Prompt
My mom started a non profit dog rescue. how can i grow it? Im not as smart as people here so im not sure how to find grants, resources and help. its just us 2 and self funded but i earn about 30k a month in my job ( not the rescue ) . i dont earn anything from my mom and the fees we charge is just enough to keep it running.
My Answer
Hey Marv, thanks for asking! It shows great initiative that you are looking to grow your non-profit.
I’ve ran a couple of nonprofits in the past (albeit not in the dog rescue space). I would give the following advice in order to grow:
It sounds like this is a local nonprofit. Use your local community to your benefit. Start spending time talking to major community members and asking for their advice. Presenting at your city council will probably get you more traction and also funding opportunities (your municipality likely has funding reserved for something like this). Start growing a social media presence; facebook groups are a great place to start for a local community. Also consider doing “user research”. Ask people who use your service why they use specifically your service. Find out what your value proposition is and try to capitalize on it. Also talk to people who don’t use your service as well—there may an easy place to make a lot of impact you haven’t thought of yet. Remember that in a nonprofit (or a startup) it is essential that you can make an impact before you try to grow very fast. Make sure you’ve checked that box already, otherwise go back and figure it out.
A semi-secret about the non-profit world is that it runs very heavily on partnerships. Consider finding other local non-profits to collaborate with on projects. Maybe throw an event together as a campaign.
Lastly, keep going! Running a nonprofit is hard and can seem unrewarding at times. It’s important to keep a positive outlook because there is a lot of good to be done in this world!