So You Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’: 5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Start Your Own Nonprofit

January 24, 2008 | Nonprofit Management

In the Black community, we have a saying: Don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin’. What this usually means is that someone is warning you not to push their buttons or otherwise create an unpleasant situation. i.e., if you don’t start a fight, we won’t be forced to finish it. I think this saying applies to the nonprofit sector in that too many people want to start their own organizations without thinking of the consequences. Yes, there very well may be way too many nonprofits in this country, almost 2 million of them to be exact. Many of them are doing great work, many of them are just getting by on a shoestring and a prayer. Competition for funding is at an all-time high and donors have a wide range of causes to choose from every time they break out their checkbook. The war for talent and quality employees to staff these programs is getting tight. Organizations are duplicating services in many communities, draining the scarce financial resources by operating separate organizations. Now you know I’m not saying nonprofits need to go away, I’m just saying let’s not start any more until we can sustain and maximize the impact of the ones we’ve already got!

Consider the lyrics for Michael Jackson’s 1980′s hit:

I said you wanna be startin' somethin'

You got to be startin' somethin'

I said you wanna be startin' somethin'

You got to be startin' somethin'

It's too high to get over (yeah, yeah)

You're too low to get under (yeah, yeah)

You're stuck in the middle (yeah, yeah)

And the pain is thunder (yeah, yeah)



You get the drift.  It ain't a walk in the park. So here's 5 reasons you need not startyour own nonprofit.

You want to start your own business, but you think it’s easier to start a nonprofit instead and be the boss. Uh uh. Tell your ego to take a hike and think about whether your “business idea” would really serve the community as a nonprofit.
Even if you think your idea for social change is the best ever in the world, there is at least a handful of organizations already doing this work. Link up with them to be an employee or volunteer, or join their board.
You’re sure your new nonprofit is what the community needs, when you haven’t even done the market or demographic research to determine whether there really is a need. There may be a problem, but also 50 other nonprofits in the area solving it already.
You think that if you build a new nonprofit, the money to support it will come. No dice. That ain’t how fundraising works. It’s just like creating a new product and you’ll need a ton of marketing and outreach to let people know you’re out there. And even then, most people won’t be knocking down your door to give you a donation.
Since it’s not a formal business, you think you won’t have to follow regulations or file documents with the IRS or worry about financial documentation, etc. Nonprofit management is easy as pie, right? Very wrong. Government officials are cracking down on nonprofit accountability more and more every day, and it just takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch in terms of fraud and misuse of funding. That could be you if you’re not prepared for the complicated governance systems involved in managing a nonprofit.

So yes, I hope to deter, deter!  There are 2 million nonprofits around the country that could useyour idealism and commitment, so you need not start your own.  What do you all think -does anybody disagree?  Is it OK to have a billion nonprofits in this country?

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Tags: Nonprofit Management

OceanGrand.org

At Ocean Grand we do not agree. We see new successful nonprofits start everyday and do great. If your going to start a new nonprofit, yes you had better be ready to work at making it successful. Nonprofits work...if you work them. Instead of discouraging people to not start nonprofits maybe the answer is to rebrand the nonprofit arena. See http://oceangrand.org/rebranding-the-nonprofit/

Don't let this post discourage you from starting a new nonprofit. We need lots of new, vibrant and successful nonprofits. We at Ocean Grand will help you make your new or old nonprofit a success.
Virtual Arts Law

Excellent post. Those 5 considerations really pinpoint what people fail to think about when they form new nonprofits.
Kathleen, nonprofit attorney
Anonymous

Re: mergers

There are many nonprofit organizations that would not benefit from a merger, but would benefit from a collaborative project. The senior center wouldn't want to merge with a nursery school, but together they can do some really awesome (and fundable) intergenerational programs. Throw a community theatre in there, and you'd have the intersection of three organizations with widely divergent missions, all achieving a portion of theirs.
Jeremy Gregg

The same amount of money for half as money non-profits would yield a greater overall return to society, I say.

Thanks for your work -- I'll blog it.

Jeremy Gregg, Editor
The Raiser's Razor
Jennifer

Great post - I completely agree. Having 'lived' through the merge of two niche nonprofits it's easier said than done. It's not just about competing egos. The challenges in our merge had much more to do with different organizational culture. Happy ending, though - 10 years later the merged organization has finally come into it's own and is going strong.

... now I have the Michael Jackson song stuck in my head...
Rosetta Thurman

@Kate - Now you know I had to use this I'd rather work at an existing nonprofit than create a redundant one." as my quote of the day! It's interesting to hear your husband's level of success with merged nonprofits, because many leaders have the sense that even if they DID merge, their management of the organization would not be very effective due to egos involved, etc.

@Mary - I like your suggestion that nonprofits "start small" with collaboration instead of talking about an all-out merge too early in the process. What's more interesting to me though, is what you say about "knocking down the invisible walls" between organizations. Then you can build off the trust factor that's often missing times when 2 nonprofit boards start to discuss a merger.
Mary

Right on, Rosetta! I think that there is a lot of untapped potential for non-profits to start small in this area, to not formally merge but to just try one joint program and see how it goes. In my experience, this has been especially effective when collaborating with NPs in a different niche.

I live and work in a pretty non-profit-saturated community with a relatively small donor pool, so I definitely feel that wariness with which we all approach each other. But sometimes if you just make the effort to connect, those walls fall pretty easily. A lot of times that feeling of competition is almost created between institutions, but has nothing to do with the way individuals at each place approach their work.

I'm definitely going to do some thinking on your question of palatibility.
Kate Hutchinson

My husband is a consultant for non-profits and in the course of his work, he has run across so many "small niche" nonprofits would really just benefit from merging, since the existence of so many nonprofits serving the same purpose really only splits funding into smaller pieces of the pie and ends up creating less functionality. I have several causes that I would love to work with at some point in my career, but I'd rather work at an existing nonprofit than create a redundant one.

Additionally, speaking to Nick, some of my husband's most successful groups are the ones whose mergers he's managed.
Rosetta Thurman

@Nick - "merge" oh that dirty word for the nonprofit sector. executive directors freeze up when anyone, even funders talk about joining forces with the organization that does the same thing right down the street. I wonder how we can make it more palatable?

@Rebecca - a little rant never hurt nobody!
Rebecca

This is such good advice, it's ridiculous. I was going to leave a much longer comment than that, but it turned into a rant, and I'm trying to stay more positive :)
Nick

Right. And the ones that already exist need to start merging.