Biggest hurdles when starting a nonprofit and Solutions

Context: I started Joyful Occasions when I was 24 years old on 11/5/23. Prior to this, I had 0 legal or nonprofit experience. Our gist: We host events people find fun and use the money to give back to the kids of NYC through a scholarship fund, toy drive, and backpack drive primarily. This is 100% volunteer work, and we brought in $37.6k last FY with a crew of 6 fully committed volunteers.

Problem 1: Legal Paperwork
Issue: There is so much paperwork, and it is quite hard to keep up. I also didn’t want to pay thousands to have lawyers do it.

Solutions:

• 1.

  New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. I reached out to them, and they got us connected with a pro bono lawyer who does both legal paperwork and tax items for us.
  

Note: This process took months, and the lawyers are quite busy with their paid work, so they can also take months for certain deliverables. This leads us into Solution 2.

• 1.

  Given how long the lawyers were taking, I used A.I. to both (1) tell me what paperwork to do and (2) fill it out for me. While I don’t like A.I. for creative purposes, given how templated legal work is, I found it worked quite well for someone like me with 0 legal experience but a need to get this paperwork done.
  

Disclaimer: A.I. can hallucinate. Definitely make sure to double-check what it fills in. For us, it did not make any errors, and all paperwork we had it handle was approved by the relevant government agency. Of course, that doesn’t mean that will be the case for you. Option 1 is definitely the safer but slower route.

Problem 2: Accountability Without Pay

Issue: Joyful Occasions is 100% volunteer work for everyone, so holding people accountable without paying them can be tough. Do you accept someone doing half of what they said they would do because it’s still better than nothing, and we are not paying them?

Solution/Answer: No, don’t accept half of the expected work. It creates resentment between team members, which is not sustainable in any work environment, paid or unpaid.

We have found that you must set very clear expectations from the start, both in terms of weekly time commitment and deliverables. We now set clear time commitment expectations in our first meeting with anyone, and track all deliverables in Asana. If you fall behind, a conversation is held. By having clear time and deliverable agreements, it’s easy to have a non-personal, objective conversation to check in with them. If they can’t do it anymore, which happens and is fine, you move on.

Problem 3: Increasing Brand Awareness Without Pay

Issue: We don’t have any marketing budget, so how do we make people aware of us?

Solution: Collaboration, collaboration, and more collaboration.

Ex: Tell the story of one of your volunteers and post it on Instagram with them as a collaborator. Now their followers know about you.

Ex 2: Host an event and find related nonprofits. Ask them to be a part of it. Now their followers are aware of what you do.

Get creative. There’s always a way to get other parties involved and help spread the word about what you are doing.

These are the three biggest hurdles that came to mind, but I could write a whole novel on this. Glad to answer any questions anyone might have.