Starting a Nonprofit (Part 3): Sometimes Things End Up Differently Than You Thought

Approximately seven months ago, I wrote two articles on my experiences starting a nonprofit. Part 2 was primarily about mistakes made and lessons I learned. It ends with a piece of advice espousing professional help be used whenever possible.

I also discussed how due to lack of funding, my partial solution was to contact several legal firms for pro-bono help in securing us a trademark and a 501(c)3 designation from the IRS. I was fortunate that the Parker-Poe office in Raleigh, NC responded, and after a couple of investigative discussions, agreed to help.

Should you do it this way?

Now that the process is almost complete, would I recommend this course of action as a preferred way for an undercapitalized organization to proceed? Probably no, with a caveat. You have to realize the work they do for you is free. The legal team helping you has a lot of other work they are doing for paying customers. Logically, you will be near the bottom of their priority list. If you are in a hurry or very impatient, this is not the path to take. You will have plenty of time waiting on whatever government agency is processing your application. Having additional delays could cause you some psychological trauma. If you are chill, it may be a good alternative.

Now, the caveat. In my case, using this option ended up being precisely the right thing to do, even though the entire process took over a year. Part of the delay was caused by my early mistakes, part was due to the legal process, most was due to the pandemic. Processing times have more than doubled at the government agencies.

Why was this so good for me?

Sometimes life surprises you when you least expect it

First, our nonprofit advocates for the immunodeficient community, many of whom pay special attention to hygiene and wear masks under normal circumstances. Over the past year, the issue of mask-wearing has not only been continually changing but has also become a political ping pong game. If we had received our approvals early in the pandemic, we would have had to pivot our strategy constantly. Fortunately, over the same period, science has become more stable. More importantly, a spotlight has been shown brightly on the exact community we are primarily advocating for.

Second, suppose I would have continued to do things independently. In that case, I am confident it would now be a year later, and I would still be resubmitting paperwork. The legal team did the work correctly the first time. We now have our logo trademarked and our 501(c)3 designation.

Lastly, the wait time allowed me to cross something off the bucket list I never in a million years thought would happen. I co-authored a fiction novel titled “Untruthful Speech” about a young man whose brother dies of blood cancer. He becomes an intense advocate against the medical community, which pulls him into a dangerous world of virus immunity research, genetic engineering, competing intelligence organizations, and international intrigue. It will be published on many platforms, including Amazon and Apple, in February and March. I also wrote a novella about the relationship between me and my service dog Fynn. It is part a memoir of my multiple myeloma journey and part fiction. Its title is “Fynn, The Reluctant Service Dog” and has been self-published on Amazon. A big part of the royalties will be going to our nonprofit, Maskeuraid.

I'll save regrets for another time

As happy as I am to be healthy enough to push forward like this, I have some minor regrets associated with consuming so much time on so many projects. I am almost certain that if I wasn’t spending so much time at home due to the pandemic, the books wouldn’t have been written. I guess life happens as it should. Suffice it to say, I will save that discussion for another article.

There it is. Although I made a lot of wrong turns I was able to get through the process. As life so often does, when I got to the end of this journey, things turned out much different than planned. Now I start the new adventure of actual fundraising and helping run the organization. Hopefully, there’s also a New York Times best-seller in my future, too (haha!).