely photography and imagery as well
you put together marketing materials all about the great work your organization is doing and
you start to do some outreach to some additional types of funders saying look at all we've been
able to accomplish on our budget so far wouldn't you like to make a contribution so we can expand
this awesome work at this stage you should also be really cleaning up your fundraising strategies
and what i mean by that is that there are many ways non-profits can bring in revenue
you can bring in revenue through donations through grants through sponsorships through earned income
lots of different ways despite you know the common uh perception is that nonprofits mostly love live
off of donations and grants but there are so many other ways you can bring in money as a nonprofit
so by year three you should really know which strategy for bringing in money is working the
best for your organization and starting to invest more in those specific strategies
that are working really well and also how you can make getting those funds from those sources
even more efficient let's say you've identified that grants are working out really well for your
organization well you might work on processes that make applying for grants even faster in year three
whether that's developing grant templates or having a more comprehensive database of
potential grant funders whatever you would do to deepen that those potential funding sources and
make that process of getting those funds faster if you already made an investment in
year two for paid staff then by year three you can possibly start to look at if you need to bring on
additional staff support to help that loan staff person i personally have found that when you
bring on paid staff someone or multiple people who can actually devote full time to the work that
your organization grows a lot faster and so you might see some exponential growth from the time
you hire your first paid staff member to the next and the next there is just so much to do when you
start a non-profit and what i've described just now is what i would personally advise a non-profit
starting from absolute scratch and as i mentioned before every organization is starting from
a slightly different point when they are are getting started with their first year so i hope
that what i've shared at least offers a glimpse into what it could be like for the first couple of
years as a completely brand new non-profit startup i'd love to hear from you at this point are you
starting a non-profit what part of the process are you and what year are you in where are you in in
these phases like what are you working on right now share in the comments below i'm always
fascinated to hear um how people approach their nonprofit startup adventure and as i mentioned
before if you are starting a non-profit and need a little extra training and knowledge check out
my website FounderToFullTime.com especially my idea to official course would be a good fit for
someone just starting out from scratch i also have a free monthly newsletter that i send out
for change makers and non-profit leaders so the link to subscribe to that is also in the
description below and you can opt out anytime but if that's something you are interested in
receiving i hope that you check that out one more thing if you are on Facebook I have a group called
"Change the World or Bust". We've got a couple thousand folks in there from all around the world
who are trying to make a difference and we're having some great conversations so
come on by and check out that group and i hope to see you there that is all i have for
you today my friends i hope to see you next time and have a great rest of your week bye