When it's Time to Step Aside

Our job at the Idaho Nonprofit Center is to support our nonprofit sector, share knowledge, convene training opportunities, to provide professional development, and to champion the work of our sector through policy & advocacy. It’s a tall order, quite frankly, considering that we too are a nonprofit organization with a small staff, a budget to match, and the need to find creative ways to fund our operations in order to do “all the things” we should do.

A large part of our membership, as well as the bulk of technical assistance calls and emails we receive, are usually nonprofits in the “start-up” or “emerging” phase of the nonprofit life cycle. We understand, it’s tricky and not always easy to navigate the process. There’s good reason for that. 

Recently I hosted a Resource Thursday training on "Starting a Nonprofit" and the first thing I usually do is to try to talk you out of it. True story. But when I try to talk people out of starting nonprofits, it comes from a place of love – and experience. If you are curious about my message you can listen to recorded broadcast from Resource Thursday by clicking this link. There is also a recent post on Board Source about this topic. According to the article “there now are 1.8 million nonprofit organizations in the U.S. Fewer than 15 percent have operating budgets over $250,000.”

​Nonprofits are always created from a place of love, a heart full of good intentions. A passionate person wants to start something to do something to help the community. What they don’t realize is all the work that goes into starting that nonprofit and the inevitable hard decisions that need to be made

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Making Hard Choices

I made hard decisions when starting and running my own nonprofit. I want to tell you what I learned from my experience having started the Cause + Event Foundation in Oregon in 2012 and I hope that this can be helpful to you.

The Cause + Event Foundation hosted a 5K/10K race series designed to raise money for the nonprofit of the participants choosing.  The Foundation donated at least half of each race registration to the cause of the runner’s choosing.  We endeavored to raise as much money as we could for as many causes as we could in as many communities as we could.

Over the weekend our nonprofit organization made the painful announcement that we would be ceasing operations within the year. It is time to step aside. This was not a sudden decision, but one that has been in the works for a while but it was hard to say good bye. It was hard to admit that I failed and hard to disappoint people but it had to be done.

​I feel a significant amount of trepidation in telling you about closing the doors to the Cause + Event Foundation. I wasn’t even sure that I should share this story with you, but I hope that by me sharing this story with you there are things to be learned that could benefit all sizes of organizations, not just the little guys who are barely getting started. Here goes:

Lesson #1: You Must be a Unicorn

• Be sure what you are starting is truly unique and that there’s no other organization doing the same thing. I did this through extensive research and verified that I was truly the only person crazy enough to tackle the “problem” I identified. This also should have been a red flag, but it wasn’t. 

Lesson #2: Check Your Ego at the Door

• I’m not an ego driven person by any means, but I admit it felt good to call myself “founder”. If this is important to you remember this: starting something is not nearly as important as starting something that will remain sustainable.

Lesson #3: Plan for Growth

• Unless you really think you have a solid structure for a volunteer-run organization, don’t do it. You will burn yourself, and your founding board members, faster than a five-year-old can blow their birthday candles out. Volunteer organizations are about as real as functional families. They exist in theory, but nine times out of ten they don’t work for the long term. Note that I said nine times out of ten. I have seen examples of all volunteer organizations be successful, but generally, if you want to grow, you will get too big for your britches. Be prepared to address this when you get started. 
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• As a side note for nonprofits who utilize volunteers, make sure you have a clear purpose for your volunteers. If you ask them to do something, let them do it and get out of their way. Nothing makes a volunteer feel less valued than not being engaged in the work you are asking them to do.
  

Lesson #4: Fundraise Constantly

• Don’t assume that because your organization is amazing and needed that funding will just roll in. It won’t. Finding funds takes a lot of hard work, dedication and the ability to stay calm even when you get ten people saying no to you right out of the gate. Funding a nonprofit is actually pretty hard, no matter how wonderful your mission or how much good you do.
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• Also, don’t rely on only one or two kinds of funds, diversify. Be ready to fundraise every minute of every day when you get started. Unless Aunt Harriet bequeaths a large sum of “unrestricted” funds to you, be prepared to finance this whole thing on your own until you get started. If you aren’t prepared to do that, this isn’t the gig for you. If you don’t want to ask people for money, this isn’t the gig for you.

Lesson #5: Command a Basic Understanding of Nonprofit Law and Financial Management

• ​Even the tiniest organizations are bound by the law and the importance of financial controls. Be sure that if these things aren’t in your skill set, you get people to serve on your board that are. Know when you can file the 990 postcard and when you have to pay a CPA to do your taxes. Know what annual filings for your state you need to complete and by when. There’s a lot to know, and trust me you need to know it.

Lesson #6: Don't be afraid to Ask for Help

• Regarding Lesson #5, I wish I had known that I could call the nonprofit association where I founded my organization to get my questions answered by a CPA or an attorney instead of guessing. Here at the Idaho Nonprofit Center I know we have people with the knowledge who are willing to help, and my biggest fear was how much it would cost. So I didn’t ask.

Lesson #7: Identify the Resources you Need

• Know that sometimes it is worth paying for experts to help you (see Lesson #6). There are people willing to advise you for free, but if needed, it might cost you less to pay for the right help than if you just guess by yourself. As Nike says, “Just do it”.

Lesson #8: A Good Board will make of Break your Organization

• Assemble your board of directors carefully and with intention. Choose a strong board of people with the expertise you need who are passionate about your mission and are willing to open doors for you. Being on a board of a start-up nonprofit is not easy and not just to “volunteer.” You need to meet your board regularly and utilize their expertise. There’s a reason nonprofits have boards. A carefully planned board will be incredibly helpful to you in the long run.

Lesson #9: Nonprofits are Small Businesses with a Killer Tax Code

• You can, and should, always bank money at the end of every year and never apologize for being profitable. That is what creates your sustainability. Run your organization like a business. Enough said.

Lesson #10: Don't be Afraid to Walk Away

• Learn to recognize when it is time to step aside and let someone else lead. Closing the doors to the nonprofit I founded was a very difficult decision and one that was not taken lightly by any of us involved. But the writing was on the wall from the very inception of our concept. 

​While I like to think I have a fairly good base of knowledge for nonprofits and organizational management, and I do, I still wasn’t able to put it all into practice as effectively as I could and should have. It boiled down to the very last lesson I can share:

• I attempted to do something that was in itself a full-time job while working another full-time job and juggling my responsibilities as a wife, mother, and daughter. If you are not able to fully commit to something 100%, if you have to divide your time between your passion/purpose and your commitments to your family (in my case a job that could pay a few bills & help support our family) this whole “starting a nonprofit” thing might not be for you.

I am deeply saddened for the loss of the nonprofit I worked so hard to start but I know that it will live on in a different way, in a different state, with members of my board who will keep the dream alive. I know that I am stepping aside and leaving it in the most capable hands possible. Five years of operation is almost a monumental feat for a small, all volunteer-run nonprofit like the Cause + Event Foundation. 

My final thought is this: remember that nonprofit organizations are for-good organizations. Every day nonprofits, large and small, contribute in measurable and immeasurable ways to our communities, enhancing our quality of life, and supporting our community’s most vulnerable citizens. I thank every one of you for the gifts and talents you bring to your organization and the passion that you have for service. 

​I am grateful for the opportunity to serve you here at the Idaho Nonprofit Center and I hope that I can be as valuable to you as you are to us.