Careful consideration of your nonprofit idea—and all of your options and alternatives to startup—will help you get started on the right path.  Even if you've already launched a nonprofit organization, it's never too late to re-examine your concept and how you've gotten started. 

• What's the current nonprofit environment?  Gone are the days of "build it and they will come."  Today's nonprofit environment is competitive. Nonprofits with the greatest chance of success enter the field with eyes wide open to what's current and unique about the nonprofit operating environment.   While the nonprofit sector shares some characteristics with the business sector, it also brings different expectations.  Consider the size and scope of Miami-Dade's nonprofit sector, current trends and challenges, and how a nonprofit differs from a for-profit.    

• Where does your nonprofit idea fit?  Identifying the unique "niche" for your nonprofit idea is arguably the most important first step for starting any nonprofit or community project.  C-One will share a simplified method for evaluating your concept against what already exists in the community.  Simple worksheets can be completed as "homework" to help participants make critical distinctions between their partners, their competitors, and their own unique offering.  

• What are the options and alternatives to starting and growing?  There is more than one way to realize your dream to "give back" to the community.  C-One explores both independent and collaborative structures for starting or growing a nonprofit idea.  The session will introduce participants to the concepts of volunteerism, nonprofit employment, local chapters of national affiliates, fiscal sponsor relationships, and new nonprofit entities.   

• What are your next steps?   While C-One promotes alternatives to independent startup as a way to help charitable dollars go further in the community, an overview of the basic steps for filing independently with state and federal agencies will be provided. Emphasis will be place on the importance of engaging help and expertise from the community.  The latter dovetails into the next part of the series, Nonprofit 102: Boards to Partners: The People Every Nonprofit Needs to Start and Grow, schedule for a subsequent date.
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