What Is a Non-Profit?
For me, it all started my sophomore year of college. I was 17 years old and a student at Florida State University. On this particular day, I wasnโt feeling well so I went to my dorm room after class to get some rest. While I was in my bed, I felt like God vividly gave me a powerful vision of starting a non-profit. I knew that it was supposed to help students learn the things that often arenโt taught in traditional high schools, such as entrepreneurship, ๏ฌnancial management, leadership, and self-esteem. I started writing everything down and knew that ful๏ฌlling this purpose would forever change my life as well as the lives of the students we would impact.
That is a part of my story of starting a non-profit. What is yours? You may be reading this book as a nonpro๏ฌt founder, board member, volunteer, donor, non-profit professor, etc. We all have a story as to how we became passionate about helping other people. Unfortunately, our passion alone can leave us lacking critical knowledge as it relates to making decisions to legally protect ourselves and the nonpro๏ฌts we care about. That is what this book is about.
Weโre going to start our journey together with some important de๏ฌnitions. Before we can learn how to avoid the pitfalls of starting a 501c3 non-profit, we ๏ฌrst need to know what a non-profit is so that weโre all on the same page.
A non-profit by de๏ฌnition is an organization that is created to advance a particular cause, but not for the purpose of making a pro๏ฌt. Nonpro๏ฌt organizations range from large charities and foundations to small grassroots organizations that bene๏ฌt a school, church or community. A nonpro๏ฌt isnโt owned by any one individual but instead is run collectively by a board of directors. Also, even though a non-profit is allowed to sell goods and services and make a pro๏ฌt if there is a pro๏ฌt at the end of the year, the extra money does not go into the founderโs pockets. Instead, it is reinvested in the nonpro๏ฌt to continue to further their charitable purpose (Weโll talk about how the founder of a nonpro๏ฌt can legally get paid a salary later in the book but I just want to establish a framework for our discussion for now).