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What’s this about?
There are many tasks involved in launching a nonprofit. This page provides an overview of the tasks that follow, and their key sections.
What do I need to do?
Review this page to get a quick overview of the what follows in the Nonprofit Playbook.
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Preparation
- Key concepts: Purpose/Vision, Mission, Values, Theory of change
- Considerations: Your name will impact your brand identity and create the first impression with customers, collaborators, and competitors.
- Registering your name: You’ll need to register your organization’s name with the state, which you can do when you register with your state.
- Protecting your name: You can protect your name with a trademark, which protects you at the federal level.
- Key concepts: Business plan, Market research & competitive analysis, Business Model Canvas
- What’s a business structure? Your choice of business structure affects your organization’s legal liability, tax obligations, and ability to fundraise.
- **Corporations:** Nonprofits typically register as corporations, so we’ll explore this business structure in more detail.
- Narrowing it down: The appropriate business structure for your organization will depend on a variety of considerations, and how you weigh them.
- Considerations: Your choice of location determines the taxes, regulations, and costs of doing business that your organization will be subject to.
- Considerations by state: The following table shows how some of these considerations vary by state — in particular, taxes, regulation, and the cost of doing business.
- **FAQs: “**As a founder, could I use my own address as the business address initially to keep it simple?”
- What’s a fiscal sponsor? A fiscal sponsor is a nonprofit organization that provides tax exemption status, and administrative services, to smaller charitable projects.
- Getting sponsored: If a fiscal sponsorship arrangement sounds like the right approach for your project, review the following pros and cons of the arrangement first.
- Exiting fiscal sponsorship: Your project may already be fiscally sponsored by a larger nonprofit; if so, you may decide to exit your fiscal sponsor for one of several reasons.
Entity registration