Streamline Your Operations with the Pipeline Integrity Management System for Nonprofit

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Let's talk about how to start your non-profit  strong. This is going to be a really good one!   In this video we're going to talk about six vital  infrastructure needs that you need to be thinking   about putting in place as you're starting and  growing your non-profit organization. [Music]   Welcome or welcome back! My name is Amber  Melanie Smith and I'm a non-profit founder   and executive director I make these videos here  on YouTube to help folks like you who are wanting   to make a social impact maybe through starting a  non-profit or social Enterprise or other type of   social change effort you're in the right place  I hope that you find this video is helpful and   useful as always don't forget to give it a like  And subscribe to my channel for more content   like this I also have a newsletter you can get  the link to that in the description below the   video with resources and updates and sometimes  funding opportunities so definitely subscribe   to that you can opt out anytime finally I  have an online course where you can learn   all about the process of starting a non-profit or  developing a sustainable fundraising plan that's   at FounderToFulltime.com. All that out of the way,  let's get into the topic! Okay so thinking back   to when I first started my non-profit organization  and so many stories from Founders that I've talked   to I know that it can really feel like when we  are starting and growing a non-profit it's like   we're building the plane as we're flying it uh  but time and time again whenever I've talked to   some non-profits that I've seen are just growing  really quickly and effectively the things that   they're doing are the things that I'm going to  talk about in this video they're putting really   important infrastructure and systems and processes  in place at the beginning which makes running the   whole rest of the organization faster and more  efficient in years one two three four and five   so let's get into some of these infrastructure  needs just a quick recap on what we mean when   we say infrastructure in this case for non-profit  organizations this is going to be your technology   your processes your systems that make the  organization run efficiently figuring out all   of those systems from the beginning infrastructure  need number one is your legal and your comply   science stuff so a lot of people when they start  a non-profit they're filing their paperwork they   think okay great my paperwork is filed I'm done  with all the annoying paperwork I'll ever have to   do right unfortunately wrong you as a non-profit  once you get your legal filing completed you still   have to do paperwork each year and the paperwork  can vary depending on the state or the region   you're located in to maintain your non-profit  status and make sure that you're not going to   get in trouble with various government entities  and the legal and compliance stuff is all part of   a bigger picture relating to proper governance of  your non-profit organization which in itself is a   huge infrastructure need that you've got to have  in place you can't fulfill your mission if you are   in trouble with the government and have to pay a  bunch of fees and are dealing with all the legal   stuff you can't focus you can't focus on your  mission so what I recommend here is first you you   need to really make sure that you are extremely  clear and up to date on all of the compliance and   legal things you need to deal with each year in  your particular state or region this could include   things like filing your annual tax forms as a  non-profit yes even though you're tax exempt you   still have to file your tax forms your 990s this  could be re-uh upping your charitable solicitation   license depending on the state that you're in and  there might be some other things too but making   sure you know what those are and the second part  of this is making sure that you know when those   things are due because each thing might have a  specific deadline you want to make sure that you   know when it is and that you have an approximate  estimation of how long it's going to take you and   your team or any outside help you might need  to bring in to help you complete the filings   each year you need to know about how long those  things are going to take so that you are starting   with plenty of time in advance to do it so I also  recommend a calendar or a schedule where you have   those deadlines clearly marked infrastructure need  number two is your marketing and your fundraising   systems and I put them together because  they're very interconnected the marketing,   the outreach that you would be doing to bring  people in as your audience or your followers   or your subscribers to your organization these  are the people who would then potentially become   donors or funders or sponsors if through their  business or organization so these systems are   really intertwined and you need to be thinking  about how you're going to one attract new people   that's the marketing and then two convert them  into supporters of your organization that's the   fundraising together in your plans your processes  and your technology from the very beginning this   one is actually one of my biggest personal regrets  when I was first starting my own non-profit I   didn't think about this I didn't know what these  systems were and so every time I met a new person   or started to form a really great relationship  with a person or a business or an organization   I would just have to make my own notes somewhere  and hope that I remember to follow up with them   and do some of the work to keep building that  relationship to hopefully bring them to the point   where they might donate to the organization what I  really needed which I didn't even know what it was   called at the end was a CRM or customer or client  relationship management system this is a piece   of software that you would be using to basically  bring in all of your audience your supporters your   followers into a system where you can track your  relationship with them so may maybe you met some   person who at a tabling event who is interested  in volunteering or interested in getting on your   mailing list they would go into your CRM and you  would say this is someone new who just met the   organization so let's bring them further in let's  invite them to the upcoming event that we have   Etc it helps you track the status of your  relationship with each person basically this   has the added benefit of quickly telling me  who I haven't engaged in a while so I can do   a search in my CRM and be like show me everyone  who has not come to an event or has not donated   recently that tells me I need to re-engage them  somehow say Hello send a nice note something like   that it also helps me though share information  about these people and the relationships and   the status of the relationships with others  on my team which is honestly a game changer   because if you're a one-person shop and your team  starts to grow but you're still the person who is   the only one who knows all the people that you've  met and all the relationships you've built you're   not going to be able to get your team's help very  efficiently in engaging those potential donors as   well so you need the CRM software as part of your  infrastructure you also need to kind of Define the   processes of Outreach and fundraising with your  team so writing out what are the steps first we do   Outreach we meet all these new people who've never  heard of the organization before then what happens   what's the next step that a new person takes  on the journey to get to know your organization   better maybe the next thing is they receive  an email from you to come out and volunteer   or come to an upcoming event okay so then they  come to the event or they volunteer what's next   maybe after that they get a thank you note  maybe after that you invite them to your   um holiday donation Drive so what are basically  what are the steps the process that you and your   team are going to take to turn people who've  never heard of your organization before into   loyal supporters critical infrastructure need  number three is effective project and program   management systems your projects your programs  these are how you are fulfilling your social good   Mission as a non-profit they are the heart of what  your non-profit organization is doing and why you   need to raise money and do all this marketing to  support these programs so you need to have systems   in place in order to run these programs and  projects effectively and I really mean a couple of   things by that one you need to be able to create a  system to track the steps required to successfully   Implement a program or project and communicate  those steps with your team with other people   outside of just yourself off and second you need  to be able to measure and evaluate the results   of your projects and programs easily let's go back  to the first part of that and that's communicating   the steps of how to implement a program or  project successfully this is project management   basically this is really important even if you're  a one-person shop right now because you eventually   are going to need some help and maybe you even  want to take a vacation one day and you need   to know that other people are going to be able to  successfully and effectively handle the operations   and fulfilling your program while you are out  of the office so in order to do that your team   needs to know what the steps are to successfully  implement the program so having the sort of uh   robust to-do list or project management system is  really helpful and you can use technology for that   too there are great project management tools out  there that you might be able to utilize and build   out for your purposes and the second part of  this as I mentioned is being able to evaluate   and measure the success of your projects or  programs what are the outputs and the outcomes   things like how many people did you serve how  did you serve them serve them were you serving   them successfully for example how many people  did you help escape food insecurity or how many   um animals up for adoption did you help find  forever homes things like that you need to be   able to measure those things for lots of reasons  one because this is your mission you want to know   that you're doing it successfully so I would want  to measure my results to know that I'm doing some   good work secondly this is going to help you with  funding opportunities because then you can say to   potential funders look at the impacts we've been  able to create with your funding we can double   these impacts or whatever the case may be and  third you want to showcase these impacts in your   marketing materials and to those potential donors  to inspire them to give to your organization this   is actually the perfect opportunity to segue  into talking about our sponsor for this video   Argenta software because they have tools that  can basically help with everything that we've   talked about and the things that we're going  to talk about soon as well from your CRM or   donor management to your marketing planning to  your project and a program management tools and   more I have engaged with hundreds of non-profit  organizations throughout various aspects of my   work over many years and what I can tell you is  that I'll often see these organizations adopt   different solutions different technology for  each of their problems right so they'll have   one solution for their fundraising or CRM they'll  have another solution for their marketing and yet   another solution for their project management  and so forth well one thing I like about Argenta   is that they have a solution that encompasses  everything all together they really understand   that everything that happens in a non-profit is  completely interconnected the people you recruit   to be volunteers or board members then become  donors the people you serve in your organization   could be future board members one day everything  is interconnected so having separate systems might   not always be the easiest way to understand the  relationships between things going on at once   so that's one thing that makes Argenta software  so helpful is it's all one solution let's take   a look at a couple of screenshots so you can see  what I'm talking about organizations get a helpful   dashboard that shows you a snapshot of everything  going on in your organization at once from your   current goals to things going on with your various  types of constituents like your board members your   costs customers or people giving you money view  each of your organization's constituents from your   board members to your donors to your volunteers  you can edit their constituent profile to keep   track of their birthday their contact information  what types of volunteer activities they might be   doing with you or when they've donated or even  the type of t-shirt they might need next time   they help you out and when you're thinking about  all of the things you need to set up to have a   strong infrastructure as you grow a non-profit  Argenta has some pretty amazing tools to help   you with setting the foundation for basically all  of it you can manage your board of directors and   their engagement your organization's calendar  your events your fundraising and donors your   grants your finances and your accounting your  project management your marketing tools and   campaigns and more check out argentasoftware.com  and I'll leave the link in the description so you   can learn more about all these features and their  various plans which includes a free version and   affordable versions for your small and growing  team alright so back to these infrastructure   needs let's talk about need number four and that's  Financial Management Systems you really need to be   able to track your income your expenses against  your annual budget effectively throughout the   year this will help you with your annual taxes  this will help you and your board of directors   with reporting out financially to make sure that  your organization is sustainable and solvent over   time and throughout the year so you need to think  about a couple of things here the actual systems   in terms of Technology you know you've got to be  doing your accounting on technology um systems   that will allow you to log those expenses and  perhaps even scan and log those receipts are very   helpful and also systems in terms of the processes  that the people in your organization undertake   things like okay who is depositing the checks who  is a second person to put their eyes on the checks   before they're deposited so that we have that  accountability um and those internal controls set   up for the organization which helps prevent fraud  and stuff like that so what are those processes   who's responsible for what when do you report out  your finances with your board of directors what   do you do in different situations writing all  that stuff out infrastructure need number five   is a growth and Staffing plan now I understand  that many organizations and in fact probably most   organizations are not starting out with the funds  available to higher paid staff right away but if   you can think about this from the very early  stages of your non-profit you're going to be   able to plan for this growth and also potentially  Inspire donors and funders to donate more so that   you can achieve that growth faster so here's how  you would go about starting to think about this   the first thing you need to do is have an  understanding of how much it costs your   organization to reach certain outcomes for  example it costs us ten thousand dollars in   labor and equipment and Technology to serve  uh 200 people with job training for example   um so then or another example might be it  costs us fifteen thousand dollars to find   75 homes for adoptable animals so once you have  an understanding of what it costs you to achieve   a certain outcome you can start to estimate and  extrapolate so you'll be able to say okay well   we're serving 200 people in job training programs  with this amount of money if we can raise this   amount of money we can serve 300 or 400 people  so come on donors help us fund these additional   impacts this exercise will also allow you to  think think through what is some equipment or   other capacity building needs you might have that  could increase the efficiency of your organization   even more so let's say if you just invested  five thousand dollars in this special piece   of equipment you could then double the amount of  people you serve next year something like that   and that gives you goals specific goals to uh help  your marketing and your fundraising efforts alone   in the same vein this is what you use to think  about your Staffing let's say you know that one   full-time program manager can serve 25 people  with Job Training Services per month then you   know that you might need two full-time program  managers to serve 50 people that allows you to   plan ahead for your Staffing and your fundraising  too fun fact I didn't mention this before but our   sponsor Argenta software also has some of those  Staffing Resources available in their software to   and the final infrastructure need we're going to  talk about is probably a pretty common sense one   number six it is a website and an online presence  I'm including this here because you really can't   succeed very effectively as a non-profit or any  kind of social impact Project without some kind of   online presence these days not only does a website  and your online presence showcase your mission   your programs your impacts but it also builds  credibility with the public which you've got to   have because people do not donate or volunteer  to help an organization unless they trust your   organization and they believe that it will make  an impact like it says that it will so you've got   to be showcasing that stuff on your website this  is your vehicle for recruiting volunteers donors   Etc but I have a sense I probably don't need  to sell you on having a website or an online   presence since you're here watching this video on  YouTube so let me just talk about really quickly   three additional types of online presence that you  really want to consider for your organization the   first is newsletters you've got to be engaging  with the people you're connecting to on a   regular basis sharing those impacts regularly the  second is obviously social social media different   platforms might serve your organization  well based on what your mission is so don't   necessarily assume that you have to be on every  platform maybe your organization serves mostly   uh business Professionals in that case LinkedIn  might be the best platform to invest the most time   and resources into on social media but really you  want to make sure that what you post has done with   intention you're focusing a lot on storytelling  images photography Etc and the third thing is   engaging with other media sources this could mean  getting in the news sending press releases out   to news organizations but it also means making  sure that your website is mentioned and linked   on other credible websites in your community this  helps not just your SEO for your own website but   it also adds credibility and adds reach to your  organization too I'd love to hear from you at this   point what are the elements of infrastructure for  starting your organization and that are most scary   to you what do you think is going to be the most  challenging or which are which are the easiest or   in another vein what didn't make my list that you  think needs to be part of every new non-profit's   critical infrastructure share in the comments  below as I mentioned before I have two online   trainings at FounderToFulltime.com about starting  a non-profit - the whole process around that - and   secondly developing a sustainable fundraising  plan for your non-profit you can check those   out of the website I have my newsletter where  you can subscribe and get tips and resources,   every once in a while. And of course opt out  anytime and finally I have my online community   Change the World or Bust - it's on Facebook  right now - come join us over there we've got   thousands of people from around the world making  an impact just like you hopefully so come join   us there hope to see you once again I'm Amber  Melanie Smith don't forget to give this video   like And subscribe to my channel for  more content like this see you later bye