Nonprofit Coaching

I get a few emails each month asking if I offer coaching to people either contemplating a start-up nonprofit or small business or who are  struggling with one they already have.

The short answer is yes, with almost every client.  It's the most important part of providing high-quality development assistance to you.

That said, I don't have a goal to become the next internet coaching sensation, giving sales oriented podcasts or packing meeting rooms with throngs of adoring fans.

I just don't work well that way.  I much prefer one-on-one client relationships that provide a specific benefit to you, vs. signing up 100 people who may not have any of the same problems that you do. Sometimes that benefit is simply helping you apply for a grant, but often it involves much more.

Knowledge isn't always power.

Most of the people that email me because of this blog are looking for effective help. They've attended a dozen or more webinars or podcasts, watched countless online videos, and they still aren't getting anywhere.

It's been my experience that attending serial podcasts or lectures gets to be a sort of addiction. It starts out as simple curiosity, but morphs into a kind of co-dependent  relationship.

Some people think if they just listen long enough, someone will have that magic bullet that instantly confers riches and success.

Some of these podcasts are really very good on a macro level. Others seem to be just about developing a mailing list. You can spend a lot of time, and sometimes a lot of money following these folks around the internet.

That's not to say that I don't charge for what I do.  A typical client will initially spend from $300 to $1500, usually over a period of four weeks. That can cover everything from conducting an initial feasibility study to determine whether they should proceed, to actually writing a proposal for them.

Every organization and person is different and one-size-fits-all group coaching only gets them part of the way to their goal.

Starting any business is scary.  Starting a nonprofit is twice as hard and ten times as frustrating. You can't look forward to selling a product to help recoup the costs. You are totally dependent on the goodwill of others for your existence in the beginning.

Other than my free white paper "Climbing the Ladder to Nonprofit Success" I don't offer a mass appeal  "course".

Every client is an individual. Solutions that work for one aren't necessarily the answer for another.

In most cases there are one or two specific troublesome areas that hold you back.  Those are the areas I can help you recognize and overcome.

Don't know what grantors look for in a winning proposal?  I'll show you.  Don't know what to expect when filling out all that start-up paperwork?  I'll tell you. Don't understand why you need a board of directors, or need a better one?  I can answer that. Need to know what to include in a program budget?  I can give you a checklist or show you what to add to what you have already.

Does this work?

Here's what one client had to say:

 "Wow. I had no idea what I was getting into with this. The internet makes it all sounds so easy.  Just find a good cause and tell people about it and money will flow in on a river of compassion.  I've spent two years thinking everyone was against me when it was really all about understanding the process and having a realistic roadmap.  I needed to step back and take the steps you recommended.  I just wanted you to know that I now have my determination letter, a far better plan moving forward,  and our organization just received its first big donation." 

 

This was a client that started out adamantly insisting that having a formal 501(c)(3) letter wasn't necessary. There was nothing wrong with his mission or vision but he didn't understand why all the "expensive bureaucratic BS" was necessary. I could have written him a dozen grant proposals and he would still be struggling.

Or this client that initially just wanted an appeal edited:

"Thank you so much for your list of grantor possibilities and for helping us to understand what grantors and donors want to see in a proposal. Thanks to your tips we are now targeting our appeals to people that support not just our overall vision but can help us develop into the organization we always wanted to be."

Both of these clients thought that more money was the answer to their problems. It wasn't.

That's my take on coaching. If you hire me you may very well get it. It's just part of serving your needs as effectively as possible. 

Don't be this person.

An email from a prospective client reads like this:

"I am looking for someone to tell me how to start a nonprofit.  I need to put my business degree to work, and I like to help people, so I think that starting a nonprofit would give me the best of both worlds."

Of all the reasons to start a nonprofit, this is the least likely to succeed.

I'm not sure exactly why people think that the best path to financial or professional success is to start a nonprofit, but apparently a lot of them do.

In "Climbing the Ladder to Nonprofit Success" I wrote this:

"How do most nonprofits start? The founders find each other through their mutual interest in a problem."

Notice that nowhere in that quote do I say "to make a living." Not that making a living is a bad thing, but it's not a good reason to start a nonprofit. 

Nonprofits should exist because there is a societal problem that can be addressed on some level by a consortium of people with ideas to solve or mitigate the problem.

There are a lot of pitfalls in starting any business. Finding operating capital for the initial year or two, finding good people to move the business forward, marketing, managing growth, and dealing with setbacks are common to any new venture.

Add in the unique challenges of running a nonprofit, and you can multiply all of those challenges by ten.

In "Climbing the Ladder to Nonprofit Success" I try to give an unvarnished, down and dirty look at the world of startup nonprofits from that first meeting of minds through the next two or three years.  It's still a free whitepaper, and I offer it to anyone who asks for guidance in starting a nonprofit.

I also offer an inexpensive service designed to measure the viability of a specific group or nonprofit idea from a financial and organizational viewpoint.

Those resources aren't going to help win the race if you start from the wrong gate.

The person who wrote that email doesn't understand the differences between the motivation behind a startup for-profit and a nonprofit. I can help someone with either concept, but if they don't start with the right expectations, nothing I say or do is going to overcome that handicap.

Don't be that person. If you need help in deciding between the two business models, give me a shout. I'm happy to help you find the right gate. 

5 Tips to set a true-cost operating budget for your start-up.

Most lenders, investors and even grantors require some sort of business plan when considering whether to invest in a start-up. One of the first things they look at is your cost of doing business projections. If they find that part lacking, they seldom look further.

  

When I'm working on a business plan for a new enterprise, whether nonprofit or for-profit, most of the initial budgets I see fail to include some fairly non-negotiable costs. Here are some areas to consider.

1. Government-required payments

Almost without fail, one area that trips up a lot of new business owners is the amount they have to include for what I call government and legal compliance costs.

Some people do include the FICA costs, i.e. the 7.53% of payroll that the employer must remit to the Feds, but fail to include costs for state and Federal unemployment assessments, workman's compensation premium payments, local taxes and licensing, liability insurance, and any professional association fees or licenses that are beneficial to or required for the business. Also, new costs associated with new laws like the ACA many factor in as well.

2. Advertising and marketing

Another often under-estimated cost is advertising. There is a prevailing attitude that everything can be done online, and it's free. No matter how wide-ranging your business plans are, all businesses have a local component, and this is particularly true for nonprofits or small retailers.

Revving up local interest can be expensive.

Websites and domains cost money. One of the popular web hosting sites that advertises ".99 cent" websites has initial start-up costs for the domain and the initial website hosting starting at around $75.00/yr for a completely static site. Add any sort of customer interaction (blog, email sign-up, mobile friendly,  etc) , and the price can triple.

As great as it is, the internet isn't a foolproof business growth tool. Running a few spots on the radio, a 15-second spot during your local news program, or utilizing any other form of "traditional" advertising avenues may be necessary just to drive traffic to your site or social media page.

3. Legal or professional costs

Sure, you may be able to get some sort of generic business document template and file it for a few dollars, but that's just the start. All states have specific documents, i.e. non-discrimination clauses, by-laws, and a multitude of other things that you may need the help of an attorney or other professional to complete or at least explain.

4. Wages

Believe it or not, you won't be able to "do it all" for very long. Even nonprofits usually find themselves at the point of needing at least one employee that they can count on being where they are supposed to be when they're supposed to be there.

5. Daily expenses

Things like utilities, phones, office supplies and equipment aren't free. Even donated equipment has to be maintained and replaced when it breaks. Having an allowance for these items is not optional.

Almost without exception, when I am working on a business plan for a client I find that they need to increase their annual cost projections by 25-40%, and that naturally affects the amount of revenue they need to break even as well.

Are your cost projections reasonable?  If you'd like a review, drop me a line at rightwords@ida.net and we can discuss them.