Martina, Joshua, and Lupe are recently retired teachers in a rural community. They share a deep concern that at least a dozen students in the elementary school are homeless and may have little to eat outside of the school lunch. The teachers realize they cannot solve the whole problem, but they want to do something, so they start a Friday night dinner program at the local community center to which all students and their parents are invited. After dinner, those who want to stay can play cards or watch a movie. They charge $2 per person for dinner, and the community center donates the space. In the beginning, about a dozen children and their parents come to the dinner. Over time, the crowd grows to a regular group of 50–75 people, crossing race and class lines, and always including the homeless children and the adults they live with, as well as many seniors who have heard about these dinners. The dinners are considered a great success in the community.

Although most people donate more than $2 for the dinner, and the local grocery store and bakery sometimes donate food, the three teachers are personally subsidizing the program. They have a few volunteers and an increasing number of donors, but soon the work of this very successful program becomes more than they can manage. They have to figure out a way to move forward by systematically recruiting volunteers and soliciting donations.

This chapter is designed for any effort that has come to the moment Martina, Joshua, and Lupe have reached: they are meeting a need, the community is supportive, and the program is outgrowing the founders’ ability to keep up with it. This is when an organization truly starts.

Becoming an organization is not as easy as it seems, but there are steps to follow and you will see a lot of similarity between becoming an organization and becoming a bigger organization or making any significant change in your work.

The first task is to figure out how much money you need for your organization to begin functioning smoothly for a year. Once you have drawn up an expense budget, break it down into what you need for this month and then the month after. Some months you may need more money to operate than others. Seeing everything in the smallest possible time frame will keep you from getting discouraged. If you can raise the amount of money needed for one month, you can continue for that month. Then go on to the next month. Sometimes, in the early days of an organization, you may even think in terms of week to week. Although this is not a sustainable practice for more than a few months, it will give you breathing room at the beginning.

The founders need to keep track of how much money they are donating to the organization in order to begin developing a culture of giving money among all who work with the organization and of having a realistic idea of what the program has come to cost. Founders and core volunteers should assess how much money they can raise from friends, family, and acquaintances.

Everyone should make a list of all the people they know without regard to whether these people believe in your cause or give money away. Just list the names of people who would recognize your name if you phoned them. Next to that list, mark all the people who you know believe in the cause your new nonprofit represents. If you don't know, put a question mark. Next, for all the people you've marked as believing in the cause, mark those who you know for a fact give away money. Now, for each believer on the list who gives away money, note how much you are going to ask that prospect for. If you are not sure how much to ask for, keep it small. Is it $50? $100? $35? Keep in mind that some family members and friends will give you money just to be supportive of what you're doing. Finally, note what method you will use to solicit this money. Will you hold a house party? Use a crowdfunding platform? Send an email? Some combination of these? The following chart shows what your list might look like.

People sometimes object to raising money for a brand‐new effort when the organization has nothing to offer in return, such as a more formal program, or an office, or even a website. At this point, however, you are asking people to give to an idea or, as in the preceding example, to the beginning of a program and to the people involved in transforming the idea or early program into an organization. They will give for the same reasons you are giving time and money: they agree with you on the nature of the need and they think you are the people who can meet it with the work you are doing. Some people enjoy—even prefer—to give money to new organizations. (In fact, many organizations find that the people who gave them money in their first five years do not continue to give—they move on to other new organizations.) Those who prefer to give to more established groups won't give to you right now, but that will not be everyone's response.

The next step is to identify a few people or possibly foundations that will give larger amounts of money ($2,500 or more) for start‐up costs. Use the methods described in Chapters Nine and Ten for this step. You will need to develop a case statement, as described in Chapter Three, including a preliminary budget. Although your organization has no history, the people who are forming it have history. Each of the founders should be briefly described in order to show that knowledgeable and experienced people are behind this idea.

If you think your work will be ongoing, you may want to find an organization to serve as a fiscal sponsor. This basically means they allow you to use their organization's 501(c)(3) tax status and they take responsibility for your program. You can find out more about this model, how it works, and who might agree to be your fiscal sponsor at https://fiscalsponsordirectory.org/. Having a fiscal sponsor before you get your own tax status allows you to receive donations directly to the program and will give donors confidence that your program exists and is not just an income stream for you and your friends.

From the beginning, appoint someone to keep records of the donations you receive and ensure that they are accurate. Always write thank‐you notes for every donation within a couple of days of receiving it, even before you have a logo. Start an email list to keep people posted on what you are doing. Using social media gets your message out much faster than you could do otherwise and gives you a base of people to start raising money from.

Being a brand‐new organization gives you a chance to do your fundraising the right way from the very beginning.