How to Start a Charity or Nonprofit

Is there a need in your community for some special charity or service? Hundreds of people start charities every year, and hundreds of charities also vanish each year, largely because they were poorly planned or started for the wrong reasons.

Before starting a charity, ask yourself a few questions:

Is there a similar charity in your area that serves the same population? If there is, you'll probably find people reluctant to donate to your cause, and a lack of money is the best way to kill a charity.

Do you have volunteers with dedication and skills who can help your charity get off the ground? This is why church-related charities are more likely to succeed: the church has a built-in infrastructure with a pastor and a committee who can run the charity. If you don't have volunteers or if you lack experience, you can still get your charity going if you're dedicated, but it's much harder.

Do you have a clear plan and vision for your charity? You need to have stated goals for your charity, and they need to be narrowly defined. In other words, a charity with the goal of "saving the whales" will likely be less successful than one with the goal of "preventing whale beachings on Lambda Beach."

Are you treating your charity like a small business? While the two are not exactly alike, the information necessary for starting a small business -- a business plan, a realistic conservative budget, a list of who's goin to run the organization and what their expertises are, a five-year goal plan, a location of operations -- are also necessary for your charity.

Beyond Organization

If you have thought hard about these questions and decided that you should go ahead with it, you have several other things to consider. Check first with your state's Secretary of State and with your city or county's attorney's office to gather information on what you need on a local level to start a nonprofit organization. You should also call the IRS to obtain information about filing your charity as a 501(c)(3).