Founding

(For some reason I can't type titles and labels that are more than one word, without English turning into Hindi. Searching setting and editing options brings no results. Fascinating!) Today's blog follows, hopefully in English as well as other languages.

We sat at his kitchen table. Fred, a wonderful volunteer from Volunteers for the Arts, was helping me fill out Opera Piccola's mysteriously long Oakland Cultural Arts grant proposal. It was 1989. I remember that Fred's tiny table had one leg shorter than the others, so it jiggled as we examined "four year budget history," and "schedule of proposed activities." It was my first grant proposal, and miraculously, we received $3,000 to present school assemblies and library shows around Oakland.

A few months before, my best friend Margaret Arighi had won our non profit status by filling out more endless government forms. In a whirlwind of administrative activity, she was immediately elected to the high status post of Treasurer of the Board of Directors. This august body was composed that first year of any friend I could find to lend his/her name to our letterhead and attend monthly meetings at Margaret's dinner table. Incredibly, each friend/member had complementary skills.

Our Business Center was the bedroom of the Oakland home where I lived with my husband and sons. "You brought the check register?" Treasurer Arighi asked for the bookkeeping records that back then were kept in our checkbook-- until my car was burglarized and the checkbook stolen with our month's records in it. Quicken and Quickbooks had not been created. For years I used a typewriter and white-out to create our annual brochure. Proud of my expertise with scissors and glue, I cut, pasted, and xeroxed these amazing documents, followed by labeling, bundling and lengthy discussions with the less-than-impressed clerks at the Oakland Bulk Mail Center.

Our regular Staff Meetings were loud and exciting, as our combined total of 4 sons munched cereal, banged plastic hammers, called and leaped in the background. We filled the teapot at least three times and Margaret instructed me in the exciting routines of "Cash Expense List" and "Budgeting for Next Fiscal Year." For someone who had barely passed high school math, I stunned our Board with my almost exact estimation of our income and expenses every year.

Several people recently asked me how to found a non profit. After reflecting on our first year, my 8 Step Method is simple. 1) Gather together a few friends and folks with similar interests. 2) Fill out the non profit forms in gatherings supported by great refreshments. 3) Form a Board of Directors. 4) Create and love an amazing mission. 5) Schedule regular board and staff meetings (even if they are all volunteers). 6) Find funding. 7) Try to recycle paper-- the paperwork gobbles up entire forests. 8) Be surprised and grateful for each success; try not to worry about rejections.