5 Tips for Non-Profit Success
Congratulations… So you have had enough with society, and you want to do something about the many problems it has. Your passion has lead you to the crossroad of For-profit and Non-Profit boulevard and you have decided to travel the road of hard work, no profit, and high social ROI. Nothing will stop you; You will fix it at any cost; Enough is enough!
Sounds Familiar? Many of us have come to the same crossroad and have taken the same leap. Unfortunately, the road is not as smooth as many may make it seem. Starting a non-profit is one thing, but operating it after it’s been started is another. Many non-profits often fail for simple errors, most of which could have been easily avoided.
For this reason, here are several practical tips to you help build and operate your non-profit successfully:
1. Be Financially Sound Before You Start
Many non-profit organizations fail in their early years because the founder simply didn’t have enough money to fully dedicate his available time to the organization. We all know how important it is to do charity work, but if those who are doing the work cannot eat or live, the charity work will not get done.
Before you start your non-profit, you need to ensure that you have a solid stream of income. This income could be a day job, governmental assistance, investment income, savings, spousal support, grant money, etc. The goal is to make sure you have enough money to pay your bills so you will not have to build and attempt to operate the non-profit with a “ personal need for finances” mindset.
2. Make Sure Your Idea is Act Honed Enough
Now… it must be understood that an organization and the programs it operates are two different things. The organization is the legal entity and the programs are the services the organization offers. An organization could have only one program that addresses a single issue or several programs that address multiple issues. The many issues the organization (Non-Profit) chooses to address by it’s programs is considered “the idea” of the organization.
Before you go through all of the work of starting a non-profit, you need to do a detailed idea analysis to make sure your idea is truly needed. Many non-profit organizations fail because their idea was flawed in same way. This could be something as simple as the organization’s idea wasn’t focused enough, to the market for the idea wasn’t as large as the founder expected. In any case, the process of conducting this analysis involves, at a minimum, four steps:
- Identify the big issue(s) you are trying to solve (Crime, Teen Pregnancy, Inequality, Etc.)
- Identify the exact end-result you want to accomplish for each big issue (Lower [blank] by x%)
- Perform market research to identify the root causes of your big issues
- Develop a detailed “Idea Statement” that speaks to your big issue(s), the end results you want to accomplish, and the root causes that were identified.
Please note that the non-profit idea may change multiple times as you operate. The above process is to help you verify or narrow your idea.
3. Fully Commit
Non-Profit work will demand a lot of your time. It doesn’t care if you have other obligations, nor does it care about any of the excuses you may have. The honest truth is that non-profit work is pretty much black and white. Either you are all in or not in at all. No in between.
To be successful at nonprofit work, you (as the founder) will need fully commit to being successful. This means that you will need to do whatever it takes, within the law, to get things done. The objective here is to utilize your time wisely and leverage others to get more done. If you can do this, along with your fully committed mindset, you are well on your way to being successful.
4. Build a Solid Team
No one that has ever walked the face of the earth has ever done anything by themselves. Do a little research and you will notice that in every success story there are at least two individuals the success can be attributed to.
To be successful in building and operating your non-profit, you will need to assemble a team of fully committed individuals to help with the work the non-profit will require. You will not be able to do it all on your own. You simply don’t have enough hands, enough time, enough smarts, or enough of anything to do it on your own. Even the holiest of holiest in Christian beliefs asked his dad to help him from time to time.
The process of team building should be a continuous thing and you should only accept individuals that will add something to the organization. In better words, you need people that will fully commit, that are smart a specific areas, and will get things done without you having to ask them.
5. Plan, Execute, Plan Some More, Execute Some More.
If you don’t become an expert in anything else, just remember that in order to be successful in non-profit work, you must become an expert in planning and executing. Many non-profit organizations never get started or fail because the founder couldn’t plan and/or execute on any of the plans that were developed.
Often times many individuals forget that for-profits and non-profits share many of the same characteristics. With the exception of tax issues and the entity’s purpose, the business disciplines that guide operations are pretty much the same. Whether you are a for-profit or non-profit you will need to continuously project and manage your finances, market your services, identify risks, and perform a host of ongoing business tasks that are all classified under planning and executing the operations.
In the wise words of Albert Einstein, “ If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.
WOW!!!! This helped me in so many ways becuse I am on this path right now!! Thank you