Chapter 3
Key Ingredients for Starting a Nonprofit Organization

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“Some people give time, some money, some their skills and connections, some literally give their life’s blood. But everyone has something to give.”

~Barbara Bush, former First Lady

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The key ingredients for starting a nonprofit organization are numerous and perhaps a bit hard to wrap your arms around. I have compiled the following checklist to help clarify the next steps in our process. This guide, combined with the Internet and its expansive resources will be of great benefit to you at this point. Not only will you find helpful information from local, state, and federal government agencies’ websites, you can also speed up your timetable immensely.

The following chapters and the sample forms in the last section of the book will give you detailed contact information for each state. Here is a general overview of the important personal skills and elements we have previously discussed and where we will go from here:

Have passion.

Use your marketing skills to develop a valid business plan along with a mission and solid service plan.

Populate a productive and dedicated volunteer board of directors.

Create a viable and sustainable funding plan.

Raise available seed funding (most likely your personal resources).

Choose your organization’s name.

Search federal trademarks at: http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp.

Search available website addresses at: http://www.whois.com/.

Use your Secretary of State’s business search resource. (Each state’s SOS contact information is found in the appendix.)

Apply for incorporation as a nonprofit in your state (and any other state that your corporation will have operations). Contact information and current fee schedules at the time of publication are provided in the appendix.

Apply for a Taxpayer Identification Number/Employer Identification Number (even if you do not plan to have employees yet).

You may request an EIN by:

calling 1-800-829-4933,

downloading the application form from http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fss4.pdf,

or using the copy provided in the appendix.

Apply for exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service, using the following information and forms:

• Publication 557: Tax Exempt Status for your Organization
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p557.pdf

• Publication 4220: Applying for 501(c)(3) Status
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p4220.pdf

Develop Articles of Incorporation. (Sample is provided in Chapter 9.)

Create bylaws for your organization. (Sample provided in Chapter 6.)

Hire dedicated and knowledgeable staff, volunteers, and board members. To fulfill your mission, you will need as many advocates and supporters that you can recruit and manage.

Hopefully, this list will help to clarify our next steps in the process. Although possible, it will be difficult for you to take on this major project alone. At this stage, you should begin to petition your colleagues, friends, and associates to join your organization during this crucial start-up phase. Chapter 5 provides an in-depth discussion of the elements in building a strong foundation for your organization and the importance of constructing a productive volunteer board as the first pillar.

At this point, I would like to introduce you to another case study of a recently organized nonprofit, NICU Helping Hands. This organization was started by a local foundation to serve the needs of families with premature babies. As you read the case study, you will see that Lisa Grubbs, president of the nonprofit, faces some of the same challenges as many other new corporations. The organization’s numerous successes are a result of the devotion Lisa and her team has in fulfilling the mission of helping families affected by premature birth.

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Case Study

Name of nonprofit organization: NICU Helping Hands Foundation

Address: 301 Commerce Street, Suite 3200, Fort Worth, Texas 76102

Website: www.nicuhelpinghands.org

Date of incorporation: October 2010

Founder(s): Once Upon a Time, a local area Foundation that supports educational and health-related initiatives, founded NICU Helping Hands to create a Fort Worth-based organization whose primary focus is to help premature babies. While there are other organizations that appear to do similar things, none of them are based locally with a commitment to take all dollars raised and put them back into our community, helping our babies.

Inspiration: Lisa Grubbs is President of the foundation, and she has spent many years seeing families experience the birth of a premature baby. Her husband is a neonatologist and it became apparent to Lisa that families in the NICU desperately need support services and educational opportunities when faced with the premature birth of a baby. About four and a half years ago, Lisa’s dear friend had premature twins and it was a life-changing experience for the family, as well as their close friends. Lisa says that watching this family’s experience up close motivated her to personally become involved in making a difference for families dealing with this medical crisis. She is inspired daily to continue serving in this area as Lisa watches her friend’s beautiful little girls grow and deal with the long-term issues they have related to their premature births.

Background/community need: In 2006, 12% of all live births in the United States were pre-term (before 37 weeks gestation). For that year, the pre-term rate in Texas was 13.7%. In the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, Tarrant County saw a 2% overall increase between 2007 and 2008, although the overall volume of all Neonatal Intensive Care Units was declining. The primary county served by NICU Helping Hands has the highest rate of prematurity in the state of Texas and affected families need a local organization that will meet their needs both educationally and emotionally.

Organization’s mission: NICU Helping Hands is an organization that develops hospital- and community-based projects that provide education and support to families of premature infants. Our mission is to provide comprehensive support programs and resources to parents of premature infants in our community, not only during their stay in the neonatal intensive care unit of a local hospital, but during and after their transition home.

Organization’s vision: When a family in Tarrant County and the surrounding areas has a baby prematurely we want their family, friends, and co-workers to immediately think of NICU Helping Hands as the organization to contact to receive support and education from in their community.

Were the required filings completed internally or by an external expert? The required filings were completed and filed by internal members of the organization.

Organizational challenges/solutions: Like many start-up organizations, Lisa finds that it is a challenge to run an organization with little to no staff. They are working strategically to secure funding to increase their staff and also to expand their programs. NICU Helping Hands has been able to secure funding to start an in-hospital program (Project NICU) immediately, but they are continuing to raise funds that will allow the organization to grow into other areas in the community. It is also a challenge to get visibility and name recognition in the community when operating without a marketing staff. Lisa and her team are in the process of applying for grants, planning fundraisers for 2012, and networking through a variety of sources in the community that are interested in helping the organization grow.

Organizational successes: In a little over a year, NICU Helping Hands has successfully launched an in-hospital program (Project NICU) at Baylor All Saints in Fort Worth. The organization now has a full-time program facilitator available to serve families 40 hours a week in the Baylor All Saints NICU. NICU Helping Hands offers parent support and education, sibling support, memory archiving, ante-partum support, transportation support, bereavement support, and from hospital to home support to all families admitted to the ante-partum and NICU units at Baylor All Saints.

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