Starting a Nonprofit: 6 Skills Founders Must Master

Starting a non-profit takes some  special skills! But the good news is I believe that with practice and effort  any non-profit founder can master them. So in this video I'm going to talk through  six of the top skills that a non-profit founder needs to master in order to ensure  that their new organization gets visibility can attract funding and can deliver on its  programs and Mission successfully [Music] welcome or welcome back my name is Amber  Melanie Smith I'm a non-profit founder and execu

tive director who makes these videos here on  YouTube to help people who want to make an impact navigate the various ways to do that as always I  hope that you find this video helpful and useful don't forget to give it a like And subscribe to  my channel for more content like this if you're in the process of starting a non-profit or developing  a sustainable fundraising plan check out my two online courses at my website FounderToFulltime.com  that cover those topics and might be able to help you

out being a successful non-profit founder  takes a lot of different unique skills so let's get into these skills right away the first one  that I'm going to cover is strategic thinking strategic thinking is all about first being able  to identify the outcomes you need to reach the goals that you need to set in order to reach those  longer term outcomes and then the steps that you need to plot out in order to achieve your goals so  kind of like being a big picture project manager in a way strate

gic thinking is all about being  able to then prioritize which of those goals uh in order to most quickly and effectively get to  your ultimate outcome and achieve your mission as an organization if strategic thinking is something  that you're not sure you're strong in or maybe you feel like you need to refine a little bit here  are some tips for how to practice and hone your strategic thinking skills in the non-profit  space the first thing you need to be able to do and practice in order to hon

e your strategic  thinking skills is to have a super clear vision this helps not just you as a non-profit founder  but it can also help the other leaders need your team working with you to help get this non-profit  off the ground so a super clear vision can help you learn how to prioritize what actions to take  and the best way to make sure that your vision is clear is by formatting it as a smart goal  that's s-m-a-r-t that means specific measurable achievable relevant and time-bound so to give

you  an example of a social impact mission that might be formatted as a smart goal um we want to end  homelessness for 100 people so that's pretty specific in our city so that's relevant to your  local community in the next two years so it's time bound you've got a very specific goal you know  when you got to do it by and you know what the scope of it is it's in your city the second  element of refining your strategic thinking skills is by just writing it out as a strategic  planner strategic Vi

sion strategic planning is this process of basically working backwards from  your ultimate Vision your outcomes to defining those goals to defining those tasks that you need  to take in order to reach those goals and then deciding who on your team and what skill sets are  needed to carry out each part of the plan there's no shame in writing it down no one can expect you  to keep a strategic plan or strategic Vision just in your head all day so if you've never done this  before I highly recommend

just searching online for non-profit strategic plan template something  like that to get you sort of a blank canvas to work on and once you get this template you want  to start with the ultimate outcome in a certain period of time so let's say your mission is to  end homelessness in your city while thinking about what you might be able to accomplish towards that  goal in the next year or two years or three year period and don't plan too far beyond that because  the world changes pretty fast and

it's pretty hard to plan that far ahead without something changing  your plans all around so start with that outcome work your way backwards and then don't forget  to get feedback from other people on your team and in your community to make sure do that gut  check that your vision is clear and the strategy to reach your vision makes sense the second top  skill that I want to talk to you about today is team leadership and of course this is a really  important one because as a non-profit founder

at the very least you're working with a board of  directors but it is also very possible that even currently or in the near future you're also going  to be working with some paid staff or full-time or part-time staff so as a non-profit founder you've  got to be able to inspire your team around your goals so that you're all working effectively  towards those goals you've got to be able to manage this team delegate tasks and communicate  effectively not just with your team but with all the stakeho

lders of your organization one super  easy way to practice becoming an inspirational or motivational leader for your team is to just  find Opportunities to restate the purpose of your organization the why why are we all here at this  meeting doing this thing talking about this thing why are we doing this so that ultimate Vision  that we talked about in the strategic planning part of this video One easy way you can do this  is by simply building in a couple of minutes into meeting agendas to take

a moment as a team  to just reiterate remember the mission and talk about the mission and possibly some impact that  your organization has had in the recent history sharing the impacts is another one of those  ways to refine your team leadership because like I just said It reminds everyone why you're  all there and it's encouraging to see that your actions matter and are making progress another  really important way to practice team leadership is simply to lead by example what that looks like 

is showing your enthusiasm for the mission of the organization sharing updates about things going  on behind the scenes being transparent with your team about things going on so that they have a  sense of ownership over the future of the work too the third top skill that non-profit Founders  must master is perhaps a less fun skill to have to master for some but it is nonetheless a very  important one and that is financial management a non-profit founder really needs to have a  strong understandi

ng of financial management which includes budgeting how to create a budget  how to manage a budget for the organization um forecasting so being able to anticipate  upcoming expenses and revenue coming in and of course fundraising your strategies to bring in  the money in the first place all of these aspects of the financial management skill are really  critical to ensuring that your organization cannot just grow its impact and your capacity to make an  impact whether by hiring more staff or purc

hasing needed equipment but also ensures that your  organization can be sustainable over the long term honing your financial management skills really  starts with creating a solid budget for your organization and for those who haven't created a  budget before they're sometimes confusion about well how do you know what to put in the budget  well it's all about research and estimating and forecasting right so you've got your strategy  you know what actions you're going to need to take at least in

the short term future in order  to reach your organization's goals so it's just a matter of taking taking a look at those actions  and thinking what Staffing what equipment what um you know internet services online things are  we going to need in order to effectively complete those actions right so as a new organization you  might need liability insurance you might need a website you might need equipment to execute  on the programs of your of your organization um materials and supplies um if you

're in a  position to bring on staff then staff salaries but all of these things are things that you could put  in your budget and in order to know how much those things cost you can simply do some comparative  research on the internet there's nothing like going through the process of developing a budget  that helps you understand better how to forecast because you will see what expenses you're going  to need to incur throughout the year as well as how much money you're going to need to raise in

  order to pay for all of those expenses so at the very least that will help you forecast in the  short term what's going to come down the line for your organization financially the other  aspect of financial management that's really important is the ability to create and explain  Financial reports so one of the responsibilities of your board of directors is to monitor your  organization's financial status making sure that it has enough cash on hand in order to do  the things that needs to do th

at quarter and half a year and year so um you might go online  and find a template for a financial report and practice inputting data into that to be able  to explain it to your board if you're using accounting software something like QuickBooks then  most of the time that software will just produce a financial report for you so just practice reading  through those making sure you understand those is a great way to practice your financial management  skills skill number four is very important an

d a little bit more fun at least to me anyway and  it is networking and relationship building so relationships are everything a non-profit founder  has to be able to build strong relationships with all kinds of stakeholders that's donors and  potential donors volunteers and potential volunteers and everyday people in your community  and you might have other types of stakeholders too depending on what kind of organization you are  whether you work with your local government or you work a lot with

area businesses those are also  stakeholder types and you need good relationships with all of them to be able to develop a positive  reputation for your organization which then contributes to your ability to secure funding  and support if you're someone who's a little bit nervous about networking and putting yourself out  there then I have two tips that might be helpful for you the first thing that I like to do is think  of questions I can ask people people typically love to share about themsel

ves their stories their  background what they're interested in so come up with questions and hopefully make them questions  that you genuinely care to hear the answers for that when you're in a networking situation you  have in your back pocket ready to pull out and ask someone that you meet the second tip is I like to  put myself in the shoes of the person I am talking to if I'm trying to possibly form a relationship  with a person because I think that they might be a good future supporter of m

y organization then  I want to put myself in their shoes and I want to think to myself what are their goals here today  what is their ultimate Mission what are they trying to achieve or get and once I feel like I  have a solid understanding of their motivations I think to myself well is there anything that our  organization does that might align with something that they want to accomplish also and then when  the time is right I can propose that means of partnering with that person and then hopef

ully  they meet their goals and we meet our goals and it's mutually beneficial skill number five is  strong verbal and written communication non-profit Founders need to be able to communicate their  Vision clearly to a wide variety of stakeholders and audiences they need to be able to craft  compelling messages both written and spoken that are not just clear and easy to understand  but that compel people to take action towards the mission one of the hardest things about this skill  for me in the

beginning was I have a tendency to be long-winded sometimes so something that really  helped me was just figuring out how to take away as many words as possible when I'm trying to  explain our mission to make it as concise as possible sometimes less is more so how can you  choose the most powerful words in as few words as possible to inspire people with your mission  I really believe that the shorter more powerful phrases will also be absorbed and remembered  more by people you talk to and the

sixth very important skill that non-profit Founders need to  develop and master is adaptability and resilience non-profit Founders have got to be able to adapt  to constantly changing circumstances because circumstances are constantly changing I can tell  you that they must be able to Pivot quickly when needed and really be flexible in their approach to  problem solving one piece of advice I would give on this one because I have a history of being  a perfectionist and the advice is this once you

realize that nothing is going to go exactly  perfectly you can at least have peace of mind knowing that but it also gives you this mindset  of well you know I can make a plan and I can hope that it is executed on perfectly but I'm going  to in my mind and heart be ready and vigilant for having to change something that happens one  strategy that can really help you develop a sort of adaptable mindset but also help you put in  place concrete plans to be adaptable is something called a pre-mortem

it's when you sit down when  you're planning some kind of event or project or program and you and ideally you and your team sit  there and you list all of the possible challenges or things that could go wrong with this event  project or program you brainstorm together you really think hard okay what are all the crazy  things that could happen maybe it's an event that needs a lot of volunteers and only half the  volunteers show up maybe it's an outdoor project and there's a hurricane that day um

what if it's  a long-term fundraising strategy and then we hit an economic downturn so just listing things big  and small that could go wrong but then what you do is you go back through the list with your team and  you write out how you would mitigate each of those things one by one and that helps you and your team  sort of think on your feet and have an idea of what you would do in that particular circumstance  should it arise it helps you ironically become adaptable through even more intense p

lanning um  and if you are someone who likes to plan and feels um less anxious and More in control when you can  plan this is a great way to train yourself to be adaptable through the planning process there's so  much that goes into being a non-profit founder but those are six of the really really critical skills  that um I see that I can tell you I've seen other non-profit Founders really master and Thrive once  they've been able to master those things and I'd love to hear from you at this poin

t what are some  other skills that you think are important for non-profit Founders what are some of the skills  on the list that we talked about that you are really strong in and what are some that you want  to work in work on leave in the comments below as I mentioned before if you are in the process of  starting a non-profit or you want to think about starting a non-profit or you're in the process of  developing a sustainable fundraising plan check out my website FounderToFulltime.com where I 

have those two online courses that can guide you through the process of both of those things  I also have a newsletter for change makers of all types and non-profit leaders you can find  the link to subscribe to that right below this video and of course opt out anytime you'd like  finally I have a Facebook group called Change the World or Bust. We've got 4 000 people from  around the world and they're all trying to make an impact some starting non-profits some starting  socially conscious busin

esses but whatever your method is for making an impact you are welcome so  come on by to our group change the world or bust that's all I have for you today I hope that you  enjoyed this you found it useful don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to my Channel all  that good stuff and I'll see you next time bye foreign [Music]